Her parents see her as a stranger, and no one can remember her for more than a night. No one can remember her the moment they leave the room or even turn the corner. In desperation, she escapes her wedding and makes a deal with the Dark for absolute freedom.īut instead of receiving a gift, Addie is cursed. However, after years of maneuvering and cleverly avoiding marriage, Addie is stuck when her parents finally find a match. It is she who teaches Addie how to pray to the gods – and those you don’t pray to after dark. In exchange, Luc allows Henry to live.As a child, she befriends the old spinster who lives at the edge of town and worships the old gods. In the end, Addie promises to be Luc’s lover until Luc tires of her. Luc believes that Addie’s grief over Henry will convince her to finally surrender. Luc repeatedly uses his power to make Addie’s life miserable, but his cruelest offense comes near the novel’s end, when Addie learns that Luc intentionally made Addie and Henry (whose own deal with Luc means that Henry will soon die) meet to teach Addie that mortal love is not worth the pain and suffering it causes. The affair ends once Addie suspects that Luc’s feelings are yet another attempt to get her to surrender her soul indeed, Luc’s interest in Addie is born of his desire to possess her, and he repeatedly fails to understand her. But Luc is the only constant in Addie’s life, and so, centuries into their deal, he and Addie begin a decades-long romance. At first, Addie resolves never to summon Luc. He eventually returns Addie’s prized wooden ring to her, explaining that she need only place it on her finger when she’s ready to give up.
Luc includes these stipulations thinking they will incentivize Addie to surrender her soul to him immediately. Luc is clever and scheming, and his deal, Addie realizes, comes with a serious caveat: Addie is immortal, but she’s doomed to be immediately forgotten by everyone she meets. Luc is one of “the gods who answer after dark” that Estele once warned Addie not to pray to. He assumes the appearance of “the stranger” Addie imagined as an adolescent, a handsome man she’d fantasize about at night. The novel’s antagonist, Luc is the demonic entity who grants Addie her freedom and immortality-on the grounds that she surrenders her soul to him once she grows bored of life.
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