Page 87 of Where Shadows Bloom

In an alcove, as motionless and dour as statues, were three women and one man. I recognized one of thewomen—Françoise, from the mirror. She was sitting beside a pond, lazily dragging her finger through the black water. When she glanced up at me, her lips pressed together. Like she was holding back tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “We were too late to help you.”

I shook my head. “It was my fault.”

“It was no one’s fault but Léo’s,” Philippe said firmly. He gave my shoulder a squeeze and guided my gaze toward a couple sitting on a stone bench.

The man was about my mother’s age, with my same auburn hair, tied into a queue. His coat and breeches were plain black but finely made. Sitting beside him on a bench was a woman probably twenty years his senior, with blond hair that was closer to white now. Their clutched hands and their closeness on that bench—it was an ageless, strong love. One that outlasted the Underworld.

Philippe gestured to the couple with an open hand. “My mother, Caroline, and my father, King Augustin.”

With a pang, I remembered the king’s story—his family’s deaths, and how tragic they had been for him. How lonely he had been without them.

All a lie.

The couple looked up at me, their eyes mournful but kind.

Philippe touched my shoulder. “This is Ofelia. Marisol’s daughter. And... and Léo’s, too.”

The queen mother leapt up and swept me into a hug. Ialmost startled back, but her embrace was so warm, and my mother’s steady presence at my side calmed me. The queen mother—my grandmother—gently pulled back to look at me, cooing over me and telling me how beautiful I was, how sorry she was, before pulling me back in. She hugged me so close, like she’d always known me.

Her husband, the old king, stood close by, smiling at me. “Forgive her enthusiasm,” he said softly. “You’re our first grandchild.”

The queen drew back, cradling my face in her hands. “How could he let you go? How could he do this to you? Oh, I could strangle him!”

“Let me go first,” piped up Philippe.

“No, no, we’ve all agreed. Should the day ever come, I throw the first strike.” A young woman who had been sitting by the fountain approached us. She wore a very old gown, in deep reds and greens, and a pair of spectacles on her nose. Her dark blond hair rested in a loose plait against her shoulder. When she reached out a hand to greet me, an array of bracelets clattered on her wrist. “Sagesse Lavoie.”

I shook her hand but frowned. Her name was familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Are you my family, too?”

“No,” said Sagesse. Her voice was scratchy and raw, like she hadn’t used it in a very long time. “But I ought to explain to you how we all came to be here. What binds us.”

“That creature, the god—he said we were all the king’sbeloved,” I recalled. “And Lope said something about a... sacrifice?”

“Yes.” Sagesse sat on the edge of the fountain, her head at a tilt as she watched me. Something about her eyes seemed so familiar. “Many years ago, Prince Léo came to me, asking for help in speaking to the gods. It is easier for me than most to hear their voices. On occasion, they’ll even answer my pleas. The god who lives here? He is very talkative.

“Léo asked that I help him talk tothisgod, the king of Shadows. The prince wanted more than anything to be king, and to be king forever. He promised me a title, a place in his court,security, if I were to speak on his behalf. And I did. The god made a proposition: Léo would sit on the throne, ever young—but for a steep price. For every ten years he wished to reign, he would need to give the Shadow King the life of a person he loved with all his heart. He accepted the deal. Thanks to me, he got his door to reach the Underworld. And for his first sacrifice?” The bracelets on her arms jingled as Sagesse pointed to herself.

My brow furrowed. “He loved you?”

She threw her head back with a one-beat laugh. “Gods, no. He thought he could get away by sacrificing anyone. And I knew too much. At least he was punished for trying to fool the king of Shadows. But it was only a wound to his vanity. Turning his hair white.”

Sagesse nodded to the old king and Philippe. “Next, Léogave up his father and then his brother. He truly loved them. And the sacrifices worked. He reigned and did not grow old. After twenty years, when it was time again, he sacrificed his mother.”

Queen Caroline lifted her head. Her cheeks were stained with tears.

“I was next,” Françoise spoke up. She met my eyes, worry making her brow wrinkle. “What year was it when you were... up there? I do not know how long I’ve been down here.”

“It—it was 1660,” I replied. How did time pass here? In this black abyss, in this world run by a chaotic god, did days last centuries? Did years last merely seconds? Even if I found some way to reunite with Lope... would she be gone from me by the time I returned?

Her brows rose. “But... it was the year 1660 when he sent me here! It was June then—”

“It is only autumn, now,” I said.

“It’s odd,” Philippe muttered. “Françoise’s sacrifice worked for Léo. There was love in his heart somehow. Hedidcare for Françoise... but then he didn’t need another sacrifice. Not for another ten years.”

Mother’s face was cold and still. “He just... cast me aside because I was there. A convenient extra sacrifice, strolling into his home...” Her eyes were glassy as they fell upon me. “He had what he needed. He could have let you go.”

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