Page 111 of The Scarlet Veil

Shooting a furtive glance at Michal’s back, I focus with single-minded intensity on that bubble of hope, which grows larger by the second. In the castle, in the theater—even in the Old City, stalked by vampires—my emotions allowed me to slip through the veil. They allowed me to banish Mila in a moment of pique. Perhaps they’ll allow me to call her again.

Only one way to find out.

“Mila?” I whisper eagerly. “Are you here?”

At the sound of her name, Michal’s face snaps toward mine, and he appears at my side in the span between heartbeats. I extend my hand without looking at him. He nearly crushes my fingers in his haste. “Mila?” I try again, searching the walls, the ceiling, even the pit, waiting for her to pop into existence with atut tutand supercilious expression. “Please, Mila, we need your help. It’s just a simple favor—quick and easy.”

Nothing happens.

“Mila.” Hissing her name now, I turn in a slow circle. Irritation pricks at my hope like needles. She had no problem following me to the aviary and berating me—twice—but the moment I actually need her? Silence. “Oh, comeon, Mila. Don’t be like this. It’s terribly rude to ignore a friend, you know—”

Michal squeezes my hand, and my attention sharpens on the wall nearest us. The shadows there continue to writhe and twist, but one of them—it looks different from the others. Silver instead of black, its form more opaque. I smile in triumph as the ghost materializes, twining her arms over her head in a peculiar manner. My smile falters. Eyes closed, face contorted with passion, she sashays her hips rather awkwardly and bobs her head to music I cannot hear. Perfect ringlets bounce to and fro with the movement, and she flips one of them with the practiced air of a stage actor.

She also, tragically, isn’t Mila.

“Guinevere.” I fix my smile back into place, praying for a miracle. “How lovely to see you.”

Her eyes flutter open at my voice, and she pretends to startle. “Célie!” Clutching her chest, she says, “What are thechances, darling? Mila mentioned you might be here, of course, but I neverexpectedMichalto accompany you.” An obvious lie, accompanied by a saccharine smile. “Are the two of you... official, then?” Before I can answer, she clicks her tongue sympathetically. “Quite the choice for a first date, isn’t it? He tookmeto a candlelit dinner in Le Présage, complete with a choir of melusines—such angelic voices, such rapture that night—but never despair, darling. Never despair.” She drifts forward to pat my head in perhaps the most condescending gesture ever made. “Very few will ever experience a love as cosmic as ours. Star-crossed, you know.”

“How... nice.” I risk a glance at Michal, who looks as if someone has clubbed him over the head. Brows furrowed in disbelief, he recoils and tries to twist his fingers from mine, but I clamp on to him like a vise. Though he glares at me—half-furious and half-pleading—I whirl and seize his other hand too, lacing our fingers tight. If I cannot escape, neither will he. “I believe the two of you are already acquainted,” I say pleasantly, “but allow me to offer reintroductions—Michal, meet the ghost of Guinevere, and Guinevere, meet Michal Vasiliev, His Royal Majesty and king of Requiem.”

Guinevere’s eyes dart between us in dawning realization, growing wider and wider until—

Gasping, she swoops level with Michal’s face, hovering an inch or two from his nose. “Can youseeme, cherub?”

He stares determinedly at the fire, at the ceiling, at anything other than the vibrating ghost in front of him—and a good thing too. His eyes would’ve surely crossed if he tried to meet hers. Heedless of his reaction, she adds gleefully, “After all this time, can you hear me?”

He grimaces when she tickles his ear. “Hello, Guinevere.”

“Egad, youcan!” Breathless with triumph, she quickly twines several ringlets around her finger, pinches dark silver spots upon her cheeks, and smooths her pristine gown. “Oh, happy day! Happy, happy day indeed!” Then—with the efficiency of a gardener in spring—she plants herself directly between Michal and me, which stretches our clasped hands directly through her stomach. Gooseflesh erupts up my arms. “You needn’t worry aboutheranymore, Michal darling.” She tosses her hair in my face before nuzzling her cheek against his rigid chest, purring in contentment like a cat. “Not now that we’re reunited at last. Why bother with cheap pyrite, after all, when you can have real gold? I forgive your boorish behavior, by the way,” she says to him, elbowing me aside further. “I know you didn’tmeanto change the locks on every door in the castle, just as you knowIdidn’t mean to smash every window on the first floor.”

Lip curling, Michal levels her with a black look. “And some on the second.”

She bats her lashes sweetly. “Shall we let bygones be bygones?”

“That depends. Did you also destroy the portrait of Uncle Vladimir in my study?”

She swells instantly, as if he insulted her mother or perhaps kicked her dog instead of asking a perfectly reasonable question. “Did I—? Howdare—?” Clutching her chest once more, she retreats backward into me, and now it’s my turn to grimace. She feels like a bucket of ice water dumped overhead. “’Tis a question boldly spoken from the man who destroyed my veryheart! But oh no, poor Uncle Vladimir has a mustache now! Let us all grieve his countenance, for the paint on his face means more to Michal Vasiliev than the pure and enduring love in his paramour’s chest!”

Michal shakes his head in exasperation. “We were neverparamours, Guinevere—”

“Ah!” Guinevere swoons as if he stabbed her. Unsure what else to do—but quite sure I need to dosomethingbefore she reaches full-blown hysteria—I release one of Michal’s hands and wrap my arm around her shoulders; she deflates dramatically at the contact, turning her head to sob loudly into the crook of my neck. “And now for the salt! Inflicting the wound never was enough for him, Célie darling. Always,alwayshe must deny our connection, deny the veryheartbeatof oursouls. I implore you to run, not walk, away from this wretched beast before he cleaves your heart straight in two, as he has mine!”

When Michal starts to retort, I shoot him a menacing look and mouth,Stop talking. He clenches his jaw impatiently instead. “You have nothing to fear of that, Guinevere,” I say soothingly, stroking her silver hair. “My heart is quite safe. Michal kidnapped me to use as bait, after all, and as soon as I serve my purpose, he’ll probably try to kill me.”

Too late, I remember Guinevere’s fit of temper outside Michal’s study—You warmbloods are always so presumptuous, disparaging death in front of the dead—but she no longer seems to care about disparaging anything except Michal. I can empathize.

“You see?” Her sobs grow somehow louder, and for the first time since I learned of my gift, I feel enormously grateful that no one can see or hear ghosts except me. Though one or two courtesans in the pit still watch us—confused, probably, by my oddly suspended arm and our conversation with thin air—the rest have lost interest or retired for the morning. As if she senses my attention drifting, Guinevere pretends to gasp for breath. “He cares notfor the feelings of anyone but himself!”

I nod sagely. “I’m not fully convinced he has feelings.”

“Orfriends.”

“Or even a basic understanding of what friendship entails.”

“Ha!” Guinevere straightens and claps her hands in delight—her eyes mysteriously dry—and we gaze at each other with a strange new sense of kinship. “I knew I liked you, Célie Tremblay,” she says, reaching out to smooth a lock of my hair, “and I’ve henceforth decided—we shall be the very best of friends, you and I. The very best indeed.”

I bow my head in a half curtsy. “I would be honored to call you friend, Guinevere.”

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