Page 114 of The Scarlet Veil

Michal swears viciously. “Célie Tremblay.”

And so it is.

He needs your blood, Célie.

I stare at the letters, at the ink strokes that form my name, before reaching for the grimoire. I flip through the pages numbly—for Invisibility, for Precognition, for the Full Moon—until my fingers still on a page markedfor Lust of the Blood. I slam the book shut quickly. “Do you think Father Achille brought—?”

“No.” Lip curling, Michal stares at the grimoire as if he too feels the unpleasant, tugging sensation behind his navel. “I don’t.”

“Then how did it come here? Could he have given it to—to Pennelope or another courtesan?” My thoughts whir wildly to fill in the blanks, to make sense of it all. His predecessor had a clandestine relationship with Morgane le Blanc; perhaps Father Achille frequented Les Abysses and gave it to a lover for safekeeping? Even as I think the words, however, I know they aren’t true. Father Achille isn’t the type to take a lover, and even if he was—why would he bring such a book here? Surely it would be better protected by the hundreds of huntsmen who live within Chasseur Tower. And why—my fingers tighten on the grimoire’s spine—why would he ink in a list of magical creatures, only to scratch each out as if proceeding through them one by one? And why onthatpage?

In response, the title of the spell rises in my mind’s eye.

A Spell to Resurrekt the Dead.

My entire body goes cold.

Darkness is coming for us, Célie.The rest of Mila’s warning echoesin the quiet of the room.It is coming for us all, and at its heart is a figure—a man.

This book shouldn’t be here.

There can no longer be any doubt—our killer and the man of whom Mila spoke are connected somehow, perhaps even the same person. These deaths are not the work of a simple killer at all, but of some great darkness threatening the entire kingdom. No. Threatening the realms of both the living and the dead.

“Someone must’ve stolen the grimoire from Father Achille.” Beside me, Michal stills again, his face turned slightly toward the door in front of us. I assume it leads to Babette’s bedchamber or kitchen. “Perhaps whoever stole Babette’s body from the morgue? It can’t just be a coincidence that both went missing around the same time.”

Again, he doesn’t answer.

Agitation claws through my chest, however, and I can’t abide the silence. “So—so the killer stole her bodyandthe grimoire, and he—what?” I gesture wildly to the crackling fireplace, to the steaming teacup. This close, I can see red lipstick upon its rim. “Holed up inside Babette’s rooms and asked Pennelope to cover for him? WhywouldPennelope cover for him? He killed her cousin!”

Michal stands slowly. “An excellent question.”

“Unless he threatened her?”That’s it.Of course it is. The killer must’ve threatened Pennelope, which is why she didn’t tell us about him straightaway, and why she—

My eyes fall again to the red lipstick on the rim of the teacup.

And why she’s taking tea with him.

“You said Pennelope has been next door with Jermaine.” Myfrown deepens at the realization, and I too rise to my feet. “This isn’t her tea.” Michal shakes his head without speaking, still watching the inner door. Instinctually, I draw closer to him. None of this makes anysense. “But Mila said the killer—she said all of this revolves around amancloaked in darkness. Do you think he wears lipstick?”

“I think,” Michal says at last, his voice softer than I’ve ever heard, “we’ve made a grave mistake.” He steps between me and the door, his hands deceptively calm at his sides, and raises his voice slightly. “You can come out now, witch.”

I freeze behind him as the door creaks open, and a familiar, golden-haired woman steps into the room. Horror like bile creeps up my throat. Because it isn’t Pennelope who smiles at me now.

It’s Babette.

Chapter Thirty-Six

A Time for Tea

She holds a silver knife in one hand, and blood already trickles from the crook of her opposite elbow, where—I swallow hard—what looks like an owl feather protrudes from the cut, its shaft shoved directly under her skin. “Hello, Célie,” she says quietly. “I wondered whether you’d come calling.” A pause as I stare at her. “You’ve always been more intelligent than your kinsmen.”

The silence between us stretches and stretches. Somewhere behind Michal and me, a clocktick,tick,ticks until a chime rings half past seven o’clock in the morning.Thirty minutes until daybreak.Though my throat works to speak, my mouth seems to have forgotten how to form words. My mind just cannot comprehend what my eyes are seeing: Babette, whole and well once more,alive, without pallid skin or bite marks at her throat. At last, I manage to whisper, “I found you dead in the cemetery.”

“You found me enchanted in the cemetery.” She steps farther into the room, and my hand creeps to Michal’s arm. He doesn’t move, however. Doesn’t breathe. Every fiber of his preternatural being fixates on Babette. Nodding to the book in my hand, she says, “One simply mixes a sprig of nightshade with the blood of a friend, and they fall into a sleep like death for twenty-four hours. It’s a clever spell, really—quite rare and unprecedented. One of La Voisin’s best.”

A creeping numbness spreads through my limbs. That Babette stands here freely, calmly, that she admits to faking her own death as if discussing the weather, cannot be good. I swallow hard and glance surreptitiously at the door in the ceiling. We could flee back through the fireplace, of course, but courtesans lie that way—perhaps Pennelope herself. No. If we can inch around Babette somehow, we’ll have a clearer path to escape. But first—

“La Voisin is dead,” I say. “I watched her die in the Battle of Cesarine.”

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