Page 22 of The Scarlet Veil

He looks away swiftly, unable to meet my gaze. “Two different situations.”

“They arenot, and you know it.” I seize the sketches, lifting them to his face and shaking them. “What of the other victims? Who found them? Do they know about the killer, or is that information alsoclassified?”

“You wanted me to treat you like a Chasseur.” He grinds his teeth, fighting to keep his voice even. Though his temper clearly balances on a knifepoint, my own hands tighten into fists around the sketches. Jean Luc isn’t the only one allowed to be angry about this. “This is metreatingyou like a Chasseur—you aren’t privy to everything that happens inside this Tower, and to evenexpect—”

“I should be privy to everything that happens toyou, Jean Luc.” Flinging the sketches aside, I lift my ring finger instead, loathing the way it glitters in the torchlight like a thousand tiny suns. That should be the way Jean and I reflect each other—brightly, beautifully, like the diamond in its centerpiece. My stomach sinks horribly at the realization. “Isn’t that what you promised me when you gave me this ring? Isn’t that what I promisedyouwhen I accepted it? Regardless of whateitherof us wants, we are more than just our positions, and we have to find a path forward together—”

Scowling fiercely, he drops to his knees to collect the sketches. “I’m not more than my position, Célie. I’m equal parts your captainandyour fiancé, and you”—his glare turns accusatory, fanning the flames of my own anger and hurt—“youof all people shouldknow how hard I’ve worked to get here. You know everything I’ve sacrificed. How could you evenaskme to choose?”

“I amnotasking you to choose—”

“No?” He clenches the sketches in a neat stack and returns to his full height, stalking to the oblong table and hardback chairs across the room. Though I requested more comfortable seating last month—perhaps a chaise to encourage huntsmen to linger, toread—Jean Luc rejected the idea. It did inspire him to have me alphabetize the library, however. He places the sketches beside my current pile of books. “Whatareyou asking, then? What do you want from me, Célie? Do you even know?”

“What Iwant”—I snarl the words, no longer in control of my tongue, my vision tunneling on his rigid back, on his stiff fingers as they stack and straighten my pile of books—“is to be treated like aperson, not a doll. I want you to confide in me. I want you totrustme—both that I can take care of myself and that I can take care ofyou. We’re supposed to be partners—”

His head jerks. “Wearepartners—”

“But wearen’t.” My voice rises almost deliriously as I wring my hands. The others can certainly hear me—the entireTowercan probably hear me—but I can’t stop now. I won’t. “We aren’t partners, Jean. We’veneverbeen partners. Every step of the way, you’ve tried to put me in a glass box and keep me on your shelf, untouched and untested and untrue. But I’m already broken. Don’t you understand? Morgane shattered me, and I used those shards to strike back. Ikilledher, Jean. I did that.Me.” Tears stream, unchecked, down my face, but I refuse to wipe them away, instead striding forward to grip his hand. Let him see. Let themallsee. Because it doesn’t matter what they say—Iamworthy, and I amcapable. I succeeded where all others failed.

Jean Luc looks down at me sadly, his eyes pained as he lifts my hand to his lips. He shakes his head, grimacing, with the air of someone reluctant to deliver a fatal blow.

Deliver it he does, however.

“You didn’t kill Morgane, Célie. Lou did.”

I blink up at him, the righteous anger in my chest withering to something small and shameful. Something hopeless. Out of all the things he could’ve said in this moment, I never expected that. Not from him. Not from Jean Luc. And perhaps it’s the unexpected that knocks the wind from my chest. Until now, the thought has never crossed my mind, but clearly it has crossed his.

“What?” I breathe.

“You didn’t kill her. You might’ve helped—you might’ve been in the right place at the right time—but we both know she would’ve slit your throat if Lou hadn’t been there. You caught her by surprise with that injection, and that—that sort of luck doesn’t last, Célie. You can’t depend on it.”

We both hear his true meaning:I can’t depend on you.

I stare at him, crestfallen, as he sighs heavily and continues. “Please understand. Everything I’ve done is to protect you. You’re to be my wife, and I can’t”—though his voice breaks slightly on the word, he clears his throat, blinking rapidly—“I can’t lose you. I also swore an oath to the people of Belterra, however. I can’t protectthemif I’m worried about your safety, chasing you through cemeteries and rescuing you from a murderer.”

When I slip my hand from his, he hangs his head.

“I’m sorry, Célie. Just please... go upstairs. We can finish this after the council meeting. I’ll bring you dinner, whatever you want.I’ll even—I’ll dismiss the chaperone tonight, so we can really talk. How does that sound?”

I stare at him, unable to fathom what more he could possibly say. At least the tears have gone. My eyes have never been clearer.

With another sigh, he strides toward the door, stepping aside to gesture me through it. “Célie?” My feet follow instinctively until I stand before him, the silence between us growing, clanging through my chest like a warning bell. Like a harbinger. He touches a hand to my cheek. “Please say something.”

My nursemaid always said seven is a magical number—for dwarves, for sins, for days of the week, and for tides in the sea. Perhaps it is lucky for words too. Though gooseflesh sweeps my entire body, I rise to my toes and press one last kiss to my fiancé’s cheek, whispering, “I am going to prove you wrong.”

He pulls back. “Célie—”

I have already swept past him, however, into the corridor beyond, where I tug his ring from my finger and slip it inside my pocket. I cannot stand to look at it any longer. Perhaps I’ll never look at it again. Either way, I do not turn back as I set out for Brindelle Park.

Chapter Nine

Brindelle Park

My childhood home soon towers above me in West End—the wealthiest district of Cesarine—with Brindelle Park inhabiting the flat expanse of land directly behind it. Its trees rustle slightly in the evening breeze, concealing most of the Doleur beyond. Before Pippa and I grew old enough to realize the danger, we would slip through the ethereal, glowing trees to that riverbank, dipping our toes in its gray water. I study the familiar scene now, my hand tightening on the wrought iron fence around my parents’ property.

Because the trees are no longer glowing.

Frowning, I creep closer, careful to keep one eye on my former front door.

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