Page 59 of The Scarlet Veil

Scoffing, I shake my head at my boots. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“No? That little sparkle in your eye isn’t wonder?” A cold finger lifts my chin, so I’m forced to look up at him once more. His lips purse in consideration. “You wore the same expression when you entered my study yesterday, and again as you left Monsieur Marc’s shop—like you’d never seen anything more beautiful than a pendulum clock or bolt of teal silk.”

“How doyouknow it was teal silk?”

“I know everything that happens on this isle.”

“Can you even hear how conceited you sound?” I jerk my chin away from him. “And you keep that clock on your deskbecauseit is beautiful, so I won’t apologize for admiring it or—orromanticizingit.”

He arches a brow. “And the horned toads at market? The carrion beetles? Are they all beautiful too?”

I gape at him, half torn between disgust and outrage. “Carrionbeetles?” Then, remembering myself— “Have you beenfollowingme?”

“I told you”—he lifts an unapologetic shoulder—“I know everything that happens here.” When I open my mouth to tell himexactlywhat he can do with his great omniscient knowledge, he clicks his tongue softly and speaks over me. “I do not want to force you, Célie, but if you refuse to help me, I will have little choice. One way or another, I will learn how you summoned those ghosts.”

One way or another.

I swallow hard, taking a step backward.

He doesn’t need to elucidate. Odessa held my mind in her hands only an hour ago, and compulsion isn’t an experience I’ll ever forget. I shudder to think what might’ve happened if those hands had belonged toMichal—

An unnatural draft sweeps through the auditorium at the thought, leaving tiny icicles upon my wet skin. My stomach plunges at that familiar touch—at the renewed pressure in my head—and I hold my breath, praying I imagined it. “Your eyes,” Michal says softly.

“What about them?” Hastily, I look around for some sort of—of reflective surface, but as with everywhere else on this wretched isle, there are none. My hands flutter uselessly near my face instead. “What is it? Is something wrong with them?”

“They’re... glowing.”

“What?”

Then someone else entirely starts to speak.

“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

Behind Michal, a spectral woman strides onto the stage in dark, opaque robes with chains around her ankles. In her hand,she holds her own severed head. Another woman flickers into existence beside her, this one cloaked in an opulent ruff and pearl jewelry. “When the hurly-burly’s done,” she recites, seizing the other ghost’s head and presenting it to the audience. “When the battle’s lost and won.”

A dozen more figures soon materialize in the velvet seats, their whispers producing a gentle din.

I close my eyes briefly.

Please, no.

“Absolutelynot.” A portly man with a spectacular mustache storms onto stage next, wielding a skull in his hand like a sword. Except it’s arealskull—a skull of solid ivory bone—not a spectral one. My eyes dart back to Michal, who still watches me closely. In his black eyes, I see the reflection of my own—two points of eerie, glowing silver. They match the light of the figures onstage. “Elaine, you ridiculous woman, we are in Act Four, Scene One—”

“Yes, allright.” The bodiless head scowls, rolling her eyes, before snapping, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

“I wanted the Lady of Shalott,” the figure nearest me—a man with a monocle on his eye and an axe in his neck—grumbles to his companion. He seems to sense my gaze in the next second, turning in his seat to frown at me. “May I help you, mariée? It’s quite rude to stare, you know.”

I try to breathe, try to keep the gorge from rising in my throat. Because that axe in his neck, the woman’s severed head—how can there be any other explanation for their presence? If not ghosts, what else could they possibly be? Demons? Figments ofmy imagination? Unless Michal shares the same delusion—unless the silver in my eyes is a mere trick of the light—this is very real.Theyare very real.

At last, understanding dawns, and with it, shards of glass seem to fill my chest.

He called memariée.

“Has anyone seen the cauldron?” With a scowl, the portly man onstage peers into the audience. “Where is Pierre? Inevershould’ve made him props master—”

My gaze snaps back to Michal, who is suddenly and unequivocally the lesser of two evils. “We need to leave. Please. We shouldn’t be—”

At the sound of my voice, however, every ghost in the auditorium turns to face me.

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