Page 66 of The Scarlet Veil

I am now dead.

Despite her rebuke, the words are everything I wanted to hear.

I force my features to remain carefully blank, nonchalant, as I settle back into the squashy armchair. On the shelf across from me, the teapot begins to hiss and steam of its own accord, but I hardly hear it. Hardly see it.

If Mila was once a vampire, that means...Les Éternels can die.

Despite the claims of Michal, Odessa, and even Dimitri, it seems they aren’tquiteas eternal as they want me to believe. The proof of their deception sits only three feet away, fluffing her hair and awaiting my response. I study her innocently as the teapot starts to rattle. No blood or gore marks her skin, and—unlike the ghosts at the theater—no axe protrudes from her head, which remains firmly in place on her neck. Indeed, nothing whatsoever hints at the manner of her death. If not for her silvery, incorporeal form, she would look perfectly healthy. Perfectlyalive.

I clear my throat, adopting—I hope—just the right amount of sincerity. “I am very sorry to hear that, Mademoiselle Vasiliev. If you don’t mind me asking... how did it happen?”

Her grin stretches wider, like the cat that got the cream. “Youareclever. I’ll give you that.”

My heart sinks. “I don’t know what you’re—”

“A horrid liar, though. You should stop immediately.” She points a finger toward my eyes. “One needn’t hear your heartbeat or scent your emotions to know exactly what you’re thinking. They are theloveliestshade of green, though.” With a sly glance at the candles around us, she adds, “His Majesty must agree.”

I smooth my skirt as the teapot pours pitch-black tea into a chipped cup. “What doesthatmean?”

“It means you mentioned silver earlier,” she says, her voice a bit too innocent, “which seems an unusual request. Tell me, is that truly what you wish to discuss? If so, I could summon the others. They’re all quite anxious to speak with you, and they’ll justloveto describe how foolish you’ve been in painstaking detail.”

“The others?” Unbidden, my gaze flicks to the shelves, where iridescent faces have started to flicker, hiding among the books and bric-a-brac. The chipped cup no longer sits between them, however. No—it now stands on the table beside my chair, glittering innocently. “I—I don’t understand. I was under the distinct impression they wanted me to leave. Why does it now seem likeyouwant to help me?”

“Do you consider pride a fault or a virtue, Célie Tremblay?”

Startling at the question, I tear my gaze from the cup, which almost touches my hand now. I snatch my fingers away from the armrest, and the soft scent of orange blossoms wafts from the tea in its wake. “Neither, I suppose.”

“And what of yourself? Do you consider yourself prideful?”

“What? N-No. Not at all.”

Though I’d never admit it, I actually consider myself quite the opposite. How could I otherwise? Only three-year-olds fear the dark, and even then, they don’t descend into fits of hysteria when the candles go out. They don’t speak toghosts.

“Well, then,” Mila says, “it should take little imagination to realize even the departed have loved ones to protect.”

“Ofcourseyou do, but what does that”—I resist the urge to gesture wildly toward the floating ash, the icicles along the mantel, the muted gray light—“what doesanyof this have to do with me?”

“Come now, Célie. Every tongue in our realm has been wagging about a bride for weeks—and I wouldn’t drink that tea if I were you,” she adds sharply.

I blink, startled, and realize my hand has reached instinctively for the strange little cup. “Why?”

“Because it’s poison.” She shrugs delicately as I push the cup away with a strangled sound, spilling its black liquid across the tabletop. Upon contact, it quite literallyeatsthrough the wood with tiny, razor-sharp teeth. “Did you think yours was the only realm affected by this blight?” Mila asks.

“But I thought—apologies, of course, but as everyone here is alreadydead—”

Mila flingsHow to Commune with the Deadacross the room, where it lands with a painful blow upon my legs. Heavy and real and alarming. “While you are in this realm,” she says seriously, “you areofthis realm, which means you need to be very careful. The ash, the teapot, the poison—none of this is as it should be, which means our realm is no longer safe. Not even for a Bride.”

The teapot still whistles from the shelf, punctuating her words and growing louder—screaming now—with each turn of itsporcelain feet. I stare at her incredulously, trying and failing to keep my voice even. “What are youtalkingabout? And why do you all keep calling me bride? I am still very much unmarried—”

“Not that kind of bride.” Mila shakes her head, and ash settles around her in a macabre sort of bridal veil. “You’re a bride, as in a Bride ofDeath.” When I blink at her, nonplussed, she heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Death and the Maiden? Filles à la cassette? Oh, come now, Célie, did you merely skim that wretched book?”

My mouth parts indignantly. “You said I couldn’t learn about the afterlife from a book! You said the authors—”

“—can of course postulate correctly on occasion!” She flips the book open to a section near the end, turning it around to reveal another ghastly illustration of a woman with a serpent in her mouth. “Look, they penned a whole section on Brides at the end. I won’t pretend to know what happened to you, but clearly, you’ve been touched by Death. He does that sometimes,” she explains, “on very rare occasions with beautiful young women. Instead of snuffing out her life, he lets her go—he lets herlive—except she’s never quite the same after Death visits her. She becomes his Bride.”

His Bride.

Touched by Death.

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