Page 80 of The Scarlet Veil

It caws again in response, sounding strangely urgent as I climb higher into the gloom. As thedrip,drip,dripof water grows louder. “You’re making a terrible racket, you know. No wonder that merchant got rid of you.” The bird’s only answer is to caw and attack the bars of its cage. I hesitate beside the agitated creature.

There are other birds,betterbirds, that could deliver my letter, yet I feel an inexplicable kinship withthisone.

“Stop that,” I tell it firmly, extracting the folded parchment and poking its beak with the tip. “You’re going to hurt yourself, and I have a job for you.”

Though it pecks my letter in irritation, it also seems to understand my words, growing still and quiet on its perch. Watching me.Studyingme. “Right.” I eye it apprehensively before sticking the silver stake back in my décolletage. “I am going to unlock your cage now, and you arenotgoing to attack me. Do we agree?”

“This should be good,” D’Artagnan says.

“Ignore him,” I tell the bird.

It ruffles its wings with some importance.

Interpreting that asyes, I lift the latch and swing the door open. When the bird doesn’t move, I loose a breath of relief. “See? It’s quite easy to be civil. Now”—I slip the letter into the pouch around its foot—“I need you to deliver this to Cosette Monvoisin.” The bird tilts its head. “La Princesse Rouge? You can find her at7 Yew Lane in Cesarine—or at the castle,” I add, feeling stupider by the second. If witches and mermaids andvampirescan exist, however, surely this bird can deliver a letter. “She often stays with His Majesty there. Or—or she could also be up past Amandine. Have you heard of Chateau le Blanc? I don’tthinkshe’ll be there this time of year, but just in case—”

The birdcaw! caw! caw!s to put me out of my misery, and before I can duck, it hurtles past my face and out the nearest window. I watch it go with a mingled sense of triumph and unease. Something isn’t quite right about that bird—and I don’t just mean its extra eye. Indeed, something isn’t quite right about thisplace.

I try to shake the feeling, climbing to the window and forcing myself to appreciate the view. Because I did it.I did it.With any luck, the bird will find Coco quickly, and my friends will heed my warning. I’ve procured a silver stake to end Michal’s evil reign, and I’ll soon be rowing home to Cesarine. Everything will end perfectly. Everyone will live happily ever after, just like in the fairy stories Pip and I read as children.We’ll all be fine.

As the three-eyed crow disappears, however, my sense of hope refuses to return. A peculiar sense of awareness settles over my skin instead. The longer I stand here, the stronger it grows. My gaze flicks to the owls on either side of the window. Though their wings quiver, they stand wholly and totally still on their perches. Shouldn’t animals—even birds—make more noise than this? And where is Odessa? Shouldn’t she have found me by now? “Come on,” I whisper to D’Artagnan, turning toward the stairs. “We should go back to Monsieur Marc....”

But a gentle lapping sound has joined the steadydrip,drip,dripof water. Frown deepening, I glance down at my feet, whereD’Artagnan crouches, licking up a pool of...

My entire body goes rigid.

A pool of blood.

Unbidden, my head snaps upward to find the source, and—from the darkness of the ceiling—the wide eyes of a corpse stare back at me. For the span of a single heartbeat, my mind refuses to accept the scene overhead: the corpse’s limbs tangled in chains, his throat torn open, his mouth twisted in agony andfear. Then a drop of his blood hits my cheek. My eyelid, mylips—

The reality of the situation crashes over me, and I choke, stumbling away from him, crashing into the cages along the walls. The owls shriek with terror. They catch my cloak in their talons, my hair in their beaks, but I cannot feel the sting, cannot feelanything, because the corpse’s blood—it’s in my mouth. It’s on mytongue, and I can taste its bitter tang. I can—I—

I crash to my knees, heaving, but there is blood here too. It coats my palms as I push to my feet once more. It seeps across my vision and paints the aviary red as my eyes instinctively return to the man.

No.

Behind him—just visible in the shadows—a vampire clings to the ceiling, his body, hishead, contorted unnaturally to watch me.Just because my family has treated you with kindness does not meanvampiresare kind. If you stumble across the wrong sort...

A jagged grin stretches across the vampire’s face. Bits of the man still remain in his teeth, and blood pours down his chin in a dark wash of crimson.

This is the wrong sort.

My knees unlock, and I seize D’Artagnan, turning and sprintingdown the staircase. “What are youdoing?” He twists wildly in my arms, hissing and spitting indignantly. “Unhand me thisinstant—”

“Don’t bestupid—”

Though I fumble for the stake in my corset, I only manage to cut my chest before the vampire lands in front of me on silent feet. His pale eyes glint with hunger at the line of blood on my décolletage, and he licks his lips greedily, dragging his gaze back to mine in a slow, wicked taunt. That simple movement—the sight of his lust, histongue—sends me reeling backward, near delirious with panic. “I will not be quick,” he promises, his voice guttural and deep. And I believe him. OhGod, I believe him, and I should’ve listened to Mila—to D’Artagnan, to Odessa and Dimitri, even toMichal.

Do you understand how unpleasant it is to die?

When he lunges, I don’t stop to think.

I simply jump.

The floor rises swiftly to meet me, but I bend my knees, pressing my feet together to brace for impact. Jean Luc taught me how to fall during training. He taught me to relax my muscles, to angle toes first, to do a hundred other things that I forget the instant my feet hit the ground. Pain explodes up my legs, and I pitch forward, rolling and landing hard on my elbow. The bone shatters instantly. Yowling, D’Artagnan leaps from my arms and bolts through the open door. Though the vampire’s cruel laughter echoes above, I drag myself upright, the ground pitching and swaying beneath my feet.

My elbow is broken. My left ankle too. The force of the collision pushed the stake deeper into my breast, and blood pours freely down my bodice. By some miracle, however, I’m still alive; Isurvived. Leaning against the basin of fire, I wrench the stake from my skin with my good arm. I cannot run, but I will not die here.Not yet.“Where would you like it, monsieur?” I ask him through gritted teeth, lifting the stake. Black spots bloom in my vision. I taste blood in my mouth. “Eyes, ears, nose, or groin?”

He drops to the ground by the basin. Though I prepare for his attack, it never comes.

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