Page 9 of The Scarlet Veil

After nodding sagely while removing her boots, Coco perches on the bed next to Reid. “We consider it a win for us all. Célie, you’remypartner,” she adds as Jean Luc slips out of his coat. When he drapes it over the back of Lou’s chair, the book in his pocket hangs lower than the rest. I try not to look at it. I try not to think. When Jean opens his mouth to protest, Coco lifts a hand to silence him. “No arguments. After all, the two of you will be partners for the rest of your lives.”

Though I force sweet laughter up my throat, I can’t help but think how wrong she is.

A partnership implies trust, but Jean Luc will never tell me his business with Father Achille, and I—

I will never tell him what happened in my sister’s casket.

The nightmare starts as it always does.

A storm rages outside—the cataclysmic sort of storm that shakes the earth, that overturns houses and uproots trees. The oak in our own backyard splinters in two after a lightning strike. When half of it crashes against our bedroom wall—nearly tearing a hole in the roof—I bolt to Pippa’s bed and dive beneath the covers. She welcomes me with open arms.

“Silly little Célie.” Crooning, she strokes my hair as lightning flashes all around us, but her voice is nothervoice at all. It belongs to someone else entirely, and her fingers—they stretch to an unnatural length and contort at the knuckles, seizing my scalp andcrackling with energy. Trapping me in her porcelain arms. We’re nearly identical, Pip and I, like black-and-white nesting dolls. “Are you frightened, sweeting? Does the magic scare you?” Though I lurch backward, horrified, she tightens her grip, leering with a too-wide smile. It extends beyond her face. “Itshouldscare you, yes, because it could kill you if I let it. Would you like that, sweeting? Would you like to die?”

“N-No.” The word slips from my lips like a script, like an endless loop I can’t escape. The room begins to spin, and I can’t see, can’tbreathe. My chest constricts to a pinpoint. “P-P-Please—”

“P-P-Please.” Sneering derisively, she lifts her hands, but they no longer hold lightning. Marionette strings dangle from each finger instead. They attach to my head, my neck, my shoulders, and when she rises from the bed, I go with her, helpless. A Balisarda appears in my hand.Worthlessin my hand. She floats to the floor of our nursery, beckoning me closer, drifting to the painted wooden house at the end of my bed. “Come here, sweeting. Such a lovely little doll.”

At her words, my feet teeter—tink, tink, tinking with each step—and when I look down, I cannot scream. My mouth is porcelain. My skin is glass. Beneath her emerald gaze, my body begins to contract until I topple over, my cheek cracking against the rug. My Balisarda turns to tin. “Come here,” she croons from above me. “Come here, so I may shatter you.”

“P-Pippa, I d-d-don’t want to p-play anymore—”

With a sinister laugh, she bends in slow motion, and lightning strikes her raven hair so it flashes horrifying white.Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, your pretty clock doth start. Come rescue her by midnight, or I shall eat her heart.

With the flick of her finger, I shatter into a thousand pieces, the shards of my eyes soaring into the dollhouse, where there is no lightning, no thunder, no painted faces or porcelain feet.

Here, there is only darkness.

It presses into my nose, my mouth, until I choke on it—on rotting flesh and sickly-sweet honey, on the brittle strands of my sister’s hair. They coat my mouth, my tongue, but I can’t escape them. My fingers are bloody and raw. Broken. My nails are gone, replaced by splinters of wood. They protrude from my skin as I claw at the lid of her rosewood casket, as I sob her name, as I sob Reid’s name, as I scream and scream until my vocal cords fray and snap.

“No one is coming to save us.” Pip turns her head toward me slowly, unnaturally, her beautiful face sunken andwrong. I shouldn’t be able to see in this darkness, but I can—Ican, and half of it is missing. With a sob, I slam my eyes shut, but she lives beneath my eyelids too. “At least you’re here now,” she whispers. “At least we didn’t die alone.”

Mariée...

Tears course down my cheeks. They mingle with my blood, with my sick, withher. “Pip—”

“Our stomachs will be fine, Célie.” She touches a skeletal hand to my cheek. “We’ll all be fine.”

Then she buries that hand in my chest, wrenching out my heart and eating it.

Chapter Three

The Straw Man

The next morning, it feels like I’ve swallowed glass as I creep through the armory, careful to keep my footsteps light and my coughs quiet—because even Lou’s tea cannot heal a night of screams. The sun hasn’t yet risen, and my brethren haven’t yet descended. With any amount of luck, I’ll finish my training session before they arrive for theirs—in and out without an audience.

Jean Luc assured me I wouldn’t need training in the traditional sense, but clearly, I can’t serve as a huntsman without it.

The other Chasseurs waste no time with books and traps.

I run cold fingers over colder weaponry, almost nicking myself in the darkness. Storm clouds shroud the pale gray light of dawn through the windows. It’ll soon rain. Another excellent reason to get on with this. Seizing a lance at random, I nearly wake the dead when it slips from my grip and clatters to the stone floor.

“Christ’s bones.” I hiss the words, swooping low to retrieve it and struggling to lift the awkward, bulky thing back to the table. Howanyonecan wield such an instrument is beyond me. My eyes dart to the door, to the corridor beyond. If I strain, I can just hear the low voices and gentle sounds of servants in the kitchen, but no one comes to investigate. They don’t come at night either—not the servants, not the huntsmen, and not the captain. We all pretend not to hear my screams.

Flustered now—inexplicably agitated—I choose a more sensible staff instead. My Balisarda remains tucked safely away upstairs.

I certainly don’t need tostabanything today.

With one last glance behind me, I tiptoe to the training yard, where straw men loom along the wrought iron fence, leering at me. Notched wooden posts and archery targets join them, as well as a great stone table in the center. A striped awning shields it from the elements. Jean Luc and Father Achille often stand beneath it, speaking low and furtive about those things they refuse to share.

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