Page 96 of The Scarlet Veil

A cargo search.

The words flit in my ears like bees, urgent and unpleasant and unwelcome. They clearly mean something important to Michal and his crew, however, which means they should probably mean something important to me. I can’t quite rememberwhat, however—not with all this humming—or why they’ve started to sting. So I swat the words aside, bounding across the room and reaching for the sailor. “What is your name, monsieur?” I ask him eagerly.

Warm and calloused, his hands accept mine after a brief hesitation. When I squeeze them, he returns the pressure with a small smile and a furrow between his brows. “My name is Bellamy, mademoiselle.”

“You have anexcellentname, Bellamy.” I lean into him conspiratorially. “And you’re very handsome too. Did you know that? Do you have a family at home? Do you dance with them? Iloveto dance, and if you’d like, I can teach you to love it too.”

He blinks at me, nonplussed, and glances at Michal. “Er—”

“Just ignore Michal. I always do.” When I swing backward, pirouetting under his arm, the vampire in question catches me instead. He yanks me toward him. His lips have pressed together in a hard, flat line, but I don’t care; I spin beneath his arm too, still laughing and speaking to the handsome sailor. “IfIwere a vampire, I’d compel everyone on the isle to ignore Michal. It would be marvelous.”

“How fortunate that’ll never happen.” Michal waves a curt hand at the sailor, who backs hastily out of the room. “Now”—he inclines his head toward something behind me—“stop bewitching my crew and get in the coffin.”

Instinctively, I cast a glance over my shoulder, and my heart crashes to somewhere around my navel. A familiar rosewood coffin leers back at me. I blink at it rapidly. The bees in my ears buzz in earnest now, and the room grows abruptly, intolerably hot. Scrambling away from Michal, I press my hands to my feverish cheeks. Whyisit so hot in here? Have we somehow transcended Cesarine and sailed straight into Hell? “Get in the coffin, Célie,” Michal says again, softer now. His black eyes glint with impatience. And something else. Something I cannot name.

I snort again.

“Your Majesty,darling, has anyone ever told you no?”

He steps toward me with purpose. “Never.”

“I’m not getting into that coffin.”

“You drank a pint of absinthe for no reason, then?”

“A lady would never drink apintof absinthe. I partook sensibly, and moreover—I said I wouldn’t get intothatcoffin. I never said I wouldn’t get into a different one.” Feigning a serene smile, I pat the lacquered ebony casket beside it. The floor begins to shiftbeneath my feet as the fourth shot of absinthe hits my stomach. “I’ll be getting intothisone, thank you.”

“That’s my coffin.”

“Itwasyour coffin. Now it’s mine.” Still smiling, still swaying, I fumble with the brass clasps and heave the lid open as shouts sound again from above. The royal fleet must be almost upon us. I lift my skirts and step into the casket before hesitating, turning to extend an expectant hand. “And I’ll take that witchlight now.”

“Your Ladyship,darling, has anyone ever told you no?” To my surprise, to myhorror, Michal blows out the lamp before I can answer—plunging us in total darkness—and steps into the coffin with me.

“What are youdoing?” I seize his arm as he moves to sit, pushing him away and clinging to him in equal measure. I can’t see a thing beyond the sickening spin of the darkness. “You can’t just—Michal,” I hiss, “this is highly inappropriate, so go somewhere else! And give me the witchlight before you do!”

“I refuse to spend the next hour cramped in another coffin when I built this one specifically to accommodate me. If you prefer not to share, by all means”—he extracts the witchlight from his pocket and shoves it into my hands—“choose another.”

I stare at him in the eerie white light, wide-eyed with disbelief, but he doesn’t wait for my decision. No. He sinks into the coffin like a person might sink into silk sheets, andthatis not a comparison I need right now. I give myself a vicious mental shake and nearly stumble to the floor. It isn’t a comparison I needever. Of course I can’t share such a small, intimate space with a vampire, especially one as domineering as Michal. Besides—I glance into the coffin—there isn’t even room to lie beside him. If I do this, I’llhave to lie, well—flush. My cheeks burn hotter.

If I don’t, however, I’ll spend the next hour alone in the semidarkness, trying not to remember those things la fée verte has kept away.

Perspective is a wonderful thing.

Before I can change my mind, I drop like a stone onto Michal’s chest, shimmying flat against his front—or trying to, at least. I nearly knock him in the forehead with my witchlight, and my knees prod first his stomach, then his hip, in their battle to contain my skirts. The red silk and chemise bunch up in the tight space, baring my calves, and I twist to straighten them in alarm, accidentally jabbing Michal in the throat with my elbow. “Sorry! I’m sorry!” But my knee jerks to the left with the words, grazing the place between his legs, and he inhales sharply. I gasp in horror. “I amso—”

“Stop”—he seizes my waist and lifts me straight into the air above him—“moving.”

Without another word, he shifts my weight, pressing me against the coffin wall, and reaches a hand between us to tug my skirts back into place. His fingertips brush my bare legs. My hair kisses his furious face. Neither of us acknowledge either, however, and when he lowers me back against him, I want to leap from the coffin and flee.

As if reading my thoughts, he pulls the coffin lid shut with a decisiveclick, and thank goodness he does—within seconds, the ballroom door opens, and heavy footsteps land upon the carpets.

Chapter Thirty

Confessional

“See anything?” a hoarse voice asks. I imagine a gnarled old man lifting a torch or lantern, its golden light sweeping over the rows upon rows of caskets.

His companion sounds disgusted. And much younger. “Coffins. This has to be bad luck.”

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