Page 113 of The Scarlet Veil

“Not quite what you were expecting?” Though Guin sneers, her eyes shine with—not longing, precisely, but perhaps ruefulness as she too watches Michal disappear through the flames. “It never is with him. Others often pity me—I know they do,” she adds as if expecting me to contradict her, “but truly, it is not me they should think upon. It is him.” She sighs and sets to arranging her curls in a silver cascade down her shoulders. “I have loved often and loved deeply throughout my being, but Michal... I’ve known him for a very long time, cherub, and his heart—if he has one—beats differently than yours and mine. There have been moments when I wondered if it even beats at all.”

“He loves his sister.” My voice sounds higher than usual. “His cousins.”

She waves a hand in distaste. “A distant, eternal sort of love. The love of a guardian. A patriarch.” She arches that narrow brow again, fixing me with a scornful look. “Is that the love you desire? A love that turns you to ice instead of setting you to flame?”

Once more, I open my mouth to argue, and once more, I close it again without finding words. Because there was nothing icy about how he kissed me just now. Nothing icy about how he touched me in the pit either, nor my own body’s response.

No one would be disappointed, Célie.

Dropping the hand from my lips, I step into the hearth before I can hesitate. Because if I hesitate, I might turn and flee instead—Les Abysses and this horrid situation, yes, but also Michal. This raging guilt in my stomach.

“Of course,” Guinevere says slowly, wickedly, as if trying to salt a wound, “Michal never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

“Goodbye, Guinevere.” The flames tickle my skin, harmless and pleasantly warm, as I turn and curtsy in farewell. I don’t yet know if I like Guinevere very much, but shedidinadvertently assist us; someday, perhaps we’ll call each other friend in truth. Part of me hopes so. “Thank you for your help.”

She floats forward to kiss my cheek. Tapping my nose again, she says, “Take care of yourself, darling, and remember what I said—crimson really isn’t your color. Next time, choose a lovely shade of green.”

The familiar words stop me in my tracks. “Why green?”

Her answering grin is sly. “To match your eyes, of course.”

Unlike the stark metaphor of the pit, with its black stone and crimson courtesans, Babette’s chambers feel straight from a fairy-tale cottage. My eyes widen as I step through the door—is that lavender I smell?—and join Michal in the middle of the first room. Warm and circular, it boasts burnished wooden floors and a charming fireplace with bric-a-brac along the mantel: dried rosesand candle stubs, a broken mirror and a glass box full of letters and shells and rocks. A golden staircase to the left spirals upward to a painted door in the ceiling. “Where do you think that leads?” I ask Michal hesitantly. “To Paradise?”

He doesn’t answer, and that inexplicable guilt in my chest bites deeper. We don’t have time to dwell on an awkward kiss and its aftermath, however, and the door in the ceiling is probably standard practice, some sort of emergency exit in case a courtesan changes their mind mid-appointment.

Right.Focus.

We’re here to search the rooms of the deceased, to find clues that might point to her killer. Letters, sketches, perhaps out-of-place mementos like the silver cross. I try to think like Jean Luc or Reid or even Frederic, try to inspect the scene through their eyes, but it’s difficult. The airdoessmell like lavender. A lovely bouquet of it hangs near the fireplace to dry, and my eyelids feel suddenly, wonderfully heavy. I don’t think I’ve ever stepped foot in a room so enchanting. Beside the spiral staircase, books trail haphazardly across a low table between two floral armchairs, along with a steaming cup of tea. The porcelain even has an endearing little chip near the handle.

Instinctively, I move toward the floral armchairs. Not tosleep, of course, just to rest my head for a while.

“Wait.”

Voice low, Michal touches the small of my back, and I turn, half dreading what he might say. But he isn’t looking at me at all. No. His black eyes have narrowed on the table, on the steam curling from the chipped teacup, and he frowns. A distant part of my mind realizes the tea is still hot.And—my eyes drift back to thefireplace, to its merrily crackling flames and the lavender beside it. Evangeline used to steep lavender in my tea when I couldn’t sleep at night. Unease creeps through me at the memory. Come to think of it, this doesn’t at all look like the home of a deceased person, and—

I pinch my arm, hard. The sharp pain clears my head, and before it can cloud again, I snatch the lavender from the wall and pitch it into the fire, where it blackens and crumbles to ash. “Someone tended the fire recently.” I wipe my hands hastily on my skirt. My palms sting where they touched the sprigs, and the lingering notes of lavender cannot hide the unmistakable scent of blood magic. “Pennelope?”

Michal shakes his head. “I can hear her with Jermaine next door.”

“Is anyone else here?”

“I can’t hear them if so.”

“Then who—?” My gaze catches on the stack of books beside the teacup, the smallest of which lies open and apart from the rest. The pages have yellowed slightly from age, curling around the edges, and some of the inked words have faded almost past recognition. A peculiar sensation tugs at my stomach as I look at it. Because this book—it looks almost familiar, and itfeelseven more so. “Michal.” I bend to examine it closer in the firelight, loath to touch it for some reason. Surely I imagine the faint whispers emanating from the pages, but I most certainlydon’timagine the ancient handwriting scrawled across the open one.

A SPELL TO RESURREKT THE DEAD

And below it a single ingredient, written in the same hand:

Blood of Death

“Look at this.” A tendril of fear cracks open in my chest at the additions made to the page; it climbs into my voice, my breath, as I stare at the words. “Michal.” I say his name sharper now, my hands shaking as I gesture to the book. The black cover appears like it’s been made from some sort of...skin. “Look what’s written below it.” I feel rather than see him crouch beside me, his chest cool and solid against my shoulder, because I cannot tear my gaze away from the page. From the fresh question mark inked afterBlood of Death.

“What is it?”

“La Voisin’s grimoire.” The response comes instinctively, my subconscious recognizing the evil little book before my mind can catch up. Coco pulled it from her aunt’s body after the Battle of Cesarine, and even then, the grimoire had filled me with a strange sense of dread. She must’ve given it to the Chasseurs to aid in their investigation. “I last saw it in Saint-Cécile with Father Achille. He hid it behind his back on his way to a meeting with Jean Luc and the others about the... the killer.”

“Lutin. Melusine.” Michal reads the list in a wary voice beside my ear. Like the question mark, the ink used to write it is darker, blacker than the original spell. New. Each creature has been scratched out with a thick, angry line. “Dame Blanche, dragon, Dame Rouge. Loup garou. Éternel.” His voice hardens at the last, and he reaches past me to seize the book. The last addition is asingle name, circled with the same heavy stroke.

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