Page 117 of The Scarlet Veil

“And the blood of a Dame Rouge is poison to their enemies. If you drink it, you’ll—”

“I saidleave,” he snarls with surprising vitriol, jerking his head toward the staircase. “Now.”

Though I startle slightly, stung, my feet rush to obey him, skirting past Babette and across the room. For a split second, her eyes dart after me like she wants to follow. Dimitri shadows my steps, however, waiting until I push open the door in the ceiling before murmuring, “It was very foolish to leave Michal alive. You’ve made a powerful enemy today.”

To leave Michal alive.

My head snaps back toward him. For some reason, the words lift the hair at my neck, and hisface—as with Michal, I’ve never before seen Dimitri look sovicious. His lip curls over his fangs,and the firelight casts deep shadows across his earnest eyes. They look hungry now. Unfamiliar. Gone is the sweet and charming boy with dimples; in his place stands a fully-fledged vampire.

With quaking arms, I hold the door open overhead and linger despite myself, watching as Babette climbs from the broken armchair. When her gaze darts from Dimitri to the door behind him—to the door that leads to Les Abysses—fresh panic spikes through me. Someone would’ve heard her screams. At any moment, Pennelope and the other courtesans could descend upon us. I should leave. I should follow Odessa into Paradise, and I should help her with Michal however I can. And yet—

“He was already my enemy,” Babette says tremulously as Dimitri begins to circle her. My brow furrows. She fears Dimitri in a way she didn’t fear Michal. She no longer holds her silver knife or silver tea, of course, but she’s still a blood witch. The crook of her elbow still bleeds freely.

“Now he knows it too,” Dimitri says. “After he heals, he will hunt you, and he won’t stop until you’re dead.”

She lifts her chin. “He won’t find me again.”

“I can’t take that chance.” He stills in front of her. “Give me the book, Babette.”

I exhale sharply at that—he knows about the grimoire—but neither seems to notice my presence. My arms ache from the weight of the door above me. “You’ll never get it,” she whispers desperately. “Never.” When Dimitri steps forward in silent threat, she squares her shoulders and inhales deeply, preparing to do the only thing she can—

She screams again. A shrill, piercing scream that cuts through walls and doors like a blade through butter. At the sound of it,I slip and tumble down several stairs, and the door crashes shut overhead.

If no one heard her before, they certainly heard allthat.

“Dimitri!” Throwing caution to the wind, I hurtle down the last of the stairs, skidding to a halt just shy of him. Reluctant to draw too close. I thought he wanted to drink Babette’s blood, to punish a witch for harming his family, yet now—now I don’t know. Clearly, he knows her otherwise, and worse, he knows about the grimoire too. Not only does he know about it, but hewantsit, and—and—I clench her knife like a shield in front of me, unwilling to think the rest. I don’t understand any of this. It doesn’t makesense, and I should’ve left when I had the chance. Pennelope will be here any second, and together, she and Babette might be able to overpower Dimitri. They might chase me, catch me, and—no.

Dimitri is my quickest way out of here. Myonlyway out of here. I jerk my knife emphatically toward the stairs. “We need to leave. Please.”

He says nothing for several more seconds, his eyes boring into Babette’s with violent promise. He still doesn’t attack her, however, and we still don’t flee. “Dimitri,” I say again, pleading now. When he still doesn’t move—locked in silent battle with Babette—I force myself to touch his arm.This is Dimitri, I think fiercely, despairingly.He brought you cabbage and eggs, and there must be an explanation for all this.“Please,please, Dima, let’s go.”

As if on cue, the doorknob behind us begins to turn, and Pennelope’s muffled voice echoes sharply into the room. “Babette? Are you all right?”

At last, Dimitri exhales—his teeth grinding together—and closes his eyes, clears his expression. When he opens them again,the familiar sparkle has returned, but it looks different now. It looks calculating. Perhaps it’s always looked that way. Perhaps I wanted a friend too badly to notice.

“My apologies, mademoiselle.” Winking, he offers me his hand, and I hesitate only a second before taking it. He sweeps me into his arms just as Pennelope bursts into the room. Her eyes take in the scene instantly. Snarling, she lifts her bleeding hands, but we’re already up the stairs, at the ceiling. Dimitri flashes her a charming, dimpled grin as he pushes open the door. Then he looks to Babette. “I hope you run far and run fast, chérie,” he tells her, and the sight of his dimples sends a newfound chill through me. “Because if Michal doesn’t find you, I will.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Kiss of a Vampire

Paradise passes in a rush of silken clouds and marble floors, and I catch the last notes of the melusines’ song before the entire building seems to contract—like a band snapping—and expels us through another odd door near the ceiling. Cursing, Dimitri tightens his arms around me as we go stumbling onto the roof. The door vanishes behind us like it never existed at all.

Guests can’t stay in Les Abysses past daybreak.

In the next second, the first rays of sunlight break across the horizon.

They burn Dimitri’s skin on contact, and he curses again—maliciously this time—ducking into the shadow of a nearby gable. “Hold on,” he says, and I manage to fling my arms around his neck before he leaps to the gable of a roof next door. The glass of a narrow window there has been shattered. Dimitri ducks through it just as his skin begins to smoke.

Inside, Odessa crouches over Michal, who lies completely still on what appears to be the floor of an attic.

Half of his face remains horribly burned, blackened, and blood shines through the gashes in his leather coat. It soaks the dusty floorboards beneath him too, staining the old wood like a halo. Pale gray light diffuses the entire scene into an ethereal sort of nightmare. Even half-burned, half-broken, Michal looks like hecould’ve just fallen from the heavens after God stripped his wings.

Pushing out of Dimitri’s arms—eager to get away from him—I crash to the floor beside Odessa. “Why isn’t he healing?”

“Didn’t you say the witch put silver in her tea?” Dimitri follows as if concerned, and his brow furrows when I scoot away from him.Right.He’s going to pretend his conversation with Babette never happened. Indeed, he lifts his hands in a placating gesture and forces a bemused laugh. His gaze falls to the silver knife in my fist. “And that blade isn’t made of candy floss, Célie.”

“Mademoiselle Tremblay,” I snap.

---