Page 119 of The Shadow Bride

Stricken, I reach out as he pulls away, but before I can catch his hand, my mother says, “He would have taken her anyway. You cannot blame yourself for the sins of another. We have enough of our own to bear.”

“You should listen to her.” Nodding to Dimitri, Michal brushes his fingers against my back as he and Odessa join us. Though his legs have healed, blood still oozes from the wound at his ribs; it stains his shirt, drips down his hand. It is his eyes, however, that draw my gaze—coal black and red rimmed, glinting with purpose.“We need to leave,” he says quietly, “before the blood draws others to this place.”

“Can you take my mother back to the castle?” I ask Dimitri. “Please?”

Odessa wipes away tears before turning to Michal. They still carve tracks through the soot on her cheeks, sparkling in the dying embers of the fire. “You two shouldn’t remain here either. It’s too dangerous.”

I lift his injured hand, examining the pieces of wood still in the wound. “We’ll follow you in a moment.”

When she still hesitates, Michal clasps her shoulder, and unspoken understanding passes between them. And I think I understand too; if tonight has proven anything, it’s that the future is never guaranteed. Indeed, the weaker the veil becomes, the stronger Death seems to grow, and none of us know how much more this realm can take.

None of us know what will happen when it finally breaks.

Reluctantly, Odessa nods, sweeping forward to kiss both our cheeks. “Just—do not be seen. Please.” To my mother, she says, not unkindly, “Can you stand, madame?”

My mother’s attention has drifted, however, and she does not seem to hear her. Instead she stares at the place where Filippa disappeared with Death, and it feels as if she is disappearing now too. Her chin quivers. Her knees tremble.

“Maman?” I ask tentatively, dreading her answer.

“I let her leave,” she whispers. “I let her leave again.”

And for the first time since Filippa slipped out our nursery window, I realize—perhaps—I am not the only one who blamedmyself. “We have enough of our own to bear, Maman,” I repeat softly.

She doesn’t answer, and Dimitri deliberates only a second before nodding purposefully and sweeping her into his arms. “Be safe,” he says to us, and he trails after his sister.

Unlike Filippa, my mother does not look back.

A sharp impulse to follow fills me as I watch them go—not to care for my mother as I’ve done before, but to simply be together.It feels so much sillier on this side of things—to have wasted so much time.The words ache as I think of Mila, as I think of Michal, and with them, a bone-deep exhaustion descends. “It’s never going to be all right, is it?”

“I don’t know.”

He pulls me against him, and wordlessly, I offer my wrist. Because he is hurt, and he is bleeding. Because we cannot return to the castle until he is healed. Even then, we cannot be seen, cannot be caught—not by the vampires, not by the revenants, not by Death himself, who still roams the island in search of Mathilde. And perhaps nothing will be all right ever again.

Shaking his head, Michal leads me deeper into the forest. “Come with me.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Please Stay

Steam caresses my face in the ruins of an ancient bathhouse. It curls my hair as I sit beside Michal at the edge of the water—a hot spring around which they built the entire village. And by they, I mean Michal.

Michal and his family.

Beyond Mathilde’s cottage, beyond the surrounding forest and its fields of heather, lies the beach he once showed me at a distance. The ruins I glimpsed earlier while traveling through the veil. The site where Michal, Mila, Odessa, and Dimitri first stepped foot on Requiem, and—apparently—where they built their homes together.I sought an escape, Michal told me, lost in memories of that time so long ago.A fresh start. I recognized those flowers as a sign of hope for my sister and cousins.

Now he has brought me here too.

“This place... it’s incredible,” I tell him, swallowing hard and staring at the sculpted murals of the walls around us, the hand-carved whorls of the steps leading into the spring. My own hands clench and unclench in the bunched fabric of my skirt as I slip my feet into the water. This place is beautiful. Quiet. Peaceful. “I didn’t realize you could—do things like this.”

A shadow of a smile touches his lips. “My father taught me.”Then, nudging my knee with his own, “Not everyone grows up in the aristocracy, pet. Some of us needed to use our hands.”

I fix him with a beady stare. “Not everyone grows up with a father to teach them things.”

Instantly, I regret the barb, but Michal only laughs softly and says, “Touché.”

And for some reason, his laughter eases the tension in my shoulders more than his pity ever would. It isn’t funny, of course, but I fear I might suffocate beneath the weight of this night, and Michal seems to understand. “Why did you leave this place?” I ask him. “How did it come to be so”—I wave my hands at the crumbling stone, the creeping moss, the crusted salt upon the door—“abandoned?”

“The storms are worse on this side of the island.” He takes my hand in an almost subconscious gesture, running his thumb along my fingers. Tracing the lines of my palm. “Courtesy of one Ysabeau le Blanc—another relation of your friend, and a spurned ex-lover of Dimitri’s. We were forced to relocate when waves decimated half the village.”

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