Page 148 of The Shadow Bride

Instead it’s just us.

My sister and me crouching on the islet, and the others gathering on the shore. Odessa resting her head on her brother’s shoulder—her arms tight around his waist, refusing to let go—while Lou and Reid stir at their feet. Jean Luc and Brigitte are rousing now too. Mathilde is turning to murmur something to Dimitri, who chuckles and glances at Michal.

Michal.

Our eyes meet across the grotto, and he wades into the water as the maelstrom gradually slows, as it stills, and the gentle tide returns to lap against the rock. Though my mother follows, there will be time for reunions later—an entire lifetime, which is all the more precious than eternity. They both seem to sense as much, waiting in the shallows as I help Filippa stand. As I pull her into a fierce embrace and whisper, “I knew you could do it.”

I knew you would stay.

She trembles in my arms.

“I shouldn’t have ever climbed out that window.” Voice low, she fixes her gaze upon the sea, as if waiting for Death to somehowreappear, to pull her back under. I hold her even tighter in promise, and slowly—tentatively—she returns the pressure, murmuring, “It felt like I was suffocating in our nursery, watching your life unfold when mine hadn’t even started. I didn’t know what to do—how to getout—and Frederic—he promised a fresh start.” She shakes her head before resting it upon my shoulder. Fresh tears trickle down her nose. “Sometimes I wonder how different things might’ve been if I’d simply confided in you rather than running away.”

“How fortunate that we both get a second chance.”

“You’ve always been too good for this world, ma belle.” Pulling away abruptly, she wipes the tears from her cheeks, smooths her soaking-wet gown, before inhaling deeply and straightening her spine in the spitting image of our mother. And just when I think her defenses have slipped fully back into place, she adds, “Too good forme.”

I bump her hip, a smile tugging on my lips. “For your information, I’m not as good as you might think.” I lift my chin for dramatic impact. “I’ve killed a man, you know... and I’ve alsolainwith one.”

Filippa laughs out loud at that—unexpected and uninhibited—and her smile cracks my chest wide open. I’d almost forgotten what it looked like. I’d almost thought to never see it again.Almost.“Onlyyoucan make murder and sex sound whimsical,” she says.

I blink at her in feigned innocence. “Was yours not?”

Though Filippa rolls her eyes, it is our mother who calls sternly, “If you’requitefinished with that sordid talk, perhaps you’d be so kind as to greet your dear old mother. It is rude to keep me waiting!” She sounds impatient, anxious, but when I glance in her direction, her eyes shine with exhilaration too—to have herdaughters back again, to have her own new beginning.

Still smiling, I take my sister’s hand, and we do just that.

We start over.

Together.

“Ho-lyfuck,” Lou says slowly a half hour later. Whistling in appreciation, she circles me in Michal’s study before tossing her bloody handkerchief atop his desk. Though he glares at it pointedly, she ignores him. “I didn’t think such a thing was possible, yet here you are, all bright and shiny and new again. Andhuman.” She glances at Filippa, who stands in the corner with our mother, talking quietly among themselves. “Both of you—allfourof you,” she adds, her eyes wide with wonder as she points a finger between Michal and Dimitri. “Incredible.”

“Your refuse is on my desk,” Michal says.

Shaking his head apologetically, Reid plucks up the bloody handkerchief. “How does it feel?”

“Like yesterday I would’ve gnawed off your hand to eat that handkerchief,” Dimitri says cheerfully, “and now I won’t.”

With a grimace, Reid shakes the handkerchief, and the blood vanishes instantly. “A definite positive, then.”

“It feels wonderful,” I say in earnest, squeezing Michal’s hand. We sit together in a chair by the fire—or rather,hesits in the chair, and I sprawl across his lap, heedless of anyone else in the room. “Like I’m finally myself again. Not that there weren’t benefits to being, well—”

“Supernaturally strong?” Lou pauses in rummaging through his desk drawers to look up at me with a sly grin. In her hands, she holds Michal’s skull-shaped wax seal. “And fast? And graceful?Andimpossiblybeautiful? Yes, I can see how that would weigh heavily upon a person.” Then, to Michal, “This is a little on the nose, isn’t it?” She waves the wax seal in distaste before dropping it back in his drawer.

“I almost ate you, Lou,” I say flatly.

“And I would’ve enjoyed it, I’m sure.” She goes back to her investigation, cackling and pulling out Michal’s thumb claw next. “Much like I assume the two of you enjoyed...this?Whatever it is? Some sort of blood play—”

Reid shuts the drawer with a snap, shaking his head again. By the door, Jean Luc coughs awkwardly while Brigitte scowls at all of us, her arms crossed and her jaw tight. They haven’t spoken much since the grotto, since we explained all about Death and the maelstrom, the garden and the river.

To be honest, they seemed unimpressed that we allowed it to go that far—and even less impressed when Mathilde waltzed out of the grotto without returning them to Cesarine. At least they missed Guinevere’s prying questions—Who ishe? Did you love him? Does he loveher?—because no one can see her anymore, or any of the other ghosts either. No one except me, Filippa, and Mathilde, who is probably drafting demands for her new cottage at this very moment.

Like the veil, the spirit realm is healing. And so is the isle. Theworld.

Odessa left the grotto shortly after Mathilde to address her sentries, and the scent of Lou’s magic still lingers upon the door, which she spelled to be impenetrable to vampiric senses. For now, they cannot hear or scent us, but that doesn’t solve the problem of how to leave.

Because we must leave eventually. Requiem is no longer safe for us—not for me and my mother, not for Michal, not even for Dimitri anymore. “Do you think Coco and Beau are all right?” I ask quietly after another moment.

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