Page 17 of The Shadow Bride

“Get behind me.” Voice sharp, I pull Reid backward as the upper half of the Archbishop’s body drags itself toward Lou. She lifts her hands dubiously, stumbling backward, but Michal follows, trapping the revenant under his foot. Though it claws at his pant leg, shredding skin, Michal doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t let it go. “How do we kill it?” I ask desperately.

He looks to Coco. “Well?”

Her voice is an indignant whisper. “Why are you looking at me? Itoldyou my aunt refused to tell me anything.”

When he arches a brow at Lou next, she returns to herself at once. “Oh, don’t even think about it. I’ve never killed an undead—thingbefore. Shouldn’t that beyourexpertise?”

Michal’s lip curls. “Are you not reputed to be the most powerful witch of the age?”

Lou’s turquoise eyes flash with the lightning behind her. “Andareyounot reputed to be the most powerful vampire of all time? An immortalking?” The rain has dwindled to a fine mist now. It settles in her hair, on her skin, until she sparkles with each lightning strike—small and pale and alone in the street, but still fierce. Always fierce. Her hands remain raised as thunder continues to rumble around us. “How have you been dealing with these revenants on Requiem? We can do the same here.”

Unexpected silence descends as Michal says nothing, and the two glare at each other.

To her credit, Lou doesn’t cower beneath his cold perusal, waiting until he abruptly returns his attention to the revenant before allowing herself to exhale.

“We’ve been capturing them.” Michal presses his heel harder into the revenant’s spine, cracking several more vertebrae. “Our witches have been incapacitating them until we find a permanent solution.”

“Gasp.” Lou’s eyes widen in a scornful parody of surprise. “Shock.The almighty king of the vampires has sullied his hands with witches? I would’ve thought our magic beneath you.”

“You would’ve thought correctly.”

With a scowl, Lou drops her hands, looping one elbow through Reid’s and the other through mine. She drags us back toward the front door. “Fine. Good. Carry on without us, then—go home to Requiem—as you clearly know what you’re doing. We’ll figure things out on our end without your help.” Barely discernible over the thunder, she whispers to me, “Thisisstill what you want, right? To stay here?” Her wide turquoise gaze searches mine, and I stare back, helpless, before glancing over my shoulder at Michal.

He looks positively lethal, still bleeding in the rain, his eyesburning as he pins the snarling, scrabbling revenant underfoot. “Is it, Célie?” he asks, equally quiet. “Is this what you want?”

His previous words echo between us, as dark and ominous as the storm clouds overhead.

I’m not the one who left, Célie.

Lifting my chin, I nod. “Please leave, Michal.”

Cold disbelief breaks across his expression at my words, replaced almost instantly with colder amusement. He glances from Lou to Reid to Coco and Beau and Odessa, to the lower half of the revenant’s body, which has risen to its feet, scuttled into a nearby tree, and fallen over. Then his eyes find mine. Something shifts deep within them as he stares at me. Is it pity? Remorse?

Disgust?

Before I can name it, he lifts his foot from the revenant’s spine and walks away.

My breath catches as he goes, and part of me—the worst part, the smallest part, the most wretched part of all—hopes he’ll look back. He doesn’t, however. No. Tucking his bloody hands in his pockets, he gives me what I want, and he leaves.

The revenant snarls and dives toward us.

“Right.” Coco’s foot instantly replaces Michal’s, and she unsheathes a thin dagger from up her sleeve before handing it to Beau. He gazes down at the revenant with palpable disgust. “It’ll need to be a powerful cage—he must’ve clawed his way out of his casket to find us. Solid wood.”

“Odessa.” I swallow hard, forcing myself to look away as Michal disappears around the bend. “Did Requiem, Ltd., send any stone caskets in their last shipment to Cesarine?”

“Hmm... perhaps.” Odessa meanders forward as well, circlingthe revenant as it continues to writhe. She casts a swift, probing glance in my direction before turning to Lou. “Though I hardly think such measures will be necessary. Your great-grandmother once trapped me in a hatbox.”

A hatbox.

My eyes fall to her skirts.

“You knew Mathilde?” Lou asks.

“Of course I know Mathilde. I just said she trapped me in a hatbox, didn’t I?” Odessa asks. “She refused to let me out until I promised never to speak to her again—I used to visit on the weekends for access to her library. She hoarded an extensive horticulture collection in that odd little cottage of hers. She alwaysdidremind me a bit of a dragon,” she adds thoughtfully. “We got on quite well until she forced me into that box.”

Beau blinks at her, momentarily distracted. “How did you fit inside a hatbox?”

“How does a witch do anything? Magic.”

---