Page 2 of The Shadow Bride

Why did he bite me, only to abandon me? Why did he leave me to the care of my friends—leave me tohurtthem?

I don’t realize my hand grips the doorknob until my palm starts to burn.

With a hiss, I release it and leap away, glaring at the silver chain around the knob. Lou didn’t think such a precaution would be necessary. She argued when I insisted, but in the end, she honored the request by digging out the only silver jewelry she owned: an ugly, tarnished necklace that once belonged to her great-great-grandmother. In the kitchen, she now pretends to retch as Reid offers her a carrot, and I curl my injured hand into a fist.

“Hold your breath,” Mila says softly.

They won’t notice you, that terrifying voice repeats.

I stop breathing instantly at the sound of it, and after several seconds of hard-fought self-control, I force myself to back away from the door. Disappointment echoes faintly from wherever—or whoever—the voice comes.You’re going to starve.

It sounds like my sister.

“No, I won’t.”

I shake my head fiercely at the shadow in the mirror while Mila watches with wide eyes. And why wouldn’t she? I’m having a conversation with someone who isn’there, and none of this—noneof it—is real. Filippa cannot be in this room with me. Even if Frederic’s ritual somehow worked, even if she returned as a spirit or—or as something else, I would still see her. Mila would hear her too.

My resolve hardens at that. More than anything, Mila’s silence proves that Filippa is still dead, and this is just a hallucination. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard voices, would it? I glare at the mirror. Faint cracks in its silver surface refract the light in a strange way, but otherwise, the glass stands still and silent. There is no tear in the veil, no echo of laughter. No flash of an emerald eye.

I still stare at the mirror hungrily.

I know better than to do this again. I know better than to hope.

I still stalk forward until I stand in front of the wretched thing, however, gazing at where my own reflection should be. Praying for the hundredth time—the thousandth—thatthisis the moment the dream ends. That the fairy prince will kiss me awakenow, and the two of us will live happily ever after.

Please.

Though I stand there for several more seconds, waiting, nothing happens. I close my eyes again. Open them. Bitterness courses through me when the mirror remains empty, and I turn without thinking, seizing the music box and shattering it against the floorboards. The lullaby ends with a violent, satisfyingcrash, yet myfury doesn’t abate—instead it rises up my throat like vitriol, and I curse as the porcelain pieces settle. The princess’s vapid smile remains whole and intact. With an unfamiliar snarl, I stomp on it with all my might. I stomp onallof them—every single shard—until nothing but glittering dust remains, until my bare feet should bleed and ache. Iwantthem to bleed and ache.

Before I can seize the silver chain, however, low voices sound from the entry. The front door opens with a soft swish, joined by the rustle of woolen pant legs, a silk gown. The steady beat of two more hearts.Two, not three.Light footsteps cross the threshold in the next second, and the door closes once more. “How is she?” Coco whispers.

“Did we miss anything?” Beau asks.

Jean Luc’s voice should join theirs now, but it doesn’t. He didn’t come.

Hard to keep them straight, isn’t it?that voice croons.Jean Luc, Michal... Michal, Jean Luc...

I struggle to ignore it, and the soft, wet sounds of Reid’s knife pause as he murmurs, “Nothing has changed.”

He’ll never love you.

I cringe and glance down at the residue from the music box.

“We didn’t want to wake her until dinner.” Lou stumbles slightly as Melisandre winds between her feet, and a sonorous purr punctuates her next words. “She seems... exhausted.”

Mila floats closer, lifting an arm as if to wrap it around me. To comfort me. When I tense, however, dreading the contact, she drifts to a halt, her arm falling to her side instead. “It’ll go better tonight, Célie,” she says softly as Coco and Beau unlace their boots. “Don’t lose hope.”

I resist the urge to scoff at her optimism. “And on what basis are you making that assumption? Last night? The one before that? How about lastweek?”

Mila doesn’t answer. Shecannotanswer—not truthfully, anyway—and instead we both listen as Beau asks, “Has she eaten anything else?”

Sometimes they forget I can hear them. Sometimes they pretend nothing has changed.

Reid continues his work with the knife, dicing meat and vegetables with an expert hand. The scent of them—gamey, earthy, perhaps venison and peas with the carrots—drifts beneath my bedroom door and congeals in my stomach. “Not since dinner yesterday.”

“And tonight?”

Reid doesn’t hesitate. “Deer. We’re hoping a larger animal helps.”

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