Page 20 of The Shadow Bride

Reid leers in front of us as an actual skeleton. His fingers wrap around a wickedly sharp scythe.

I blink at both of them, confused—still searching for D’Artagnan and Guinevere, who have vanished—and brush elbows with a monk who walks his pet lion on a leash. A low growl rumbles in its throat at a passing courtesan, and in the corner, a hooded figure dressed like Death himself stands tall and silent, watching us. Except—I shake my head, blinking again. Except now he doesn’t stand in the corner at all. He stands in the entrance to the ominous clock room, which seems rather nearer than before. Lou continues to pull me toward it.

“Who said no?” I ask her, bemused.

“Coco, of course.” A thick snake coils around the length of her body—its iridescent scales glistening first black, then purple, then green—and with a start, I realize she wears nothing else at all. The blacks of her eyes also appear larger than usual, and shadows seep into the hollows beneath them; her hair seems to crackle with energy. She sweeps a too-sharp hand down my arm as the snake’s tongue kisses my cheek. “She refused to marry him because of your dress, and honestly, Célie, I can’t say I blame her. What were youthinking?”

Bewildered, I glance down, opening my mouth to defend myself, but the sparkling ballerina costume has vanished, replaced by a blood-flecked gown sewn from the pale linen of a burial shroud. And my tongue—I taste copper there. Hot, rich copper and something else—somethingfoul, something that smells oftilled earth and dead, decaying things. Instantly, I tug my hand from Lou’s, but she refuses to let me go, her nails drawing four crescent moons on my wrist. “W-Where are we going?”

“To the clock room,” she says simply. “He said we all must go to the clock room eventually.”

“Whosaid?” I dig in my heels, but here—in this strange interim place—I am weaker than her. “Lou, I—I don’t like this anymore. I think we should leave—”

Her grip only tightens, and the ebony clock strikes midnight, ringing out across all seven rooms; the musicians cease their bright music, and the revelers grow pale and still as if in some sort of reverie.

Behind us, Reid falls dead to the floor.

Horrified, I turn to stare at him, but Lou doesn’t seem to notice, her dark eyes rapt upon the ebony clock. When it quiets, soft laughter echoes through the crowd instead. It lifts the hair at my nape like a breath in my ear. It sends a chill down my spine.No.I pull harder against Lou, refusing to take another step—because I definitely don’t like this anymore. I don’t like it at all. That dread only deepens when the clock strikes again—one o’clock in the morning—and Coco drops like a marionette with cut strings.

Beau merely floats over her corpse before taking someone else in his arms. “This isn’t right.” I twist my wrist feverishly now, trying and failing to break Lou’s grip. “Lou, did you just see—? Reid and Coco—they’re—”

“Dead.” Lou nods as her snake hisses softly, and its black tongue flick, flick, flicks in the air. “We must all go to the clock room eventually,” she repeats, withdrawing a knife from Coco’s white robes.

Then she slides the blade across her throat, opening her scar in a macabre, bloody smile.

“You’d better feed soon, Célie,” she says, matter-of-fact, as the knife clatters back to the floor. Blood splatters in all directions. “When the clock strikes two, we’ll all die. He said so himself. He said we must all go to the clock room together.”

“Lou.” Desperate, I search for something to stanch her bleeding, but my fangs have already descended. My hands move as if they belong to someone else, and I have no choice but to watch as they lovingly descend on her shoulders. As they caress her skin.I am so much paler than her now.The thought is an errant one, almost amused, but it breaks my strange focus for the split second it takes to wrench my gaze away—to glance up and see my reflection in the violet-colored window.

Jagged stitches disfigure half my face; they stretch and twist as I grin, as I laugh with the last lethal chime of the clock. Releasing Lou at once, I stagger backward, startled,sickened, and Michal sweeps me into his arms instead. He presses a cold kiss against my temple. Warmth immediately suffuses my body, and I cling to him, unable to let him go.

It’s going to be all right.

The thought blooms through my fear like a talisman, like I hold a shield in my hands instead of Michal’s waist. Perhaps because here—in this multitude of dreams—I can sense the truth. His truth,mytruth. If Michal is here, everything will be all right.

As if I’ve spoken aloud, he pulls me closer, flush against him now, and whispers, “Did you miss me?”

“No,” I lie.

He grins, sharp as a knife. “Petite menteuse.”

Between one blink and the next, he whisks me from the ballroom to a forest clearing, where a single tree has taken root in the moonlight. A laurel crown weaves across his brow now, and his skin gleams with internal light as he reaches up to pluck a fruit from overhead. Leaning closer, I resist the urge to inhale, to bury my face in his chest and sink my teeth into his skin. My gums throb with the effort. My fingers nearly draw blood. His presence, his scent—they’re headier here, disorienting, and my body aches with hunger and—and something else. Something I dare not name. Still, however, I cannot bring myself to let him go. “A fairy,” I whisper in awe. “You’re a fairy king.”

His chest rumbles with dark laughter as he offers the fruit to me. “And what does that makeyou?”

I do not answer.

Instead, I tear my gaze away from his cruel face to behold the fruit in his hand—an apple. At first glance, it appears the perfect shade of crimson, its skin crisp and shining, but when I blink, when Ifocus, the fruit grows fur and splits open, revealing rotten flesh at the center. I knock it away from him with a cry. “Whatisthat?”

He lifts my chin with a single finger in response, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Fairy tales don’t always have happy endings, Célie. Should I have let you die instead?”

My throat constricts at the accusation in his gaze, but instead of breaking away, I press closer still, finding it rather difficult to breathe. “I never wanted this.” The words spill from my lips in a rush of truth, but it’s too late to take them back. Perhaps it always has been. “I never wanted todie—”

“I never wanted to die either,” Michal confesses, “but we must all go to the clock room eventually.”

In the distance, an ebony clock tolls, and I stiffen, my entire body going cold at the sound. The scene tilts without warning, pitching us into the roots of the tree, and I wake with a gasp.

I wake without Michal.

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