Page 29 of The Shadow Bride

Amidst the bustle of merchants, of dockworkers and fishermen, he looks more preternatural than ever, too still and too beautiful to ever be mistaken for human. Too pale. His alabaster skin shines like a beacon in the overcast light, stark and perfect against his dark clothing. Fortunately, his surcoat hides most of his torn shirt beneath, except for the sleeves. I shredded those too. The harbormaster eyes the claw marks in the leather dubiously, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe his brow.

Michal gave me his cloak to hide the bloodstains on my nightgown.

Forcing myself to relax, I count the kittens in the basket while I wait for him to finish arranging our transport. Seven of them in all. They mewl and scramble against the wicker in a desperate bid to reach me. Ruefully, I bend to scratch each of their little heads with a pang of unexpected loss; my mother forbade animals in the house, so Filippa and I never owned a pet.

I straighten with a miserable sigh. Eventually, Filippa persuaded her into allowing me to adopt one of the horses from our stable—Cabot—and when I joined the huntsmen, I insisted on taking him with me from West End to Chasseur Tower. Heprobably thinks I abandoned him now. He probably takes his oats from Brigitte.

I wish Michal would hurry up.

Near the till, Odessa peruses a brilliantly inked star chart as the shop owner counts the last of his couronnes, taking careful notes in his ledger. “Lucille traveled all the way to Zvezdya to acquire that piece,” he tells her proudly, “along with a compass of pure obsidian from the home of a sorcerer—the Shadow, locals call him.”

“Sorcerers don’t exist, Yves,” Odessa says absently—though not unkindly—as she examines the chart. “I hope your daughter didn’t pay an exorbitant sum because a charlatan called himself theShadow.”

“Always the skeptic.” Chuckling, Yves closes the till and pats her arm fondly. “Alas, your brother would believe me—and whereisDimitri, anyway?” Odessa stiffens near indiscernibly at the sound of her brother’s name, but Yves doesn’t seem to notice, his eyes glittering with mischief. I wonder if he knows to whom he truly speaks. I wonder if he knows what she eats. “Is he out romancing the locals? I know Lucille would love to see him before he leaves.”

Fixing a smile on her lips, Odessa returns the chart to its shelf. “Dimitri is otherwise occupied, I’m afraid.”

Otherwise occupied.It isn’t a lie, per se. Disappearing with the Necromancer after his betrayal on All Hallows’ Eve has probably kept Dimitri quite busy this week. No one has seen him since the grotto—where he murdered Babette, fed from Beau, and attacked his own sister in a desperate bid to take La Voisin’s grimoire. In his defense, he believed it held the cure to his blood sickness.

He also almost killed us all.

Odessa stares fixedly at the tin of biscuits by the star chart, her body taut as a bow.

Thankfully, a customer enters then; he interrupts whatever Yves might’ve said.

As if sensing the weight of my gaze, Odessa’s eyes flick to mine, and I look hastily away, spreading my envelopes across the desk:To Jean Luc,To Brigitte,To Lou. My fingers still tremble slightly against the last letter. They haven’t stopped trembling since I wrote it. I stare determinedly at the stained crescents of my nails, the dried brown blood underneath, instead of imagining her expression when she wakes and cannot find me.Brown like autumn leaves. Like acorns and chestnut coffee.

Lou deserves so much more than what I’ve given her. Theyalldo, yet I cannot bear to say goodbye in person. It makes me a miserable coward, yes—and a wretched friend—but if I return to their doorstep, if I sit in that merry kitchen with its copper pots and fat peonies, I know I’ll never leave. Eventually, I’ll hurt one of them like I hurt Jean Luc, and that cannot happen. I cannot put us in such a position again.

Never again.

I cling to that resolve with every fragment of my body. It becomes imperative, a life raft, and though it won’t buoy me forever, it buoys me for now. It will buoy me straight to Requiem, where I must... atone for what I’ve done somehow. Where I must make thingsright.

I run my finger over the sharp corners of the envelope, thinking hard.

Three years ago—on the night of my debut into society—I stood alone at the top of our grand staircase, staring down at thebeautiful peers in our ballroom. I nearly vomited at the sight of their unfamiliar faces, of my own empty dance card. My mother had refused to invite Reid to the soirée. He held no title or fortune, yet I still wanted to marry him. I’d never danced with anyone else. “You’ll be fine,” Filippa told me fiercely, seizing my gloved hands. “Every gentleman in this room will be clamoring to meet you tonight, ma belle. Mark my words—Maman and I will need to beat them away with a stick.”

I regarded her with wide, helpless eyes. “What if they don’t?”

Our mother stepped forward with that familiar air of competence and severity. “Make it so,” she said curtly, “and it will be.” Then she pinched my cheeks with brutal efficiency and towed me down the stairs.

Make it so, and it will be.

Nonsensical words, to be sure, yet her advice—it worked that evening. Under her sharp eyes, I held my shoulders straight and my chin high. I batted my lashes, and I spoke with confidence, feigned wit and charm. By the end of the night, my feet ached from dancing, and two men proposed the very next morning.

I’ve always been good at pretend.

And if it worked then, why shouldn’t it work now?

I might be a monster, but I can still act otherwise—like my life hasn’t just shattered into a thousand jagged pieces, like my teeth don’t still ache to taste blood. Instead, I can go to Requiem, and I can start again. I can do better. I canbebetter.

“You don’t need to explain yourself to anyone, Célie,” Odessa says, pretending not to read Jean Luc’s and Brigitte’s names over my shoulder. Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t hear her approach. I gather the letters with a scowl.

“I almost killed them, Odessa.”

“And?” She stoops to retrieve one of the kittens who have escaped the basket, lifting it by the scruff to peer directly into its blue-gray eyes. It meows loudly for rescue. “A letter will not change what happened, nor will it change their minds. They cannot understand what transpired in that alley because they are human. Filthy little things, aren’t they?” she adds, tilting her head at the kitten. “Yves sells them to sailors to catch rats on their ships, yet I think a rat would eat such a small creature, don’t you?”

I snatch the kitten away from her and return it to the basket. “It doesn’t matter if they change their minds. I still need to apologize.”

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