Page 34 of The Shadow Bride

“Oh?” My nape prickles at the sight of it, and I shift away from the trellis to keep the path behind me clear. I can outrun Frederic now. If he attacks, I can flee to Michal’s ship, and this time, he won’t be able to follow us to Requiem—not until Yule next month. The protective enchantment around the isle won’t lift until then. Still, it seems a wasted opportunity not to press for information first: about the revenants, about how to lay them to rest. “And where should I be if not here?”

My gaze falls to the grimoire.

“You should bedead.” Spitting the word, Frederic lifts the evil little book between us and shakes it with frenetic energy. “Thespell called for Blood of Death. Itrequiredyour death—”

I gesture with forced calm to my sharp teeth, my terrible and beautiful face. “It might’ve escaped your notice, but Iamdead.”

“Not properly,” he snarls, stabbing a finger at my sister, “or Frost would still be growing in her belly, andshewouldn’t be so—so—” He seems to struggle with the words, his knuckles white against the grimoire. “She wouldn’t be sodifferentnow.” As if unable to resist, he pulls Filippa to his side, lifting his hands to cradle her face. The grimoire presses directly against her stitches. “Look at me, darling,” he says softly, feverishly. “Please look at me. Justlookat me, Pip, and everything will be just like it was before. We’ll be together. We’ll behappy.”

Filippa gazes back at him, strange and unblinking. “I am looking at you.” A pause. “Darling.”

Frederic’s expression crumbles. Whatever he hoped to see in her mismatched eyes is clearly no longer there, and after several more seconds, he releases her with a pained sound, his fingers lingering above her cheeks as if he still longs to touch her.

I might’ve once felt sick at his loss.

“She won’t look at me, Célie.” Though he speaks to me, he still stares at her like a starving man. “The Filippa we knew loved us. She would do anything for us, but this one—she won’t—she says that she feels cold, empty, hungry, and I can’t do anything to help. I can’thelpher because you’re still alive. Don’t you understand?” He drags a hand through his ragged hair before plunging it into his coat, withdrawing a crooked knife, and whirling to face me. Emotion chokes his voice. “None of this is right. None of this is whatshould’vehappened—”

“You expected differently?” I cannot keep the note of derisionfrom my own voice. I should run. I should flea into the mist before he attempts to use that knife, but his movements are clumsier now. Slower. If I wanted, I could crush him with my bare hands, and part of me longs to do just that.

This man has taken everything from us—our innocence, our dignity, our peace. Like a thief in the night, he stole my very life, slitting my throat and draining every last drop of my blood, forcing it into my sister to steal her death too. I cannot feel sympathy for him; I cannot feel anything but disgust. “After Morgane tortured and killed her, afteryoupunched a fist through the veil—dragging her back here, violating her body and soul—you thought she would remain unchanged?”

“I didn’tviolate—”

But I scoff, unwilling to hear any more. “The spell worked exactly as intended, Frederic. You woke her up. You woke all of them up, and now they’re crawling out of graves across the kingdom, exacting vengeance on those who’ve wronged them. Perhaps next they’ll come afteryou,” I add with relish.

“They alreadyhave, little sister!” He thrusts the knife and grimoire into the air for emphasis. “You still don’t seem to understand. Those revenant witches—they would’veeatenme if not for—for—”

His eyes flick to Filippa, who stands calm and regal in her glittering gown, not a strand of hair out of place. My frown deepens as realization trickles in from my subconscious. Despite her macabre stitches and eerie eyes, she doesn’t hold herself like the other revenants; she doesn’t act like them either. The Archbishop tried to take a bite out of my cheek, after all, while the three at the docks did their best to devour everyone in sight. None of them spoke.None of them slipped inside my mind and... reasoned.

Frederic’s heartbeat quickens at the small smile on Filippa’s lips.

“You’ve eaten,” she says to me. “It suits you.”

I regard her warily. “How are you talking to me, Pip? How have youbeentalking to me?”

“I’ve eaten too.”

Frederic swallows hard at that, his hands twitching around the knife and grimoire. “She’s been insatiable, Célie.Insatiable.It’s all I’ve been able to do to keep her from—”

“To keep her fromwhat, Frederic?” My voice grows louder as realization surges from a trickle to a flood.Please no.“What have you done?”

He lifts his chin defensively. “What I must.”

And now I really do feel sick; it takes little effort to imagine my sister’s mismatched face instead of the Archbishop’s rotting one, her teeth on that man’s thigh instead of the privateers’. It could’ve been her instead of them at the harbor. Ithasbeen her. With Frederic’s help, she’s been...eatingpeople, truly eating them. Consuming their flesh.

Like you’ve consumed their blood?

Bile rises in my throat—at the comparison, yes, but also because I cannot tell whether it was her voice or mine inside my head. Pressure builds behind my eyes. “What have you done?” I whisper again. Because none of this is right—not her, not magic, not the witches, and not the revenants either.Not me.

Another sunken smile. “I made a friend.”

Frederic’s gaze darts between us in confusion. He still holds the knife and grimoire half-raised as if unsure how to proceed now that Filippa has joined the conversation. “Afriend?”

She ignores him.

Gritting my teeth, I step forward, just as heedless of Frederic and his knife. Heedless of anything except the flat black of my sister’s stolen eye. I want to shake her, to slap her, to rattle any kind of emotion from the horrid emptiness of her expression. My sister has always been secretive and withdrawn, but she has never—never—been unfeeling. She has never been cruel. “Who is it, Filippa?Tell me.”

“Pray you never find out.”

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