Page 4 of The Shadow Bride

Though I hesitate, staring warily at her outstretched hand, Lou grins and wriggles her fingers. “Oh, come on. Are you going to make us beg for your company?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer this time; she simply seizes my hand and pulls me down the candlelit hall toward the others. “Stop dragging your feet, would you? It’s justdinner. Nothing to fear among friends.” She glances back when I don’t respond, and Mila’s silver face reflects in her eyes. “Isn’t that right, Mila?”

“Quite,” Mila says with a valiant attempt at reassurance.

She doesn’t hear the faint laughter tinkling from the mirror behind us, however. I resist the urge to turn, to glimpse my sister spying on me in the glass.Yes, Célie, she seems to croon. Nothing to fear.

It’s just dinner.

Chapter Two

The Seventh Chair

They set the table for seven, just as they’ve done every night.

I plaster a brittle smile on my face as we enter the open space that serves as kitchen and living room, and I ignore that seventh bowl. Just asIdo every night. Because it doesn’t matter—itdoesn’t—and Jean Luc’s continued absence cannot make me feel worse than I already do.

I cling to that conviction like a raft at sea as Mila drifts to Odessa.

“Célie!” Like clockwork, Beau moves first, bounding across the settee to fold me in a tight embrace. Coco follows at his heels. Soon both have wrapped their arms around me, and my throat constricts again as I stand rigid between them, locking my jaw and leaning away despite wanting to crush them against my chest and never let go. More laughter echoes through my head at the thought.Because I love them, I tell my sister fiercely.

Hmm. I’m sure that’s the reason.

Heart plummeting, I turn my cheek away from the line of Coco’s throat.

If either of them notices, they don’t say, but their eyes do dilate slightly as they pull away to grin at me. I affix my own in place, feeling slightly sick. I don’t need a reflection to realize my appearance has also changed. Though my skin has always been fair, itnow gleams ethereal white, and my dark hair falls longer, thicker, heavier as it waves down my back, shining like glass in the candlelight. My friends’ lingering glances and sharp intakes of breath confirm what I already know: my face has become a weapon.

“We needed to step out for a couple of hours,” Coco says, slightly breathless, “but everything is handled now. How are you, Célie? Did you sleep well?”

Her words sound ominous, and though I want to ask herwhathas been handled, I don’t trust myself to speak. Instead I smile brighter and squeeze her hands without a word.

In truth, I haven’t slept in a week.

Filippa sounds almost bored in my head.The eternal victim.

“Well, I certainly didn’t.” Beau sweeps a chair from the table for me to sit, and I force myself to focus on him. Onhim, not my sister. The real and the tangible of this room. Above us, copper pots glint merrily, winking down at the chipped and mismatched bowls of stew. The entire apartment reeks of cheer, and it should be my favorite place in the entire world. Once upon a time, it might’ve been.

Now it feels like a prison.

“If this arrangement continues much longer,” Beau says without missing a beat, “I’m going to insist one of the witches in this household conjures a proper bed for the living room. I’ve had a crick in my neck fordays.” He jerks his chin toward the folded blankets and stacked pillows on the settee, where he and Coco have been sleeping since we returned from Requiem a week ago.

“You’re the one who demanded we stay here—not that I’m complaining,” she adds hastily to me. “I’d rather be here than at the castle, especially with Chasseurs poking around.”

Still smiling, I nod and keep my mouth firmly closed. Though Lou’s enchantment remains, the scent of this much blood in a room is overwhelming. Especially Lou’s and Coco’s. Michal once told me the blood of magical creatures tastes more potent than human blood, and now I believe him. As particularly powerful magical creatures, my two friends smelldelectable.

“You mean the lovely Brigitte?” Beau scoots my chair to the table as Reid takes my empty bowl and fills it with—not stew. Bile rises at the sight of it. Thicker and darker and altogether more repulsive than broth, meat, and vegetables, my dinner stains the white porcelain crimson.

Seventh time is the charm, you think?

Pressure builds in my ears at the sound of that voice, and I clamp my teeth to keep from snapping at it.

“Technically, Brigitte isn’t yet a Chasseur, but I don’t blame her for acting a bit”—Beau searches for the right word, heedless of my internal struggle—“perturbedtonight. There was another disturbance at Saint-Cécile earlier this evening. Grave robbers,” he adds to me in explanation. “An inconvenience, usually—a couple of bodies missing every few months—but they’re getting out of hand. They’ve dug up half the cemetery at this point.”

I frown at that, but no one else reacts much; they seem to have already heard the news. To my surprise, the voice in my head remains silent as well—but ofcourseshe does. I shake myself mentally, nearly cracking my teeth in frustration now. She doesn’texist.

Odessa chooses this moment to scoff and rise from her chair, equally disgusted by the blood in my bowl, before disappearing down the hallway to her room. Mila follows. They never stay for dinner. Instead, Odessa will slip into East End to dine elsewhere,and Mila—unbeknownst to her cousin—will accompany her.

Beau frowns after them. “Such a warm, empathetic creature, that Odessa. Such keen emotional intelligence—she puts even Brigitte to shame.”

“That warm, empathetic creature can still hear you.” Reid drops into the seat next to Lou, leaving the chair between us open for our seventh dinner guest. I ignore that chair. I refuse to look at it. “So I’d be careful if I were you.”

---