Page 52 of The Shadow Bride

After a brief hesitation, I nod and push the doors open, but wherever Michal went upon leaving us in the harbor, it clearly wasn’t here. Frowning at that, I cross to the curio cabinet, and the scent of candle smoke and roses nearly bowls me over as I click open the trapdoor in its floor. Lou lifts the back of her hand to her mouth, coughing, as she too smells it.Death.

Yes, the grotto is definitely where he stepped through—probably upon the very islet where Frederic took my life. With a lingering shadow of apprehension at the memory, I peer into the steep stairwell while Lou turns back to Michal’s desk and snatches a candlestick, struggling to light the taper with a flick of her finger. It takes three attempts. “This place is still eerie as shit,” she whispers, shaking her head in exasperation. “Fucking vampires.”

“Are you ready?”

She nods, and as one of said vampires, I exhale slowly and descend the stairs first. Cobwebs coat my fingertips as I trail them along the stone walls, and really—Lou has a point. Why onearthwouldn’t Michal clean these? It can serve no purpose to live in such inhospitable conditions. And perhaps it’s just the silence, the shadows, the damp and ancient air as we slink belowground, but a chill skitters down my spine all the same. In a low voice, I ask, “Why do you think Odessa told us to stay put tonight?”

The sound of rushing water soon joins the soft cadence ofLou’s breathing, the thump of her heart. Though hunger twists my stomach at our close proximity, my mind flashes instantly and intolerably to Michal—to the potent taste of his blood—and I grit my teeth to maintain focus. “I don’t know,” Lou says after hesitating a moment. “She seemed nervous, but if somethingislurking in the castle tonight, it doesn’t seem interested in us.”

This castle is very old, and it has many bad memories.

“Not yet, anyway,” I say.

She exhales a soft laugh. “Not yet.” Then, quieter still, “Your eyes are glowing.”

And so they are. With each step, the strange silver light of my eyes—the light that marks me a Bride of Death in the spirit realm—shines brighter and brighter, illuminating the path to Michal’s bedroom. The temperature creeps down with us. The air thins. Behind me, Lou’s breathing grows labored, each exhale condensing into mist, and the first flakes of snow drift through the gloom to settle upon our hair. “Will I be able to see it?” Lou asks. “The tear in the—?”

The stairwell opens to Michal’s cavernous room in the next second, however, and her voice breaks off at the sight before us. Any answer I might’ve given withers on my own lips—because nature, it seems, has answered the question instead.

Across the grotto, precisely where the islet once rose from the sea, swirls a colossal maelstrom.

“Oh my god,” Lou breathes.

She catches my arm to steady herself—as if ensuring the scene is real—and for several moments, the two of us can do nothing but stand at the bottom of the stairwell and stare out at the price of Frederic’s magic. Distinctly ominous with its hypnotic,slow-moving water, the whirlpool fills the width of the entire grotto. Bands of dark water eddy against the mica-flecked walls, and at its epicenter, the sea swirls down, down,downinto a great chasm, a black abyss. It looks like the pupil of an evil and all-seeing eye.

Awareness prickles my neck.

“This goes deeper than the spirit realm.” As I speak the words, I feel strange—keen—every hair on my body standing up as if crackling with energy. My eyes pulse brighter. If I focus, I can almost hear faint laughter, can almostfeelgentle warmth emanating from the maelstrom’s depths. Indeed, though snowflakes fall everywhere else in the grotto, they melt several feet above the water. And the sensation coursing through me—I recognize it. I’ve felt it once before.

Lou says nothing, simply stares at me with round eyes.

“After Frederic slit my throat, I sort of... hovered over everyone, and this golden light appeared. It called to me.” Though I hear myself speaking, my voice sounds very far away, as if from deep underwater, while I stare into the maelstrom’s eye. “Mila was there too. She told me not every soul chooses to remain in the spirit realm like ghosts do. She said some souls choose to go on.”

Lou looks even paler now—almost bloodless. “Where do they go?” she whispers.

“Through there, I suppose.” I gesture to the maelstrom, watching my arm move as if it belongs to someone else. “To whatever lies beyond it. Frederic tore the veil wide open.”

That sense of strangeness intensifies the longer I stand here—as does a strong impulse to touch the water—and soon my knees bend without my permission. When I extend a handtoward the nearest ripple, however, Lou seizes my wrist in alarm. “I don’t think you should do that.”

A sharp, metallic scent punctuates her words. Like the strike of flint on kindling, my thoughts sharpen instantly, and my gaze snaps to where her nose has started to bleed again. “Lou?” Ignoring the sudden punch of hunger, I push to my feet to steady her. “We need to leave. You shouldn’t be this close to the—”

“This is nothing.” Voice faint, she sways again, wiping the blood from her face and staring at it in bemusement. “Getting a bit embarrassing, though. I can’t keep—bleeding in front of vampires.” Her fingers tighten around my arm when I move to drag her away. “No, Célie. You came to mend the veil. We aren’t leaving until you do.”

“I don’t even know if Icanmend it, and you look—”

“I hope you aren’t about to sayfine.” Dimitri ambles toward us from the stairs, his hands in the pockets of a midnight velvet suit. A lock of his damp hair—freshly washed with citrus soap—falls across his forehead as he frowns down at us. “Because that would be the greatest lie ever told.” He jerks his chin toward the maelstrom. “That thing is making her sick—making the entireislesick, really, if all the blood and dead things are any indication. I stepped on amaggotin the hall upstairs—”

“So”—Lou shudders—“more blood and dead things than usual, then.”

Dimitri grins at her. “You’re a cheeky thing. I like it.”

Though a dozen questions spring to my tongue, I push them all aside, instead looping my arms beneath Lou’s shoulders and dragging her away from the water’s edge. To my relief, she doesn’t fight me, and distance from the maelstrom seems to stem the bloodflow from her nose. Luckier still, the sight and scent of it seems to have little effect on Dimitri—and from experience, I know the sight and scent of La Dame des Sorcières’ blood is among the most seductive in the world. My eyes still narrow with suspicion as I help Lou onto Michal’s bed. “What happened to you, Dimitri? Where did you go after All Hallows’ Eve?”

He sighs heavily before gesturing to the maelstrom—to the dark water dripping down the cavern walls that isn’t really water at all. “Is this really the conversation we should be having right now?”

“It is.”

“Then I suppose we must have it—though truthfully, there isn’t much to tell.” He strolls forward to lean against Michal’s bedpost, tipping his head toward a recess in the cavern wall. I never noticed it as a human, probably because the swathe of black velvet covering the door blends perfectly into shadow. “Michal keeps his linens in there. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. He’s verycleanly, my cousin.”

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