Page 73 of The Shadow Bride

“Nosy little thing, aren’t you?”

I glower at him before moving deeper into the cottage, poking my head into a small washroom and eyeing the tin bathtub, the nook of threadbare linens. “Try not to touch anything,” Michal says as he passes behind, and it might be the most unnecessary advice ever given. After the doorknob, I’ve never desired to touch anything less than I do in this cottage.

I still crane my neck to look after him, however, as he bends to fit through the bedroom door. “What am I looking for, exactly?”

“Anything out of place—a sound, a sight, a scent. The last will be difficult, but not impossible. Wherever the witch is hiding, it’ll reek of magic.”

“The entirecottagereeks of magic.”

I glance around warily, waiting for the floorboards to open up and swallow me whole. Part of me wishes they would—anything to cut this wretched tension between Michal and me, to dispel the lingering presence of my sister. He hasn’t mentioned her since our conversation, and now—in this eerie stillness—it feels like he’s waiting for me to mention her instead.

I open my mouth to speak, unsure what to say, just as he turns to do the same.

“I think we should—”

“We don’t need to—” I say at the same time.

Michal’s eyes narrow at whatever he sees in my expression. “What were you going to say?”

“What wereyougoing to say?”

We stare at each other for a long moment, neither wanting to speak again, until the floorboards indeed begin to rumble beneath our feet. The vibration shatters the tension—as does the startled cry that escapes me as I leap forward, colliding with Michal’s broad chest. His arms wrap around me reflexively, and he exhales a soft laugh. I shake my head. “This house is going to kill us.”

“Come now, pet.” He pushes the hair from my face with a burgeoning smirk—a temporary truce, I realize, until after we speak to Mathilde. Relief floods my system. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little magic.”

My shoulders relax at the feel of him against me, and my jaw unclenches. Because if Mathilde knows what to do about revenants, she might know what to do about Filippa too. “Shall we make a game of it?” Michal asks.A distraction.

I lift my chin, forcing myself to step away from him. “What do you have in mind?”

He leans against the doorframe, entirely too large for the space. “First to find the witch owes the other a favor.”

Oh God.“What kind of favor?”

“Any kind of favor.”

Flutters erupt in my belly. If imposing ourselves on a witch feels foolish, agreeing to give Michal a favor without any other qualifiers feels downright demented.Only if you lose, that defiant voice in my head argues, and with a little thrill of anticipation, I stand straighter in response. “Fine. Agreed. I hope you’re ready to scrub the bloodstains from all my dresses.”

“Starting with this one?” He gestures to the scarlet droplets on my skirt—hisblood, I realize, my cheeks flaming. Always his blood. “I could take it now if you’d like.”

My face burns hotter at the rush of images his words evoke—Michal kneeling before me, his hands sliding up my legs, my hips, as he peels the silky fabric from my body.

His grin turns positively wicked because he knows.

Because his distraction is already working.

Because when he looks at me like that, I can hardly remember my own name.

Clenching my thighs, I duck into a parlor down the hall before I can humiliate myself, and I take several deep breaths just inside the door.Focus, Célie.

Another fireplace dominates the center of the room; it allows for shelves upon shelves of books to line the walls on all sides. Mathilde appears to have hung them at random, filling every nook and cranny with little forethought or design. Indeed, the shelves look a bit like broken teeth. They jut this way and that, uneven, varied in shape and size, and when she ran out of wall space, Mathilde seems to have started stacking her books in teetering piles on the floor—beneath the desk, beside the settee, atop the tattered carpet.

The only semblance of order comes from a narrow bookcase in the corner. Unlike the other shelves, which float, this bookcase stretches from floor to ceiling, and the tomes within it appear in pristine condition. The embossed letters on their spines sparkle in the firelight. Their leather covers gleam. Indeed, I can still smell the mink oil with which she conditioned them. These books—whatever they are—must be her most treasured in the collection.

They also look jarringly out of place in the chaos of the room.

Curious, I approach the bookshelf to inspect the titles there.One Night with the Bear King. The Wizard of Waterdeep’s Staff. The Demon: Endowed and Enflamed.Choking on laughter, I recoil, the tension further loosening in my chest. It seems Mathilde’s most treasured books are erotica, and that—that is perfectly acceptable. Healthy, even. It is not, however, any of my business.

Moving to search the rest of the room, I stop short at a title on the center of the shelf.

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