Page 86 of The Shadow Bride

My chin still begins to tremble as I look at Michal.

His eye, at least, has already healed. Though the blood remains, painting half his face bright scarlet, he suffered no lasting injury because of me. A tendril of relief unfurls at that.

And withers just as quickly, choked by the smell of smoke.

“Your hands,” Michal murmurs, and slowly, I look down at my burnt and blistered palms as if they belong to someone else, my gaze lingering on his wrist when he offers it to me. Blood stains his skin there too, stains his fingers and his sleeves and every single part of him. Every single part of me. “Take it, Célie. Drink.”

A terrible ringing starts in my ears.

Those hands—myhands—tremble as they accept his wrist, as they peel back the sleeve of his surcoat to reveal the veins beneath. I feel my head bow from outside my body. I watch my lips part, my teeth lengthen. And when I bite, piercing his skin, familiar panic claws up my throat. A maniacal laugh threatens to rise with it, but I swallow it down—I swallow itallbecause I must, because I died, because vampires feast on blood and gorge on violence, and becauseIam a vampire now. If I do not rip the heads from my enemies’ shoulders, they will eat me, or stake me, or threaten me with a corpse dressed in my likeness.

With each pull of my mouth, my chest tightens. My head shakes.

And every reason why I left Requiem rushes back to the surface.

This revenant represents too much of what I cannot change, of my sister, of a situation spiraling further and further out of my control. And somehow I know—deep in my bones—the worst is yet to come.We must all go to the clock room eventually.

“I’m sorry,” Michal says, his voice pained as he lifts my hair, as he holds it away from his blood and my tears. “I’m so sorry it happened this way.”

Though he exerts gentle pressure on my nape, pulling my face from his wrist, I cannot meet his gaze. I justcan’t. Clenching my eyes shut, I turn away, but the darkness behind my eyelids rises swiftly to meet me. It smells of revenants androt, like my oldest and most terrible of friends, but it—it shouldn’t have been able to find me again as a vampire. Because I—I can see in the dark now. I do not need to breathe, so why does it feel like I’m suffocating,like pale fingers are caressing my throat in a loving embrace?Are you frightened, sweeting?

Cold fear grips my heart at that voice, and I recoil instantly, lunging to my feet.

No nono—

“Célie.” Firm hands grip my own, and Michal’s face swims into focus, his black eyes blazing with purpose. “Listen to me. Focus on my voice. Taking a life is never easy, and it shouldn’t be. You did what was necessary to protect yourself, to protect me, and that creature—he was suffering. He wassuffering, and you ended his misery as quickly and humanely as possible.”

My body continues to tremble, however; I feel faint, disoriented, as I say, “I ripped off his head.”

“You laid him to rest,” Michal says firmly. “Do you think he would’ve preferred to spend eternity as he was? Anguished? Mindless? Your blood might’ve resurrected his body, but it left his soul behind. He no longer belonged to himself.” He pushes the hair from my face before cradling my cheeks. “You set him free.”

His words pierce my heart because they’re true.

They make me feel even worse.

As if sensing the same, Michal moves behind me, his chest brushing my back and his hands lightly clasping my arms. “Pick something,” he says, “and describe it to me.”

“Wh-What?”

“I’ll start.” The air moves overhead as he gestures to the snow swirling around us, and too late, I realize I’ve accidentally fallen through the veil into the spirit realm. Another full-body shudder overwhelms me at the thought; I haven’t lost control like this in weeks, but Michal—he followed me through. He came after me.“The snowflakes look like falling stars,” he says.

“Falling stars?”

He lifts his hand to catch one on the pad of his finger, lowering it to my eyeline. “Look closely—you can see the shape of them better now than you could as a human.”

Because of his temperature—or perhaps because of the spirit realm itself—the snowflake doesn’t melt, instead sparkling upon his alabaster skin, its shape delicate. Its lines flowing and flowering.

I catch another on my palm, and I stare down at its sharp, glittering edges before tossing it away. They looked like little spears. Like carving knives. “I—I don’t think stars look like this, Michal.”

“What do they look like, then?”

“I don’t know,” I admit after another moment, forcing myself to inhale the frigid air through my nose, to exhale through my mouth. I brush my fingertips across the frozen fronds and shiver again. “I’ve never seen a star up close.”

“You should ask Odessa to show you sometime. She built a telescope last year—one of her more recent interests,” he adds in quiet explanation. The moment feels almost ethereal, delicate, as if it might break at a noise too loud or a movement too sudden. “She even invited a couple of astronomers to come examine it.”

“Did they survive?” I ask faintly.

“Yes.” He lifts his hand again, and together, we watch as the snowflake flutters from his finger in a gust of wind. “Pick something else. Tell me what you see.”

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