Page 126 of The Shadow Bride

“Because I’m not an idiot. He isDeath.”

“And thank goodness you fled instead of fulfilling your marital duties.” Though I carefully avoid Dimitri’s gaze, his wrists and ankles still seep gently, filling the grotto with the delicate scent of his blood, and the angry red burn of my sister’s cross remains on his cheek. “You’re right about your books too, and also your cottage—the earth swallowed them, but they did put up quite a fight against Death.”

“Swallowedthem?” Brigitte frowns, bewildered despite herself, and glances from me to Mathilde. “Marital duties?Her?”

Though Mathilde skewers her with a glare, Dimitri interrupts before the witch can do something rash, like curse Brigitte into oblivion, or perhaps just bite off her nose. “Trust me,” he says with a valiant attempt at a smirk, “it isn’t what you think.”

Mathilde’s fingers twitch. “Watch yourself, boy. I am old, not dead.”

“A pity,” Lou mutters from the bed.

Impatience snaps through my bond with Michal as he descends the last of the stairs, parting the crowd and pulling me along with him. “Enough. The Chasseur has a point—we cannot proceeduntil everyone understands.” Quickly, he explains all that happened at Mathilde’s cottage, all that happened before it, until Brigitte’s and Jean Luc’s jaws have slackened—Lou’s and Reid’s too—and my mother closes her eyes and bows her head.

“Filippa?” Jean Luc takes a half step forward when Michal mentions her name, his own eyes widening before flicking to mine. Though he tries to mask his concern, I can still hear the spike of his pulse, his small intake of breath. I nod. “She—she’s alive?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Odessa says.

Jean Luc hesitates, his gaze softening slightly as he glances at my mother. “Can we help her?”

When she doesn’t answer, I swallow hard. “We tried.”

Michal squeezes my hand again, and though Jean Luc tracks the movement, he doesn’t react otherwise. “Filippa is a symptom of the greater disease,” Odessa says impatiently before rounding on Michal. “Why did Death leave us alive at Mathilde’s cottage? His revenants outnumbered us—they’d even incapacitated Dimitri and me—andyouwere in no fit shape to defend anyone. Filippa held their mother as leverage against Célie, so why did he not kill us all? Why did he not end our little resistance then and there?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mathilde—who sat herself on the bottom step, disgruntled, during Michal’s explanation—taps her temple shrewdly. “He still hasn’t found the missing piece—that special something that makes Filippa unique—and you lot are the only ones who might. If he kills you outright, the secret dies with you, and Death is a coward. He won’t risk following you into his own realm. Not until the veil comes down.” She harrumphs in disdain before speaking directly to me. “But mark my words, girlie—he’llsoon tire of chasing Brides and creating revenants, and he’ll punish you for thwarting him.”

At that, every eye in the grotto swivels curiously in my direction. Skin prickling beneath their attention, I frown at Mathilde. “Thwarting him? I haven’t thwarted him at all. I have noideawhy my sister isn’t like other revenants—”

“No?” Mathilde purses her lips, unconvinced. “No idea at all, hmm? Not a single thought in that witless head of yours?”

“Clearlyyouhave one,” Michal says in a terse voice. “I would encourage you to share it.”

“At the risk of sounding obtuse,” Brigitte interjects, “why does it matter if Filippa is different? I thought you said Death wants to bring down the veil, not create another”—those crystalline eyes flick to me—“shadow bride.”

Though my own eyes narrow at the thinly concealed insult, I force myself to take a deep, steadying breath. “It matters because Filippa almost single-handedly brought down the veil when she came back on All Hallows’ Eve. If Death manages to re-create those circumstances, the veil could collapse entirely. Life and death as we know them will cease to exist, and if our current situation is any indication”—I gesture to the maelstrom, to the castle overhead, to the market and forest andworldbeyond where walls seep blood and ferns weep tears, where everything fades into shades of gray—“that won’t be a good thing for anyone.”

“Including the Chasseurs,” Lou says without lifting her head. She seems to sense rather than see Jean Luc’s and Brigitte’s reticence, or perhaps she just guessed. Burning revenants in Cesarine is one thing; it is tangible,actionable. Confronting literal Death while he rends the world apart is another.

Indeed, Jean Luc and Brigitte exchange a quick, furtive look. The former has never been able to disguise his emotions—in this case, wariness—and the latter doesn’t care to hide her disgust.

“Regardless of what happened to Filippa,” Michal says, ignoring them both and speaking directly to Mathilde, “Death will keep coming after you, and he is clearly growing desperate.”

“Which is why you”—she pokes a crooked finger in his chest—“are going to hide me with the help of these fools.” She jerks her chin toward Lou and Reid, then Odessa near the stairs. “Surely between the four of you, I’ll be safe enough from anything.”

“No one is safe while Death walks among the living,” I say. “He’ll find all of us eventually, even you, but if youhelpus, we have greater odds of defeating him. I have a plan—”

She starts shaking her head before I’ve even finished. “Not a chance.”

“Mathilde, you are the oldest witch in living memory—”

Her eyes narrow. “That better be a compliment.”

“—which means you’re powerful,” I continue determinedly. “More than that, you’re clever—probably cleverer than the rest of us combined.” Though Lou and Odessa both snort, I ignore them. “You’ve evaded detection for how many years now? Even your own kin didn’t know you were alive. We could use that sort of cunning to our advantage.”

“Careful, now.” She peers down her nose at me, eyes glinting with that same uncanny awareness she displayed in the cottage. And for the first time since meeting Mathilde, I understand just how cunning she must’ve been to have lived this long as a human woman, not an immortal like Michal and Odessa. There is a difference between them, somehow. A vitality I cannot quite place.Arching a silver brow, she says, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

“If the common good isn’t enough,” Michal says, “I shall rebuild your cottage by hand after we’ve banished Death.”

“And my books?”

---