Page 12 of The Shadow Bride

All the air in the room seems to vanish. “What isthat—?” Coco starts in horror, but in the next second, the hand strikes, lunging toward us as an earsplitting clap of thunder rends the night in two. Tremors rock the table. A copper pot crashes to the floor. We pitch into darkness once more, and though the hand snatches at my sleeve, Odessa moves with preternatural speed, dragging me just out of reach.

The hand lands instead upon Beau.

With a strangled curse, he flings himself backward, and Coco shrieks; a rush of movement disturbs the darkness. Before I can orient myself—before I can do anything but stagger into someone who smells like Reid—the candlelight flares back to life, higher and brighter than before. Hotter. It illuminates the smeared pentagram on the table. It illuminates Coco bent over it, panting, herpalm covered in blood from where she dragged it through the lines. Breaking them. Disrupting the ritual and banishing the gloved hand.

The scent of roses lingers, however—as does the darkness. It smudges the edge of my vision, mottles Reid’s and Odessa’s faces as they peer down at me in concern. “Célie?” Reid clutches my elbow, steadying me, as his eyes search mine. “What is it? Do you need to sit down?”

“I—” My eyes flutter again, and my knees threaten to collapse. “I feel faint.”

I feel strange.

“It’s your adrenal cortex.” Odessa seizes my other elbow, steering me toward the table.The veil.It still flutters innocently above the scene, and I reach out without truly seeing its edges; I bind them clumsily before staggering into Odessa once more. When the others gape at us, she says, “The adrenal cortex produces hormones associated with stress, and long-term stress increases the appetite.” To me, “You haven’t properly eaten since you died.”

“It isn’t that,” I protest weakly, and in truth, it isn’t. Whatever that was—it felt familiar somehow, like I’ve experienced it before,knownit before, but... how can that be? I shake my head, and the entire room pitches with the movement. Only once have I ever seen darkness like that. Only once have I ever lived through it.

“Jamais vu.” Speaking softly, Lou stands in the narrow space between the cabinet and hearth, her arms crossed and her body folded as if trying to make herself disappear. The wind outside has reached a crescendo now; it screams against the walls, the windowpanes, as if determined to reach us, to claw its way into the ominous quiet of the kitchen. “I felt it too.”

“Never seen.” Odessa’s eyes spark with interest, and she withdraws her small velvet box again. Unclasping the lid, she sticks her entirearminto its depths and rummages for several seconds before pulling out an enormous tome. Beau’s mouth falls open as she flicks through the onionskin pages until she finds the right one. “The phenomenon of experiencing a situation that one recognizes but that also feels unfamiliar.”

Reid crouches in front of me. “Was it Filippa?”

“I don’t think so.” I shake my head, prompting another wave of dizziness. “She would never wear gloves like that, and it didn’t—feellike her.”

“Frederic stitched her together with bits of other people’s skin,” Coco says. “She might wear gloves like that now.”

“What are we going to do?” Lou whispers.

She wipes the blood from her nose with the back of her hand. I still see it, though. It gleams slick and scarlet in the candlelight. Wrenching my gaze away, I turn instinctively to Mila. She hasn’t yet spoken, hasn’t moved at all from her spot beside the table. She simply stares down at the smeared pentagram with a hard jaw and detached expression. A cold one.

It reminds me of Michal.

“Mila.”

It seems to take a very long time for my voice to reach her, but when it does, she lifts her face and says, “We need to find your sister.”

“You think—you think she’s responsible for this?” I swallow hard, every word demanding terrible effort.

“I think something is very wrong here, and if Filippa did in fact rise from the grave, she might know what it is.” Her silvereyes flick to Reid, to Lou and to Coco—the latter two still cannot catch their breath—before returning to me. “Are you sure you want to find her, Célie?”

We stare at each other for a long moment. Though a good sister would say yes—though Iwantto say yes—the answer lodges in my throat unexpectedly. Perhaps because I don’t recognize my sister anymore; I don’t even recognize myself, which makes us veritable strangers. The Filippa I knew would never have thrown aknifeat me. She never would’ve mocked my pain. Except...

And you’ll never know a world without sunlight, will you? Not our darling Célie.

“I—I don’t think we have a choice,” I say, shaking away the bitter memory of our last conversation. “If my sister has risen, we need to know.” Still, the situation has proven itself to be dangerous for everyone, and if Mila involves herself, I don’t know how Filippa will react. I don’t know what Filippa cando. “Perhaps I should go instead.”

“No,” say Lou, Reid, Coco, Beau, and Odessa in unison.

Despite listening to only half the conversation, they seem to have pieced together enough information to understand. “Be reasonable, Célie,” Reid says.

Beau shakes his head incredulously. “Mila is aghost—”

“—and vampires can still die,” Odessa finishes. “You have a great deal to lose, even while pretending to disdain it.”

Under different circumstances, I might’ve argued, but the less I speak now, the better. My vision continues to pulse scarlet. As if sensing my struggle, Mila nods, her expression hardening, her shoulders squaring as she rises to her full height. “I’ll be careful, Célie.”

She leaves before I can thank her—gliding straight through the window toward Saint-Cécile—and a boom of thunder reverberates through the house. Through myhead. I clutch the table to hold myself steady while Reid grasps my elbow. I still feel odd. Disoriented.

Hungry.

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