Page 15 of The Shadow Bride

The others’ voices quickly join hers in a chorus of bittersweet lies.

“Yes,” Coco says. “Everything will be fine. This changes nothing—”

“Just breathe, Célie,” Reid says. “Justbreathe.”

But I can’t breathe—I don’tneedto breathe—and I—I—I claw at my chest, at my too-still heart, and will it to beat again.Yours will be a fate worse than death.

Michal’s words echo back to me as if from very far away, in another time. In another life.

“I’m sorry, Célie,” he says now, and he means it.

I know he means it.

My chest still heaves with anger as I lift my head to look at him, tears spilling down my cheeks. And in this moment, I might hate him—this beautiful, terrible angel who plummeted to Hell and dragged me down with him. How could I have known what awaited us when I promised to stay with him? He didn’t tell me—I didn’t ask—and now both of us must pay the price. My sister’s old adage rises through the roar in my ears as he finally,finally, deigns to look at me, his black eyes glinting with unspoken emotion.

You can’t get something for nothing, you know.

A bitter laugh rises in my throat, following the trail of Hellfire. “You might think I have a death wish, Michal, but we both know you’ve already granted it. Iamdead. I’ve been dead since the moment I met you.”

His expression shutters at the words.

It becomes perfectly,infuriatinglyunreadable.

“Célie,” Odessa murmurs.

I didn’t notice her move behind me, and my body reacts instinctively; with a hiss, I tense and half turn to defend myself, stopping short at the sight of her concern.Concern.My lip curls. As if shecaresabout what happens to me, as if she doesn’tlongto return to Requiem and her monstrous kin. I want to snap at her too. I wantto strike, tobite—to goad someone into fighting back—yet I whirl to Michal instead, snarling, “Why are youhere?”

He stares at me for a long, impenetrable moment. Then—

“The dead have risen on Requiem.” Despite Odessa’s gasp, he speaks the words calmly, almost coolly, and releases his hold on the doorframe. “Scores of them. Your blood spilled in the grotto during our confrontation with Frederic, animating both the isle and the waters surrounding it.”

Absolute silence meets his pronouncement.

Animating.I frown at the word, but before I can ask, Beau clears his throat from where he hovers near the kitchen table. “Dead as in—er, different than howyouare dead, right?”

Reid glares at him.

Coco, however, recoils suddenly and whispers, “Revenants.”

Michal’s gaze snaps to hers. “What?”

“Revenants,” she says, louder now and wide-eyed. “There have always been whispers among les Dames Rouges, but no one except La Voisin ever—and even she—” Forcing herself to pause, to collect herself, Coco swallows hard and looks directly at me. “I saw the spell once in my aunt’s grimoire. When I asked her about it, she shooed me from her tent and forbade me from speaking of it. I think it was the only spell she ever feared.”

The first tingles of dread lift the hair at my nape. “What exactlyisa revenant?”

“A person who has returned. A reanimated corpse. One who has died and risen again with the express purpose of terrorizing the living, particularly those the corpse in question once knew.”

A cold fist of terror squeezes my heart as the two of us stare at each other in dawning realization.Filippa.

“Oh,” Beau says in a small voice. “Is that all?”

“No.” Michal clasps his hands behind his back, surveying all of us with hideous apathy. “I assume even you grasp a basic understanding of your kingdom’s geography. Requiem shares the Eastern Sea with Belterra, which means—”

Understanding spills over me like ice water, and I gasp at the sheer shock of it. “My blood could’ve traveled here too.”

Michal nods curtly. “Yes.”

“The grave robbers,” Lou says abruptly, turning to Reid with wide eyes. “You don’t think it was really—?”

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