Page 72 of The Shadow Bride

Mathilde has filled the pot with bones—animal mandibles and human femurs, ribs, vertebrae, and what appear to be the phalanges of an entire left hand. Flowering vines tangle between the latter’s fingers before spilling down the sides of the cauldron. Vividly blue and eerily beautiful, the blooms seem to quiver as I bend to examine them with macabre fascination; I recognize the rows ofneedlelike teeth around their centers the instant before they lunge at me, snapping violently.

I back away hastily.Bluebeard blossoms.The same beastly little flowers grow outside Monsieur Marc’s shop; Michal once told me they eat butterflies.

I suppose I should be grateful Mathilde isn’t a cannibal. “And Mathilde knows about revenants?”Will she know about Filippa?

Michal watches me carefully now, as if sensing the desperate thought. My sister seems to live and breathe between us. “Mathilde knows about many things.”

Carefully avoiding his gaze, I skirt around the cauldron. Though I’ve always been skittish beneath Michal’s undivided attention, I feel as if my skin has grown two sizes too small after our unfinished conversation in the forest. It’ll only end badly for both of you.“Sheisexpecting us, right?”

He nods before joining me at the door, his cool presence spreading gooseflesh down my arms. “A mistake on my part, I think.” Despite the rather unusual silence inside the cottage, he speaks in a low voice. I listen closer, wondering if she could be hiding from us—then realize the sounds of her breathing, even her heartbeat, are conspicuously absent. “I sent a letter requesting a meeting after we docked on Requiem. She never wrote back.”

“Perhaps she never received it?”

“Oh, I think she did.”

Michal moves to push open the door, but my hand snakes out to seize his wrist. “Don’t you think we should at least knock first? Thisisher home, after all, even if she... well, isn’t home?” My voice trails into a hopeful question at the end. Perhaps it was the Bluebeard blossoms and their picked-clean bones—or perhaps it’sthe silver doorknob—but suddenly, the thought of imposing on a witch who clearly doesn’t want us here feels foolish.

“By all means”—Michal’s gaze flicks to my hand on his wrist—“go ahead.”

Blowing out a tremulous breath, I release him and knock three times. When no one answers, I knock three more. Nothing inside the cottage moves. When at last I turn—determined to persuade Michal to try again later—he quells my argument with a curt shake of his head. “You heard Mila’s warning. We don’t have time to play polite, Célie, and even if we did, Mathilde won’t return the favor. We aren’t leaving until we speak with her.”

“How do you know she’s evenhere?”

“She’s here,” he says simply.

Fine.Fine.Truthfully, no one on this wretched isle cares much for civility anyway. Mathilde feedsfleshto her flowers, for goodness’ sake. Odessa ripped out Michal’s heart, and Dimitri collected souvenirs from all the creatures he slaughtered in bloodlust. Perhaps the time has come for me to throw all good sense out the window too.

Feeling strangely defiant, I lift a piece of my skirt to grasp the doorknob, but Michal stops me again with light fingers upon my arm. “I think I should do that.” Before I can do more than scowl back at him, he tugs the fabric from my hand and wraps it around his own instead.

To my surprise, the knob turns easily. Except—

“Fuck,” Michal mutters.

He clenches his hand in my skirt, and instantly, I realize why: the doorknob hasbittenhim, and blood wells from two tiny puncture wounds in his palm. Two tiny fang marks. “She definitelyknows we’re here,” he says with a bitter laugh.

I scowl down at the doorknob as its silver teeth melt back into smooth metal. “I thought Mathilde didn’t care for vampires? Why all thebitingparaphernalia?”

“Mathilde thinks she is enormously funny.”

“Is she?”

“You tell me.”

With a grudging smile, I lift my hem and tear away a piece of my silky underskirt. Though Michal’s eyes track the line of my leg as I let the fabric drop, I try to ignore him. I try to ignore the heady scent of his blood too. “That still doesn’t explain why she settled on an island of vampires.”

“That was Mila’s doing,” he says quietly, watching me wrap the silk scrap around his hand. “She convinced Mathilde to retire here after passing down the title of La Dame des Sorcières to her daughter. They met when Mathilde was a much younger woman, and the two of them became thick as thieves.”

My fingers go still around Michal’s hand, and unbidden, my thoughts drift back to Filippa. My heart twists.

“How does Mathilde know about revenants? It didn’t seem like—well, you and Odessa didn’t seem to know what they even were before Coco named them, and she only knew because of her aunt’s grimoire. Unless Mathilde knew La Voisin?”

“I’ll let her tell you that. Now”—he pushes open the door after I finish wrapping his hand—“by all means, please come inside.”

The two of us walk into the cottage on silent feet, entering a homely kitchen with an enormous stone hearth. Bundles of dried herbs hang from the rafters, and a copper kettle heats on the grate; the rest of the Bluebeard blossoms’ repast appears to line themantel in a strange assortment of skulls. “I take it you’ve... met Mathilde, then?”

Michal’s eyes sweep the room for any sign of activity. “Yes. Twice. The first when she arrived on Requiem, and the second shortly after you did.”

“What? Why?”

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