Page 10 of The Shadow Bride

Séance

Though I remain in the kitchen—my feet planted firmly in the land of the living—that same inexplicable sense of dread threatens to suffocate me as I call my sister’s name into the spirit realm. “Filippa?” Familiar ash drifts through the hole I’ve torn in the veil. It lands like snow upon the pentagram. “Are you here?”

Our only answer is a particularly violent crack of thunder, and Coco and I nearly leap out of our skin. Across the pentagram, Lou startles too, cursing when her knee collides with the table and knocks over a candle. Though Reid jumps to his feet to avoid hot wax in his lap, he doesn’t break his connection with Lou and Beau, who jerks his head around with wide eyes. “Did you hear that?”

Lou scoffs, her eyes watering in pain. “Yes, Beau,everyoneheard that—”

“Not the thunder,” he says quickly. “There was— Someonelaughed.”

“I heard it too,” Mila says.

My hands tighten around Coco’s and Odessa’s as I follow Beau’s frantic gaze around the kitchen. “I didn’t hear any laughter.”

“Nor did I.” Unlike the rest of us, Odessa speaks with a studied air of detachment, but her eyes shine just as bright as ours. Her grip holds just as tight. Telltale signs that—despite her bluster—she hasn’t ever participated in a séance either. The realizationbrings little comfort. “Are you sure you heard something?”

“Of course I am! At least”—Beau glances back at the pentagram, which still gleams innocuously in the candlelight—“I think I am. I—Imightbe.”

Frowning, Reid tries to clean his chair with his elbow, but the wax has already hardened into brittle flecks upon the wood. Like ice. “It feels cold.” He glances up at me warily, his breath visible in the sudden chill of the room. “Is that normal?”

“It is for the spirit realm.”

Odessa’s gaze does not waver from the pentagram. “What else is the spirit realm like?”

Mila draws closer to my chair.

“Strange.” I look fixedly at the pentagram too, waiting for any sign of Filippa—her thick black hair, once gleaming like mine, or perhaps her emerald eyes, the row of dark stitches down her cheek. “Everything in the spirit realm is the same as it is here, except... different.”

With a scoff, Beau cranes his neck to see every nook and cranny of the kitchen, still searching for the source of mysterious laughter. “That clears things up nicely, thanks.”

“Frederic upset the balance with his experiments. He broke the laws of nature. I don’t know precisely how it works—I’m not a witch—but the realms began twisting before his ritual on All Hallows’ Eve. I can only assume the distortion has worsened since he resurrected Filippa.” I glance at Lou, who listens raptly despite swaying slightly on her feet. Reid tightens his grip on her hand, his frown reflecting my own.

Something is wrong, Célie, she told me in Brindelle Park, where the trees had blackened and died.My magic feels sick.

“Youassume?” Beau asks in disbelief.

I glare at him. “If you must know, I haven’t actually been to the spirit realm since All Hallows’ Eve. I have no idea what it might look like now, and to be frank, I don’t want to know.” Then, to Lou, “What doyouthink? Have you... felt any different since Frederic’s ritual?”

“Something is happening.” Before she can answer, Coco points to where crystals of ice have started to form around the pentagram. “Should we try again, Célie?Withoutinterruptions?” She speaks the last directly to Beau, who does one last sweep of the kitchen before slumping in his seat. Defeated. He does not, however, release Reid’s or Odessa’s hands.

“Go on, then,” he grumbles.

I raise my voice over the tempest outside. “If you can hear me, Filippa... I received your message, and though I appreciated that knife in my back, I still have some—well, questions.”

As before, she doesn’t answer, and Lou’s eyes meet mine in the silence that follows. Perhaps she can sense my throat closing up. Perhaps she can see the tension building in my shoulders, my knuckles whitening around Coco’s and Odessa’s fingers. When the former winces slightly, I force myself to loosen my grip with a slow exhale, and Lou gives a quick, reassuring smile. I try to return it. Truly, I do—Itry—yet a small part of me longs to close my eyes, to wash away the pentagram and forget all of this.

“Pip?” I say again.

The crystals creep farther across the table.

When my sister still doesn’t answer, my frustration breaks into twin waves of disappointment and relief. Both crash over me as another great boom of thunder shakes the kitchen and thecandlelight flickers. Perhaps Beau was right. Perhaps this entire plan has been doomed from the start. Doomed andfoolish. Filippa threw a knife at me, so why did I think she would reappear now? Because I demanded it? I resist the urge to sneer at myself, to sneer at our homemade pentagram and honey-scented candles. I’ve never been able to compel my sister to do anything, with or without magic. Indeed, our relationship has always been the opposite, hasn’t it?

Aren’t you a little old for pretend?

The memories of our childhood chafe now, interposed between a broken music box and a silver knife. An open window. A pang of longing at what could’ve been—what should’ve been—if only we’d been brave enough to try.

Another fork of lightning strikes, and in the brilliant white light, something gaunt flashes beneath Reid’s skin. Something white, somethingskeletal. My thoughts skip at the sight of it—stomach pitching like I’ve missed a step—but when I blink, incredulous, his face has returned to normal. Not a skull in sight.

Enough, Célie, I chastise myself.Focus.

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