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Do you have a death wish, mademoiselle? Or is it the dead themselves who call to you?

I rise hastily to my feet.

This is not the direction I wanted this conversation to take.

“Do you not wonder why you can cross between realms and no one else can?” Mila throws her hands in the air before I can answer. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Well, itdoes—you shouldreally read more—but the details aren’t relevant to this particular conversation. Whatisrelevant is that you find a way off this island before he comes for you.”

“Beforewhocomes for me?” Losing my temper completely, I throw up my own hands because I am tired and damp and hungry again. Because every time I turn a corner in this god-awful place, I find more questions than answers. Because I wanted to learn about silver, and now I shall dream aboutsnakesfor the rest of my fleeting life. “And I want a real explanation this time,” I add angrily, “or you and the rest of these filthy eavesdroppers”—I raise my voice, addressing the bookshelves—“can float right back through those walls and out of my life. I’m serious. I don’t yet know how to purify a space, but I’ll find sage if I must. I’ll—I’ll sew up theserips, so none of you can ever bother me again!”

Mila regards me shrewdly for several seconds. “The rips generally heal on their own.”

“I’m warning you, Mila—”

“Yes, all right,fine,” she says at last. “If Imustsay it... we don’t truly know what approaches. Spirits aren’t omniscient, but we—wedooften see things, sense them, in ways you cannot.” She floats from the bed, drawing closer, and her next words lift the hair at my neck. “Darkness is coming for us, Célie. It is coming for us all, and at its heart is a figure—a man,” she clarifies.

“Who is he?” I ask a bit breathlessly. “Death?”

“Of course not. I told you—Death rarely interferes.” She sighs again, frustration filling her voice, as she brushes the ash from her shoulders. “The man of whom I speak... we cannot see him clearly through the veil. Grief seems to shroud his face.”

I exhale a shaky laugh, a relieved one. “Then how do you know he’s looking for me? This is probably a complete misundersta—”

“He needs your blood, Célie.”

The words fall brutally simple between us, like the blade of a guillotine. They sever every thought in my head, every question, leaving me to stare at her in stunned silence. Perhaps I misheard her. Because this man, this—thisdark figurewho even ghosts fear—cannot possibly want my blood. Perhaps she’d meant to say Lou’s blood, or Reid’s blood, or even the all-powerful Michal’s blood. Perhaps then I’d believe her. Butmine? A snort of laughter escapes me in the silence. “There has been a terrible mistake.”

Mila’s eyebrows pull together.

Before she can argue, however, a knock sounds at the door, and Michal’s dry voice echoes through the quiet room. “Are you alive?”

All desire to laugh shrivels into an angry knot in my chest.

As always, Michal has impeccable timing.

Instantly, the ghosts in the shelves scatter out of sight, but Mila remains, her eyes darting toward the door. Something akin to fear flashes through them, there and gone too quickly to identify. She swallows hard as if deliberating. After several more seconds, her shoulders slump, and—decision made—she bolts toward the ceiling.

It isn’t fair, however—noneof this is fair—and why should she get to flee when I cannot? Gesturing furiously toward the door, I mouth,He wants to speak with a ghost.

A small, mournful smile touches her lips. “I know.”

And I can do nothing but watch as she rises higher and higher, beyond my reach in more ways than one. Once again, I am leftwith more questions than answers, and the gore of that guillotine has left a mess behind.He needs your blood, Célie.

Ridiculous.

“Célie?” Michal asks again.

“I promise to return. To explain.” Mila hesitates beneath the gilded ceiling, right next to the chandelier, just as my doorknob begins to turn. Her last words reach me in a forlorn whisper before she slips out of sight. “But I cannot give him what he wants.”

Chapter Twenty-One

A Gift

She vanishes just as Michal appears behind me, and I cannot keep the sharp bitterness from my voice as I whirl to confront him, crashing back into the realm of the living. Heat washes through me in a violent wave, and my eyes burn at the sudden burst of bright and saturated color. “I didn’t give you permission to enter.”

He arches an imperious brow. “I didn’t ask for it.”

“That isentirelythe problem—” I startle as he moves in front of me with inhuman speed, his black eyes tracking upward to the chandelier. The movement bares the broad, pale expanse of his throat above his cravat. Black, as usual, though he has changed into clean, dry clothes since I last saw him. I glance down at my sullied gown in resentment.

“Did I interrupt something?” he asks casually.