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Mila looks at him sadly.

“Loath as I am to admit it”—I step between them before Michal can do something truly stupid, like try to kidnap his sister—“I agree with him. You and the other ghosts see things from the other side that could help us find the killer.” I hesitate then, unsure how to communicate the strange, niggling pressure in my chest. Something still bothers me about Mila’s death, about Babette’s, about this mysterious killer and looming darkness. About my own strange powers. They can’t all be isolated incidents, but I can find no immediate connection. I exhale hard. None of it makessense. Like a sore tooth, I bite down on it all again and again, yet I gain no relief.

Perhaps I’m imagining things. Perhaps there’s no connection at all.

Perhaps I just don’t want to be alone with Michal.

“What if—what if they’re the same person?” I ask Mila tentatively.Please don’t leave.“The killer and the man who follows me? The dark figure?”

Michal looks at me sharply.

Mila, however, shakes her head in resignation. Whatever fireshe had during her confrontation with Michal has vanished, leaving only a small, defeated woman in its wake. “I’ve told you everything I know, Célie. The rest, I fear, is up to you.”

With that, she floats upward—where even Michal cannot follow—drifting farther and farther until she melts into shadow and out of sight.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Michal’s Promise

Half an hour later, Michal pours himself a tumbler of absinthe in his study.

He doesn’t speak—doesn’t look at me—as he unstoppers the crystal decanter, pours the foul liquid, and throws the whole thing back in one swallow. I watch the pale column of his throat work in grudging fascination. I didn’t know vampires could drink liquor, yet here he is, unhinging his jaw like a snake.

The burns on his face shine slick and angry in the firelight.

I can’t bring myself to feel guilty.

His silence soon stretches too long, however, and I shift in my seat, the soft rustle of my skirt joining the steadytick tick tickof the clock on his desk. I cross and uncross my ankles. I knot my fingers in my lap. I feign a cough to clear my throat. Still he ignores me. At last, unable to bear the awkwardness another second, I ask, “Why did you bring me here? And why haven’t your wounds healed?”

He pours himself another glass of absinthe in response. “Silver.”

I wait patiently for him to explain; when he doesn’t, I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Will they just... remain on your face forever, then? You’ll look like you’ve been mauled by a bear for all eternity?” I don’t remind him thatIwas the bear, not when his shoulders look so tense and forbidding.

After Mila left us, he led me from the aviary to his study without a word, refusing to touch me again. “She’ll be back,” he said ominously. “The temptation to meddle is too great.”

Despite his certainty, however, she didn’t reappear. Not then and not now.

“My wounds will remain until I drink something stronger than absinthe.” Michal cuts an arch look over his shoulder. “Are you offering?”

The shadows beneath his eyes seem deeper after his encounter with her, the planes of his face sharper. Harder. He looks... tired. “No,” I say. Because I don’t feel sympathy for him. His sister completely and thoroughly dismissed him—and me, I think mutinously—but he still doesn’t deserve my sympathy. Even if he isn’tthekiller, he is certainlyakiller, and—and I don’t exactly know where that leaves us.

Or why he’s forcing me to sit with him.

“Why did Mila want to heal Dimitri?” I fidget with the ribbon at my wrist, unwilling to look at him any longer. “Why did they need to find Lou?”And at the Church, of all places?

At last, Michal turns to lean against the sideboard, considering me. I watch him swirl his absinthe leisurely from my periphery. My mother always called it the Devil’s drink. It makes sense that he’d like it. “Dimitri suffers from bloodlust,” he says after another long moment.

I don’t wait for the awkward silence this time. “And what isbloodlust?”

“A uniquely vampiric affliction. When Dimitri feeds, he loses consciousness. Many vampires forget themselves in the hunt, but a vampire affected by bloodlust goes beyond that—he remembersnothing, feels nothing, and inevitably kills his prey in gruesome and horrific ways. Left too long, he becomes an animal like Yannick.” I can’t help it—now I do glance up at him. Shadows cut sharp beneath his cheekbones as his gaze drops to his glass once more. He stares hard at the emerald liquid. “Usually, we dispatch those infected quickly and quietly. Vampires with bloodlust are a liability to everyone. They cannot keep our secret.”

“But Dimitri is your cousin.”

A hard, self-deprecating smile twists his features. “Dimitri is my cousin.”

“You love him,” I say shrewdly. “You blame him for Mila’s death, but you still love him, otherwise he’d already be dead.”

Michal’s lip curls at that, and my hands twist the fabric of my skirt as another thought, altogether unwelcome, intrudes in the space between us. Love blinded Michal to his sister—he still cannot fathom why anyone would want to hurt her—but what if it also blinds him to Dimitri? Michal might not have killed his sister and the others, butsomeonedid. Someone drained the blood from their bodies and left those bodies all over Cesarine. How long, exactly, had Dimitri and Mila been in Cesarine before she died? A week? Longer?