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How will I ever tell her?

I hear rather than see Lou move behind me, blocking us from anyone who might be watching. I hear Odessa too—her voice if not her words—and the procession gathering in the entrance hall several floors below. The strange music lilts higher from the Old City, growing wilder, less inhibited. Is the song to commemorate Odessa’s rise or Michal’s fall? I don’t know—I don’t know—and I wish someone would tell me what todo—

Unbidden, my gaze settles upon Pasha and Ivan, who both stand below Odessa in front of the cage. Wiping fresh tears from my cheeks, I study them with growing unease.

Then I sit bolt upright.

Instantly, Lou crouches beside me, her eyes wide as she searches mine. I seize her hand, terror-stricken and trapped beneath Michal, mouthing,My mother.

My mother is still in the castle.

The last of Lou’s color drains from her face, and she too whipsaround—stumbling slightly—to stare at Pasha and Ivan, who should be standing guard outside our room. Pasha and Ivan, who left my human mother alone and defenseless amidst a vampire horde.Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God—

Squeezing my hand in reassurance, Lou lurches to her feet, and the lights at her fingertips flare as she shudders a breath. As she collects herself. As she slips through the crowd toward the door. Several watch her go, their heads turning slowly, their eyes glowing like animals’ in the dark. They want to follow her. They scent her fear—they taste it on their tongues—and tonight, they want to abandon all ceremony and succumb to their primal instincts. Just as quickly as the urge flares, however, they seem to realize Lou is not frail or feeble; she is not prey. She has managed to trick them, and not a single vampire moves to follow La Dame des Sorcières as she vanishes into the corridor. Hideous relief surges as I listen to her sprint up the corridor, turn left, right, and hurtle down a flight of stairs without meeting a single soul.

Lou will protect my mother. She will hide her, and both of them will survive the night.

Still, a shiver of anticipation ripples through the room as Odessa finally descends from the iron cage, and sentries fall to either side of her to start the procession—and though I know nothing of Requiem and its rituals, I do know vampires. I know the true revelry is about to begin.

Many will die tonight.

I can only pray I won’t be one of them.

I brush a loose strand of Michal’s silver hair from his forehead, and I hold him closer as Odessa leads her courtiers and sentries from the hall. Perhaps she has forgotten me. Perhapsallof themhave forgotten me, yet why would God answer a vampire’s prayer? He won’t even allow us to say His name. Sure enough, Léandre and the flame-haired vampire, Violette, hesitate by the iron cage to glance back at me. “Later,” she croons at his soft hiss. “We shall find her later.”

“You will not.” Seizing her arm, Ivan tows her out the door. “You heard our queen.”

“She still has use for the Bride.” Pasha cuffs Léandre around the head when he snarls. “You will not interfere.”

“Whatuse?” Léandre snaps, but Pasha doesn’t answer, instead thrusting him after the others and removing a key from his breast pocket. He turns pointedly to face me.

“Stay,” he warns. “Her Majesty will return for you at dawn.”

I’ll return for you at dawn, Célie.

Face crumpling, I press my forehead against Michal’s shoulder as his earlier words echo through the empty room. As Ivan closes the door with a definitiveclickand thrusts the key into the tumblers, locking me inside and leaving me alone with the corpse of my kidnapper, my protector.

My friend.

Chapter Nineteen

Blooms of Heather

I do not know how long I sit in that corner with Michal, my eyes swollen and my face wet. Time loses all meaning. Distance too. Though I focus my senses on the east wing frequently, I cannot tell how many moments pass between each stretch. I know my mother remains safe, however.

Lou has bolted the door with magic and cast the entire room in strange silence, but I can still hear my mother demanding to leave—demanding to find me, demanding to summon Jean Luc and raze this entire isle. I close my eyes against the faint, echoing sound of her voice, inhaling deeply and committing Michal to memory: that rich, decadent scent of his blood, the woodsy leather of his surcoat. Both mingle with the lingering bite of Lou’s magic.

Dull pain pulses down my throat, behind my eyes, and I wonder again—for the thousandth time—why she stopped me from intervening. Did Lou really hate him so much? Did she really want him todie, or did she not think Odessa capable of committing such a heinous act?

When the doorknob rattles, I tense, but whoever it is doesn’t stop to investigate the locked door, instead following his companion to the entrance hall. Beyond it, the streets have succumbed to complete debauchery. Though eerie music continues from the Old City, the tone has shifted since Odessa and her retinue madetheir debut; the strings now shriek like saws, and the drums pound a violent and disconcerting rhythm. I struggle not to listen—not to examine the silence between drumbeats or the abrupt, bloodcurdling screams.

At one point, I thought I heard Monsieur Marc’s jubilant shout, but I quickly buried my ears in my hands.

If not for Lou and Dimitri, I could’ve prevented all of this. I sensed the shift in the air before Odessa killed Michal. Iknew, somehow, that this time was different, that he was in real danger. I could’ve saved him.

She was just trying to protect you, says a small voice of reason.They would’ve torn you apart too.

But they didn’t. My eyes snap open as another wave of fury washes over me. Theydidn’thurt us—they ignored Dimitri, and they feared Lou too much to attack when she fled the hall in search of my mother. And for all her posturing, Odessa refused to let Léandre touch me either. If only we hadactedinstead of crouching behind that urn, we might’ve been able to prevent such senseless violence. Now Michal’s heart lies outside his body, gruesome and frightening upon the floor, half-hidden in the shadows of a cage.