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The Secret Door.

I hesitate, feeling incredibly sheepish, but secret passagesdoexist on this isle. I’ve walked them myself, and they seem like the sort of thing a witch like Mathilde might utilize too—and that isn’t even considering her relation to Lou, who would think the innuendo quite clever indeed.

Could it be that simple?

I stare harder at the book. Is Mathilde standing behind the bookshelf even now, snickering at me? True, I do not scent anyone—nor does the magic here smell particularly stronger than anywhere else in the cottage—yet I didn’t scent Babette or Frederic either. Witches have always been able to disguise themselves from vampires.

In the end, the sound of Michal’s footsteps in the garret overhead is all the motivation I need.

Squaring my shoulders, I grasp the book and pull.

A mechanism triggers deep in the wall.

Something—orsomeone—indeed cackles.

And every book on the shelf hurtles at me in rapid succession. With a shriek, I fling my hands over my head and scramblebackward, but the books follow, flapping their pages like wings and pummeling every inch of me they can reach. And ithurts. Michal appears in the next second—his expression dangerous—and snatches one, two, three in midair before hurling them into the desk drawer, where they rattle and shake and threaten to collapse the entire piece of furniture.

The house rumbles again. The floorboards quake beneath our feet.

Cursing under my breath, I catch the next book, and in my haste, I nearly fling it through the wall. Its metal corner embeds in the plaster instead, and—trapped—it continues to flap angrily, shredding its pages against the wall. “What did youdo?” Michal asks in exasperation, swatting aside a particularly fat volume as it launches at my head. “I told you not to touch anything—”

“The book said something about a door!” Seized by panic and another bizarre urge to laugh, I duck toward the settee for cover. “I just thought—maybe—Mathilde could’ve been hiding—”

The silver corner of another book nicks my cheek, however, and Michal’s eyes dilate at the scent of my blood. He takes a deep breath to collect himself before seizingThe Secret Doorfrom behind my head. “This one?”

“Yes!Look—”

With a sigh, Michal opens the book, his eyes flicking down the page before he flips it toward me. “Is this the content for which you were hoping?”

The book depicts a pair of fairies locked in embrace, their winged bodies heaving and their expressions contorting in ecstasy. With an abrupt squeak, I squeeze my eyes shut, slamming the book shut too. “Put it back! Oh my goodness, Michal, put it backnow!”

He chuckles darkly but obliges. The instant he returns the book, the rest of the books—now flapping around the room almost halfheartedly—fall still and crash to the floor. I exhale a quick breath, too relieved to feel embarrassed—or at least,tooembarrassed—and lift a hand to the blood on my cheek. Michal watches with glittering amusement. “Shall we continue our search, or would you like to peruse the rest of Mathilde’s extensive collection? I can be swayed to either pursuit.”

Still that ridiculous urge to laugh. “We don’t need to search anymore.”

A devious smile spreads across his face. “Option two, then—unless you’re forfeiting our game? There is no shame in defeat, you know. I’ll be a very gracious winner.”

“Michal.” I speak his name through clenched teeth, refusing to give him the satisfaction of breaking right now. “What Imeanis that I think I found her.”

“Hmm. Not as much fun, that.”

“I heard someonecackling.” Forcing a scowl at his expression—because honestly, what iswrongwith me?—I stalk past him to a sconce across the room, leaning close to inspect the brass sculpture at the base. It resembles a human face. Quite a wrinkled face, her eyes narrowed, her jowls sagging on either side of an aquiline nose with a wart on the tip. When a thin line of blood trickles from said nose, Michal’s smile vanishes.

“Célie,” he warns, but it’s too late.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mathilde

The face lunges from the wall, snapping its teeth in this cottage’sthirdattempt to bite me.

This time, however, I react too slowly, and the teeth catch my nose between them. Pain erupts across my face as those teeth clamp down, down,down, shaking slightly like a dog with a bone. Shrieking, I punch at it blindly, and Michal wrenches the hideous thing from the wall until its ears appear, followed by its neck. Its shoulders. Its chest and its waist and its—

Oh.

I gasp, still clutching my nose, as a decrepit old woman lands upon the carpet, rolling over to glower up at us. Without a word of explanation, she brushes the metallic tint from her ample bosom, the sleeves of her simple linen shift. Brass dust flies in all directions, but most of it—somehow—settles upon Michal’s face. He blinks it from his eyes in distaste. “Hello, Mathilde,” he says dryly.

“You’ll be paying for the destruction of my property, leech,” she snaps back at him, wiping the blood from her nose.