Page 18

Twelve

“What do you mean, you can’t let me leave ?”

Henry took a step closer, his hands raised in a placating gesture. Lydia stepped back.

“Listen, if you’re a German spy, I can’t just let you walk away. If I do that, I’m as good as dead, and nothing I did here will make a bit of difference.”

“I’m not a German spy.”

“That may be. But I also can’t let an Englishwoman wander around the French countryside in the middle of the night. It’s not safe. I wouldn’t feel right about it.”

Lydia considered him, standing there with the wind pulling at his shirtsleeves.

He certainly couldn’t stop her—she could have overpowered him with a word, although he didn’t seem to realize it.

She looked around. Night was fully upon them now, and the air was bitterly cold.

She had no plan, no allies, and nowhere to take shelter for the night.

She huffed. “What are you suggesting?”

Overhead, the moon peeked her face from behind a drifting cloud. Not quite full. Waiting.

“Come inside,” he said.

···

Henry led her to a small room with a lumpy bed and a high, narrow window, covered over with ironwork.

“Have you eaten?”

It struck Lydia as an incredibly odd question. Moments ago, he’d informed her that she would essentially be his captive, and now he was asking if she’d had any supper. She shook her head.

“There’s a little soup left. I’ll bring you some.” He didn’t look at her when he spoke. Lydia wondered if he was still rattled by her trick from earlier. She hoped he was.

“Thank you.”

Henry gripped an iron key in his hand. “This is just a precaution, you understand. Just for tonight.”

“Locking me in so I don’t go running off to my German handler?”

Henry hesitated. He was examining the key with a sudden intense focus. Lydia could guess what was on his mind.

“Are you wondering if that will hold me?”

Henry looked at her and didn’t answer.

He still hadn’t asked how she’d managed the trick with her projection. Strange . Most people would have run screaming or demanded to know how it had been done. But not him.

“You needn’t worry,” she said. “It’s a bit chilly out there for my liking. I have no intention of going anywhere.”

To her surprise, Henry nearly laughed but sobered fast. “I’ll bring you that soup and some extra blankets.

” He turned to go, then stopped. “Oh, um…” He glanced at her, then away again.

“You don’t need to worry about me. I understand that’s not much comfort under the circumstances, but…

” He gestured toward a wooden chair tucked away in the corner.

“You can stick that under the door handle tonight. If it makes you feel safer. I’m not going to…

” He stopped, flustered, then tried again.

“You don’t know me. So I understand if you’re anxious.

But you don’t need to be.” He looked like he wanted to disappear.

“I understand. Thank you.”

···

That night Lydia went exploring.

It was true, she could have opened the lock with a word, but projecting was safer, not to mention quieter. She could cloak her projection and wander the chateau in perfect secrecy, without ever alerting the high-strung curator.

First, she returned to that dark little room where the Grimorium Bellum had so recently been kept.

She stayed for a long time, trying to make sense of the dissonance in the room—two distinct tones, each making the other’s magic unintelligible.

She listened, desperately trying to unsnarl the signals, but it was no use.

The more she tried, the more tangled they became, and she was forced to give up, panic-stricken and cursing everything—the late hour, that relentless moon, and herself, most of all.

She found herself tuning her ear to that newer magic—Henry’s cleansing spell.

He was no expert, that much was clear. The magic itself was sophisticated—old, deep magic from a tradition altogether unfamiliar to Lydia.

But Henry’s execution was clumsy. It was as if he’d been darting glances over his shoulder as the spell came together.

An unpracticed caster, Lydia decided. And a fearful one.

She glided on, exploring room after room.

There was an extensive library, a music room, several chambers that appeared to have been used only for storage for quite some time.

At length she came to a lovingly furnished little bedroom with a cluttered writing desk and a bed piled high with blankets.

The desk was covered with journals and papers with scribbled notes in the margins, all in French.

There was a half-finished bottle of wine collecting dust on the side table.

The glass beside it showed rings where the wine had evaporated over time.

Not Henry’s room, Lydia decided. This room must have belonged to the other curator. René.

The next chamber was empty, and the one after that. Most doors were locked, but that made no difference to Lydia, who moved through each one like a ghost. She’d begun to feel quite comfortable floating through the musty old chateau, passing through locked door after locked door with ease.

Until she came face-to-face with Henry Boudreaux, shirtsleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned, perched on the edge of his bed.

Lydia nearly yelped out loud. She couldn’t be seen or heard, that much she knew.

Not unless she intended to be. Still, she was unnerved to find herself in such close quarters with the curator, not to mention a little guilty—no one liked to be spied on in their own bedroom.

She was just about to go, when she heard him speak.

“Please get out.”

He was looking down at his feet, hands folded and head bowed, as if she’d barged in on him in prayer.

For a moment she wondered if she’d imagined he’d spoken at all.

She was perfectly invisible, she was certain of it, even though at that moment she felt more exposed than she’d ever thought possible.

She knew she should leave, and fast, but something, a deep curiosity, made her stay.

“ Please .” There was a soft hitch in his voice. “I can’t do this right now. I know you think I can do something for you. And I’m sorry. I really am. But I’m tired, and I just… can’t . So, please, just—” Henry looked up and around the room, searching. “Please.”

She felt a sudden, intense flush of guilt.

This, whatever this was, was personal and intimate, and absolutely none of her business.

The desperate, pleading tone in his voice could only have been intended for some demon known only to Henry, and certainly not for Lydia herself.

She turned, ready to go, when suddenly Henry looked up, and his eyes locked onto her.

“Hello?”

Lydia felt a cold, sinking feeling wash over her. She froze where she stood, waiting for him to look away, but he never did.

“Hello?” he said again, quieter this time.

He wasn’t really looking at her. He was looking intently at the space she occupied, but his eyes never met hers.

She tried to calm herself, to remember that even Sybil often had trouble detecting her projections, but then Henry stood, coming closer until he was right in front of her.

His eyes floated across her face, searching, but never truly seeing.

She could see his pulse in his neck, ticking fast. Then his eyes focused.

“ Who are you? ” He spoke so softly that Lydia only knew what he’d said by watching the movement of his lips. She panicked, and a second later was flung back into her body, sitting rigid in her own room on the other side of the chateau.

She sat, catching her breath for a long time. He’d seen her—no, that wasn’t right. He’d felt her there in the room with him, something most trained witches could never do. Henry had stood inches from her projection, and on some level, Lydia was certain of it, he had known she was there.

“Who are you ?” she whispered.

···

The next morning, Henry came to retrieve her. He stood outside the cracked door with his face turned away.

“There’s breakfast downstairs,” he said stiffly.

“I’m decent, Mr. Boudreaux, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Henry glanced at her, then away again.

“I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

···

They sat across from each other at the long kitchen table. The fire in the hearth burned merrily, but there was a damp chill that felt endemic to the place. Lydia rubbed her hands together to keep them warm.

“Have you decided yet whether I’m a Nazi spy?”

Henry set down his cup. “I don’t think you’re a Nazi spy.”

“That’s something, at least. Why is that, if I may ask?”

“Because your English is perfect and your French is awful. Plus, you’re a lousy liar. Doesn’t seem like you’d make much of a spy. I’m still trying to decide what you are exactly, but…”

“What I am ?” Lydia raised an eyebrow.

She kept waiting for him to come out with it, but he never did. Eventually she took pity on him.

“You’re wondering how I left my body yesterday, when you were blocking my path. How I could be standing in front of you one moment and behind you the next.”

She almost said, You’re wondering if that was me in your bedroom last night , but didn’t. Henry looked at her and said nothing.

“Come now, Mr. Boudreaux. From what I understand, I’m not even the first of my kind that you’ve met.” Henry flinched. “She was a friend of mine, by the way. Kitty. Your shape-shifter.”

“Is that her name?” Henry looked like the memory unsettled him.

“That was just about the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.

One second, I think I’m looking at René, a man I’ve lived with for three years.

A man who’s like a father to me. The next second, he…

well he’s not even a he anymore, he’s… Kitty ?

Just about the strongest damn woman I’ve ever met in my life, by the way, who kicks and bites and screams like a banshee, then disappears before my very eyes. ”

Lydia smiled, picturing it.

“I think I socked her pretty hard. She okay?”