Page 30

Early Morning

I storm back to the palace, fuming, just as dawn breaks over the lake, a golden flare like leaping embers.

My fingers are shaking with such force that I nearly drop the owl-face pendant.

I keep a careful eye out for guards, and when I see one near my balcony, I double back and end up forcing open a window on the lower floor, slinking into a dark hallway I know to be near the dining room.

The injury on my arm sends routine throbs through my body, and my eyes are sticky with exhaustion.

Still, even as I sneak my way back to the Dauphine’s apartments, my blood continues to boil.

Marie d’Odette. The arrogance of her, the audacity. To presume she could possibly trick me into telling her of my plans. To think all it would take from her is a soft smile and a gentle touch, and my defenses would crumble.

If only she knew I was the villain in her story.

After stealing Marie’s necklace, I escaped the Chateau and waltzed back to the Théatre to present it proudly to my father.

“Very good,” Regnault said, running the necklace through his hands. I waited eagerly for more praise, but he only tutted and handed the necklace back to me. “But it’s not goddess-gold.”

My heart sank. “You didn’t say it needed to be.”

“No, I didn’t,” he agreed. “You may keep it then as your reward.” He dismissed me without another word.

When my brother came to see me that night, I was sitting in our usual secret spot under the cupola, fighting back tears and aching from it all: Marie’s betrayal, Regnault’s disappointment, my own foolishness.

I told Damien everything, expecting him to take my side.

But when he heard of what I’d done, his brows furrowed in anger.

“You must return it,” he said sharply. “Aimé told me the Duchesse d’Auvigny’s daughter has gotten into a considerable amount of trouble for losing that thing. ”

“Aimé?” I repeated. “So you’re still meeting in secret with the swoony, swoony Dauphin?” I wiggled my eyebrows at him, but it failed to elicit the usual smile.

“Dilou, this is serious. The Step-Queen has been talking to everyone about how the Auvignian heiress was so frivolous, she lost her favorite diamonds. It’s quite the scandal.

If you don’t return the necklace, it’s going to ruin Marie’s prospects for marrying Aimé.

” He said the last with barely hidden distaste, and I cackled.

“I’ve done you a favor, then. One less competitor.”

“Odile!”

I threw my hands in the air. “She deserves it, Damien! She made me her playmate—no, play thing —and then cast me aside when it was convenient!”

Damien’s jaw tensed. “That was cruel of her,” he agreed steadily. “But Odile, what you’ve done to her is just as cruel, if not more. I don’t think you’re quite aware of what you’ve condemned her to.”

“Please,” I snapped. “How bad can it be? She’s rich and pretty and has people fawning over her. She’ll marry the Dauphin and give him little blond babies and live happily ever after.”

“That’s not fair, Odile, and you know it.”

“What do you know about fairness? You haven’t seen the things I have!”

“And what do you see, beyond Regnault’s ridiculous missions? They’re all you care about!”

“Ridic—?” I spluttered in affront. “How can you say that? I’m doing this for us. For you and me and Papa. So we can have magic back as we were supposed to.”

“And what comes after? What will you do once you have magic?”

“The kingdom will be saved, and I’ll be able to learn sorcery.”

“It’s not that simple!” Damien said, the usual I know better than you because I’m two years older note creeping into his voice. “Do you think Regnault will stop there? That he’ll sit back and retire after bringing magic back? He hates the noblesse, and you know it. He wants them all dead!”

“Good,” I growled, irritated at being talked down to again. “It’s only right after what they did to the sorciers.”

“Hurting a whole group of people for the actions of one man would make you no better than the Spider King.”

I curled my lip. “So? You’re just worried about your precious prince.”

“So what if I am!” It was rare for Damien to shout, and the echo of his voice made me flinch. “I’m protecting you, too! Or do you really think you can look at someone—maybe someone your age, like Aimé or that girl Marie—and drive a knife into their heart?”

I crossed my arms. “I could if I had to.”

“And what if it were me?” my brother asked suddenly, quieting.

I stared at him in confusion. “What do you… Why would it be you?”

“The Dauphin, he…” Damien rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the dome overhead. “He offered me a place in his guard.”

My heart stopped then. Thud, and then silence, as if I were dying, as if I were already dead.

No, this couldn’t be happening. Not again.

I wish I had been strong—wish I had taken the news with dignity. But I curled my knees up to my chin, cold fright washing over me, and whispered a pathetic “You’re leaving me?”

“I don’t want to,” Damien said. “I don’t, Dilou, I swear. But I can’t stay here any longer if I have to keep watching as that man turns you into his little minion—”

My panic veered sharply into disbelief. “?‘That man’?” I echoed. “You mean our father ?”

“That’s not what he is,” my brother said passionately, and I could see this was something that had been eating at him for a long time. “He calls himself that to make you feel like you owe him loyalty. But he’s not what a father should be like.”

I snorted. “He’s much better than our real father.”

I met his eyes, and I knew that we were remembering the same thing: our mother’s shaking hand; her voice, faint and rasping, rotting away like the rest of her . You must go now. Take your sister and go.

“ I’m trying to keep my promise to her, Dilou,” Damien said quietly. “But I can’t do that when you keep choosing Regnault over me. You’re becoming like him. Vindictive. Cruel.”

“I’m not cruel,” I said furiously. “I’m merely seeking justice.”

He looked up at me, his soft brown eyes—so much like our mother’s—filled with earnest, rippling sorrow. I realized with a pang that I had sounded exactly like Regnault.

“Damien…” I said shakily.

“Give back the necklace,” Damien said. “Prove me wrong.”

It was something about the way he looked when he said it. The upright posture, the patronizing tilt of his chin. As though he were chastising me, as though I were a small child he was punishing for a temper tantrum.

“Why can’t you take my side for once?” I shoved the necklace in my pocket, jabbed a finger at his chest. “All this talk about leaving me, but you’ve already left me, haven’t you?

You’ve chosen that idiot prince over me.

I guess it makes sense. You don’t have magic—you’ll never really understand.

” My anguish was a tidal wave, giving my fury momentum.

“I think you’re right. I think you should go. ”

Damien looked stricken. “What?”

“I said you should go !” I couldn’t look in his eyes, because I knew I’d see betrayed hurt pooling within them.

He never was good at hiding his emotions.

“Go back to the Chateau, to your precious little Aimé, so you can protect him instead. I’m sure he’s just perfect —not at all vindictive and cruel like me. ”

Damien drew in a sharp breath. The sound reverberated through the air like the crack of a whip. His hand, I noticed, was clamped around his opposite wrist, as though feeling the red blood pumping beneath his skin, separating us as surely as a wall.

I couldn’t stop myself anymore. I hurt, I hurt all over—my chest ached, my heart felt as though a fist had closed around it. Damien was going to leave me, just as our birth father had. Just like our mother had. And in that infinitesimal moment, I wanted to hurt him just as he was hurting me.

And so I spat, “Traitor.”

Later, Regnault found me sobbing in the dressing room, my face buried in a pair of feathered black wings I had been using as a pillow.

I told him everything, and when I was done, he drew me into his arms. “Oh, Odile, do you see now?” His voice was achingly tender.

“I am the only one who will never leave you.”

By the next day, the guilt had set in. It battered at my walls, no matter how much I tried to harden myself against it, no matter how often I reminded myself that Regnault wouldn’t care, so neither should I.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the words vindictive, cruel.

I pictured Marie’s luminous silver eyes filling with tears as she was ridiculed by the court.

The diamond necklace weighed heavy in my pocket.

Unable to look at the thing any longer, I went back to the Chateau Front-du-Lac. I donned my servant’s reds for the last time. And when I was sent up to the guest wing to clean, I slipped the diamond necklace from my pocket and left it under Marie d’Odette’s pillow.

Now I take the small yellow flower from my pocket.

I hold it between my fingers, tight enough that its petals creak beneath my touch.

Any more pressure, and I would crush it.

I wish I could hold my guilt the same way, squeeze it in until it capitulates and crumbles.

So what if I hurt Marie? She’s only a means to an end.

It matters not how much I crave her touch, how cleverly she tempts me with her sweet, generous trust. How much I regret my role in her ruination.

I can long for her and still hate her.

After all, does a moth not hate a flame when it learns that the very thing that attracts it is the thing that will see it burn?

“At least all my suffering wasn’t for nothing,” I murmur, pressing the yellow flower between the pages of Bartrand de Roux’s journal and closing the book carefully. Tomorrow I will decide what to do with it, and I will think of Marie no longer.