Page 46

Night Deepens

Thud thud thud thud. I pound desperately on the door to the rooms that have become a prison.

I have dismissed the guards that were standing on either side, leaving me alone in the snaking corridor.

Thud thud thud thud. I try again and again.

My breath is short, my pulse erratic. No answer.

The silence feels pointed, grimly stubborn.

“Come on,” I mutter, raising my fist for a final attempt. “Please.”

Thud thud thud thu—

This time the door whips open.

And there she stands.

Marie d’Odette d’Auvigny, a silver flame against the dark of night. Her hair tumbles around her shoulders in frizzing waves; her eyes are bleary, and the light of the candelabra highlights the pillow creases on her cheek.

She’s never been more beautiful.

“Marie,” I say breathlessly.

If the Swan Princess is surprised at the sight of me, she gives no indication. Her face has that impassive politeness that she wore the first night at the Théatre.

Shame gutters the pit of my stomach. “Marie, please.”

She begins to close the door. I push back before she can, and we grapple momentarily. It’s Marie who lets go first, her eyes hard.

“Please, there’s something you need to know.”

Still no reply. I release the door, open my palms before me. “Will you not even speak to me?”

“What do you want me to say?” she replies finally, her voice even.

“Anything.” Shout at me, be angry with me. Anything but this apathy.

“They said I am to be your pet,” she says.

For the first time, genuine hurt creeps into her voice.

“I thought it was a lie, but when I asked to see you, they told me you wouldn’t speak to me.

I… I feel like an absolute fool. I saw the signs, but I disregarded them, because I…

because I liked you. Tell me, was there ever any truth to our friendship? ”

Yes, there was, I want to tell her. In a fleeting moment strolling through Verroux’s streets, in a quiet dawn when I held her in my arms. Beneath the full moon by the old dock, bulrushes rustling around us.

“They wanted to kill you,” I say. “It was the only way I could think of to keep you alive. I was… I was trying to protect you.” I offer a grin.

“Consider it payback for throwing me to the wolves the moment you stepped back into the palace. Now we’re even.

I tricked you, and…” I trail off as I notice Marie’s startled look of confusion.

“What are you talking about?” she asks. “I have only ever tried to help you.”

“My father said you had been telling people I misled you, that I—that I corrupted you.”

Her brows furrow. “I— Perhaps I said something of the sort. But I had a ruse to maintain. I had to keep my standing at the court if I was to free you.”

“And how does marrying Aimé factor into this?” I challenge.

“If I’d broken off the engagement, that would have destroyed not only my chances at success, but my family’s reputation. Besides, I could have helped you far better once I had the authority of Dauphine. Surely you, of all people, understand that!”

I blink. She did all this… to help me? After everything I did? “But… you’re not… you’re not angry with me? For the necklace?”

“I was, for a moment,” Marie admits. “But the more I thought about it, the more I realized… part of me always suspected it was you. I simply did not want to admit it to myself. Those memories of us as girls were some of my most treasured, and I didn’t want to tarnish them.

So I chose to ignore any suspicions I had, in favor of clinging to those last moments of freedom. ”

“Marie,” I say, and for the first time in perhaps all my life, my heart aches. “I—”

“I am sorry,” she interrupts. “About that day in the stables. I should have said it long ago. I didn’t want to…

to bring it up. To reopen old wounds. But…

I never should have left you there. My mother…

Well, I told you I was a coward. And it is her I’ve always feared most of all.

It’s not that I didn’t want to stop her, Odile, I swear it.

It’s that… I couldn’t. And I’m so very sorry. ”

“I understand,” I say. And I do. Perhaps part of me always did, just as part of Marie always knew it was I who stole the diamonds. But I’d clung to the pain of that moment because I wanted to be angry, to justify the actions I had taken after. To feel righteous instead of guilty. “I’m sorry, too.”

Marie gives me a grateful smile, her eyes rippling with sorrow.

I feel the cracks between us like they are a chasm—I don’t know how to repair them; I’ve never had to before, but I can’t stand seeing her anguished.

There’s a strand of hair curling loose and unruly over her face, and on an impulse I reach up to tuck it behind her ear.

When I draw back, her cheeks are pink, her lips parted in surprise. Her reaction fills me with sudden wicked delight. Feeling impish, I poke the tip of her nose.

Marie blinks, catlike. Then she turns away abruptly. “Come inside,” she says, curt and formal, almost comically so. “And wipe that smug smile off your face.”

I follow Marie back into the Dauphine’s chambers. She settles primly on a couch, curling her feet under herself, while I set my candelabra on the vanity and remain standing, full of tense, erratic energy.

Marie leans forward. “What is it that you wanted to tell me?”

“My father is Bartrand de Roux,” I blurt immediately. “At least, I believe he is. It should be impossible, I know. But Aimé and I once stumbled across a journal inscription that said sorciers could prolong their lives somehow. And I think—I think that’s what he did. To live this long.”

I explain my discoveries to her, about Regnault and about the Couronne, and watch as her face grows drawn and troubled. “If what you say is true… then he is perhaps more dangerous than we could imagine.”

“I’m not certain yet. I hope I’m wrong.” I rub my arms. I know in my gut that I’m not.

“I… I fear I have made discoveries of my own,” Marie says.

“After you were arrested, I went back to Madame de Malezieu’s study in the hope of finding something that would clear your name.

Did you know she kept a diary?” She lifts something off the low table in front of her—it’s an unassuming leather-bound journal.

“I took my time to read it. It was… Odile, we could never have known what we were getting into.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did—did Aimé ever tell you how his mother died?”

I shake my head. “He only told me she died after he was born.”

“That’s because no one knows the cause of her death,” she says. “All that is known is that she died soon after childbirth, supposedly from illness. But that’s not true at all.”

I have a horrible feeling I know what Marie will say next. And she does.

“A beast killed her. Or rather, King Honoré as a beast. This curse on Aimé? It’s generational.

And according to Anne, it’s awakened by strong emotions.

King Honoré kept a controlled grasp on it all his life.

Until his son, his heir, was born, when he was so overwhelmed that he transformed and killed his own wife. ” She looks down at her hands, pained.

“Anne told me the King married her because she was a sorcier,” I recall.

Marie nods. “She was a mere herbalist from Verroux. The King gave her the estate of Malezieu so that she might have a title, and then he took her as his wife. In exchange, she made medicines that helped suppress the curse.”

I begin to pace, my mind racing. “So King Honoré needed the potions too.”

“He was much better at keeping it secret,” Marie says. “It took Anne some time to perfect the potions too—they had side effects of their own. Erratic behavior. Paranoia. The night of the King’s death, it seems she gave Aimé a too-small dose, and it didn’t work.”

I pause mid-step, turning to her in realization. “He fought with King Honoré that night, after the ball. If heightened emotions trigger the change, well…”

“Indeed. Anne recounts that she went to comfort Aimé in his rooms, but he was gone—he had run away to the lakeside, where he transformed and disappeared into the forest. King Honoré went after him.”

“And the beast slaughtered him,” I finish. “But how did Aimé turn back into a human afterward? Did Anne help him somehow?”

“She writes that the transformation doesn’t last long—about an hour or so. He falls into a deep sleep afterward, which is how Anne found him. She took him discreetly back to his rooms. It was in that time that Damien found the bodies.”

“So he became the scapegoat.” I walk over to the couch and slump down beside Marie.

“Regnault intends to kill Aimé,” I tell her somberly.

“I don’t know why. I could hardly understand his ramblings, but when he was speaking to Morgane—if it truly is Morgane, in the Couronne—he said that he would bring her sisters to join her, that he…

oh .” Understanding strikes me like a punch to the gut, leaving me breathless.

I reach out to grip Marie’s arms. “Oh, Marie. The mission, the ritual, all of it… it was never about bringing back one of the Mothers. It was about imprisoning all of them.”

Her eyes widen in understanding, her fingers tightening around my wrists. “And he needs to kill Aimé to do it.”

I nod sharply. “I need to get that crown away from my father. If it truly is Morgane that is trapped within, we need to free her. Perhaps then we will be able to lift Aimé’s curse.”

Marie shifts toward me, eyes thoughtful. “But how do we free her?”

“By destroying the Couronne, I assume.”

I know in my heart it will not be that easy.

But I remember the invisible force that had pushed the door open earlier, that had first spoken to me in the strange not-dream in the cells.

Daughter of the Blood, it keeps saying. Someone—some thing —is helping me.

I have to hope it will guide me when the time comes.

“Regnault will not give up the Couronne willingly,” I say.

“He doesn’t take it off at all, which will make stealing it difficult.

I need to wait until he is asleep. Tomorrow night,” I decide, stringing together the first threads of a plan.

“That’s when I’ll do it. I will come to free you afterward, so be awake and wait for my signal. We will need to run.”

She tugs on one of her curls worriedly. “Is there nothing I can do to help?”

“No. This is something I must do on my own. Sooner or later I will have to confront him.”

She lowers her hand, and our eyes catch almost inadvertently. I try to give her a reassuring, confident smile. Marie looks down at her hands. “Odile, I—if something goes wrong, shatter a window.”

I raise my eyebrows. “What? Why?”

“There’s… It’s hard to explain. Perhaps it’s better if I don’t, yet. I’m not entirely sure of it myself.”

“Taunting me with a mystery, princess?” I say silkily, leaning toward her, if only to see her blush again. “Very well, then. I’ll take it as a challenge.”

“You’re preposterous,” she says, laughing softly.

Then she darts forward and kisses me on the cheek.

She’s pulling back before I know it, but she might as well have marked herself permanently on my skin. It’s a stardust feeling, prickling and shivering and ephemeral, leaving me light-headed and bursting with warmth.

I must look truly undignified, because Marie giggles. Then she pushes lightly on my shoulder. “Go to sleep, sorciere,” she says. “And stay safe. For me.”