Page 50

Day

Marie makes a small sound of surprise, swaying a bit as she embraces me. She wraps her arms around me tightly, one hand sliding into my hair, and I duck my face into her shoulder as I try in vain to swallow back tears.

Marie must hear the hitch of my breath. “Odile, what’s wrong?”

I shake my head against her shoulder. Not yet.

She hums softly, understanding, and I feel a swell of gratitude.

Finally, when I’m no longer in danger of hysterically sobbing, I pull away, sniffing wetly.

Marie looks me over without a word, then raises her hands to my face, thumbing away the lingering tears under my eyes.

“What is it? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I don’t know where to begin. I can’t pinpoint where my anguish is coming from, only that there is so much of it. Morgane’s dream, and Damien’s accusatory words, and my father… my father.

“He tried to kill me,” I whisper miserably. “He raised me, and then he tried to kill me.”

“Oh, Odile.”

“He never cared about me. He promised me power, promised me magic, but he was going to take it all for himself and leave me with nothing. And the worst of it is, he made me think that without him I would be alone. That only he could understand me. He drove a rift between me and Damien, and between me and you, and I regret nothing more than giving him that damned crown—” I rub the tears from my eyes, frustrated at myself.

“Mothers, I’m sorry that you have to see this.

I don’t think I’ve cried since… since I was a girl.

” Since I scraped my knees and my father told me to never let anyone see me bleed.

“There is nothing wrong with crying,” Marie says gently. “And try not to be too angry with Damien. He’s been worried sick about you. I don’t know him well, but he seems like a good man.”

“He is,” I say, making a face. Because it’s true, and I hate that I know it. For all his blustering words, Damien has only ever cared about protecting the few he loves. The bandages on my knees are testament enough.

I slump down onto the stairwell. “This is all my own fault, isn’t it?”

Marie shakes her head. “No.” She crouches in front of me, grips my fingers. “Your father did this. All of this. He manipulated you; he used you.”

“I was his tarasque,” I say bitterly. “I thought I was the Golden-Blooded Girl, but I was just his pet on a leash, doing his bidding. And I would have done it and done it and done it forever, if it weren’t for—for you.” I smile at her crookedly. “If you hadn’t believed there was more to me.”

“Odile…” She runs her thumbs over my knuckles.

“And I’m sorry,” I say quickly—might as well get everything out at once, since my defenses are already in ruins. “I’m so sorry about the necklace.” To my horror, I nearly start crying again, and Marie shakes her head, ever the pillar of calm.

“We can talk about this later,” she says. “When you’ve recovered somewhat.” She begins to stand, reaching down for me. Suddenly she winces, sucking in a breath of pain.

“Marie?” I ask shakily. “Are you all right?”

“It’s fine,” she says. “Just a scratch.”

“A scratch ?” I repeat, worry suddenly overtaking me.

“I’m fine , sorciere.”

I crook an eyebrow. “Now that I’ve stopped lying, you’ve started?”

She sighs, and I know I’ve won. “It’s just my wing.”

Oh yes, then there’s that. “Just your wing ,” I echo.

“Your father stabbed it with one of his ice shards when I res—when I found you.”

“Were you going to say you rescued me?”

She looks away guiltily.

“No, no, go on, I like it.” I gesture for her to continue, grinning. “My knight in shining armor.”

“That’s not what I—” The wings on Marie’s back flex in exasperation. I stare, mesmerized, before I notice the wet bloodstains on the feathers near her shoulder blade.

“Oh, Marie, that doesn’t… have you not been able to bandage it?”

She doesn’t answer, and I get to my feet, walking around her so I can see more clearly.

Now that I’m not fighting off tears, I realize the back of her wing, not far from her shoulder, is slick with blood, the feathers plastered together.

It would be a difficult spot to reach, certainly.

“You’ve just been bleeding all over like this? Did you even clean it?”

“I had other concerns.” Judging by the way she refuses to meet my eyes, I wonder if those other concerns were me. Warmth blooms in my chest.

“I know how to take care of wounds,” I tell her. Mothers know that I’ve patched up my own all my life. “Let me do it.”

She presses her lips together. “I’m not all that helpless, Odile, truly. I can take care of myself.”

“Perhaps, but you’ve just let me sob all over your shirt. This way we can be equally mortified. Come, let us go somewhere less… open.”

And so we find ourselves in the dressing room for the first time since that fateful night, Marie cross-legged on the floor, me staring at the length of her spine while my heart does jittery backflips.

I can see now why she changed into the doublet—it’s held together with laces at the back, and she has left them loose around her wings.

Her wings . A contradiction within themselves, thick and powerful yet lined with fragile, diaphanous feathers.

She untucks the injured wing carefully from her shoulder, lowers it so it splays on the ground.

It reaches across the entire room, the tips of her primaries brushing up against an open chest of assorted props—papier-maché fruits and masks and a disembodied goat hoof.

I’ve brought a candelabra to our side, and the flame limns each oval covert and shivering piece of down in trembling bronze light.

I swallow hard. Then I force myself to study the vertical gash splitting the feathers near her spine in a brutal groove.

It must have happened when she wrapped me in her wings, and it clearly has not been looked after: the edges are inflamed and a sticky yellowish pus is visible at the deepest point.

“It really was fine,” Marie insists, dropping the wing lower and wincing as I run a damp cloth along the injury.

“I must have aggravated it when I flew back to the palace. I was trying to get more of those yellow flowers for Aimé, but I was caught by a patrolling guard. He tackled me to the ground, and my wings got stuck under me. I managed to get free and fly off, but I had to go in the wrong direction to throw him off my trail. I couldn’t really take care of it until now. ”

I clean a few particles of dirt out of the wound, wrinkling my nose. “Are you going to explain these to me, then?”

“I told you—”

“Not the injury, princess. The wings.”

“Ah.” She lapses into momentary silence, and I focus on rinsing the cloth off in a basin of water before bringing it back to the wing. “Honestly, I was hoping you could explain it. You are the expert in sorcery, after all.”

“Expert is a significant overexaggeration,” I say morosely.

“Oh? But you acted so confident that first night by the lake.”

I nudge her. “Hush, you.” She giggles, and I can’t help my own smile. “Tell me how it happened first. Perhaps that will help me understand.”

“It’s all a blur,” she admits. “The first time I did it, it was when you were running from the beast. After I escaped Anne’s guards, I tried to follow you, but I couldn’t find you.

Suddenly I heard the glass shatter. I wasn’t far from the chapel, but I wasn’t close enough, either, so all I could do was run to the nearest window and look out and—” Her voice softens.

“And I saw you fall. It was all instinctual the first time. I jumped after you, and it just… happened. I thought I’d imagined it afterward.

That in my haze, I’d somehow…” She breaks off, laughing weakly. “I don’t know.”

I furrow my brow, running through what little knowledge I do have of magic.

“Regnault told me once that when spells go wrong, they can transform people into something they did not intend. I think… hmm.” I reach out toward her with my mind, searching for traces of spell-threads.

There is something. A small glimmer, barely there, escaping my grip every time I attempt to grasp it.

“I think part of my father’s curse was trapped inside you when I tried undoing it.

I can still sense a piece of it, but… I’m not confident I could fix it.

Not without a better understanding of magic.

Though of course, if you want me to try—”

“No,” she interrupts. “No, I want to keep it. Keep them .” She gestures to the wings.

“I know it sounds strange, but they give me hope. That I don’t have to be swan or girl, that I can take control.

I have never dared to do that before now.

I’ve always surrendered myself to fate—first to my mother, then to being a swan. My life has never been mine before.”

“It shouldn’t have ever had to be that way,” I say abruptly, unable to stifle the rising guilt. “It’s my fault, all of it. If I hadn’t stolen the necklace…”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “It was never really about the necklace at all—my mother merely used my guilt to manipulate me. For years, I had been the only variable she couldn’t control, and finally, she had the chance.

I was only ever a tool to her, and somehow, she convinced me that it was all for the good of the family.

I never truly realized what she was doing…

until you told me about your father. About how he treated you. ”

I bow my head. One of my hands rests on the edge of her wing, and I inadvertently bury my fingers deeper into their downy surface. “We were both fooled.”

“Yes, but we can change,” Marie says. “We can grow past what they made us into. That’s what I decided after you came to visit me in the Dauphine’s apartments.

That I wouldn’t be locked away again. That I was going to start making my own decisions, no matter how much it frightened me.

When I heard your scream, and the shattering of glass…

I didn’t hesitate. My doors were guarded, but my windows were not, and I simply…

knew. Knew that I could summon my wings again, if I jumped. So I did.”

“And then you saved me,” I say softly.

She hums, clearly unwilling to agree outright. I lean back, studying her wound, which looks much cleaner now than before. “I’m going to wrap this,” I decide. “I would also advise not moving this wing too much for some time. Else you’ll keep tearing it open.”

Marie laughs under her breath. “Yes, doctor. And whatever shall I owe you for such tender care?”

The heady warmth of her voice travels from my head to my lower stomach, where it sits, pleasantly curled. I’m glad her back is turned, because my cheeks must be flaming. “A kiss would be sufficient payment,” I say, unthinking, and immediately wish I could evaporate.

Marie makes a contemplative sound. I realize, with sudden clarity, that she is so close to me, the sides of her doublet pulled apart.

She seems to have cut a hole in the shirt beneath, leaving her spine bared.

Small feathers trail from her wings onto her shoulder blades like white petals, and it takes all my willpower to keep from touching them.

I shake my head and lean down to pick up a few scraps of linen from the floor. I cut them from one of the cleaner-looking costumes, and I have to hope they’ll be enough.

I tie the scraps together to make a bandage long enough to wrap around the wing.

I do it carefully, feathers brushing my wrist, the faint heat of Marie’s body pressing in against me.

“There,” I say finally, running my hand down the breadth of the wing.

It’s an almost thoughtless act, but I pause when Marie gasps in surprise.

“What is it?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “They’re… sensitive.”

Oh.

I grin wolfishly. “Are they now?” Unable to help myself, I stroke her wing again, letting myself delight in the feeling of the feathers against my palm.

Marie makes a breathy sound of pleasure and abruptly turns around, lifting her injured right wing out of my reach while her left one comes to curl around me.

“I think I owe you payment for your services, doctor,” she says, her forehead nearly against mine, her exhalation tickling my lips.

She smells of spices: of clove and vanilla and fiery, sweet cinnamon.

She’s magnificent. Once I’d wanted to ruin her; now I want her to sanctify me.

But first I’m going to put up a fight.

“Alas, I’ve had to raise my prices,” I say, looking up at her mischievously. “I fear one kiss will no longer suffice.”

Marie brushes her fingers tantalizingly along my jaw. I can’t help but follow the trajectory of her touch, tilting up my chin. She smirks— smirks —all power and control, her lashes lowering as she gazes at my lips.

“Very well, then,” says Marie d’Odette, and she brings her mouth to mine.