Page 10

Chapter Nine

Brindelle Park

My childhood home soon towers above me in West End—the wealthiest district of Cesarine—with Brindelle Park inhabiting the flat expanse of land directly behind it. Its trees rustle slightly in the evening breeze, concealing most of the Doleur beyond. Before Pippa and I grew old enough to realize the danger, we would slip through the ethereal, glowing trees to that riverbank, dipping our toes in its gray water. I study the familiar scene now, my hand tightening on the wrought iron fence around my parents’ property.

Because the trees are no longer glowing.

Frowning, I creep closer, careful to keep one eye on my former front door.

Though it might be spiteful, I do not wish to see my parents. They... disapprove of my involvement with the Chasseurs, yet their disapproval feels like more than a difference of opinion; it feels desperate, like manacles clasped on my wrists, bricks tied to my feet, as I plunge headlong into the sea. Whenever I think of them—the last living members of my family—I’m suddenly unable to breathe, and these days, I already struggle to keep my head above water. No. I can’t afford to drown in my shame or hurt or anger tonight. I must focus on the task at hand.

If Jean Luc and the others suspect correctly, a killer stalks the streets of Cesarine.

Inhaling slowly, I allow the chill night air to wash over me, through me, and freeze the tide of emotions in my chest. Then I place my palm flat against the trunk of the nearest Brindelle tree.

Though I expected cold, the bark nearly freezes my skin, and the color—once luminescent silver—has darkened to stark black. No. It’s withered . I crane my neck to peer into the bows of the tree. As if sensing my gaze, the wind picks up helpfully, and one of the branches cracks at its touch, dissipating into fine powder. On another gust of wind, the powder swirls toward my outstretched hand and coats my fingers. Its particles sparkle slightly in the dying sunlight.

My frown deepens. My mother petitioned the royal family many times to destroy Brindelle Park throughout my childhood. Once, King Auguste even complied. The trees grew back overnight, however, taller and stronger than before—brighter—forcing the aristocrats of West End to accept their spindly neighbors. The Brindelle trees became a stubborn presence in West End. In the very kingdom .

What could have possibly caused them to... to die ?

Another branch breaks, and my mind drifts back to the roses in the cemetery, to the way they shriveled upon the earth. Could the killer be responsible for them too? And for the trees? Though I didn’t smell witchcraft earlier, the rain might’ve washed away its scent. Jean Luc thought blood magic could be at play, and all the victims did belong to magical species....

When a third branch snaps behind me, I whirl with a squeak.

“Easy.” Lou holds up her hands with an uncommonly serious expression. “It’s just me.”

“Louise.” Quickly, I wipe the black powder on my bodice, pretending I didn’t just clutch my heart. Pretending I didn’t just impersonate a mouse . “Did you follow me here?”

Clad in a brilliant white cloak, she treads closer, extending a swath of crimson wool in my direction. Another cloak, I realize, at precisely the same second gooseflesh sweeps my limbs. I left my own cloak in the cemetery with Babette. “Coco sent this,” Lou says instead of answering my question. “She would’ve come with me, but she... she stopped by the morgue instead. She needed to say goodbye.” Pain flares brilliant and sharp in her eyes as she struggles to collect herself. “To Babette,” she clarifies after a moment. “They loved each other once, a long time ago. Before Coco met Beau.” She pauses again, waiting for me to speak, and this silence stretches longer and tauter than before. I make no move to accept the cloak. At last, she lowers it to her side with a sigh. “We thought you might be cold.”

Sniffing, I resist the urge to shiver. “You thought wrong.”

“Your lips are turning blue, Célie.”

“Do not claim to care, Louise.”

“Do you really want to do this?” Her turquoise eyes narrow as she stalks to my Brindelle tree, leaning against its trunk to peer up at me. A fourth branch crumbles. “You look like you’re about to collapse, and a sadistic killer could be marking us at this very second. If you want to have this discussion here and now, though—while we both freeze our delectable asses off—by all means, let’s discuss.”

Scoffing, I turn to glare at the river. “You’re La Dame des Sorcières. I very much doubt anyone who attacks you would survive to tell the tale, sadistic killer or not.”

“You’re angry with me.”

I wrap my arms around my torso in response. When the wind strokes my hair as if to comfort me, I repress another shiver. “Not just you,” I mutter, sticking my hand out for the cloak. The crimson wool hits my open palm immediately. Bundling it around my shoulders, I inhale the earthy sweetness of Coco’s scent. “I’m angry at everyone.”

“But you’re angrier at me,” Lou says shrewdly.

“No,” I lie.

She crosses her arms. “You’ve always been a shit liar, Célie.”

“How did you find me?”

“Are you trying to deflect the master of deflection?” When I say nothing, her lips twitch, and I probably imagine the subtle glint of approval in her eyes. “Well... fine . I will allow this temporary distraction from the issue at hand.” From the pocket of her leather trousers, she withdraws the sketches—now wadded into a pitiful lump—and gestures to the town house behind us. “I didn’t follow you here. I figured you might... want to start your investigation with the melusine. Perhaps interview your parents? Jean asked them a few questions after we found her body, but they weren’t exactly forthcoming.”

“Of course he did.” Still shivering violently, I wrap the cloak tighter against the wind, but it does little to comfort me. The cold in my chest creeps through my limbs now, settling into my bones, and I feel impossibly heavy, almost numb. Jean Luc involved my parents before he involved me. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, but even the scent of my childhood has gone wrong—the magic has fled, leaving only the faint stench of fish and brine behind. Another branch crumbles to dust. I try not to crumble with it. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“This was your home,” Lou says quietly. “It’s natural that you’d seek solid ground when everything else is, well—” Though she shrugs, the gesture doesn’t irk me like it did with Jean Luc. Perhaps because no pity clouds her gaze, only a strange sort of wistfulness. Of sorrow .

“Falling to pieces?”

She nods. “Falling to pieces.” Pushing from the tree, she comes to stand beside me, and her arm is warm where it brushes mine. Her eyes distant as she too stares out at the Doleur. “The Brindelle trees died with the melusine. I haven’t been able to revive them.”

The revelation brings me little satisfaction. “Just like the roses.”

“Something is wrong, Célie.” Her voice grows quieter still. “It isn’t just the trees and roses. The land itself... it feels sick somehow. My magic feels sick.” When I look at her sharply, she just shakes her head, still gazing at the water without seeing it. “Did you find anything else in the cemetery? Something we might’ve missed?”

Instinctively, I slide the necklace from my pocket, dangling the silver cross between us. “Just this.”

Her brow furrows as she reaches out to examine it. “Where?”

“Babette had it. She held it in her hands.” When she drops her own hand, mystified, I extend the chain more insistently. It isn’t right for me to keep it any longer. Despite the overwhelming, inexplicable urge to keep the necklace close, it doesn’t belong to me, and it’ll do no good hidden in my pocket. “Take it. Perhaps it’ll help you locate the killer.”

She stares at it. “You kept it from Jean Luc?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I lift a helpless shoulder, unable to give a true answer. “It just... didn’t feel right, giving it to him. He didn’t know Babette. If you don’t need it for the investigation, perhaps you could take it to Coco. She might... appreciate such a token.”

For another long moment, Lou considers the cross, considers me , before carefully pooling the heavy piece in her hand and slipping it back into my pocket. Relief surges through me. It cracks the ice in my chest. “You should trust your instincts, Célie,” she says gravely. “Babette didn’t worship the Christian god. I don’t know why she carried this cross with her when she died, but she must’ve had a reason. Keep it close.”

My instincts.

The words fragment between us, as black and bitter as the Brindelle trees.

“Thank you, Lou.” I swallow hard in the silence. Then— “You were supposed to understand.”

Though she stiffens slightly at my words, the rest spill from my lips in a sickening torrent that I cannot stop. That I cannot slow. They burst through the crack in my chest, shattering the ice, leaving only sharp, jagged peaks in their wake. “You were there through all of it. You pulled me from my sister’s casket. You—you wiped her remains from my skin. You followed me into those tunnels toward Morgane, and you watched me walk back out of them unscathed.”

“ No one left those tunnels unscathed—”

“ Alive , then,” I say fiercely, turning to face her now. “After everything, you watched me leave those tunnels alive . You watched me claw and bite and scratch my way to the surface, and you watched me plunge that injection into Morgane’s thigh. You. Not Jean Luc, not Coco, not Reid or Beau or Frederic.” My voice grows thicker beneath the flood of grief, of rage and regret and resentment and... and defeat. “The others, they—they see me as someone who needs protection, who needs a—a glass box and a polished pedestal on the highest shelf, but you were supposed to see me differently.” Voice breaking, I push up Coco’s sleeve to show her the emerald ribbon still tied around my wrist. “You were s-supposed to be my friend , Lou. I needed you to be my friend.”

As soon as the words fall, I regret them. Because Lou is my friend—and Jean Luc is my fiancé—and everyone in that council room knows better than me, wants to help me. Perhaps I deserve to be treated like a child. I’ve certainly stamped my feet and screamed like one.

Lou stares down at the ribbon for a long moment.

To my distress, she doesn’t speak. She doesn’t argue or patronize or reprimand; she doesn’t tell me not to worry or not to cry, nor does she sigh and escort me back to the safety of my room. No. Instead, she takes my hand and squeezes firmly, looking me directly in the eye as the sun slips beneath the river. Glittering powder swirls around us as another branch breaks. “You’re right, Célie,” she says. “I am so sorry.”

Seven magic words.

Seven perfect blows.

“Wh-What?” I say, breathless with them.

“I said I’m sorry. I wish I could explain myself somehow, but I have no excuse. I should’ve told you everything from the start—how you proceeded with it should’ve been your decision, not mine. And certainly not Jean Luc’s.” Her lips twist as if in memory of something, and my heart sinks in realization. She would’ve heard our argument in the library. Everyone would have heard it. Heat blooms in my cheeks as she adds, “He’s an ass , by the way, and has no idea what he’s talking about. If you hadn’t been here”—she gestures around us to the Brindelle trees, and her cloak pulls with the movement, revealing the scar along her collar—“Morgane would’ve slit my throat. Again. I would’ve died that day, and even Reid wouldn’t have been able to bring me back a third time.” A wicked gleam enters her eyes as an idea sparks, followed by a wickeder grin. “Do you want me to curse him for you? Jean Luc?”

I chuckle tremulously and pull her toward the wide, cobbled street in front of the town house. An enormous bridge intersects it, spanning the great fissure that split the kingdom in two during the Battle of Cesarine. The Chasseurs—along with hundreds of volunteers—laid the final stone last month. Beau and the royal family held a festival in honor of the occasion, unveiling a plaque at the bridge’s entrance that reads: Mieux vaut prévenir que guérir.

Father Achille chose the words, a cautionary tale to all who cross.

It is better to prevent than to heal.

I reach out to trace the letters as we pass. There is nothing more to see here, and furthermore, Lou spoke truth—we’re freezing off our delectable assets, and our hair now smells of fish. “As much as I’d like to see him squirm, Jean Luc is under a lot of pressure right now. A curse might rather compound things. I do , however, give you full permission to curse him after we find this murderer.”

Lou groans theatrically. “Are you sure? Not even a small one? I came this close to dyeing his hair blue last year. Or perhaps we could shave off an eyebrow. Jean Luc would look ridiculous without an eyebrow—”

“In fairness, anyone would look ridiculous without an eyebrow.”

Chuckling again, I lift Coco’s hood to cover my still-damp head. When Lou slips her arm through my elbow in response, forcing me to sashay rather than walk across the bridge, that torrent in my chest slows to a trickle—until the cross clinks against the ring in my pocket. A reminder.

My heart sinks once more.

In the distance, Saint-Cécile’s bell clangs slow and deep, and Chasseur Tower looms like a shadow behind the cathedral, baleful and imposing in the darkness. There’s nothing for it. At the bridge’s end, I gently disentangle my arm from Lou’s. “I should go. Jean Luc and I need to... finish our discussion.”

She glances pointedly at my bare finger, arching a brow. “Really? It looks finished to me.”

“I—” Cheeks burning once more, I hide the incriminating hand within my cloak. “I haven’t decided anything yet.” When she says nothing, merely purses her lips, I continue hastily, “Really, I haven’t, and—and even if I have—not every choice is a forever one.”

Unfortunately, the words fail to evoke Father Achille’s steady assurance, and my shoulders slump in resignation. In exhaustion .

What a mess.

“Hmm.” Taking pity on me, Lou bumps my hip and drags me in the opposite direction. “You aren’t wrong, but you also don’t need to make that choice tonight. Indeed, I must insist you let our dear captain stew in his stupidity for at least a few hours. Coco and Beau are coming over for a nightcap after a very long day, and Reid will be thrilled to see you—Melisandre, too, if you apologize for canceling last month. She even caught you a lovely birthday present for the festivities tomorrow. I’m sure she’ll drag it out just as we’re cutting the cake.” Hesitating, she glances back at the town house with its pretty pale stone and ivy vines. “Unless you’d rather stay here?”

“No,” I say too quickly.

“Excellent.” Beaming, she stuffs a lock of my windswept hair back beneath my hood. “Then I suggest cheese under the table as an olive branch, but slip it when Reid isn’t looking. He doesn’t like Melisandre eating table scraps—”

My feet slow of their own accord, and reluctantly, I draw to a halt. I don’t know why. I miss Lou’s cat too—I miss all of them—yet I cannot bring myself to take another step. “You go ahead,” I tell her, forcing a smile. “I’ll catch up.” When she frowns, I nod in reassurance and motion for her to continue. “Don’t worry. I owe Melisandre an apology, so trust me—I’ll meet you there. I can’t have her put out with me.”

The sun has fully set now, and her eyes flick around the dark street before returning to my person. “You do know it’s dangerous to wander alone at night with a killer on the loose?”

“ You did,” I point out.

She hesitates again, clearly deliberating.

“Lou.” I squeeze her wrist imploringly. “Whoever killed Babette has little interest in me. They could’ve snatched me in the cemetery after I found her, but they didn’t. I promise I’ll be right behind you. I just need a few moments to... collect myself. Please.”

Lou bobs her head with a quick exhale. “Right. Of course you do. And you also have your Balisarda, correct?” When I shake my head, she lifts my left arm with a beleaguered sigh, pinching the hard embroidery on the cloak’s hem. “How fortunate that Coco keeps a thin blade in each sleeve. You probably won’t need them, but if you do , the clasp on the right sleeve sticks. Go for the left.”

I try not to look startled. Of course Coco keeps knives in her clothing. “I will.”

Lou nods again. “I’ll see you in an hour?”

“I’ll see you in an hour.”

“Remember, Célie”—she presses her thumb on the clasp of my left sleeve, and a razor-sharp blade slides into my palm—“everyone has a groin.”

After slipping the knife back into position, she hugs me briefly before disappearing up the street. I watch her figure retreat with a wistfulness that only she seems to understand—except, of course, that she doesn’t understand at all. Not really. I close my eyes, trying to ignore my leaden feet. Lou has found her place in life—she’s found her family, her home —and I just...

Haven’t.

It’s a sobering realization.

As if sensing my morbid thoughts, the front door of the town house opens, and my mother steps out, hastily dressed in a glittering black robe. “Célie?” she calls softly, peering out into the shadows of the Brindelle trees. Her bedroom window also overlooks the park; she must’ve seen me creeping below, perhaps heard me bickering with Lou, and come to investigate. “Darling? Are you still here?”

I stand perfectly still across the bridge, willing her to return to bed.

Indeed, I watch her so fixedly I don’t realize that the hair on my neck has lifted, that the wind has fled with Lou. I don’t notice the shadow detaching itself from the street, moving swiftly— too swiftly—in my periphery. No. As the seventh branch crumbles in Brindelle Park, I see only my mother’s forlorn figure, and I wish—I wish, I wish, I wish —that I could’ve found my place with her, my family, my home. I wish I could find it with anyone .

I should’ve known better.

My nursemaid always said seven is a magical number, and these trees—perhaps they aren’t quite as dead as I imagine. Perhaps they remember me too. Their glittering powder hangs suspended in the still night air—watching, waiting, knowing —as that shadow descends.

As sharp pain explodes across my temple, and the entire world goes black.