Page 19

Chapter Eighteen

The Knife in the Veil

I retreat a step, my eyes wide and my hands cold. “I told you that I can’t—”

“I have spent the last twenty-four hours scouring this island for any other explanation, and everything— everything , down to the last slime-covered toadstool—remains the same as it did two days ago.” He shadows my steps with a hard, determined gleam in his eyes. “Everything except for you . The veil thinned when you arrived. I felt it then, and I felt it again this evening. Care to explain?”

The veil thinned when you arrived.

I don’t like how that sounds. I don’t like it at all.

Demanding answers is one thing, but this—this sort of practical application is quite another.

A finger of unease trails down my spine, and I glance left and right through the rain, prepared to flee if it means escaping this rather abrupt turn in our conversation. He’ll chase me, of course, but my flight might distract him. It’ll most definitely lead me away from this—this rip in the fabric between realms . Michal already walks with one foot in the land of the dead—as far as I’m concerned, he can follow it straight to Hell. I will not have any part in this. I will not summon a ghost .

As if reading my mind, he shakes his head slowly, his voice low. “Never run from a vampire.”

Too late.

Lifting my hem, I dart behind a passing couple and sprint for the nearest shop—a quaint fleuriste of painted brick with bouquets of goldenrods on display. Surely Michal cannot exist in such a cheerful place. Surely we cannot summon ghosts in front of the pretty florist, who already rises on tiptoe to watch us—

Cold hands seize me from behind, and before I can scream, Michal wraps impossibly hard arms around my waist, lifting me from my feet and hauling me over his shoulder. Knocking the breath from my lungs. “Let me g—” Gasping, I kick at his hips, pound my fists on his back, but it feels like grappling with a mountain. His body is harder than stone. “Let me go ! How dare you—? Unhand me, you—you appalling leech !”

“We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot, darling.” His elbow locks behind my knees—adamantine, unbreakable—as he carries me back to the theater. When I twist upright, aiming a blow at his ear, he catches my fist easily, engulfing it in his hand. “Allow us to start over. I will ask you a question, and you will answer. No more games and no more lies.” He tugs on my captured hand, and I tumble into his arms. His face, his teeth , loom entirely too close. Though I thrash away from him, he leans closer still, so close I can see the rain in his eyelashes, the shadows beneath his eyes. “Never run from me again,” he breathes, no longer smiling but deadly serious.

Kicking open the theater doors, he deposits me on my feet.

I immediately flee behind one of the pedestals in the foyer. The marble bust of a beautiful woman peers back at me before Michal closes the doors with an ominous boom and complete darkness descends. There are no candles here. There is no light .

Panic claws up my throat.

Not again.

“M-Michal.” My fingers search blindly for the bust, for something to ground myself in the room. “Can we—can we p-please light a—”

Light flares instantly to my left, illuminating Michal beside a life-sized statue; this one lifts a candelabra over her voluptuous form, half-clothed in flowing robes of obsidian. Tilting his head curiously, Michal blows out the match in his hand. “Are you afraid of the dark, Célie Tremblay?”

“No.” I exhale heavily, taking in the high ceilings, the gilt edges of the room. A dozen other busts line the walls in an imposing semicircle. The royal family. Two at the end with large, feline eyes look acutely familiar, as does the one directly beside me. The sculptor must’ve been part witch; no ordinary artist could capture the menace in Michal’s eyes so perfectly. I turn back to its likeness. “I told you—I am not a vampire, therefore I cannot see in the dark.”

“Is that all?”

My fingers slip from the bust, leaving tracks down her dusty face. “Yes.”

“Then why is your heart racing?”

“It isn’t—”

He appears before me instantly and snatches my wrist, his fingers curling around it. They press against the wild beat of my pulse. “I can hear it across the room, pet. The sound is deafening.” When I stiffen at his touch, he tilts his head, and genuine interest sparks in his eyes. Dangerous interest. “I can scent your adrenaline too, can see your pupils have dilated. If it isn’t the dark that scares you—”

“It isn’t,” I interject.

“—it must be something else,” he finishes, arching a suggestive brow. His thumb strokes the translucent skin of my inner wrist, and a bolt of— something streaks through my core. “Unless it isn’t fear at all?” he asks silkily.

Mortified, I tug my wrist away, and it slides through his fingers without resistance. “Don’t be silly. I simply—I do not want to meddle with ghosts. I don’t even know how . Regardless of what you felt when I arrived here, I was not the one who thinned the veil between realms. I am human —a God-fearing Christian woman who believes in Heaven and Hell and hasn’t the slightest knowledge of life after death. There’s been a”—I skitter around him, unable to stand the fascination in his gaze—“a horrible misunderstanding.”

“Is it your emotions that attract them, I wonder? Could it be any emotion strongly felt?”

I stand on my tiptoes and wrench the golden candelabra from the statue’s hand. “It has nothing to do with my emotions.”

“Perhaps you need to hold a personal item of the deceased to make contact.”

Pushing into the auditorium, I light every candle within reach. There must be another exit somewhere . Perhaps backstage. “I couldn’t possibly have held a personal item of every gho— thing in that promenade. There were dozens of them.”

“Did they speak to you?”

“No.”

“Liar.” He blocks my path once more, and I cannot help but to stop short and stare at him. Here—gilded in the golden candlelight of the theater, framed by the carved demons around the stage—he looks truly otherworldly, like an avenging spirit or fallen angel. Like the Angel of Death. Exhaling slowly, he stares right back, his black eyes narrowing as if I’m a puzzle he cannot quite solve. “You’re doing it again,” he says at last.

I look away quickly. “Doing what?”

“Romanticizing nightmares.”

Scoffing, I shake my head at my boots. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“No? That little sparkle in your eye isn’t wonder?” A cold finger lifts my chin, so I’m forced to look up at him once more. His lips purse in consideration. “You wore the same expression when you entered my study yesterday, and again as you left Monsieur Marc’s shop—like you’d never seen anything more beautiful than a pendulum clock or bolt of teal silk.”

“How do you know it was teal silk?”

“I know everything that happens on this isle.”

“Can you even hear how conceited you sound?” I jerk my chin away from him. “And you keep that clock on your desk because it is beautiful, so I won’t apologize for admiring it or—or romanticizing it.”

He arches a brow. “And the horned toads at market? The carrion beetles? Are they all beautiful too?”

I gape at him, half torn between disgust and outrage. “ Carrion beetles?” Then, remembering myself— “Have you been following me?”

“I told you”—he lifts an unapologetic shoulder—“I know everything that happens here.” When I open my mouth to tell him exactly what he can do with his great omniscient knowledge, he clicks his tongue softly and speaks over me. “I do not want to force you, Célie, but if you refuse to help me, I will have little choice. One way or another, I will learn how you summoned those ghosts.”

One way or another.

I swallow hard, taking a step backward.

He doesn’t need to elucidate. Odessa held my mind in her hands only an hour ago, and compulsion isn’t an experience I’ll ever forget. I shudder to think what might’ve happened if those hands had belonged to Michal —

An unnatural draft sweeps through the auditorium at the thought, leaving tiny icicles upon my wet skin. My stomach plunges at that familiar touch—at the renewed pressure in my head—and I hold my breath, praying I imagined it. “Your eyes,” Michal says softly.

“What about them?” Hastily, I look around for some sort of—of reflective surface, but as with everywhere else on this wretched isle, there are none. My hands flutter uselessly near my face instead. “What is it? Is something wrong with them?”

“They’re... glowing.”

“ What? ”

Then someone else entirely starts to speak.

“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

Behind Michal, a spectral woman strides onto the stage in dark, opaque robes with chains around her ankles. In her hand, she holds her own severed head. Another woman flickers into existence beside her, this one cloaked in an opulent ruff and pearl jewelry. “When the hurly-burly’s done,” she recites, seizing the other ghost’s head and presenting it to the audience. “When the battle’s lost and won.”

A dozen more figures soon materialize in the velvet seats, their whispers producing a gentle din.

I close my eyes briefly.

Please, no.

“Absolutely not .” A portly man with a spectacular mustache storms onto stage next, wielding a skull in his hand like a sword. Except it’s a real skull—a skull of solid ivory bone—not a spectral one. My eyes dart back to Michal, who still watches me closely. In his black eyes, I see the reflection of my own—two points of eerie, glowing silver. They match the light of the figures onstage. “Elaine, you ridiculous woman, we are in Act Four, Scene One—”

“Yes, all right .” The bodiless head scowls, rolling her eyes, before snapping, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.”

“I wanted the Lady of Shalott,” the figure nearest me—a man with a monocle on his eye and an axe in his neck—grumbles to his companion. He seems to sense my gaze in the next second, turning in his seat to frown at me. “May I help you, mariée? It’s quite rude to stare, you know . ”

I try to breathe, try to keep the gorge from rising in my throat. Because that axe in his neck, the woman’s severed head—how can there be any other explanation for their presence? If not ghosts, what else could they possibly be? Demons? Figments of my imagination? Unless Michal shares the same delusion—unless the silver in my eyes is a mere trick of the light—this is very real. They are very real.

At last, understanding dawns, and with it, shards of glass seem to fill my chest.

He called me mariée .

“Has anyone seen the cauldron?” With a scowl, the portly man onstage peers into the audience. “Where is Pierre? I never should’ve made him props master—”

My gaze snaps back to Michal, who is suddenly and unequivocally the lesser of two evils. “We need to leave. Please. We shouldn’t be—”

At the sound of my voice, however, every ghost in the auditorium turns to face me.

They all fall silent as another draft sweeps the theater, stronger and colder this time. The crystals of the chandelier tinkle overhead in response, and a strand of my hair lifts, blowing gently across my face in the unnatural breeze. Michal stares at it. His entire body stills, tightens. “Are they here now?” he asks quietly.

The pressure in my head builds until it might burst, until my eyes water and burn with it. Unable to pretend any longer, I clutch my ears and whisper, “They call me bride .”

His brow furrows. “Why?”

“I—I don’t know—”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Onstage, the portly man plants his hands on his hips and surveys us with stern disapproval. “You’re the knife in the veil, silly child—and you probably shouldn’t tarry. He is searching for you, after all.”

“Wh- Who is searching?”

“The man in the shadows, of course,” says the woman with the ruff.

“We cannot see his face,” says the portly man, “but we can certainly feel his wrath.”

A whimper escapes my throat, and I clench my eyes shut, struggling to master myself. I will not fear them. As Michal said, this place is a rip in the fabric between realms. Death lingers here. Many have died, and that—that has nothing to do with me. Despite their warning, none of this has anything to do with me. This is all just one big coincidence, except—

“You really shouldn’t be here at all, mariée,” the man with the axe in his neck says irritably. “You need to leave this place, and you need to do it now. Do you want him to find you? Do you know what will happen if he does?”

My heart sinks miserably.

Except they seem to recognize me— me , not Michal—and as they drift closer, their voices grow more insistent, echoing all around me, inside of me, and impossible to ignore. Just like in Filippa’s casket. Indeed, the decapitated woman soon streaks up the aisle, holding her head in one hand, and her eyes burn with silver fire. “You must look like the innocent flower, Célie Tremblay, but be the serpent under it.”

“ Be the serpent ,” another ghost echoes.

“Leave now,” another snarls.

“I”—forcing deep breaths, I choke down my panic—“Michal, p-please, we really need to—”

“How many came through?” Though his voice rises in urgency, I stumble backward, away from him, away from them , unable to answer and unable to help. Because the ghosts don’t want me here. The longer I stay, the colder their touch grows—colder than vampires, colder than ice . Too cold to exist in this world. My teeth chatter helplessly. “Where are they?” he asks, louder now. “What are they saying?” Then, abruptly vicious— “Why can’t I see them?”

He can’t see them. The realization crushes the last of my hope, and my breathing hitches, spikes, painful and shallow and— Oh God . Vaguely, I can hear him speaking, but his words don’t penetrate. Not anymore. A horrible rushing sound drowns out his voice, growing louder with each passing second.

If Michal cannot see the ghosts, cannot hear them, it means—he must be right. Somehow, someway, I caused this. I summoned them, and now I cannot send them back. They came here for me. I am the bride, and—and—

“Leave this place, mariée,” the man with the axe hisses.

“You must hide,” says the decapitated woman.

The stage manager’s voice rises to a shout. “You must HIDE—”

A sob tears from my throat as I wrap my arms around my head, as pain cleaves my skull in two. I am going to die in this theater, where they’ll force me to recite dead poets until the end of time. At the thought, hysterical laughter rises until I shake with it, until I cannot tell if I’m crying or screaming or making any sound at all.

Low and strained, Michal’s voice reaches me as if through a tunnel.

“Célie. Open your eyes.”

I obey the command instinctively to find him standing much closer than before—and motionless. Completely and utterly still. The black of his eyes seems to expand as he stares at my throat, and his jaw locks into place, as if—as if he’s trying not to breathe. He doesn’t speak again for another moment. Then, through clenched teeth— “You’re hyperventilating. You need to calm down.”

“I—I—I can’t—”

“If you don’t lower your heart rate,” he says evenly, “every vampire within a three-mile radius is going to descend on this theater. No ”—the word is sharp, lethal, as his hand seizes my sleeve—“do not run. Never run. They will chase you, they will catch you, and they will kill you. Now. Focus on your breathing.”

Focus on my breathing. I nod, gulping air until my head swims with it, until the black in my vision begins to fade. At Michal’s proximity, the ghosts recoil, muttering bitterly. I choke on an explanation. “Th-They want us to leave —”

“In through your nose and out through your mouth, Célie.”

I do as he says, concentrating on his face, the hard line of his jaw. He still doesn’t breathe. Doesn’t move. When I nod again—calmer now—he drops my sleeve and steps backward. I take another deep breath as the ghosts gradually settle into their seats once more. With a grudging look in my direction, the stage manager calls for order. “Please leave,” he tells me, and I nearly weep with relief when Michal stalks toward the doors.

Before I can follow, however, another voice emerges from the darkness beyond the brocade curtain. Fainter than the others. So faint I might imagine it. Come here, sweeting. Such a lovely little doll.

Like a band snapping, the darkness returns, and I collapse face-first into Michal’s chest.