Page 3

Chapter Two

Pretty Porcelain, Pretty Doll

For the first time in six months, I skip evening Mass. When Jean Luc knocks promptly on my door at half past seven—our chaperone curiously absent—I feign sickness. Also a first. I don’t lie as a rule, but tonight, I can’t bring myself to care.

“I’m sorry, Jean. I—I think I caught a chill earlier.” Coughing against my elbow, I lean into the dim corridor, careful to keep my body concealed. It wouldn’t do for him to see me in my nightgown—ivory silk trimmed in lace. One of the many silly, impractical things I brought from my parents’ home in West End. Though it doesn’t protect me from the icy drafts of Chasseur Tower, it does make me feel more like myself.

Besides, Jean Luc insisted on a room with a fireplace when I moved into the dormitories.

My cheeks still heat at the memory. Never mind this is the only room with a fireplace in the dormitories.

“Are you all right?” His face twists with concern as he reaches through the gap to check my perfectly normal temperature. “Should I send for a healer?”

“No, no”—I clasp his hand, removing it from my forehead as casually as possible—“peppermint tea and an early night should do the trick. I just turned down the bed.”

At the mention of my bed, he withdraws his hand like I’ve scalded him. “Ah,” he says, straightening and stepping back with an awkward cough. “That— I’m sorry to hear it. I thought maybe you’d want to—but—no, you should most definitely go to sleep.” Casting a quick glance over his shoulder, he shakes his head at something I cannot see and clears the rasp from his throat. “If you don’t feel better in the morning, just say the word. I’ll delegate your responsibilities.”

“You shouldn’t do that, Jean.” I lower my voice, resisting the urge to peer around him into the corridor. Perhaps a chaperone has accompanied him, after all. A heavy sort of disappointment settles over me at the thought, but of course he brought a chaperone along—as he should. I would never ask him to risk our reputations or our positions by visiting alone at night. “I can catalog the council library with a cough.”

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.” He hesitates with a tentative smile. “Not when Frederic is perfectly healthy and knows his alphabet.”

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I force myself to return his smile—because my failure with the lutins this morning wasn’t his fault, not truly, and a chaperone for the next six months isn’t either. Indeed, thanks to Jean Luc and our brethren, the lutins reached La F?ret des Yeux unharmed, and Father Marc will be able to harvest his barley in peace. Everyone wins.

Which means I must’ve inadvertently won too.

Right.

Throwing caution to the wind, I rest a light hand against his chest, where my engagement ring sparkles between us in the candlelight. “We both know you won’t delegate my responsibilities if I stay in bed. You’ll do them yourself—and you’ll do them beautifully —but you can’t keep covering for me.” When I lean closer instinctively, he does too, his gaze falling to my lips as I whisper, “You aren’t just my fiancé, Jean Luc. You’re my captain.”

He swallows hard, and the motion fills me with a peculiar sort of heat. Before I can act on it—like I’d even know how to act on it—his gaze flicks over his shoulder once more, and I imagine our chaperone crossing his arms with a scowl. Instead of a pointed cough, however, an amused voice fills the corridor.

An amused, familiar voice.

“Do you want us to leave?” The freckled face of Louise le Blanc—otherwise known as La Dame des Sorcières, or the Lady of the Witches—appears over Jean Luc’s shoulder. With an impish grin, she raises her eyebrows at my expression. “You know what they say about... six being a crowd.”

I blink at her in disbelief. “What do you mean six ?”

“Nonsense,” says another voice from behind her. “Seven is a crowd, not six.”

If possible, Lou grins wider. “You speak rather definitively on the subject, Beauregard. Would you like to share with the class?”

“He probably would like that.” My eyes widen further as Cosette Monvoisin, leader of the Dames Rouges—the smaller, deadlier faction of witches in Belterra—elbows her way past Jean Luc to stand before me. With a grudging sigh, Jean steps aside and flings the door open to reveal Beauregard Lyon, the king of all Belterra, and his half brother, Reid Diggory, standing behind him.

Well, Beau’s half brother—and my first love.

My mouth nearly falls open at the sight of them. Once upon a time, I would’ve regarded each with suspicion and fear— especially Reid—but the Battle of Cesarine changed all of that. As if reading my thoughts, he lifts his hand in an awkward wave. “I told them we should’ve sent up a note first.”

Of all the group, Reid alone remains without a formal title, but his reputation as the youngest-ever captain of the Chasseurs still precedes him. Of course, that was a long time ago. Before the battle. Before he found his siblings.

Before he discovered his magic.

My smile, however, isn’t forced at all now. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s wonderful to see everyone.”

“Likewise.” Swooping to kiss my cheek, Coco adds, “As long as you forbid Beau from telling tales of his previous exploits. Trust me, he would be the only one who likes them.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Lou stands on tiptoe to kiss my other cheek, and I cannot help it—instinctively, I engulf them both in a bone-crushing hug. “I quite enjoyed hearing about his rendezvous with the psellismophiliac,” she finishes in a muffled voice.

Overwhelming warmth spreads from my chest to my extremities as I release them, as Beau scowls and flicks the back of Lou’s head. “I never should’ve told you about him.”

“No.” She cackles with glee. “You shouldn’t have.”

They all turn to me then.

Though arguably four of the most powerful people in the entire kingdom—if not the most powerful—they stand in the cramped corridor outside my room as if—as if waiting for me to speak. I stare back at them for several clumsy seconds, unsure what to say. Because they’ve never visited me here before. The Church rarely allows visitors into Chasseur Tower, and Lou, Coco, and Reid—they have better reason than most to never step through our doors again.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Though Jean Luc did his best to remove the hateful words after the Battle of Cesarine, their faint imprint still darkens the entrance to the dormitories. My brethren once lived by that scripture.

Lou, Reid, and Coco almost burned for it.

Nonplussed, I finally open my mouth to ask, “Would you like to come in?” just as the bell of Cathédral Saint-Cécile d’Cesarine tolls around us. That warmth in my chest only builds at the sound, and I beam at the four of them in equal measure. No. The five of them. Though Jean Luc glares at everyone in silent disapproval, he must’ve been the one to invite them, even if it meant skipping Mass. When the bell falls silent at last, I ask, “Am I correct in assuming no one plans to attend the service this evening?”

Coco smirks back at me. “We’ve all caught a chill, it seems.”

“And we know just how to treat it.” Winking, Lou withdraws a paper bag from her cloak and holds it aloft, shaking its contents with evident pride. PAN’S PATISSERIE gleams in bright golden letters beneath her fingers, and the heady scents of vanilla and cinnamon engulf the corridor. My mouth waters when Lou plucks a sticky bun from the bag and presses it into my hand. “They work rather well for a shitty day too.”

“ Language , Lou.” Reid shoots her a sharp look. “We’re still in a church.”

In his own hands, he holds a pretty bouquet of chrysanthemums and pansies wrapped in pink ribbon. When I catch his gaze, he shakes his head with a small, exasperated smile and offers it to me over Coco’s shoulder. Clearing his throat, he says, “You still like pink, right?”

“Who doesn’t like pink?” Lou asks at the same time as Coco pulls a deck of cards from her scarlet cloak.

“Everyone likes pink,” she agrees.

“ I don’t like pink.” Unwilling to be outdone, Beau presents with a flourish the bottle of wine he held hidden behind his back. “Now, pick your poison, Célie. Will it be the pastries, the cards, or the wine?”

“Why not all three?” Dark eyes sparkling with wicked humor, Coco knocks his bottle away with her cards. “And how do you explain the pillow on your bed if you don’t like pink, Your Majesty?”

Undeterred, Beau forces her cards aside with the neck of his bottle. “My little sister embroidered that pillow for me, as you know very well.” To me, he adds grudgingly, “And all three have been known to cure a soul ache.”

A soul ache.

“That,” I say ruefully, “is a lovely phrase.”

Bristling, Jean Luc steps forward at last to seize both the deck of cards and the bottle of wine before I can choose either one. “Have you all gone mad? I didn’t invite you up here to gamble and drink —”

Coco rolls her eyes. “Are they not drinking wine downstairs at this very moment?”

Jean Luc scowls at her. “It’s different, and you know it.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Captain,” she says in her sweetest voice. Then she turns to me, gestures toward the confiscated cards and wine, and adds, “Consider this a prelude to your birthday festivities, Célie.”

“If anyone has earned three days of debauchery, it’s you.” Though she’s still grinning, Lou’s expression softens slightly as she continues. “However, if you’d rather be alone tonight, we completely understand. Just say the word, and we’ll leave you to it.”

With the flick of her wrist and the sharp scent of magic, a cup replaces the sticky bun in my hand, and steam curls in perfect spirals from freshly steeped peppermint tea. With another flick, a glass flagon of honey appears in place of Reid’s flowers. “For your throat,” she says simply.

I glance down at them in wonder.

Though I’ve seen magic before, of course—both the good and the bad—it never ceases to amaze me.

“I don’t want you to leave.” The words spill from me too quickly, too eagerly, but I can’t bring myself to pretend otherwise, instead lifting the tea and honey with a helpless shrug. “I mean—er, thank you, but I’m suddenly feeling much better.”

An evening of cards and pastries is exactly what I need after this wretched day, and I want to kiss Jean Luc square on the lips for offering it—except, of course, that I’ve just been horribly rude by refusing Lou’s gifts. Swiftly, I lift the teacup and swallow an enormous mouthful of the scalding liquid instead.

It blisters my throat on contact, and I nearly choke as the others sweep into the room.

Jean Luc thumps my back in concern. “Are you all right?”

“ Fine. ” Gasping, I thrust the teacup onto my desk, and Lou pulls out a chair and forces me into it. “I just burned my tongue. Nothing to worry about—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says. “How can you properly enjoy chocolate éclairs with a burnt tongue?”

I eye the patisserie bag hopefully. “You brought chocolate—?”

“Of course I did.” Her gaze flicks to Jean Luc, who hovers behind me with a rather mutinous expression. “I even brought canelé, so you can stop scowling at me now. If memory serves, you rather like rum,” she adds with a smirk.

Jean shakes his head vehemently. “I do not like rum.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Captain.” With a sharp thumbnail, Coco pricks the tip of her pointer finger, drawing blood, and the scent of magic engulfs us once more. Unlike Lou and her Dames Blanches, who channel their magic from the land, Coco and her kin hold it within their very bodies. “Here.” She dabs the blood upon my own finger before pouring a drop of honey atop it. “Lou is right—nothing ruins everything like a burnt tongue.”

I don’t look at Jean Luc as I lift the blood and honey to my lips. He won’t approve, of course. Though the Chasseurs have made leaps and bounds in their ideology—led in no small part by Jean Luc—magic still makes him uncomfortable at the best of times.

The instant Coco’s blood touches my tongue, however, the blisters in my mouth heal.

Amazing.

“Better?” Jean Luc asks in a murmur.

Seizing his hand and pulling him away from the others, I smile so hard that my cheeks threaten to burst. “Yes.” I drop my voice to a whisper and gesture toward the desk, where Lou begins distributing pastries. Two for her, of course, and one for everyone else. “Thank you, Jean—for all of this. I know it isn’t typically how you spend your evenings, but I’ve always wanted to learn how to play tarot.” I squeeze his fingers in palpable excitement now. “It really can’t be such a sin to gamble among friends, can it? Not when Lou brought canelé just for you?” Before he can answer, perhaps fearing his answer, I twirl in his arms and rest my head against his chest. “Do you think she knows how to play tarot? Do you think she’ll teach us? I’ve never understood the trick-taking aspect, but between the two of us, surely we can figure it—”

Jean Luc, however, gently disentangles our bodies. “I have no doubt you will.”

I blink in confusion—then cross my arms quickly, cheeks warm. In all the excitement, I forgot that I still wear only a nightgown. “What do you mean?”

Sighing, he straightens his coat in an almost subconscious gesture, and my eyes instinctively follow the movement, landing on a peculiar lump in his chest pocket. Small and rectangular in shape, it appears to be some sort of... book.

Odd.

Jean Luc rarely visits me in the council library, and I’ve never considered him to be much of a reader.

Before I can ask, however, his gaze shies away from mine, and he says quietly, “I... can’t stay, Célie. I’m sorry. I have business to finish for Father Achille.”

Business to finish for Father Achille.

It takes a full second for the words to penetrate the haze of my thoughts, but when they do, my heart seems to shrink several sizes in my chest. Because I recognize that cloud of regret in his eyes. Because he won’t answer even if I do ask, and because I can’t bear the thought of one more secret between us. One more rejection.

An awkward silence descends between us instead.

“He expects you to finish this business during Mass?” I ask softly.

Jean Luc rubs the back of his neck in obvious discomfort. “Well, er—no. He thought I’d be attending the service this evening, actually, but he’ll understand—”

“So you have at least an hour and a half before he expects you to finish anything.” When he still says nothing, I snatch a robe from its hook beside the door, lowering my voice while Lou makes a show of admiring my secondhand jewelry box. Coco agrees with her loudly, and Beau crinkles the patisserie bag before tossing it at Reid’s head. “Please... can your business not wait until Mass is over?” Then—unable to stand still for a second longer—I catch his hand again, determined to keep the pleading note from my voice. I will not ruin this night with an argument, and I won’t let him ruin it either. “I miss you, Jean. I know you’re incredibly busy with Father Achille, but I’d... like to spend more time together.”

He stills in surprise. “You would?”

“Of course I would.” I grasp his other hand now too, lifting both to my chest and cradling them there. Right against my heart. “You’re my fiancé. I want to share everything with you, including a chocolate éclair and our first game of tarot. Besides,” I add weakly, “who else will tell me if Lou tries to cheat?”

He casts another disapproving look in our friends’ direction. “We shouldn’t be playing tarot at all.” With a long-suffering sigh, he brushes a chaste kiss against my knuckles before lacing his fingers through mine. “But I can never tell you no.”

The sweet scents of chocolate and cinnamon seem to spoil at the lie, and the honey on my tongue tastes abruptly bitter. I try to ignore both, try to focus on the indecision in Jean Luc’s gaze. It means he wants to spend time with me too. I know he does. “So your business can wait?” I ask him.

“I suppose it can wait.”

Straining to smile, I kiss his hands once, twice, three times before releasing him to tighten my robe. “Have I told you today what a perfect fiancé you are?”

“No, but feel free to tell me again.” Chuckling, he leads me toward the others, plucking the most decadent of the éclairs from the pile and handing it to me. He doesn’t take a bite, however. He doesn’t claim a canelé either. “You’ll be my partner,” he says, matter-of-fact.

The éclair feels cold in my hand. “You know how to play tarot?”

“Lou and Beau might have taught me on the road. You know”—he clears his throat as if embarrassed, shrugging—“when we shared that bottle of rum.”

“Oh.”

Lou claps her hands together, startling us both, and I nearly drop my éclair in her lap. “He was complete and utter shit,” she says, “so never fear, Célie—we’ll have you trouncing him in no time.”

As if on cue, faint music rises from the sanctuary below, and the light flickers with a great boom of the pipe organ. Jean Luc casts me a quick look when I reach reflexively to steady the nearest candle. A dozen more litter every flat surface of my room. They burn atop my ivory nightstands, my bookshelf, my armoire, competing with the light of the fireplace, where a handful more burn along the mantel. Anyone on the street outside would think they gazed upon a second sun, but not even the sun shines bright enough for me now.

I do not like the dark.

As children, Filippa and I would cling to each other beneath the blanket, giggling and imagining what monsters lived in the darkness of our room. Now I am no longer a child, and I know what monster lurks in the darkness—I know the wet feel of it on my skin, the putrid scent of it in my nose. It doesn’t matter how often I scrub, how much perfume I wear. The darkness smells of rot.

I take an enormous bite of éclair to calm the sudden spike of my pulse.

Only an hour and a half remains to eat pastries and play tarot with my friends, and nothing, nothing , will ruin the evening for me—not Jean Luc’s secrets, and certainly not my own. Both will still be waiting for me in the morning.

Our stomachs will be fine, Célie. We’ll all be fine.

We’ll all be fine.

You should show your scars, Célie. They mean you survived.

They mean you survived.

I survived I survived I survived—

Raising my brows at Lou, I say, “You have to promise not to cheat.” Then—on second thought—I turn to Beau as well, pointing the éclair at his nose. “ And you.”

“Me?” He swats it away in mock affront. “When everyone knows Reid is the cheater in the family?”

Low laughter rumbles through Reid’s chest as he settles on the edge of my bed. “I never cheat. You’re just terrible at cards.”

“Just because no one ever catches you,” Beau says, dragging a chair over from the corner of the room, “doesn’t mean you never cheat. There’s a difference.”

Reid shrugs. “I suppose you’ll just have to catch me, then.”

“ Some of us aren’t privy to magic—”

“He doesn’t use magic, Beau,” Lou says without glancing up, carefully cutting the deck. “We tell him your cards when you aren’t looking.”

“Excuse me?” Beau’s eyes threaten to pop from his head. “You what ?”

After nodding sagely while removing her boots, Coco perches on the bed next to Reid. “We consider it a win for us all. Célie, you’re my partner,” she adds as Jean Luc slips out of his coat. When he drapes it over the back of Lou’s chair, the book in his pocket hangs lower than the rest. I try not to look at it. I try not to think. When Jean opens his mouth to protest, Coco lifts a hand to silence him. “No arguments. After all, the two of you will be partners for the rest of your lives.”

Though I force sweet laughter up my throat, I can’t help but think how wrong she is.

A partnership implies trust, but Jean Luc will never tell me his business with Father Achille, and I—

I will never tell him what happened in my sister’s casket.

The nightmare starts as it always does.

A storm rages outside—the cataclysmic sort of storm that shakes the earth, that overturns houses and uproots trees. The oak in our own backyard splinters in two after a lightning strike. When half of it crashes against our bedroom wall—nearly tearing a hole in the roof—I bolt to Pippa’s bed and dive beneath the covers. She welcomes me with open arms.

“Silly little Célie.” Crooning, she strokes my hair as lightning flashes all around us, but her voice is not her voice at all. It belongs to someone else entirely, and her fingers—they stretch to an unnatural length and contort at the knuckles, seizing my scalp and crackling with energy. Trapping me in her porcelain arms. We’re nearly identical, Pip and I, like black-and-white nesting dolls. “Are you frightened, sweeting? Does the magic scare you?” Though I lurch backward, horrified, she tightens her grip, leering with a too-wide smile. It extends beyond her face. “It should scare you, yes, because it could kill you if I let it. Would you like that, sweeting? Would you like to die?”

“N-No.” The word slips from my lips like a script, like an endless loop I can’t escape. The room begins to spin, and I can’t see, can’t breathe . My chest constricts to a pinpoint. “P-P-Please—”

“P-P- Please .” Sneering derisively, she lifts her hands, but they no longer hold lightning. Marionette strings dangle from each finger instead. They attach to my head, my neck, my shoulders, and when she rises from the bed, I go with her, helpless. A Balisarda appears in my hand. Worthless in my hand. She floats to the floor of our nursery, beckoning me closer, drifting to the painted wooden house at the end of my bed. “Come here, sweeting. Such a lovely little doll.”

At her words, my feet teeter— tink, tink, tink ing with each step—and when I look down, I cannot scream. My mouth is porcelain. My skin is glass. Beneath her emerald gaze, my body begins to contract until I topple over, my cheek cracking against the rug. My Balisarda turns to tin. “Come here,” she croons from above me. “Come here, so I may shatter you.”

“P-Pippa, I d-d-don’t want to p-play anymore—”

With a sinister laugh, she bends in slow motion, and lightning strikes her raven hair so it flashes horrifying white. Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, your pretty clock doth start. Come rescue her by midnight, or I shall eat her heart.

With the flick of her finger, I shatter into a thousand pieces, the shards of my eyes soaring into the dollhouse, where there is no lightning, no thunder, no painted faces or porcelain feet.

Here, there is only darkness.

It presses into my nose, my mouth, until I choke on it—on rotting flesh and sickly-sweet honey, on the brittle strands of my sister’s hair. They coat my mouth, my tongue, but I can’t escape them. My fingers are bloody and raw. Broken. My nails are gone, replaced by splinters of wood. They protrude from my skin as I claw at the lid of her rosewood casket, as I sob her name, as I sob Reid’s name, as I scream and scream until my vocal cords fray and snap.

“No one is coming to save us.” Pip turns her head toward me slowly, unnaturally, her beautiful face sunken and wrong . I shouldn’t be able to see in this darkness, but I can—I can , and half of it is missing. With a sob, I slam my eyes shut, but she lives beneath my eyelids too. “At least you’re here now,” she whispers. “At least we didn’t die alone.”

Mariée ...

Tears course down my cheeks. They mingle with my blood, with my sick, with her . “ Pip —”

“Our stomachs will be fine, Célie.” She touches a skeletal hand to my cheek. “We’ll all be fine.”

Then she buries that hand in my chest, wrenching out my heart and eating it.