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Chapter Forty-Six

Masquerade Part II

Pandemonium ensues.

The vampires scatter in every direction, shrieking and hissing and ducking for cover, while Michal pushes me behind him and Dimitri tucks Margot under his arm to flee behind the dais. Odessa appears instantly beside us—shielding her face with her arms—as smoke undulates from her skin. “What is it?” she shouts, panicked. “What’s happening?”

But I don’t know—I can’t answer her—and Michal is smoking too, faster than the others because of my gown. I try to push in front of him, to protect him from the impossible light inside the room, but even burning, his body is too strong. Impenetrable. “Michal, move —!”

“Stay behind me.”

Through narrowed eyes, he glares at the sphere of light, which splits neatly into two as Louise le Blanc steps between them, holding each one in her palm. “Bonsoir,” she calls pleasantly to the room at large, her hair rippling in the pulse of the spheres. Heat emanates from them in waves until—with a horrified gasp—I realize what they are.

Suns.

She holds miniature, fiery suns in each hand, and the vampires are cowering behind tables now, clinging desperately to the shadows of the dais. She strolls past them without a second glance, thoroughly unconcerned. The earthen scent of magic trails in her wake. “I am looking,” she continues, “for Michal Vasiliev. A little birdie told me he wishes to speak with a dear friend of mine, but alas—he’ll have to deal with me instead.”

This—this is bad. This is bad . With those suns in her hands, Lou could do unspeakable damage, and she would never even know that he—that Michal—

I move to lunge forward, but Odessa’s feet still stand upon my train, and the momentum jerks me backward instead. Stumbling, I twist to right myself—except Odessa also shifts, still shielding her face, and I lose my footing completely. Oh God. Pinwheeling, I fall against her arms, which wrap around me instinctively to stop us both from crashing to the floor. Her skin blisters upon contact. Though she muffles her cry of pain, we’re thoroughly entangled now, and Michal—

He steps forward, spreading his arms to shield Odessa and me from view. “Welcome to my home, Louise le Blanc, and merry meet. I am Michal Vasiliev.”

Lou slows to a halt halfway across the room, her grin widening as she inspects him. Her eyes lingering for a moment on the leather of his pants, the magnificent wings at his back. “Of course you are.” She raises the spheres between them, and they flare even brighter, near blinding now. Even Michal winces. At his pained intake of breath, the last of my control shatters; pushing away from Odessa— she’ll be fine, she’ll be fine, she’ll be fine —I sprint into the open space at the center of the room.

“Lou, wait! Wait! ” Her eyes widen slightly as I skid to a halt before her, waving my arms like a lunatic and gasping for breath. “You don’t need to hurt him. He promised not to touch Coco—not to touch any of you.” Though I glance behind for Coco or Reid or even Jean Luc, none of them stand in the corridor beyond. No one else does either. The passage remains empty except for shards of door and bits of metal. “You—you’re to be treated like an honored guest,” I say, my voice weaker now. At least Lou came . At least she hasn’t incinerated me on the spot. “My honored guest. He promised. He promised he won’t hurt anyone.”

The suns in Lou’s hands dim marginally. Her eyes narrow, and she searches my face for several seconds. “And you believe him?”

“I do.”

“You trust him?”

Nodding furiously, I lower my arms and hold my breath. Please. Please please please —

Though Lou tilts her head, considering, the suns still burn hot and bright in her hands. I try not to glance behind me. I don’t know how long a vampire can withstand sunlight—even the imitation of it—before bursting into flame. “And you’re telling me this of your own volition? You haven’t been compelled?”

I blink at her, startled. Because I never told her about compulsion. Come to think of it, I never told her about sunlight either, but—but that hardly matters now. I need to somehow prove that Michal is trustworthy before this entire place goes up in smoke. I look behind her again. “Did Coco come with you? Is she here somewhere?”

Lou’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Because the blood of a Dame Rouge is poisonous to their enemies. If her blood doesn’t harm him, you’ll know we’re telling the truth. Please, Lou,” I add quietly when she still doesn’t move. “Let us prove it.”

“You’re asking me to risk my best friend’s life.”

“I’m asking you to trust me.”

After several long seconds, Lou nods—just a single, short dip of her chin—and Coco, Reid, Beau, and Jean Luc seem to melt from the very walls of the corridor. I gape at them in disbelief, heart lodging in my throat, and hardly register the sharp bite of blood magic. “It’s up to you,” Lou murmurs to Coco, but the latter has already pressed the tip of her sharp nail to her thumb. It draws a single bead of blood.

The entire room seems to inhale.

Ignoring the vampires’ reaction, Coco moves to brush past me, but I catch her sleeve at the last minute, suddenly terrified. “If you think of him as an enemy, will it still—?”

“I don’t want him to be my enemy, Célie.” She eases my hand from her arm with a wary expression, yet a sympathetic one too. “You said that you trust him,” she says simply.

I can do nothing but watch as she crosses the no-man’s-land between us and Michal, her finger outstretched all the way. When she halts before him, expectant, his eyes flick to mine. His poor skin shines raw and pink in Lou’s artificial sunlight, but if it bothers him, he does not say. Still looking directly at me, he swipes the blood from Coco’s finger. His skin doesn’t bubble, doesn’t blister, but for good measure, he lifts her blood to his mouth next, sucking it gently while we wait with bated breath.

Nothing happens.

My entire body sags with relief because nothing happens , and when Coco turns to me and smiles, the miniature suns in Lou’s hands wink out instantly. I blink in the sudden semidarkness, fighting back tears, as Lou saunters forward and loops her arm through my elbow. “Well, then,” she says matter-of-factly. “That changes things, doesn’t it?”

Yes, it does.

When she pulls me into a hug, I can’t stop the first tear from falling. It trickles into her hair as she laughs and squeezes me tighter, as Coco hurries to join and wraps her arms around us both. “We’ve missed you, Célie,” Coco whispers.

A sob builds in my throat as we hold one another. “I missed you too.”

Odessa whisks Lou, Coco, Reid, Beau, and Jean Luc into an antechamber off the ballroom several moments later, and Michal does his best to appease his half-healed guests. At his orders, the musicians drain several goblets of blood before returning to their posts on the dais and striking up a lively tune. Dozens of attendants weave through the mutinous crowd with still more goblets—this blood somehow fresh, somehow warm —and dispense them with haste.

Within a quarter hour, every vampire in the room looks bright and shiny and new again.

Except for their eyes.

Sharp and spiteful, they track Michal as he too accepts a goblet, as he downs its contents in a single swallow. Almost instantly, the burns on his skin fade to smooth alabaster. Before I can approach him, however, Lou and Coco burst from the antechamber in their new costumes—Lou as a svelte black cat and Coco as the green fairy.

I can’t help but smile as they beeline in my direction.

Monsieur Marc didn’t have time to sew their costumes, of course, but he fitted them best he could based on my descriptions. Lou’s black tights and gown fit her like a glove, as does the shimmering emerald number he procured for Coco. Michal suspected my friends would want to make an entrance when they arrived on Requiem, and he was right. Their entrance couldn’t have been more conspicuous.

With these costumes, however, our trap hasn’t gone completely awry.

If the Necromancer— wherever he is—witnessed their overly warm arrival, he also would’ve witnessed our reconciliation. To anyone watching, we’ll look like estranged friends reuniting for a masquerade on All Hallows’ Eve—and for most intents and purposes, we are. We’re friends reuniting for a masquerade on All Hallows’ Eve who just happen to be plotting the downfall of a sadistic killer. Instinctively, my gaze flits around the room, searching for any sign of a new and unfamiliar guest—an impossible task, unfortunately, as I would’ve needed to memorize every face in the room before the enchantment lifted.

“Me-ow,” Lou says, circling me and examining my gown in earnest now. “And here we thought you’d been taken hostage. Are those real diamonds?”

My face heats as Coco leans closer to inspect my capelet. A wicked grin splits her face in two, and she feigns a wistful sigh. “To think, he could’ve kidnapped me instead.”

“You’re uproariously funny, Cosette.” Beau—who Monsieur Marc befitted in the harlequin costume of a court jester—scowls as he storms up beside us, tugging at his too-short, spangled sleeve. Little bells jingle on his hat with each step. “Can you believe this? King of all Belterra—with a lion as my coat of arms—and they’ve stuck me in a clown suit.” He jerks his chin irritably at a passing vampire, who wears the golden chain mail of a knight. “Now that— that is a costume for royalty. I can’t believe this—”

Coco presses a kiss to his cheek with a laugh. “You aren’t king here, Beau.”

“No, you most certainly are not.” Lou raises her brows in appreciation as Michal approaches. Apparently, all her reservations vanished when he drank Coco’s blood and survived to tell the tale. Waggling her brows, she nudges me in the ribs and says, “Well done , Célie.”

If possible, my cheeks flame even hotter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” For all her talk, a truly delighted smile breaks across her freckled face when she spots Reid in the crowd. He follows Michal’s path, wearing the mechanical mask and dark suit of a clockwork man. His sleeves and pant legs, however, have been rolled several times, as if the suit originally belonged to a giant. I narrow my eyes at Michal, who gazes back with an air of supreme satisfaction. “Shall I explain it to you?” Lou asks innocently.

Behind Reid, however, is Jean Luc.

He wears no costume at all, donning only a simple gold mask made of plaster. “I have huntsmen surrounding this entire castle,” he snarls at Michal before moving to stand between Lou and Coco. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t look at anyone. Crossing his arms, he stares at the obsidian floor as if his life depends on it. My heart twists at the image of him standing there, stiff, surrounded by all our friends yet somehow still alone.

Lou coughs awkwardly in the silence that descends.

Unable to stand it, I murmur, “Hello, Jean Luc.”

His lip curls slightly, the only indication he heard me at all. He discarded his Chasseur coat in the antechamber, at least; the pristine shirt beneath it glows white in the candlelight. Beside me, Michal says in a low voice, “Shall we continue?” Though he speaks the words to me, the others still hear him. Lou tilts her head in an unspoken question, while Reid’s and Coco’s eyebrows furrow. Beau glowers outright, nearly as foul-tempered as Jean Luc. His little bells still jingle with each of his movements.

When I nod, Michal extends a pale hand to Lou, who stares at it in fascination. “Would you honor me with a dance, ma Dame?”

After a curious glance at Reid, who nods once in affirmation, she tentatively places her hand in Michal’s. “I don’t know what the two of you are playing at, but I—for one—cannot wait to find out. Coco? Beau?” She catches Coco’s hand as Michal leads her away, and Coco takes Beau’s in turn. Together, the four of them stride onto the dance floor, joined quickly by Dimitri and Odessa. Margot has vanished—hopefully gone home—leaving Dimitri to intercept Coco and introduce himself; Odessa does the same with Beau.

I breathe a quick sigh of relief. This part of the plan, at least, has gone smoothly. I knew it would. My friends have always feared little and braved much.

Unfortunately, they’ve left me to stand alone with Reid and Jean Luc.

Clearing my throat, I turn cautiously to Jean. “I’m so glad you’re here. We have a lot to talk about—”

“That’s not why I came here, Célie.”

“But you are here,” I insist, perhaps a touch desperately. “Do you remember when I couldn’t build a fire at the start of my training? We were surrounded by our brethren in La F?ret des Yeux, and I didn’t want to try because I thought they’d all laugh at me. You wouldn’t let me quit, though. You told me there’s no time like the present—that sometimes we have to do things, even if we don’t want to do them.”

“Don’t.” The word catches in his throat as he lifts his head, and his gaze is the only weapon he’ll need tonight. His hurt, his anger, his heartbreak—they pierce me just as swiftly as a sword ever could. “Don’t pretend we know each other anymore.”

Before I can say anything else, he pivots on his heel and stalks away to stand by the skeletons and pumpkins. Crestfallen, I watch him go without following, without protest. A small, secret part of me hoped for a forgiveness I haven’t earned, but of course that hasn’t happened. It may never happen. Jean Luc has never been one to forgive easily, and he doesn’t ever forget.

“Did he tell them everything?” I ask Reid, unable to keep the plaintive note from my voice. “Lou and Coco and Beau? Do they know what happened at the docks?”

“Yes.” Sighing heavily, Reid too watches his friend, who snaps at a passing attendant and flashes his Balisarda. “Give him time, Célie. He’ll come around.”

“Will he?”

“He wants to catch the Necromancer worse than anyone.”

At his words, Filippa’s cross seems to hang heavier at my neck, and I force myself to turn away from Jean Luc. With time, perhaps he’ll realize we both deserved better, but that isn’t important right now. That can’t be important right now. Not when our plan is in motion.

“Are you going to ask me to dance?”

Reid blinks at me in surprise, a small smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “Would you like to dance, Mademoiselle Tremblay?”

“Indeed I would, Monsieur Diggory.”

Accepting his hand, I allow him to guide me to the dance floor before leaning closer and whispering, “It would be a shame if we were overheard.” As inconspicuously as possible, I tilt my head toward the vampires around us, positioning my free arm over his, my hand on his shoulder. “We have so much catching up to do.”

Fortunately, he understands my meaning at once, his eyes going distant as he searches for a pattern. His magic behaves differently than Coco’s, differently than even Lou’s since she became La Dame des Sorcières. He and the rest of his kin are able to see and manipulate the patterns of the universe; that manipulation is how Dames Blanches and Seigneurs Blancs cast spells—they give up pieces of themselves in order to gain something in return. Just like Filippa said.

You can’t get something for nothing, Célie.

That familiar, heavy weight settles in my chest again at the thought of my sister, and I watch Reid rather distantly as he searches for the right enchantment, his blue eyes flicking left and right. He knew Filippa too. Throughout our childhood, he knew her better than anyone except perhaps Evangeline and me. What would he think if he knew about her relationship with the Necromancer? Would he understand this deep ache in the pit of my stomach? Does he still grieve her too?

If I tell him about her secret, he’ll no longer grieve only her . He’ll grieve her memory too, and that—that would be incredibly selfish of me.

Wouldn’t it?

“I can take away their hearing,” Reid murmurs after several seconds, “but I won’t be able to speak during our conversation.” His eyes flash back to mine. “Do I need to speak?”

I’m supposed to explain the plan to him, just as Michal, Odessa, and Dimitri are explaining the plan to the others. It’s my job to explain the plan. We thought it would be best, would draw less attention, to divide and conquer on the dance floor rather than congregate in a corner and whisper. And yet...

“It might be better if you don’t.”

He frowns at that, but without another word, he flicks his wrist at my waist. As the scent of the magic engulfs us, he nods for me to continue. Still strangely reluctant to speak at a normal volume, I open my mouth to tell him about our trap, about Beau leading me to the northern balcony, but the words that come out are entirely different. “Do you remember... those last few years of Filippa’s life?”

Whatever Reid had been expecting me to say, clearly, this wasn’t it. His frown deepens as he searches my face, but he nods regardless, his meaning clear. Yes, I remember.

“She was... distant, almost reclusive, and I caught her sneaking out of our nursery more than once, always in the dead of night. I know she treated you differently too.” His hands tighten imperceptibly as they spin me away from him, then back again. Instinctively, I know he’s remembering the same thing I am: the last time the two of them spoke, Filippa called him a pigheaded soldier and stormed from the house. Before I can reconsider, I blurt, “Reid, I think she was having an affair with the Necromancer.”

He recoils slightly in shock, his eyes narrowing.

“She might not have known he was a necromancer at the time, of course, but the two—they were involved somehow,” I say helplessly. “They—they planned to run away together, and I just can’t— I don’t know how to—” I take a deep, shuddering breath. “I don’t understand how she could’ve associated with such a person. How she could’ve loved him.” Then—because he cannot speak and I can, because there’s nothing either of us can truly say— “You knew her too. You knew her. Did you ever suspect she could do something like this? Did I just—did I miss it, Reid? Did I even know her at all?”

Too many questions , I realize miserably. He can’t possibly answer them all —

Squeezing my hand, Reid pulls me into a bone-crushing hug, and with it—incredibly—the tension in my entire body releases. I choke on a sob. It has been a... very long time since someone hugged me like this, not as a friend or paramour, but as family. As a sibling, a brother. As someone who knows me, truly knows me, and understands my pain and confusion and guilt because he feels it too.

But that isn’t everything.

“You hurt my feelings, you know,” I tell him quietly when we pull apart. “You all did. What I overheard in the counsel room—I didn’t deserve to be treated like that, Reid. No one deserves to be treated like their thoughts and feelings and experiences don’t matter, especially by their closest friends.” Despite the words, my voice holds no accusation or reprimand, and to my surprise, I no longer feel anger either. Perhaps because this is no longer a confrontation. This is statement of fact. “I am not secondary.”

Reid stops dancing abruptly, right there in the middle of the floor, and clasps my shoulders, bending to look directly in my eyes. I know , he mouths, his expression solemn and full of regret. I’m sorry.

Around us, the other couples continue to sway and spin, but Michal and Lou both track us from the corners of their eyes. The others have finished their discussions too, clearly waiting for Reid and me to move into the second stage of our plan. The trap itself.

Cupping Reid’s cheek, I whisper, “I forgive you. Now... here is what we’re going to do.”