Page 9

Chapter Eight

A Magical Number

Every eye turns toward me, but I don’t hesitate, marching straight to where Jean Luc sits in the center of the room. He nearly falls out of his chair in his haste to rise. “Célie!” Around us, the others draw back, averting their gazes to stare at their boots, the candles, the sheafs of loose paper that litter the council table. A charcoal sketch of Babette’s corpse lies on top. “What—what are you doing here? I told you—”

“To wait in my room. Yes, I’m aware.”

Part of me relishes the panic in his expression. The rest immediately regrets charging in here to—what, exactly? Witness their betrayal up close and personal? Because they’re all here. Every single one of them. Even Beau stands frozen in the corner, looking distinctly undignified with his mouth agape. Though he didn’t discuss my position, my past, my hurt with the rest of them, his presence still makes him complicit. His silence certainly does. At my accusatory stare, he pushes away from the wall. “Célie, we—”

“Yes?” I snap.

“We—” Steps faltering, he glances helplessly at Lou and Coco, who both watch me with wary eyes. I refuse to look at either of them. “How are you?” he finishes lamely, lifting a hand to rub his neck. Coco elbows his ribs.

I glare at him.

The most powerful players in the kingdom, all gathered together in one room.

All discussing my fate.

“I don’t suppose you, er”—he drops his hand in resignation—“did you—did you happen to hear all that?”

Stiff-necked, I stalk to the circular table to examine the other sketches. No one dares stop me. “Yes.”

“Right. Well, then, you should know that I didn’t want to come, and I wholeheartedly agreed with Lou when she said you should be here—”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty”—I spread the sketches with a hand, staring at the charcoal faces without seeing a single one—“if anyone in this room had wanted me here, I would have been here.” If Lou hears the bitterness in my tone—the heartbreak—she doesn’t show it. And why would she? She has always been a master of secrets. Just like my sister. “Are these the victims?” I ask Jean Luc. I do not look at him either.

He touches my shoulder tentatively. “Célie—”

I jerk away, fighting tears once more. “ Are they?”

He hesitates. “Yes.”

“Thank you. Was that so very difficult?” Now I do look at him, and the indecision in his gaze nearly breaks me. There is guilt there, yes—perhaps even remorse—but there is also reluctance. He still does not want to include me. To confide in me. Unable to bear it another second, I sweep the whole of the sketches into my arms, refusing to acknowledge the ones that I drop. They flutter slowly to the floor as I turn on my heel and march to the door. To Beau, I sniff, “I would say it was lovely to see you again, Your Majesty, but not all of us can lie as adeptly as you.”

I ignore the others completely, slamming the door behind me and dropping another few sketches in the process.

This time, I do bend to reclaim them—my entire body shaking—and startle at the moisture flecking each drawing. Tears. I wipe a furious hand across my cheeks and straighten. When hasty footsteps sound from behind the door, I dart up the corridor and into the library room, unwilling to confront any of them again. Not directly, anyway. Some might call it fleeing , some might call it hiding , but some might be wrong. Some might say they want to protect me, but what they mean is they want to coddle me. To manage me.

I will not be managed.

I will show all of them.

Retreating to the corner of the library—out of sight of the door—I press between two corner bookshelves and flip through the sketches once more. This time, I force myself to study each face as the council room door bursts open, as Jean Luc’s boots pound up the corridor. Though he calls for me, I ignore him, shrinking farther into the shelves, staring furiously at the sketch of the loup garou. He lies in the same peaceful supine position as Babette, his hands half-transformed and clasped against his chest. The same puncture wounds at his throat.

“Célie, wait .” When Jean’s resigned voice passes by the library door, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Come back. We need to talk about this—”

I don’t want to talk, however. Not anymore. Now I study the trees surrounding the loup garou’s corpse instead; I lift the sketch to peer closer at his clawed hands, searching for any sign of a cross. There isn’t one, of course. Jean Luc would’ve asked about Babette’s cross if each victim had been found with one. But why was the loup garou caught between forms? Was the killer interested in the wolf or the man? Perhaps the man shifted to defend himself?

“Célie!” Jean Luc’s voice trails up the staircase, and I relax slightly as it goes, letting my head thud against the bookshelves. I take a deep breath. Perhaps I can creep out before the others conclude their meeting. I flick through the sketches one last time, recognizing none of the crime scenes save one: Brindelle Park, a sacred grove of the witches.

As a child, I stared at the spindly trees outside my nursery window more times than I could count. My mother loathed the faint scent of magic that wafted from their leaves, permeating our yard, but it secretly brought me comfort. It secretly still does. To me, magic smells lovely—like herbs and incense and wild summer honey.

I have not been home in months.

Shaking my head, I study the sketch as Jean Luc’s voice fades overhead. Curiously enough, it was not the Dame Blanche found in Brindelle Park, but the melusine. Though I cannot place her silver face, her gills and fins remain intact, which means the killer did not dispatch her here. Melusines’ two fins transform into legs when they leave water. He must’ve killed her underwater and dragged her body ashore, but again... why ?

“Célie?” Jean Luc’s voice grows louder once more, sterner, and his feet fall upon the stairs like anvils. “The guards didn’t see you come upstairs, so I know you’re down here. Don’t ignore me.”

I tense, eyes darting around the room. I do not want to have this conversation. Not now. Not ever.

He bursts into the library before I can flee or hide, and his gaze finds mine immediately. I have no choice but to square my shoulders and step out to greet him, to pretend I’ve been waiting for him all along. “It took you long enough.”

His own eyes narrow. “What are you doing in here?”

I wave the sketches in unapologetic agitation. “Studying.” Though he opens his mouth to respond, I plunge ahead, speaking over him loudly. The door remains open but I cannot bring myself to care. “The killer moved the melusine’s body. They might’ve moved Babette’s as well, which means we should try to find a connection between each location—”

Crossing the room in three strides, he pries the sketches from my hands and places them carefully upon the nearest shelf. “We need to talk, Célie.”

I glare between him and the sketches. “You’re right. We do.”

“I never meant to involve you in all this.”

“That much is very clear.”

“It’s nothing personal.” He scrubs a weary hand down his face. Dark stubble shadows his once clean-shaven jaw, and his bronze skin looks ashen, as if he hasn’t slept in days. Part of me aches for him, aches at the burden he has carried alone, but a larger part of me aches for myself. Because he didn’t need to carry it alone. I would have carried it with him. I would have carried it for him, if necessary. “This investigation is classified. Father Achille and I haven’t released information of these deaths to anyone outside that council room.”

“Why is Frederic inside that council room?”

He shrugs, and the gesture feels so apathetic, so detached , that my spine snaps straighter in response. My chin jerks higher. “Don’t be like this,” he mutters. “Frederic found the first body. We couldn’t keep him out of the loop.”

“ I found Babette’s body!”

He looks away swiftly, unable to meet my gaze. “Two different situations.”

“They are not , and you know it.” I seize the sketches, lifting them to his face and shaking them. “What of the other victims? Who found them? Do they know about the killer, or is that information also classified ?”

“You wanted me to treat you like a Chasseur.” He grinds his teeth, fighting to keep his voice even. Though his temper clearly balances on a knifepoint, my own hands tighten into fists around the sketches. Jean Luc isn’t the only one allowed to be angry about this. “This is me treating you like a Chasseur—you aren’t privy to everything that happens inside this Tower, and to even expect —”

“I should be privy to everything that happens to you , Jean Luc.” Flinging the sketches aside, I lift my ring finger instead, loathing the way it glitters in the torchlight like a thousand tiny suns. That should be the way Jean and I reflect each other—brightly, beautifully, like the diamond in its centerpiece. My stomach sinks horribly at the realization. “Isn’t that what you promised me when you gave me this ring? Isn’t that what I promised you when I accepted it? Regardless of what either of us wants, we are more than just our positions, and we have to find a path forward together—”

Scowling fiercely, he drops to his knees to collect the sketches. “I’m not more than my position, Célie. I’m equal parts your captain and your fiancé, and you”—his glare turns accusatory, fanning the flames of my own anger and hurt—“ you of all people should know how hard I’ve worked to get here. You know everything I’ve sacrificed. How could you even ask me to choose?”

“I am not asking you to choose—”

“No?” He clenches the sketches in a neat stack and returns to his full height, stalking to the oblong table and hardback chairs across the room. Though I requested more comfortable seating last month—perhaps a chaise to encourage huntsmen to linger, to read —Jean Luc rejected the idea. It did inspire him to have me alphabetize the library, however. He places the sketches beside my current pile of books. “What are you asking, then? What do you want from me, Célie? Do you even know?”

“What I want ”—I snarl the words, no longer in control of my tongue, my vision tunneling on his rigid back, on his stiff fingers as they stack and straighten my pile of books—“is to be treated like a person , not a doll. I want you to confide in me. I want you to trust me—both that I can take care of myself and that I can take care of you . We’re supposed to be partners—”

His head jerks. “We are partners—”

“But we aren’t .” My voice rises almost deliriously as I wring my hands. The others can certainly hear me—the entire Tower can probably hear me—but I can’t stop now. I won’t. “We aren’t partners, Jean. We’ve never been partners. Every step of the way, you’ve tried to put me in a glass box and keep me on your shelf, untouched and untested and untrue. But I’m already broken. Don’t you understand? Morgane shattered me, and I used those shards to strike back. I killed her, Jean. I did that. Me. ” Tears stream, unchecked, down my face, but I refuse to wipe them away, instead striding forward to grip his hand. Let him see. Let them all see. Because it doesn’t matter what they say—I am worthy, and I am capable. I succeeded where all others failed.

Jean Luc looks down at me sadly, his eyes pained as he lifts my hand to his lips. He shakes his head, grimacing, with the air of someone reluctant to deliver a fatal blow.

Deliver it he does, however.

“You didn’t kill Morgane, Célie. Lou did.”

I blink up at him, the righteous anger in my chest withering to something small and shameful. Something hopeless. Out of all the things he could’ve said in this moment, I never expected that. Not from him. Not from Jean Luc. And perhaps it’s the unexpected that knocks the wind from my chest. Until now, the thought has never crossed my mind, but clearly it has crossed his.

“What?” I breathe.

“You didn’t kill her. You might’ve helped—you might’ve been in the right place at the right time—but we both know she would’ve slit your throat if Lou hadn’t been there. You caught her by surprise with that injection, and that—that sort of luck doesn’t last, Célie. You can’t depend on it.”

We both hear his true meaning: I can’t depend on you.

I stare at him, crestfallen, as he sighs heavily and continues. “Please understand. Everything I’ve done is to protect you. You’re to be my wife, and I can’t”—though his voice breaks slightly on the word, he clears his throat, blinking rapidly—“I can’t lose you. I also swore an oath to the people of Belterra, however. I can’t protect them if I’m worried about your safety, chasing you through cemeteries and rescuing you from a murderer.”

When I slip my hand from his, he hangs his head.

“I’m sorry, Célie. Just please... go upstairs. We can finish this after the council meeting. I’ll bring you dinner, whatever you want. I’ll even—I’ll dismiss the chaperone tonight, so we can really talk. How does that sound?”

I stare at him, unable to fathom what more he could possibly say. At least the tears have gone. My eyes have never been clearer.

With another sigh, he strides toward the door, stepping aside to gesture me through it. “Célie?” My feet follow instinctively until I stand before him, the silence between us growing, clanging through my chest like a warning bell. Like a harbinger. He touches a hand to my cheek. “Please say something.”

My nursemaid always said seven is a magical number—for dwarves, for sins, for days of the week, and for tides in the sea. Perhaps it is lucky for words too. Though gooseflesh sweeps my entire body, I rise to my toes and press one last kiss to my fiancé’s cheek, whispering, “I am going to prove you wrong.”

He pulls back. “Célie—”

I have already swept past him, however, into the corridor beyond, where I tug his ring from my finger and slip it inside my pocket. I cannot stand to look at it any longer. Perhaps I’ll never look at it again. Either way, I do not turn back as I set out for Brindelle Park.