Page 12 of The Shadow Bride (The Scarlet Veil #2)

Chapter Twelve

Mon Mariée

A terrible ringing starts in my ears at the sight of Frederic’s body, at his parted mouth and sightless eyes, because—because he can’t be dead. He simply can’t be. I retreat a small step, shaking my head in staunch denial. If Frederic is dead, all of this—it really has been for nothing, and how will we ever reverse his magic? How will we right all his terrible wrongs? How will Filippa—? No. I grip the trellis for support, refusing to accept the wreath of blood around him. Refusing to acknowledge the sting of my teeth, the burn of my throat.

The scent of roses.

Roses.

My fingers tighten on the wood. These withered blooms behind me cannot possibly be responsible for such an overwhelming scent. It seems to envelop me, to caress my cheeks with phantom hands, mingling with candle smoke and something else—an awareness, or perhaps a memory. It crawls across my skin like ice until I shiver with it, until familiar darkness blooms at the edges of my vision.

Whoever killed Frederic, I know him. I recognize him.

And when I look at him for the first time, my knees nearly give way.

“You’re welcome for that,” he says wryly.

At the sound of his voice, even the wind stops to listen, the autumn leaves floating eerily between us. My sense of dread only deepens at Frederic’s heart in his palm—because it no longer resembles a heart at all. Now it resembles a withered black husk. Dropping it in distaste, the man dusts his gloved fingers on the leg of his pants. “Honestly, Filippa, I’ve only had ears for a week, and I wanted to stick them with something sharp every time he spoke. You owe us a very long explanation.”

My mouth parts in shock at his callousness, and the ringing in my ears reaches a fever pitch.

“The Necromancer , he called himself.” With a grimace, the man drops to his knee beside Frederic, plucking up the grimoire and wiping its cover on the grass. “Even his blood smells foul. Not like yours,” he adds in an offhand voice, casting me a cursory yet appreciative glance. “I couldn’t smell you before, but now I understand what all the fuss is about.” Pausing thoughtfully, he extracts several glass vials from his cloak. “Though I suppose I’m really smelling myself , aren’t I? Our scents are intertwined.” To Filippa, he adds, “You might want to leave for this next part, darling. Go check on our little friend.”

Without waiting for her to respond, he seizes Frederic’s knife with quick efficiency, testing its heft in his palm before raising it high overhead. My eyes widen as I realize his purpose a split second before he strikes. With a cry, I leap forward to stop him—to snatch at his wrist—but he clicks his tongue reprovingly. In an instant, figures detach themselves from the shadows around us. Though the roses hide most of their putrid scent, they cannot disguise all of it. I freeze mid-step, eyes widening.

Revenants.

Everywhere.

“Ah, ah, ah,” the man says with a wink. “We mustn’t touch.”

And without further ado, he drives the knife deep into Frederic’s throat, collecting the blood that spurts in a sickening fountain. The scent of it doesn’t provoke my fangs, however; instead I fight the urge to retch from the poisonous stench. “Not very pleasant, is it?” The man stoppers his first vial, then his second, examining each one in the overcast light. “Still, the blood of a Dame Rouge... who can afford to waste it?”

What is happening ?

“F-Filippa?” Horrified, I retreat to the trellis once more. “Who—?”

Still cradling her stomach, Filippa stares at Frederic’s blood for a long moment. Then, quite abruptly, she turns on her heel. “Remember our deal,” she says flatly over her shoulder, and the man inclines his head in response. Thorns prick at my blistered palm as she just... leaves me here, and the fount of Frederic’s blood slowly subsides.

The man before me whistles a merry tune, and I—

I’ve had enough.

Michal should be here by now. My panic spikes at the thought of why he hasn’t found me, but I ignore it. I just need to locate him, and together, the two of us will find a way to handle the revenants. We’ll deal with my sister too, perhaps bring her to Requiem for—for some kind of treatment. Surely How to Commune with the Dead will hold answers, or else Odessa will, or even—

My eyes fall to where the grimoire lies beside the man.

I saw the spell once in my aunt’s grimoire , Coco said . When I asked her about it, she shooed me from her tent and forbade me from speaking of it. I think it was the only spell she ever feared.

A spell from that evil little book started all of this. Perhaps it holds the remedy too. Slowly, silently, I ease two fingers from the trellis, refusing to blink as the man continues his work at Frederic’s throat, intent and distracted. I might not get another opportunity like this one. If he leaves with the grimoire, we might not ever see it again. I can survive the burn of my sister’s cross; I can snatch up the grimoire before he plunges the silver into my chest.

I lift a third and fourth finger from the trellis, a fifth and sixth, holding my breath.

“A valiant effort.” Without looking at me, the man pockets the last of Frederic’s blood—along with the grimoire—before rising with a darkly satisfied smile. “But you’re far too clever to provoke me.”

“Who are you?”

“As if you don’t know.” Gesturing down his powerful body with a dismissive wave of his hand, he adds, “Though this part is rather new. Do you like it?”

A sense of paralysis seems to overwhelm me at the question. “I—I don’t—”

“That’s because you aren’t giving me a proper look.” He stalks closer, suddenly impatient, and lifts my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Go on, then. Drink your fill. I can wait.”

Roses snarl in my hair as I jerk away—because his words are too casual, too careless, to match the sheer violence in his wake. It frightens me. “Who are you?”

“Don’t play coy, mon mariée.”

His eyes bore into mine. At his feet, the grass has started to shrivel, his presence creeping outward across the entire garden. A bird falls dead from the tree beside us, and my body—it feels strange too. An awareness presses against my skin, raising the hair on my nape.

Mon mariée.

“No.” I shake my head instinctively at the words, holding tighter to the trellis—nearly leaping from my skin when the wood cracks beneath my fingers.

Mila told me I’d been touched by Death, yes, but she hadn’t meant literally .

She meant it as a metaphor, an explanation for my affinity with the ghoulish and the ghastly after surviving Morgane’s torture—unwanted yet useful, especially during Frederic’s twisted experiments last month. He broke the very foundation of magic when he began tampering with life and death, and—and— He broke the very foundation of magic.

In sheer desperation, I contort myself around him, darting beneath his arm and trailing dead roses in my wake.

“That isn’t possible.” I lift my hands placatingly as he turns to follow me, grinning again. The priests of my childhood never taught about Death—not as an entity, a deity in its own right. There was only God, and angels, and demons, sometimes even the Devil, but never Death. “You aren’t— You can’t be—” At the last, my voice turns decidedly pleading because—because Death cannot have a body. Death cannot be standing in this garden with mercurial gray eyes and dark windswept hair, and he certainly cannot have a dimple .

He called me his Bride.

Oh God.

As if he senses the direction of my thoughts, his grin widens, and his eyes seem to... swirl, somehow, like liquid silver. He brushes his hair away from them in a deceptively human gesture. Most would call the strands black, but they’re deeper than my own, almost blue like a raven’s wing.

“You do like,” he says shrewdly. “How interesting.”

Still backing away from him, I nearly trip over Frederic’s corpse. “H-How are you here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” He nudges Frederic with his foot, and even though I despised Frederic—even though he deserved much worse than a quick and simple death—nausea rises at the sight of a boot on his cheek. At the smear of dirt it leaves behind. “This disgusting little insect upset the balance. He tore a hole through the veil when he stole Filippa from me—a permanent one this time. Not like the little cuts you leave behind.” Death presses harder with his foot, his eyes flicking to mine. “I detest nothing more than a thief, but you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? Vampires are the greatest thieves of all.”

Exhaling a harsh breath, I stumble to a halt and force myself to square my shoulders, to extend my hand. “Just give me the grimoire and I’ll be on my way. I’ll even”—I nearly choke on the words—“dispose of Frederic’s body for you. The Chasseurs will never need to know what happened here. They’ll never need to know about you , which means you’ll be free to—to leave this place and forget all about us.”

Please leave this place and forget all about us.

“A tempting offer”—tilting his head, Death listens to something I cannot hear—“but your merry band of men sounds a bit preoccupied at the moment. Something about vengeance and vampires and tits for tats.” At that, my stomach plummets to somewhere between my feet, and I strain to hear beyond the garden. Death’s presence seems to have silenced our immediate surroundings—as if all fauna fled with the wind, or died like the bird—but to the east...

Those could be shouts.

Chasseur Tower is to the east. The harbor too, which means...

Michal.

Fear twists like a knife in my chest at the possibility, and unbidden, my fangs descend. Death doesn’t seem threatened by them, however. Instead his smile widens, and he laughs at me.

He laughs at me.

I look past him, chest tightening as the disturbance in East End reaches a cacophony. The shouts seem to be moving closer. And is that—steel on steel? Horse hooves? Though I concentrate with all my might, I cannot distinguish the individual sounds. Even so, something is happening over there, and all signs point to Michal and Jean Luc, perhaps even Brigitte. I clamp down on a scream of frustration. How absolutely idiotic of me to assume she wouldn’t follow through on her threat in the alley.

“If you won’t give me the grimoire”—I attempt to wriggle past him once more—“get out of my way.”

Before he can answer, however—before either of us can do anything—the shouts pitch abruptly louder, and Michal’s voice detaches itself from the rest, speaking calmly, quietly, despite what sounds like a horde of huntsmen at his back. “Where are you, Célie?”

My heart leaps to life in an instant, and I don’t stop to think, to examine my profound relief, instead shouting at the top of my lungs, “I’m here! Michal! I’m over here!” Instead of wriggling, I now shove Death squarely in the chest, and he yields a single step. When I wave my arms, rising to my toes in case Michal cannot see me, the man before me grins in wry amusement.

“Please, Célie, you must stop this incessant flattery, or I’ll have no choice but to take you with me.” He steps in front of me again. “Your sister won’t like that.”

Hardly hearing him, I wave my arms anew just as Michal rounds the corner, and my mouth dries at the sight of him, whole and unharmed and furious , moving faster than I’ve ever seen him. Lethal in his focus on the garden. On me. Several streets behind him, Brigitte shouts terse commands to the huntsmen, and in front of her —

My mouth falls open, and my vision narrows on Dimitri’s face.

Dimitri.

He moves in a blur of amber skin and crimson velvet, laughing openly as he goads Brigitte, sidesteps Henry, trips Basile with a carefully placed foot. He’s distracting them , I realize in disbelief. He’s—helping us. Why is he helping us?

I cannot dwell on my confusion, however, not with literal Death standing before me. “My sister?” I ask him distractedly. “What are you talking about? She won’t like what —?”

“I made a promise, my sweet, to exhaust every option, and my word is my bond.”

He lifts an almost affectionate hand to brush a strand of hair away from my cheek. I recoil instantly—from both him and his bewildering words. “Good luck, mon mariée. I daresay you’ll need it. How does that expression go—something about friends like these and enemies?” He clicks his fingers. “No, no. It’s about keeping your enemies close. Yes, that’s the one.”

My face snaps toward his at that.

But with a polite bow in my direction, Death turns away, thrusting his hands into his pockets, strolling up the street, and whistling that same merry tune. Disappearing through the veil between one step and the next.