Page 15 of The Shadow Bride (The Scarlet Veil #2)

Chapter Fifteen

Like Mother, Like Daughter

“If I ask you to stay in your room tonight,” Odessa asks when we reach the east wing, “would you do it?”

She stands silhouetted in my bedroom door, flanked on either side by the half-transformed demons of black marble. Their tortured expressions and batlike wings bring back memories of a simpler, happier time—when I remained blissfully human, blissfully naive, blissfully alone after my abduction.

Now Pasha and Ivan stand guard in the corridor, and Lou leads my mother down the sweeping stairs to the chamber below. With a deafening caw! , Talon returns to his preferred perch upon the mezzanine and hunkers down to watch us with his beady eyes.

“Why?” I ask Odessa.

She rubs her temples with the beleaguered air of someone desperate to leave. “Just this once, can we skip the deluge of questions? The castle is not safe tonight—”

“You said the castle is never safe.” I study her with increasing suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me? Are you and Michal planning something?”

“No,” she says sharply—too sharply—before her voice softens again with what looks like supreme effort. “Please, Célie, as a personal favor, just stay here until Michal collects you at dawn. Do not leave your room.”

“Odessa, what is going on? You and Michal have been acting— strange since we came ashore. If you want my cooperation with this mysterious plan of yours, you could at least include me in the details.”

Her expression hardens, and her hands jerk as if she forcibly restrains herself from clapping them over my mouth. “There is no plan,” she hisses. “There are no details. As a friend, I am simply asking you to stay in your room.”

My eyes narrow. “Well then, as a friend , shall I remind you that revenants are still crawling across the isle? That the veil is in pieces?” I gesture to the tapestry behind her, where a golden-haired maiden once slept upon a crimson settee. She isn’t sleeping any longer. With a knife in her chest and ashen skin, the maiden has clearly died; a black moth lands in the pool of blood beneath her. As in the market, the corridor beyond the tapestry appears drained of all life. Softened, somehow. Faint. Like an echo. “Something is causing this slow rot , and I intend to find out what it is—starting with the grotto. As Frederic performed the ritual there, I assume that is where the door formed too.”

I remember Michal’s hard, sidelong look. If the grimoire holds answers, they are lost to us for now, which means we must find our own. “Perhaps I can heal it,” I say. “Perhaps I can send the revenants back to their graves.”

Odessa sighs impatiently. “I hardly think it’ll be that simple—”

“How can we know unless I try?”

“That rip will still be there in the morning,” she says, her voice firm. “I’ll even accompany you to see it. For now, though, just—take a bath. Rest. And no matter what you hear tonight, stay in your room.” She levels me with a dark look. “I mean it, Célie.”

Before I can refuse—because I absolutely refuse—Lou appears at my shoulder. “Of course, Odessa. We promise to be good little girls and stay hidden away all night long. Will that suffice?” She doesn’t wait for Odessa to answer; with a cheery smile, she shuts the door in her face, murmuring, “ That wasn’t suspicious at all,” over Odessa’s vicious curse.

I lift a finger to my lips, silencing whatever else Lou might say, and wait for Odessa to pivot on her heel, for the sounds of her footsteps to fade up the corridor. Then—

“Why did you promise that?” I round upon Lou with a heated whisper. “Now we have to sit here and twiddle our thumbs—”

“Says who?”

“Says you —”

“I lied.” Lou shrugs, thoroughly unbothered despite leaning on the balustrade for support. “She wasn’t going to leave until we told her what she wanted to hear, and you weren’t going to do it. That isn’t a judgment,” she adds hastily when I scowl. “Just a statement of fact—and now you won’t be breaking your word when we slip off to the grotto. You’ll be breaking mine.”

I eye her warily. “Listen, Lou, maybe you should—”

“If whatever you’re about to say is anything other than come with me , I don’t want to hear it.” Setting her jaw, she pushes herself from the balustrade—swaying only a little—before raking her hair into a bun. “I’m fine .”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Well, we can’t all look like vampire goddesses, can we? Some of us just look like regular goddesses—”

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it.” I grip her elbow when she forces a laugh and starts down the stairs. “The veil is clearly affecting you more than the rest of us—which makes sense,” I say as her eyes narrow. “As La Dame des Sorcières, you draw your magic from the land, and clearly, Frederic’s ritual poisoned it. You almost collapsed when I tore through the veil for the séance, and here—well, this doorway seems much worse. I don’t think you should come with me to see it.”

Her nose wrinkles delicately. “And I think you should bathe before we go. Satine might swoon if she sees your nightgown in proper light.”

We both look to where my mother stands beside the hearth, glaring down at the kittens scampering over her feet. They somehow reached the castle before we did. Likewise, every candle in the room has been lit. For some inexplicable reason, my chest warms at the sight of them.

All of them.

As before, they spill across every surface: the grand staircase, the marble floors, the vanity table and cluttered mantel, even the cracked silver tea tray upon the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The entire room sparkles in effusive candlelight. Except now I have no need of it. Now I can see in the dark. Michal would’ve known that, but I still appreciate the gesture.

My mother sneezes.

“Why did you bring her with you?” Tearing my gaze from the glow on my mother’s hair, I drag Lou down the stairs and behind the silk dressing screen to the right. As with the kittens and candles, hot water and thick, jasmine-scented foam already fill the tub to the brim; steam curls from its surface in intoxicating tendrils. “How did you get here in the first place? I would’ve scented you on the ship.”

“Are you sure? You sounded a little preoccupied.”

“Were you eavesdropping —?” Oh God. If Lou heard me discussing blood sharing with Michal and Dimitri, my mother must’ve heard too, which means...

My eyes dart toward the dressing screen in panic. She knows.

Smirking at my horrified look, Lou lowers her voice and drops onto the stool by the tub. “She isn’t an idiot, Célie. She would’ve figured it out eventually.”

“Did she... say anything about it?” About me? I can’t bring myself to voice that particular question, however. Sometimes it’s better not to know.

“I think she’s trying to pretend it never happened.” Lou glances up at Talon, who has grudgingly flown from the mezzanine floor to the top of the screen in order to better eavesdrop. “Makes it easier for you, I suppose. You can decide when and where to broach the subject. And to answer your other questions—Talon followed you this morning. He saw someone murdering Frederic, and he flew to Chasseur Tower to warn me. By the time I reached the garden, you’d already left for the harbor. I couldn’t catch you.” Her lips purse abruptly. “ Thank you for that, by the way—leaving without saying goodbye.”

I glare at Talon, unfastening Michal’s cloak before stripping my nightgown overhead. It crumples in a stiff pile at my feet. Once, I might’ve shuddered at my nakedness in another’s presence, but it feels rather less important now. I think she’s trying to pretend it never happened.

Of course she is, and that—that really is for the best. It’s what I want too. My mother refused to support me as a Chasseur; why would she ever accept me as a vampire? Still, the thought weighs like a pit in my stomach, heavier than I expected. I probably disgust her now. Perhaps she even fears me. Perhaps that’s why she refuses to acknowledge that I’m no longer human.

The injustice of it rears its head like a snake, striking at me without warning.

All at once, it matters very little that I didn’t want her to bring it up—she still should have. She is still my mother .

“I wrote you a note,” I tell Lou stiffly, “but I’m sure you already know that since you were having me followed.”

“As if I could ever tell Talon what to do. He likes you, Célie, and he could tell you were upset when you fled the house. Anyway, we both felt very betrayed upon learning you’d run off to Requiem again—”

“Again?” Stepping into the tub, I hiss at the blistering temperature of the water. “I was abducted the first time—”

“—and we went to your room to have a nice long cry about it. That’s when your mother arrived.”

I dip my hair beneath the water, scrubbing the strands with lavender soap on the side table. “And you let her in the house because—?”

“We didn’t,” Lou grumbles. “A certain vampire of yours broke down our door , in case you’ve forgotten. It wasn’t like we could pretend not to be at home. She saw the blood on our table straightaway, and she nearly went into hysterics—she said she knew you’d been there because she’d just visited Jean Luc, and she wasn’t leaving until we produced you.”

My stomach pitches like I’ve missed a step, followed by a swift, sickening spurt of shame. Jean. How could I have forgotten him? “How is he?” I ask quickly.

With the cup and pitcher on the table, Lou rinses the soap from my hair. “Coco was able to heal his wounds, but... he lost a lot of blood, Célie. A full recovery is going to take time.”

I lower my gaze, unable to speak around the sudden knot in my throat—unable to defend myself at all. He nearly died, and it would’ve been entirely my fault. “Is he the one who sent the Chasseurs?” When Lou says nothing, I wrap my arms around my waist, feeling sick. “He wanted to kill us? To kill me ?”

“He doesn’t know what he wants to do with you.” Sighing, Lou shakes her head, and tendrils of her long chestnut hair slip free from the knot at her nape. The freckles across her nose stand out in sharp relief. “But I think it’d be best if you stay here until he figures it out. Jean Luc has never been particularly even-tempered, and when Reid tells him about the revenants, he might conflate his approaches to the undead.”

“He might kill us all, you mean.”

To her credit, Lou doesn’t lie this time. “He might.”

In true Lou fashion, however, she refuses to dwell, plunking the pitcher down and saying, “Anyway, I was gently shooing your mother from the wreckage of my kitchen when she threatened to storm the shores of Requiem alone. She said she knew the harbormaster, and he would tell her exactly which ship to board.”

“And you couldn’t have prevented her? You trapped a revenant in a hatbox, for goodness’ sake!”

“Well, I wasn’t going to do that to your mother , Célie,” she hisses, “and I couldn’t let her come alone either. She has no idea about the dangers here. Even if this island wasn’t crawling with vampires, magic has broken, hasn’t it?” Grudgingly, she lifts a hand, and we stare at her trembling fingers together. “It’s like you said—that idiot Frederic tampered with the natural order, and without the natural order, magic cannot exist as it should, including the enchantments on this isle. They’ll be volatile. Erratic.” Her gaze flicks to the screen, to the paper-thin silk with its once vivid violets and golden geese. The flowers have withered.

The geese are skeletons.

“I have to mend the veil,” I say softly.

“Do you know how to mend it?”

“No.” I cast a fleeting look around the screen as a bone-deep chill settles inside me. “After what Coco said about her aunt’s grimoire, I thought maybe it might hold the answer, but...”

“We don’t have it,” Lou finishes. “I hope Frederic is rotting, wherever he is.”

Part of me agrees, but... one problem at a time .

I need to deal with my mother.

With a sigh, I look back to Lou—determined yet unsure how to return Satine Tremblay to Cesarine—and find her staring up at the mezzanine. After a long moment, she flicks a finger to where a dozen painted portraits leer down at us between the shuttered windows. During my last stay on Requiem, those portraits became as familiar as old friends: three beautiful women draped in scarlet, the hook-nosed boy with his hounds, the lecherous old man with bulbous eyes. All of them appear dead now, except for—

The crone with a wart on her nose.

“Mathilde,” Lou says simply, and my brow furrows as I remember. “My great-great-grandmother.”

“Is she... still alive?”

“God, I hope not. She left the Chateau before I was born, but she’d be over two hundred years old.”

My mother’s footsteps click toward the screen, and another angry sneeze precedes her as she steps pointedly around it. The kittens bob along in her wake, swatting at the hem of the violet gown in her hands. She lays it carefully upon the table. “No woman can live to be two hundred years old, Louise le Blanc, and if she can, I am sure she laments it. Now, as the two of you seem to have lost all social graces, I must insist on inviting myself to this conversation.”

She sneezes again.

“Are you... allergic to cats?” Lou asks tentatively.

“Yes.” She snatches the thick towel from Lou’s hands. “And I will do that, thank you, as Célie is my daughter.”

We both blink at her, startled.

“Er—right.” Lou shoots a contrite glance in my direction before hastily skirting around the screen. “I think I’ll just have a quick word with Pasha and Ivan about procuring some food.” She hesitates. “I assume there is food in this castle, right? Of the human variety?”

I nod mutely, but of course she cannot see me. In another moment, she closes the door to the bedroom, and silence reigns. I cannot stand it any longer than a few seconds, however. Not even with my mother. “I didn’t know you were allergic to cats.”

“Since I was a little girl.” She sniffs and holds out the towel. “Are you finished? Your skin is starting to wrinkle.”

It isn’t, of course. My skin cannot wrinkle ever again, even in water, yet I step from the tub without a word, allowing her to wrap the towel around me. She doesn’t speak either as she hands me silk underthings. I slide into them obediently, and she forces me upon the stool next, sweeping a gilt-backed brush through my hair. I sit very still beneath her ministrations, my throat unexpectedly thick.

My mother has never brushed my hair before.

She has never... tended to me this way. That duty always fell to my nursemaids and sister, while Satine Tremblay watched and censured from afar. Her hands are far gentler than I anticipated. Indeed, as she separates the hair at my crown, braiding it into a coronet, a shiver of pleasure lifts gooseflesh at my neck. “Your hair has grown too long,” she says tartly. “We must arrange for a cut when we return home.”

Home.

Just like that, the moment ruptures, and I close my eyes in defeat.

She does not want to have this conversation—not truly—but as she extends my gown, jerking her pointed chin for me to step into it, it seems we have little choice. For all her faults, my mother traveled a very long way, and perhaps she deserves some answers before she leaves again without me. Because—whether she chooses to acknowledge my new circumstances—I can never go home again. Requiem is my home now.

Requiem is for vampires.

Unsure how to begin, I swallow hard and glance down at the gown. Sewn of deep violet silk, it features voluminous sleeves that fall from my shoulders and taper to cuffs at my wrists. Ribbon laces up the front of the corset bodice, which angles to a V between my hips before flowing into a lavish skirt. The entire ensemble is lovely.

But of course it is lovely. My mother chose it.

Resisting a sigh, I fold back the screen and gesture to the squashy armchairs by the fire. “Shall—shall we sit down?”

“I thought you had plans at the grotto.”

With another great sneeze, she nudges aside a pair of kittens that’ve just realized I’m in the room. They tumble over themselves to reach me until I crouch, taking pity on them, and stroke each of their heads. “I shall see to moving them elsewhere.”

“You will?” Her eyebrows pinch together. “But do you not—like them?”

“Of course I do, but if you’re uncomfortable—”

“Why do they paw at you like this?” she asks abruptly. “Why do they mewl?”

For someone determined to ignore the heart of an issue, my mother has the uncanny ability to get straight to it. And I suppose the beginning is as good a place as any.

“Because cats are guardians of the dead,” I say heavily, “and I’m a Bride of Death.”

Her sharp inhale echoes between us.

Perhaps a better daughter would lie. Perhaps she would reassure her mother, would fall into her arms and weep at the reunion, but I cannot bring myself to do any of it. I can only seem to scratch this fat orange tabby’s chin. He needs a name—all of them do—and I focus intently upon the white heart on his breast while my mother waits for me to continue. Toulouse. Yes. This one shall be called Toulouse.

After another moment of silence, her mouth thins with impatience. “Well? Are you going to explain this unseemly moniker or not?”

Not.

“Maman,” I say quietly, and the word is a plea. “I do not think you want to know.”

“Do not presume to know what I want,” she snaps.

A spark of anger ignites in my chest at that, but I tell myself she’s grieving. I tell myself she’s hurt.

“As you wish.” With a slow exhale, I lift my chin to meet her gaze and instantly regret it. Filippa and I inherited our faces from our mother; if the two of us are black-and-white nesting dolls, this woman is the toymaker, and she carved us from her image. “When Morgane trapped me in Filippa’s casket, Death touched me. He marked me separate, and he saved my life. Because of him, I can walk through the veil between realms and speak to spirits.”

Her lips twist in dismay at that, but she does not speak. Of course she doesn’t. We’ve never spoken about that nightmarish fortnight I spent with Filippa’s corpse either. Not once. After La Mascarade de Cranes, Jean Luc returned me to my parents; he explained what had happened as my mother wept and my father stared, white-faced, out the parlor window. Neither inquired beyond the necessities— is her mind intact? How quickly will she recover?

Did anyone see?

Does anyone know?

At last, she opens her mouth to speak, but after hearing her question, I desperately wish she hadn’t. “What do you mean Death touched you? Are you quite—quite unharmed?”

A bizarre impulse to laugh bubbles up my throat, and I almost give in to it. I almost slump forward—right there on the wet marble floor—and shake with laughter at my mother’s feet. Because even she must sense how ridiculous, how utterly absurd, such a question is while we’re surrounded by vampires and speaking of Death incarnate. Even she must know the answer.

Of course, the question she asked and the question she meant are two entirely different things.

Just as quickly as it arrived, the urge to laugh vanishes, and I rise slowly to my feet. “I don’t know, Maman—would you consider dying in a sacrificial ritual before reawakening as an undead creature who craves blood unharmed , or are you simply asking if Death stole my virtue? Do you fear he ravished me in Pip’s coffin?”

Her eyes widen that I would dare voice such sensitive matters aloud, and she splutters incoherently.

She never talked to me about sex either. She never talked to me about Filippa’s murder.

I stare at her now, flames licking my insides as I remember Father Algernon’s first visit after the catacombs. Corruption of the soul , he whispered to my parents. Rotten fruit. He thought I’d been possessed by demons because of my nightmares. He thought I’d been tainted with sin. Though my mother dismissed him instantly when he suggested an exorcism, I often wondered why she ever allowed him in the house. If she’d approached me first, she might’ve realized holy water was never the cure.

And now—now perhaps it’s too late to have this conversation at all. “You should sleep,” I say tersely, gesturing to the enormous bed in the center of the room. “You have a long journey ahead of you.”

“But we haven’t finished our—”

“We have.” Stepping over the kittens, I stalk up the stairs to the door. Lou antagonizes Pasha and Ivan in the corridor beyond, and never in my life have I wanted so badly to join them. When my hand touches the doorknob, however, I hesitate, glancing down at her one last time. She still stands beside the silk dressing screen, her mouth parted slightly as she stares up at me, looking inexplicably bereft. “I’ll speak to Michal about arranging your passage back to Cesarine in the morning. You never should’ve come here, Maman.”

To my surprise, she doesn’t argue, and in the yawning silence that stretches between us, I turn the doorknob and leave.