Page 16 of The Shadow Bride (The Scarlet Veil #2)

Chapter Sixteen

The Tear in the Veil

To my relief, Pasha and Ivan do nothing to stop me when I seize Lou’s hand and pull her toward Michal’s study. They seem to care very little about Odessa’s warning. Indeed, they even share a dark look when I inform them where we’re going. “Well then,” Ivan says, bowing low and gesturing for me to precede them down the corridor, “far be it from us to stand in your way, mademoiselle. Of course you must flout Odessa and roam the castle.”

In the same politely mocking tone, Pasha says, “You know better than us, after all.”

I return their cold smiles with one of my own.

Their attitudes suit me just fine. All the more reason to leave them here. “Actually”—I bat my lashes sweetly, looping my elbow through Lou’s—“I need you to stay with my mother. She’ll be remaining in my room until morning.”

The smiles slip from their faces, and a muscle feathers in Ivan’s jaw. “We do not answer to you, humaine.”

I ignore the supposed slight.

“But you do answer to Michal, and Michal said you’re at my disposal, which means you’re now at my mother’s disposal too.” Turning on my heel, I tow Lou forward, and she cackles with undisguised glee at the incredulous looks on their faces. “She takes lemon in her tea,” I call over my shoulder as we round the corner. To Pasha, I add, “And I suggest you tie back your hair—she won’t like it that way at all.”

Lou is still laughing when we reach the obsidian doors of Michal’s study. “Last chance to return to our room,” I say to her, studying her face anxiously.

“Not a chance I’m missing this.”

After a brief hesitation, I nod and push the doors open, but wherever Michal went upon leaving us in the harbor, it clearly wasn’t here. Frowning at that, I cross to the curio cabinet, and the scent of candle smoke and roses nearly bowls me over as I click open the trapdoor in its floor. Lou lifts the back of her hand to her mouth, coughing, as she too smells it. Death.

Yes, the grotto is definitely where he stepped through—probably upon the very islet where Frederic took my life. With a lingering shadow of apprehension at the memory, I peer into the steep stairwell while Lou turns back to Michal’s desk and snatches a candlestick, struggling to light the taper with a flick of her finger. It takes three attempts. “This place is still eerie as shit,” she whispers, shaking her head in exasperation. “Fucking vampires.”

“Are you ready?”

She nods, and as one of said vampires, I exhale slowly and descend the stairs first. Cobwebs coat my fingertips as I trail them along the stone walls, and really—Lou has a point. Why on earth wouldn’t Michal clean these? It can serve no purpose to live in such inhospitable conditions. And perhaps it’s just the silence, the shadows, the damp and ancient air as we slink belowground, but a chill skitters down my spine all the same. In a low voice, I ask, “Why do you think Odessa told us to stay put tonight?”

The sound of rushing water soon joins the soft cadence of Lou’s breathing, the thump of her heart. Though hunger twists my stomach at our close proximity, my mind flashes instantly and intolerably to Michal—to the potent taste of his blood—and I grit my teeth to maintain focus. “I don’t know,” Lou says after hesitating a moment. “She seemed nervous, but if something is lurking in the castle tonight, it doesn’t seem interested in us.”

This castle is very old, and it has many bad memories.

“Not yet, anyway,” I say.

She exhales a soft laugh. “Not yet.” Then, quieter still, “Your eyes are glowing.”

And so they are. With each step, the strange silver light of my eyes—the light that marks me a Bride of Death in the spirit realm—shines brighter and brighter, illuminating the path to Michal’s bedroom. The temperature creeps down with us. The air thins. Behind me, Lou’s breathing grows labored, each exhale condensing into mist, and the first flakes of snow drift through the gloom to settle upon our hair. “Will I be able to see it?” Lou asks. “The tear in the—?”

The stairwell opens to Michal’s cavernous room in the next second, however, and her voice breaks off at the sight before us. Any answer I might’ve given withers on my own lips—because nature, it seems, has answered the question instead.

Across the grotto, precisely where the islet once rose from the sea, swirls a colossal maelstrom.

“Oh my god,” Lou breathes.

She catches my arm to steady herself—as if ensuring the scene is real—and for several moments, the two of us can do nothing but stand at the bottom of the stairwell and stare out at the price of Frederic’s magic. Distinctly ominous with its hypnotic, slow-moving water, the whirlpool fills the width of the entire grotto. Bands of dark water eddy against the mica-flecked walls, and at its epicenter, the sea swirls down, down, down into a great chasm, a black abyss. It looks like the pupil of an evil and all-seeing eye.

Awareness prickles my neck.

“This goes deeper than the spirit realm.” As I speak the words, I feel strange—keen—every hair on my body standing up as if crackling with energy. My eyes pulse brighter. If I focus, I can almost hear faint laughter, can almost feel gentle warmth emanating from the maelstrom’s depths. Indeed, though snowflakes fall everywhere else in the grotto, they melt several feet above the water. And the sensation coursing through me—I recognize it. I’ve felt it once before.

Lou says nothing, simply stares at me with round eyes.

“After Frederic slit my throat, I sort of... hovered over everyone, and this golden light appeared. It called to me.” Though I hear myself speaking, my voice sounds very far away, as if from deep underwater, while I stare into the maelstrom’s eye. “Mila was there too. She told me not every soul chooses to remain in the spirit realm like ghosts do. She said some souls choose to go on.”

Lou looks even paler now—almost bloodless. “Where do they go?” she whispers.

“Through there, I suppose.” I gesture to the maelstrom, watching my arm move as if it belongs to someone else. “To whatever lies beyond it. Frederic tore the veil wide open.”

That sense of strangeness intensifies the longer I stand here—as does a strong impulse to touch the water—and soon my knees bend without my permission. When I extend a hand toward the nearest ripple, however, Lou seizes my wrist in alarm. “I don’t think you should do that.”

A sharp, metallic scent punctuates her words. Like the strike of flint on kindling, my thoughts sharpen instantly, and my gaze snaps to where her nose has started to bleed again. “Lou?” Ignoring the sudden punch of hunger, I push to my feet to steady her. “We need to leave. You shouldn’t be this close to the—”

“This is nothing.” Voice faint, she sways again, wiping the blood from her face and staring at it in bemusement. “Getting a bit embarrassing, though. I can’t keep—bleeding in front of vampires.” Her fingers tighten around my arm when I move to drag her away. “No, Célie. You came to mend the veil. We aren’t leaving until you do.”

“I don’t even know if I can mend it, and you look—”

“I hope you aren’t about to say fine .” Dimitri ambles toward us from the stairs, his hands in the pockets of a midnight velvet suit. A lock of his damp hair—freshly washed with citrus soap—falls across his forehead as he frowns down at us. “Because that would be the greatest lie ever told.” He jerks his chin toward the maelstrom. “That thing is making her sick—making the entire isle sick, really, if all the blood and dead things are any indication. I stepped on a maggot in the hall upstairs—”

“So”—Lou shudders—“more blood and dead things than usual, then.”

Dimitri grins at her. “You’re a cheeky thing. I like it.”

Though a dozen questions spring to my tongue, I push them all aside, instead looping my arms beneath Lou’s shoulders and dragging her away from the water’s edge. To my relief, she doesn’t fight me, and distance from the maelstrom seems to stem the blood flow from her nose. Luckier still, the sight and scent of it seems to have little effect on Dimitri—and from experience, I know the sight and scent of La Dame des Sorcières’ blood is among the most seductive in the world. My eyes still narrow with suspicion as I help Lou onto Michal’s bed. “What happened to you, Dimitri? Where did you go after All Hallows’ Eve?”

He sighs heavily before gesturing to the maelstrom—to the dark water dripping down the cavern walls that isn’t really water at all. “Is this really the conversation we should be having right now?”

“It is.”

“Then I suppose we must have it—though truthfully, there isn’t much to tell.” He strolls forward to lean against Michal’s bedpost, tipping his head toward a recess in the cavern wall. I never noticed it as a human, probably because the swathe of black velvet covering the door blends perfectly into shadow. “Michal keeps his linens in there. They shouldn’t be too hard to find. He’s very cleanly , my cousin.”

“I’m fine,” Lou murmurs again, her eyes fluttering shut as she falls against the pillows. “Just a little light-headed.”

“Are you sure?” When she nods, I perch beside her on the edge of Michal’s bed before turning back to Dimitri. “And to be fair, everyone must seem cleanly to you. You’ve been living in a hoarder’s den for the last five hundred years.”

He rests his head against the carved mahogany wood and considers me for a moment. Then— “I threw it all out.”

“ What? ”

With a solemn nod, he says, “I caught up with Frederic and your sister after leaving the grotto”—my chest freezes to ice—“and he promised to cure my bloodlust if I cured Filippa. Obviously I didn’t realize the plan he had in mind, and I refused as soon as he revealed it.”

“He wanted you to kill me,” I guess.

He nods again, this time terse. “I should’ve ended his miserable existence right then, but I needed his grimoire first. The sick bastard guarded it jealously—kept it hidden at all times, wouldn’t even let Filippa touch it.” He shakes his head in disgust. “I’m not proud of myself for staying with them. I cannot condone my actions, but I’ve been trying to find my way back to you all since the day I left.”

“Which is why you helped Michal,” I say shrewdly, “when the huntsmen attacked him.”

“I deserve that.” When he sighs again, the sound is softer than before. Defeated. “Of course I deserve that, but... no, Célie. As hard as it might be for you to believe, Michal and I were like brothers once. No matter what we are now, I don’t want to see an axe in his neck. That is why I helped him.”

He moves to sit beside me on the bed, leaning forward to brace his forearms on his knees. Rubbing a thumb against his palm. When he looks up again, his eyes are sorrowful. Sincere. And I almost believe him—I want to believe him—as he says, “Words can never express how sorry I am about my role in your death. I know you didn’t want to become a vampire, didn’t deserve to become a vampire, and I will carry that regret with me for the rest of my eternal life.”

I want to believe him so badly.

“It wasn’t—” I swallow hard around the words, my voice a whisper. “It wasn’t all your fault, I suppose.”

The shadows in his eyes deepen as he realizes what the admission costs me. With the ghost of a bitter smile, he wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to his side. “You’re the best of us all, Célie, and I’ve always said it—much too sweet for Requiem.”

They’d been among the first words he ever spoke to me. Sweet creatures never last long in Requiem.

And he’d been right.

My chest constricts with emotion, and suddenly, I cannot look at him anymore. It takes another moment to clear the lump from my throat. “Were you able to steal the grimoire?” I ask at last, already knowing the answer.

“I was not.”

“Then how—?”

“Your sister found a cure.”

“She did?” My attention sharpens to a knifepoint, and I look up hastily, searching his face. “How? What cure?”

“Ah.” He releases me, his smile still a touch bitter as he reclines back on his palms to gaze at the ceiling. “I thought we might reach this little sticking point eventually, but I made a promise never to tell. I intend to honor it.”

Beside me, Lou’s eyes snap open, and she skewers him with a glare. “That isn’t an answer.”

His grin sharpens. “And that’s rather the point.”

“How can we ever trust you if—”

“You can’t,” he says simply. “But let’s be realistic, shall we? There is nothing I can say—no evidence I can provide—that will garner your complete trust after what I did on All Hallows’ Eve. Regrettably, I know this. I accept this. And all I can do is promise”—he sits up, makes careful eye contact with both of us—“that no harm came to anyone during my recovery. You may choose to believe me or not, and there is nothing I can do to alter your decision. However...”

He spreads his arms wide, gesturing to his chest, his teeth, and his eyes, which blaze with fervent light. “Just look at me, Célie. I haven’t felt this way—I haven’t felt this—this at ease since my own transition. Do you understand the miracle of that? Do you understand the relief ?” He whirls to Lou next. “That I can sit beside you now—a human, the most powerful witch in the world—and hold a conversation without dreaming of a dozen different ways to kill you is unprecedented. I’ve never experienced it before. In over a thousand years of vampirism, I’ve never had this kind of freedom . I am healed. I am whole. And I will never return to the man I was before.” He seizes my hand then. Squeezes it tight. “If you choose to believe anything , please, Célie, let it be that.”

Over his shoulder, Lou meets my eyes, hers giving away nothing.

Leaving me to make my own decision.

His words are pretty, to be sure, and they sound genuine... but I’ve always wanted to believe Dimitri. That’s always been the problem.

Returning my attention to the maelstrom, I ask, “How do we fix this?”

Lou struggles to sit up before Dimitri seizes her hand, hauling her upright with gusto. Her lips twitch. “I think the better question is how are you going to fix it, Célie. The maelstrom is a symptom, just like everything else. The real sickness is the veil.”

As if sensing our conversation, the maelstrom shifts malevolently in response—the faint laughter vanishing abruptly, the gentle warmth freezing to ice—and several distended limbs thrust through the water’s surface, desperate to break free of its current. I gape at them in horror.

An arm.

An elbow.

A foot.

“Revenants,” Lou whispers.

Dimitri grimaces in distaste, and I nearly retch at the sight of them—all the sailors who perished around the isle when its magic wrecked their ships. Their corpses bob in the current once, twice, before the maelstrom surges viciously, swallowing them once more. And despite my hideous relief, it seems too cruel a torment to fathom: to drown, to die, to be dragged from death by an invisible hand only to drown all over again. This is their fate until we mend the veil—a task that has perilously fallen to me.

“Just try, Célie.” Lou touches my hand with trembling fingers. “That’s all any of us can do.”

Nodding mutely—determined not to let her see my fear, my doubt—I attempt to look beyond the maelstrom. I focus on my hurt, my anger, my hope for Dimitri until the entire grotto shimmers, rippling like a mirage. And only then do I realize the full extent of the damage we caused. Because the veil—I no longer see it. I feel it, yes. I sense it. The shorn edges should be right here for me to guide back together, yet they aren’t, which must mean...

I take a slow step backward, eyes widening as they search the cavernous ceiling, the walls, even the ocean beyond.

Nothing.

The realization impales my chest like a shard of ice thrown from Death’s own hand: 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.

The little cuts.

Why did I think it would be simple? After such catastrophic evidence to the contrary, why did I think Death would’ve simply wedged himself through a crack, perhaps twisted and contorted and hunched his broad shoulders to fit? No, this tear—Frederic’s tear, my tear—must span the entire grotto, perhaps the entire castle, and how do I mend what I cannot see or touch? “I—I don’t think I can,” I breathe in dawning horror. In dread.

“Of course you can,” Lou says fiercely. “You just need to try again.”

Dimitri and I pull her up the stairs as she tries and fails to surge to her feet, and behind us, the maelstrom swells. A dozen more revenants resurface with it. They flounder in its swirling depths, and I feel myself nod, hear myself speak without believing any of it. “Perhaps—perhaps we should talk to Michal before we do anything else. He said he had ideas...”

My voice trails away, however, as the distant chords of a violin and the gentle clink of crystal drift down the stairwell toward us. I tilt my head and listen curiously. Soft voices soon join the revelry. A crooning laugh. A peculiar jangle, a metallic dissonance that could be another instrument. Though I cannot discern more through the rush of water behind us, the earth and stone above, it sounds almost like a party.

Then someone screams.