“Your father, and by extension, your mother and aunt, are in just as much danger as my mother.”
“I don’t care about my…” I broke off, the word father catching in my throat. It’s not a lie! I screamed at myself. But no amount of effort could force the statement from my lips. Whether I liked it or not, I did care what happened to him. “My father will not be unaware of Angoulême’s plots,” I muttered, annoyed with myself. “And he is far from helpless. What’s more, he made this bed – it’s his own damn fault if he has to sleep in it.”
“And what about everyone else in Trollus?” she asked. “Must they sleep in it too?”
“Don’t ask me that.” I turned my head sideways against the pillow so I didn’t have to meet her gaze.
“Can you imagine what would happen if Angoulême succeeds? It would be a thousand times worse for the half-bloods under his rule than your father. And what’s more, he knows who Anushka is. If he catches her and kills her, all the gains you’ve made will be lost.”
I ground my teeth together. “Do you think I don’t know all of this?”
“I’m well aware of the fact you know it, but what you seem unable to admit is that you want to see her dead. That your reaction yesterday night wasn’t an act of desperation, but a reflection of what you really want.”
“You…” I cut off, the sound of footsteps and a loud thud reaching my ears. “There’s someone outside.”
“The dogs would be barking like mad if anyone came near.” She bit her lip, eyes wide. “Oh no.”
Climbing off the bed, we both went to the tiny window, Cécile inching the curtains apart. “It’s too dark,” she whispered. “I can’t see anything.”
My eyes were better. “It’s a large box or chest.” Grabbing my shirt, I pulled it over my head. “Stay here.”
Cécile didn’t pay me any heed, following me out the door and down the stairs.
Louie was peering out the front door, a pistol that looked like it hadn’t seen action in years held firmly in one hand. “Whoever it was, they’re gone now.”
One of the dogs trotted up to the front door, licking its chops. “Baited the damn dogs off,” he muttered. “Blasted things wouldn’t know a threat if it bit them on the ass.”
“Keep her here.” I pulled on my boots and went out onto the step, illuminating the yard with brilliant light as I went. There was an ironbound chest sitting in the middle of the yard, but there was something odd about it. It looked bowed out, the wood splintered in places, almost as though something of great strength had been locked inside and had tried very hard to get out.
My heart beat faster as I made my way down the steps toward it.
“Tristan!” I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Louie had Cécile firmly by the shoulders. She looked so young standing there in a childish nightgown, her hair loose and mussed, eyes wide. Whatever was in the chest, I was quite sure I didn’t want her to see it.
I stopped a pace away. There was an iron lock holding the lid in place, and I wrenched it off with a squeal of metal. I did not want to look inside. Did not want to see. Because it was not a matter of what I would find. It was a matter of whom.
Drawing in a deep breath and ignoring the icy tightness in my gut, I reached forward, and with one hand, flipped back the lid.
Forty-Seven
Cécile
The ground trembled and shook, the shutters rattling against the house. The fresh snow around Tristan melted into a muddy soup, spreading out in a circle away from him. The air was as warm as the height of summer, and water gushed off the house and barn in torrents.
“God in heaven,” my father whispered, letting go of me with one hand to steady himself.
Tristan fell to his knees next to the chest, holding someone against him. A woman dressed in grey, her long dark hair spilling over his arm. She wore a dark cloak I recognized because she’d been wearing it the last time I saw her.
“Let me go.” I choked the words out.
“Cécile, no.” My father’s fingers clamped tighter around my arm.
“Let me go!” The words ripped from my throat, loud and full of power. Not caring that I’d just compelled my own father, I sprinted down the steps toward Tristan. The mud oozed hot and slippery between my bare toes, splattering up onto the white of my nightgown. But what did any of that matter?
“élise…” Reaching out with one hand, I brushed back her hair, bile rising in my throat at the sight of her blank and unseeing eyes. “How?”
“Because she is dead.” Tristan’s voice was thick with a fury that rendered it almost unrecognizable. “And the curse cares naught for corpses.”