She opened her eyes and found herself flat on the ground, her cheek buried in the snow. The world around her still shook, unhinged. Her mind was slow to respond, but her hands moved fast. They plunged into the snow and she pushed herself up, her head spinning.
After a few long blinks, the cemetery plot steadied. The snow and the stones, the trees and sky all came back into focus. And when everything had stilled, Ingrid saw that she wasn’t alone.
Standing amid the trees that bordered the other side of the cemetery was a girl in a bright white cape. If not for her pink cheeks and the dark brown curls framing her face, she might have blended into the landscape perfectly. Ingrid, still on the ground, peered at the girl, completely confounded.
“Anna?” she whispered.
It didn’t make any sense. Anna Bettinger was supposed to be in London preparing for her wedding later that month. Ingrid tried to stand, battling the nauseating fog. Her skirts tangled beneath her in the snow.
Had Anna traveled with Papa to Paris? Was she surprising Ingrid with a visit?
Giving up on trying to stand—her legs were so tired—Ingrid looked back at her friend. She’d expected to see Anna coming through the snow, shaking her head at Ingrid’s ridiculous position, a hand pulled free from her mink muff and extended toward her. But instead, Anna stood motionless. The only change at all was a sly little lift at the corner of her lips. It was a smug grin, and it was just as cold as the snow Ingrid knelt in.
It wasn’t one of Anna’s smiles at all.
“Ingrid?”
She startled at his voice. Luc came through the second cemetery gate behind her, halting a split second when he saw her crumpled in the snow. And then he was surging forward, his mouth twisted into a scowl.
“What are you doing out here?” He jerked her out of the snow. Her knees wobbled, but she refused to slump against him. She forced them to lock and stood on her own.
“I—” She turned back toward Anna, but there was no one there among the trees. Anna and her white cape and smirking expression were gone.
“I … I was just walking. I must have hit a headstone buried in the snow and tripped.” It was an awful excuse. Luc kept his firm grip on her elbow.
“Do you know where you are?” he asked.
“The headstones give it away, Luc,” she answered, shaking off his hand. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, and she realized he must have had to race away from whatever he’d been doing when he’d felt her … her what? Fear? Confusion? Whatever it had been, he’d believed she was in trouble.
He hooked his chin toward the pulpy wooden sign strung with wire over the center arch of the gate. “Profane. This is unconsecrated burial ground.”
Oh. It wasn’t blessed, then. But so what? Ingrid couldn’t stay on holy ground forever.
“Why is it set apart?” she asked as Luc led her back through the gates into the first, consecrated burial ground.
“Because that’s where they buried the people who weren’t good enough for this supremely blessed soil,” he answered with unabashed sarcasm, spreading his arms wide. “Nonconformists. Suicides. The generally unworthy.”
Luc shut the gate behind them. “Whatever the reason, the spirits buried in profane lots lie restless. Certain demons feed on those restless souls. And demons beget demons.” Luc speared her with his pale, lime-colored eyes. “You should remember that.”
Ingrid remembered a lot of things, including the fact that to Luc, she was just a human. Just a duty. He’d come to her aid just then because he had to, not because he wanted to.
“Did I hear you speaking to someone out there?” he asked, scanning the profane plot once more.
He hadn’t seen Anna. Ingrid drew in a breath and shuddered. “No.”
Again, he stared at her just a beat too long. He knew she was lying. She wondered if he could feel her emotions, her senses, that well. Did everything about her echo within him?
They went through the consecrated plot in silence, and Ingrid started wishing for dry clothes and a steaming cup of tea to wrap her fingers around. She’d been in the snow far too long for one day.
At the gate, though, another person stood waiting for them. It was a boy, thin and gangly, about a year younger than Gabby, Ingrid presumed. He met Ingrid’s eyes and smiled at her. She slowed, suddenly wary. Luc stiffened, no doubt feeling her hesitation.
“Lady Waverly,” Luc said, his formal use of her name out of character. “This is Dimitrie, the new livery boy.”
The boy immediately dropped into a deep bow, his chin drawn in so that the crown of his head was pointed at Ingrid’s feet. “My lady,” Dimitrie said, his voice muffled.
Gustav, their butler, should have hired a new groom in December, right after Bertrand, their first driver had died and Luc had ascended from his position as groom. But Lady Brickton had been distracted with the disappearance of her son, and then, once Grayson had returned, she’d told Gustav to hold off on hiring new staff. The fewer people to encounter Ingrid’s and Grayson’s abnormal abilities, the better.
“Stand up,” Luc ordered, and the boy did. But he was smiling, his bright eyes as blue as a spray of forget-me-nots.