I felt a cold, focused glance. Before I could turn around, a vampire caught me with arms that had the familiar sense of being more steel than flesh. But these arms did not belong to Matthew.
“Why, she is even more delicious than I’d hoped,” a woman said, her cold breath snaking around my throat.
Roses. Civet. I registered the scents, tried to remember where I’d smelled the combination before.
Sept-Tours. Louisa de Clermont’s room.
“Something in her blood is irresistible to wearhs,” Kit said roughly. “I do not understand what it is, but even Father Hubbard seems to be in her thrall.”
Sharp teeth rasped against my neck, though they did not break the skin. “It will be amusing to play with her.”
“Our plan was to kill her,” Kit complained. He was even twitchier and more restless now that Louisa was here. I remained silent, trying to figure out what game they were playing. “Then everything will be as it was before.”
“Patience.” Louisa drank in my scent. “Can you smell her fear? It always sharpens my appetite.”
Kit inched closer, fascinated.
“But you are pale, Christopher. Do you need more physic?” Louisa modified her grasp on me so that she could reach into her pocket. She handed Kit a sticky brown lozenge. He took it from her eagerly, thrusting the ball into his mouth. “They are miraculous, are they not? The warmbloods in Germany call them ‘Stones of Immortality,’ for the ingredients somehow make even pitiful humans feel that they are divine. And they have made you feel strong again.”
“It is the witch who weakens me, just as she weakened your brother.” Kit’s eyes turned glassy, and there was a sickeningly sweet tang to his breath. Opiates. No wonder he was behaving so strangely.
“Is that true, witch? Kit says you bound my brother against his will.” Louisa swung me around. Her beautiful face embodied every warmblood’s nightmare of a vampire: porcelain-pale skin, dusky black hair, and dark eyes that were as fogged with opium as Kit’s. Malevolence rolled off her, and her perfectly bowed red lips were not only sensual but cruel. This was a creature who would hunt and kill without a hint of remorse.
“I did not bind your brother. I chose him—and he chose me, Louisa.”
“You know who I am?” Louisa’s dark eyebrows rose.
“Matthew doesn’t keep secrets from me. We are mates. Husband and wife, too. Your father presided over our marriage.” Thank you, Philippe.
“Liar!” Louisa screamed. Her pupils engulfed the iris as her control snapped. It was not just drugs that I would have to contend with but blood rage, too.
“Trust nothing she says,” Kit warned. He pulled a dagger from his doublet and grabbed my hair. I cried out at the pain as he wrenched my head back. Kit’s dagger orbited my right eye. “I am going to pluck out her eyes so that she can no longer use them for enchantments or to see my fate. She knows my death. I am sure of it. Without her witch’s sight, she will have no hold on us—or on Matthew.”
“The witch does not deserve such a swift death,” Louisa said bitterly.
Kit pressed the point into my flesh just under the brow bone, and a drop of blood rolled down my cheek. “That wasn’t our agreement, Louisa. To break her spell, I must have her eyes. Then I want her dead and gone. So long as the witch lives, Matthew will not forget her.”
“Shh, Christopher. Do I not love you? Are we not allies?” Louisa reached for Kit and kissed him deeply. She moved her mouth along his jaw and down to where the blood pounded in his veins. Her lips brushed against the skin, and I saw the smear of blood that accompanied her movement. Kit drew a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.
Louisa drank hungrily from the daemon’s neck. While she did, we stood in a tight knot, locked together in the vampire’s strong arms. I tried to squirm away, but her grip on me only tightened as her teeth and lips battened on Kit.
“Sweet Christopher,” she murmured when she had drunk her fill, licking at the wound. The mark on Kit’s neck was silvery and soft, just like the scar on my breast. Louisa must have fed from him before. “I can taste the immortality in your blood and see the beautiful words that dance through your thoughts. Matthew is a fool not to want to share them with you.”
“He wants only the witch.” Kit touched his neck, imagining that it was Matthew, and not his sister, who had drunk from his veins. “I want her dead.”
“As do I.” Louisa turned her bottomless black eyes on me. “And so we will compete for her. Whoever wins may do with her as she—or he—will to make her atone for the wrongs she has done my brother. Do you agree, my darling boy?”
The two of them were high as kites now that Louisa had shared Kit’s opiate-laden blood. I started to panic, then remembered Philippe’s instructions at Sept-Tours.
Think. Stay alive.
Then I remembered the baby, and my panic returned. I couldn”t do anything that might endanger our child.
Kit nodded. “I will do anything to have Matthew’s regard once more.”
“I thought so.” Louisa smiled and kissed him deeply again. “Shall we choose our colors?”
35
“You are making a terrible mistake, Louisa,” I warned, struggling against my bonds. She and Kit had removed the shapeless straw-and-burlap mannequin and tied me to the post in its place. Then Kit had blindfolded me with a strip of dark blue silk taken from the tip of one of the waiting lances, so that I could not enchant them with my gaze. The two stood nearby, arguing over who would use the black-and-silver lance and who the green-and-gold.
You’ll find Matthew with the queen. He’ll explain everything.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but it trembled. Matthew had told me about his sister in modern Oxford, while we drank tea by his fireplace at the Old Lodge. She was as vicious as she was beautiful.
“You dare to utter his name?” Kit was wild with anger.
“Do not speak again, witch, or I will let Christopher remove your tongue after all.” Louisa’s voice was venomous, and I didn’t need to see her eyes to know that poppy and blood rage were not a good mix. The point of Ysabeau’s diamond scratched lightly against my cheek, drawing blood. Louisa had broken my finger wrenching it off and was now wearing it herself.
“I am Matthew’s wife, his mate. What do you imagine his reaction will be when he finds out what you’ve done?”
“You are a monster—a beast. If I win the challenge, I will strip you of your false humanity and expose what lies underneath.” Louisa’s words trickled into my ears like poison. “Once I have, Matthew will see what you truly are, and he will share in our pleasure at your death.”
When their conversation faded into the distance, I had no way of knowing where they were or from which direction they might return. I was utterly alone.
Think. Stay alive.
Something fluttered in my chest. But it wasn’t panic. It was my firedrake. I wasn’t alone. And I was a witch. I didn’t need my eyes to see the world around me.
What do you see? I asked the earth and the air.
It was my firedrake who answered. She chirped and chattered, her wings stirring in the space between my belly and lungs as she assessed the situation.
Where are they? I wondered.
My third eye opened wide, revealing the shimmering colors of late spring in all their blue and green glory. One darker green thread was twisted with white and tangled with something black. I followed it to Louisa, who was climbing onto the back of an agitated horse. It wouldn’t stand still for the vampire and kept shying away. Louisa bit it on the neck, which made the horse stand stock-still but did nothing to alleviate its terror.
I followed another set of threads, these crimson and white, thinking they might lead to Matthew. Instead I saw a bewildering whirl of shapes and colors. I fell—far, far until I landed on a cold pillow. Snow. I drew the cold winter air into my lungs. I was no longer tied to a stake on a late-May afternoon at Greenwich Palace. I was four or five, lying on my back in the small yard behind our house in Cambridge.