I pulled my knees up to my chest. Cold crept over me like an unwelcome pall. My arm tingled with disuse and my ear ached where it had been pressed against my own shoulder. I sat up and looked over at Sebastian, but he was gone.
After Lucien had quieted, we’d descended into Sebastian’s mother’s sitting room. He’d dragged the sheets from the furniture and we’d each taken a sofa, not saying anything but seemingly agreeing not to spend the night alone.
My sudden sense of loneliness shocked me. I shouldn’t need Sebastian for comfort. I didn’t need anyone but Ama for that.
“Sore?”
I started and drew a hand to my breast—like a woman in a playing troupe—and immediately dropped it, cheeks burning. But I hid my face from Sebastian and took a breath. It’s not like he could know I’d missed him for the few moments I thought him gone. I waited a couple beats for the heat to fade from my cheeks before looking over at him again.
He sank into the settee with his legs crossed under him. His shoulders drooped and his eyes fell on me, but they didn’t burn with anger or even glow with hope. Defeat settled over him.
“Madame brought us something to eat. She wouldn’t come over the threshold though,” he said, and gestured to the tray on the table beside the settee. Nuts clustered near a loaf of bread and a thick, yellow slice of cheese that was already sweating. My empty stomach rumbled despite the fact I didn’t think I could actually swallow any of it.
“Do you think the room makes her sad?”
He nodded. “It reminds her too much of my mother. She cared for her in Martinique too, you know, since Maman was very small. I think Madame thought of her as her own daughter.”
She must know something.
“Does this room make you sad?”
Sebastian seemed to consider this, eyes flitting from the bookshelves to the little card table in the corner.
“No, it doesn’t. I need to let myself remember more, because my memories are where Maman is still full of life.”
I peeled myself off the firm couch. Plump cushions welcomed me as I dropped down onto the settee beside Sebastian. If he was surprised at this, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reached out and hesitantly touched the tips of my fingers with his. Comfort seemed such a small gift to give, so I offered my whole hand and he took it.
“I hoped it would work,” he said.
“Me too. But it’s not over, Sebastian. We’ll make Lucien well again. What about Madame Écrue? She knew your mother very well, didn’t she? She might have known about the magic and the spell book. Maybe she knows why the pages turn blank.”
“No, I don’t think so. She was our nurse then, always with me and then Lucien later. Maman had another confidante.”
The woman in the portrait. “Who was it?”
“I never knew her name, actually. I saw her from afar a couple times when she and Maman walked in the gardens.”
“But you must have known who she was if she came from the village?”
Sebastian shrugged. “I’m not sure she did. My parents did sometimes have visitors from outside the valley—friends, cousins.”
The woman in the portrait wasn’t just a friend—her picture was in a locket with Sebastian’s mother’s. A cousin, maybe. It was possible. But I still couldn’t shake how much the woman looked like my own maman in her painting.
“Think, Sebastian. Anything you remember about this woman could help.”
Sebastian’s fingers played in mine. “He’s not cursed, Marie. There’s no magic involved. Just bad lungs and a weak heart. Those aren’t so easy to fix.”
And a little foxglove poison. I shuddered and Sebastian squeezed my hand.
“Do you believe in the magic now?” I asked.
“It’s hard not to believe after I saw the spells bloom onto the blank pages of Maman’s book with my own eyes. I’m not saying she was a witch though. That word sounds too harsh and I can’t reconcile it with Maman . . . or you. I’m sorry about yesterday.”
A little glow sparked in my chest and I liked its warmth. I wanted to kindle it.
“Well, I’m sorry I spoke about your maman like that. I understand . . . she was your mother and I wouldn’t be happy if someone called mine a witch either.
“The church has made the word scary, hasn’t it? But what if it’s not like they say it is? What if being a witch is just harnessing some source of power that was already in you?”
He raised an eyebrow. “If everyone had magic, this would be a very different world.”
“I’m not saying everyone . . . what if some people have magic and they just have to learn how to use it, but they’re not evil like the church says?”
Sebastian squeezed my hand again. “I like that version of ‘witch’ better than Père Danil’s. But magic hasn’t hurt my brother, so it won’t cure him either.”
“You don’t know what magic can do. Neither do I. Perhaps there is a way to treat Lucien with it.”
It wasn’t much, but it was a thin thread of hope to hang on to. Sebastian needed that now, and I did too. Sebastian’s mother was dead, but there must be someone else who knew about magic. Children in the village always talked of the Woods Witch—maybe there was something deeper there than gossip. And the woman in the locket, whoever she was, she might know something about magic if she was still alive.
People were still dying—young people, innocent people. Ama had gone for Sebastian because he smelled of honeysuckle. I didn’t know if I believed she’d killed the little boy or the seamstress anymore. Somewhere in those glowing yellow eyes, my sister lived. She wasn’t fully animal. Not yet. She could have torn me apart so many times, but she never did. Even chasing us back to the house, she could have gained on us easily, but she didn’t really. It had been as if she’d just wanted us out of the forest.
I thought back to the strange way the little boy’s skin split at his neck—shallow and cleaner than Ama’s work. And the seamstress—her dress was clean. Of course, there was blood seeping into the material at her belly, but her skirt had been spotless. When my sister killed, she ravaged the bodies.
Something wasn’t fitting.
“What are you thinking about?” Sebastian asked. “Your palm’s gone damp.”
My cheeks burned and I ripped my hand away from his. I hated the way my body betrayed me. My thoughts weren’t my own—they were on display. When nerves twisted my stomach, they also dampened my dress and palms.
All of a sudden, Sebastian was too close. He’d be able to smell the damp wool of my dress under my arms and legs where the sweat would soak through.
I started to rise from the settee, but Sebastian grabbed my arm. He slipped his hand down my skin and closed it around my own again.
“Don’t go. Please. I want to hold your hand.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only thing that’s made me feel safe in a long time.”
His face held no malice. He met my eyes with his warm brown ones and pulled me back down next to him. My palm was still wet but he only held my hand tighter, and the nerves in my belly settled.
“So, what were you thinking?” Sebastian asked, and nudged my foot with his.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring him down this road with me. Things were strange enough. Exhaustion sat heavily on Sebastian—his shoulders slouched and his eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. But I was exhausted too, and I didn’t want to do this alone.
I took a piece of cheese off the plate beside us and broke it in half. Sebastian reached for one crumbling chunk and I bit into the other. The salty tang of the cheese coated my tongue and little pieces of salt crunched between my teeth as I chewed. My stomach suddenly seemed to remember how little I’d eaten over the last few days, and it rumbled loudly in protest. Sebastian laughed and handed me a piece of soft, white bread.
“I was thinking,” I said at last, “about the corpses.”
“Well, that’s dark.”
I smiled and knocked gently into his shoulder. Nothing should have been funny right now, and yet we both clung to the lighthearted bubble we’d created on the settee. It kept the horrible reality out.
“It’s not like that. I was thinking about their wounds.”
“Still sounds pretty dark to me.”
“No!” I grinned. “Just listen . . . the wounds didn’t look right. I’ve seen the way the beast kills . . . those two bodies, the boy and the seamstress, didn’t look the same as the others.”
Sebastian sat up a little straighter and leaned into me. “What do you mean?”
“The way their throats and bellies were torn looked almost . . . well, they were too precise and shallow. It wasn’t like Ama. Not like the beast.”
“Maybe she’s getting better at killing.”
I swallowed at that thought, the same thought I’d had while cleaning Maurice, and the little piece of bread I’d just eaten stuck in my throat.
“There was something else too,” I said once I’d swallowed the bread. “Whatever killed them didn’t eat them . . .”
“What are you talking about? There was blood everywhere.”
“When the beast feeds, it digs in. It doesn’t leave that much meat behind . . .”
Sebastian didn’t ask how I knew what the beast’s kills looked like, but the lighthearted veil we’d created disintegrated in an instant.
“What are you saying, Marie? That something else killed those people?”
“Something else . . . or someone else.”
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “A person?”
“A murderer.”