Céleste Artois held the fate of Paris in her hands.
The sky above Place de la Concorde looked much like the stones below—lumpy and gray. It wouldn’t make a paint-worthy sunrise. This was what Céleste chose to focus on, as she and Rafe approached the Hotel Crillon, for it was too easy to let her thoughts stray, otherwise. To stare down the rue des Ombres and see its black walls for what they were: deaths. She remembered the Mapmaker burning away in La Fée Verte’s memory. And the rest of the Sancts gathered behind her—their masques burning and burning and burning. All to stop the future that now wriggled in her fist. The idea was as restless as a worm cut in two with a garden spade, searching desperately for its head.
She wondered if the nightmare would move the same way in Terreur’s palm, when she handed it to him. Thank God he wouldn’t have much time to hold his hopeless Paris, much less make that city’s shadowy streets come true.
She squeezed her own fingers tighter and glanced over at Rafe.
Her thief was smiling.
Oh, how Céleste wanted to sketch his tousled dark hair. The pop of his collar. The scars beneath. Rafe should have looked undone, but for the way his eyes twinkled. Brighter even than the fob chains that swung from his pocket.
“You’re going to have to wipe that grin off your face,” she said through her own half-smile.
“Not really,” Rafe answered. “Even without our subtle sabotage, I’d be happy. He knows I’ve hoped for this day.”
“It’s not here yet,” Céleste reminded him, looking back at the sky.
They had ten minutes until the sun broke. Tsarskoe Selo would sit in darkness a few minutes more, but that wouldn’t stop Honoré from flying through the snow-sugared pines. Céleste would have to try not to stare too hard at the trees, during Rasputin’s final “prayer,” though she wasn’t sure she could stomach staring at the Mad Monk’s necklaces either. Well, she could. It just made her insides heavy, heavier than horseshoes…
But what was her alternative?
Be the taker or be taken.
Céleste held on to this thought, even as her fist tightened around the other. No more searching for the sun. Her eyes bored straight ahead into the tunnel, finding the keyhole. One way or another—dead or not—this was the end.
Their final meeting with Terreur.
The Caveau was more crowded than Céleste had expected. Usually, at this hour, most of the gangsters who frequented the bar were passed out in their beds. Or in their cups. But there were still cards being played. Four Apaches and Terreur sat around a table piled high with coins and a bright yellow boot. Items worth betting. Céleste very much doubted the game was fair, seeing as most of the players were covered in compulsive black marks, Honoré’s brother included. The scar-faced fellow next to him was yanking a second boot off his foot, though he paused at the sight of Céleste and Rafe.
“Ah, my tender-hearted artists!” Terreur appeared flush—cards in his hands and flesh on his cheeks. “Join us!”
More of a command than a request, judging by the tug on her own shadow.
Rafe strolled to the table and pulled up two more chairs.
He’d managed to stop grinning, at least.
Céleste settled across from their employer. Her palm squirmed as the rest of the players folded their hands. The spoils went to Terreur, of course. A fresh round of cards was dealt. Shnick. Shnick. Céleste didn’t bother looking at hers. She knew the idea in her fist trumped everything. This game would be over as soon as she played it.
But the scar-faced fellow snarled when Céleste began to move. “Ain’t your turn, doll. Goes left of the dealer!”
Gabriel tossed a few francs into the pot.
Rafe was next.
Céleste felt the hair on the back of her neck rise when the other thief pulled out his pocket watch. They went even stiffer as he undid both fob chains before tossing the timepiece into the middle of the table. She couldn’t see from this angle if his shadow had been twisted or not, but she doubted he’d bet the relic on his own.
A smile flickered beneath the darkness on Terreur’s face. “A fateful hour! You must be confident, Monsieur García! And what of you, Monsieur Lavigne? Will you see his call or raise it?”
The man with the scar glanced at his cards, then fished inside his shirt. More gold chains glittered as he dropped a necklace onto the table. It looked a great deal like the adornments Grigori Rasputin so proudly wore.
It also looked a great deal like Sylvie.
The youngest Enchantress’s hair was undeniably bright. Her eyes were sky wide. Her mouth gaped with a soundless scream, and as Céleste stared, she could hear it in the deepest chords of her soul. Oh God, oh God, oh God, Sylvie has gotten herself turned into a saint, which means—
“Would you like to fold, Mademoiselle Artois?” Terreur’s teeth were still bared, the ghost of his smile. “Or do you have something to wager?”
Céleste understood then. The trap they’d walked into. The test. She could see the horror of it all playing out in Rafe’s eyes as well. He stared at Sylvie overlapping the engraved hourglass of his pocket watch. They could not stop this. They could not win. If Céleste folded now, Terreur would call her bluff. She could try to destroy the nightmare, but then she would die drowning in her own blood, with no fucking lily pads or Shakespearean soliloquies.
But if she gave the Sanct what he wanted and made him the shadow king of Paris…
Céleste did not finish this thought.
She tried not to think at all as she placed Terreur’s dream on the table. Every shadow in the room went a shade darker when their employer saw what she’d set down. His nostrils flared. His pupils too. He looked almost hesitant to reach out and touch what had been so long lost.
Rafe, however, lunged at the pile.
Céleste wasn’t sure what the other thief was aiming for—his pocket watch or Sylvie or the nightmare or all three. A scream sprouted in her throat, but it had no time to grow, not like the shadows that rose around Rafe’s waist and lashed him back into his chair. He growled and spat, until the jaws of his fox sank in around his own throat, until there was silent foam around his lips. A horrific match to Sylvie’s cries. Céleste’s fingernails dug four crimson moons into her life line. She wished she could not feel a thing, but she was only flesh and blood. She was scared. She was full of shit. Shit upon shit upon shit.
She was surviving.
“Thank you, Monsieur García, for showing your hand,” Terreur said. “As for you, Mademoiselle Artois, I was curious what your true colors might be…” The Sanct reached out and plucked his dreadful dream from the pile. It writhed in his fingers, up, up, over his straw-gold hair, before slithering into his skull when he dropped it there. “Ah, yes. At last.”
Céleste clenched her hand even tighter, until it was covered in blood. La Fée Verte did not stand a chance now. None of the rest of them did…
A foaming gargle came from Rafe’s chair.
“Don’t play the victim, Monsieur García. I did warn you what would happen if you tried to deceive me again. Yet you still sent this fairy child to steal my heart!” Terreur nodded at the necklace, his eyes glittering as he looked back to Céleste. “And you. You will get what you deserve too.”
“We had a deal,” she said tightly.
“We did,” their employer replied. “I intend to honor it. You wanted more than days, so I shall give you a lifetime.” Another glance at Sylvie’s saint charm. Another snarl from Rafe’s chair. “His, I think.”
The shadow fox’s jaws tightened even more; its tail split and slithered across the table, winding around Céleste’s throat, pouring new hours, weeks, months, years down her windpipe, clearing out her lungs. On the opposite side of the table, Rafe began to cough. Clots of red landed on his cards, so thick that you could no longer read their suit. No hearts. No diamonds. Only blood.
Their game was over.
“No,” Céleste gasped. Too freely.
“No?” Terreur tilted his head, and the dark cord fell slack. Rafe slumped over the table as well, his lips dribbling, red pooling into that once-perfect chin divot. “I thought you wished to be like me. No weakness. No pain. No death.”
“I—” She couldn’t help but sob then.
Rafe responded with a low moan. He wasn’t dead yet, but it was only a matter of time.
“I warned you too, Mademoiselle Artois. My path to immortality is not easy to tread; few are willing to go this far.” His voice was worse than winter, his face just as cold, when he dropped Rafe’s shadow completely, gesturing to it. “Will you take the next step and seize the last remnants of your lover? Or should I let Monsieur Lavigne here have a chance to drain Monsieur García’s anima?”
The scar-faced gangster unsheathed a dagger from his belt.
“No!” Céleste threw herself over the table, crawling toward Rafe. Francs spilled everywhere. Chains got caught in her skirts—she dragged these tangled fates as close as she could to Rafe García’s limp hand. Their eyes met. His were full of hurt—worse than hurt. The light there was dimming, and no apologies or magic kisses could bring that flame back.
All she could do was press that damn watch to his palm.
Would it work? Did Rafe have enough strength to wind the timepiece? Could he stop time and escape while his shadow was still his? Should she pretend to seize it or—
Between one breath and the next, Rafe García was gone.
Céleste sat trembling over the blood-spattered cards and coins. Never had she felt so alone—not even the night she’d grabbed the gates of the old Artois château, locked out of everything she once was, traumatized so deeply that every single one of her hairs had turned white. Some of the strands spilling over her shoulders had blackened once more. She let this darkness fall over her face as she climbed into the empty chair. Set herself down in that still-warm seat.
The rest of the Apaches were blinking, searching the sandy dance floor with confused expressions.
“Where the hell did he go?” Gabriel asked.
The scar-faced man stabbed the table. “That bastard stole my necklace!”
“Pity,” Terreur said flatly. “Though I doubt Monsieur García will get very far—even with that magical watch. His time has run out, and he’s too soft to use that saint.” His eyes cut over to Céleste. “You though… you have a good deal further to go.”