Chapter Forty-One
Two Huntsmen, Three Witches, and Four Vampires Walk into a Grotto
Raised voices echo through the grotto when we slip through the trapdoor an hour later—familiar voices, angry ones—and though I dart down the stairs toward them, Michal catches my hand, pulling me back for one last scorching kiss. When we break apart a moment later, he says, “It sounds like my bedroom will be occupied for the foreseeable future.”
Sure enough, a veritable crowd of people have gathered at the foot of the stairs: Odessa and Dimitri, yes, but also Lou, Reid, and— Mathilde . My heart leaps at the sight of her. She survived.
They all survived.
Although, right now, Mathilde seems likely to roast her granddaughter on a spit.
“—without even an invitation.” Looking harassed, Lou waves a crooked dagger in Mathilde’s face. Blood drips from the blade—fresh, by the smell—and also spatters across her nightgown, which is just Reid’s overlarge shirt. Wearing nothing else and with her hair in a braid, she clearly wasn’t expecting an impromptu trip to Requiem. Moreover, it looks like Mathilde just pulled her from some sort of attack . “You can’t just tear through my house and take us all hostage—”
Mathilde bats the dagger aside with a gnarled hand, flicking blood onto Dimitri’s shoes. He looks down at it with a pained expression. “I saved your ungrateful skin,” she snarls. “Those revenants would’ve eaten you if I hadn’t showed up when I did, so you can repay the favor now by protecting mine .”
Lou’s mouth parts incredulously. “We didn’t ask for you to help us. We don’t even know you—”
“An intentional decision on my part, I can assure you.” Mathilde crosses her arms with a beleaguered harrumph. “And one I instantly regret reversing. You are a dreadful grandchild.”
Lou spots me on the stairs then, pushing past Mathilde with a fierce scowl. “ There you are. Thank the gods you’re finally here—this woman is a complete and total lunatic, and coming from me, that’s really saying something. She just waltzed into my living room during a revenant attack—”
“A revenant attack?” I ask sharply. “In your living room ?”
“More like an infestation.” Lou waves a dismissive hand, striving to sound unconcerned and failing miserably. “They mostly attack at nightfall, but we dealt with them—”
“ I dealt with them,” Mathilde mutters.
Ignoring her, Lou speaks even louder now. “And then she started raving about Death and your sister and—”
“—and my precious collection of books! My priceless collection.” Mathilde glares fiercely, though the effect is ruined somewhat by her own nightgown, a rather horrid floral creation with ruffles up to her chin. “I assume they’ve all gone now thanks to your lot. Tell me, what is the point of possessing all these”—she gestures between us in agitation—“these supernatural abilities if you can’t even protect a helpless woman in her home?”
I halt mid-step, staring past them across the grotto to where my mother alone sits at Michal’s desk. Though exhaustion lines her face—and tears still rim her glassy, hollow eyes—that isn’t what captures my immediate attention. Because she isn’t alone at all.
Jean Luc and Brigitte stand beside her in rigid silence, their expressions torn between wariness and open hostility.
Oh God. My entire body freezes as Jean Luc locks eyes with me. After I attacked outside Chasseur Tower—after I irreparably broke the love we once shared—I never expected to see him again, let alone to see him here . As quickly as the surprise strikes, however, it vanishes again, leaving only bone-deep sadness in its wake—sadness, and this yawning cavern between us. At least his wounds have healed; Coco’s blood must’ve performed a miracle.
I swallow hard.
Jean Luc and I never would’ve worked, but we shouldn’t have ended like this.
As if sensing my thoughts, Jean Luc breaks first, unable to look at me any longer. His eyes land on Michal instead—on our intwined hands—and harden. I cannot even blame Brigitte as she shifts in front of him, trying to block the view. To protect him.
Nor do I release Michal’s hand.
“Hello,” I say to them softly, tentatively, as Michal squeezes my fingers in encouragement.
Neither of them answer.
Clearing his throat to ease the sudden tension, Reid steps forward and says, “Jean Luc and Brigitte tracked the revenants to our house before Mathilde, er—”
“Kidnapped us,” Lou snaps. “She tore through the veil straight on top of my kitchen table, and she snatched me up in the middle of decapitating Undead Grue. Reid grabbed my arm, and Jean Luc grabbed his arm, and”—she waves an agitated hand—“so on and so forth. I’ve never felt sicker in my life than I did in the spirit realm,” she adds, shuddering. “Though this place is a close second.”
“A dreadful grandchild!” Mathilde interjects, yet her hand quivers slightly as she points it at Lou. “And a helpless woman!”
Cursing, Lou stalks to Michal’s bed before unceremoniously slumping onto it. Reid follows with an apologetic glance at Michal, who says dryly, “There is nothing helpless about you, Mathilde—and I notice you didn’t stick around to chat with Death.”
“Because I’m not an idiot. He is Death .”
“And thank goodness you fled instead of fulfilling your marital duties.” Though I carefully avoid Dimitri’s gaze, his wrists and ankles still seep gently, filling the grotto with the delicate scent of his blood, and the angry red burn of my sister’s cross remains on his cheek. “You’re right about your books too, and also your cottage—the earth swallowed them, but they did put up quite a fight against Death.”
“ Swallowed them?” Brigitte frowns, bewildered despite herself, and glances from me to Mathilde. “Marital duties? Her? ”
Though Mathilde skewers her with a glare, Dimitri interrupts before the witch can do something rash, like curse Brigitte into oblivion, or perhaps just bite off her nose. “Trust me,” he says with a valiant attempt at a smirk, “it isn’t what you think.”
Mathilde’s fingers twitch. “Watch yourself, boy. I am old, not dead.”
“A pity,” Lou mutters from the bed.
Impatience snaps through my bond with Michal as he descends the last of the stairs, parting the crowd and pulling me along with him. “Enough. The Chasseur has a point—we cannot proceed until everyone understands.” Quickly, he explains all that happened at Mathilde’s cottage, all that happened before it, until Brigitte’s and Jean Luc’s jaws have slackened—Lou’s and Reid’s too—and my mother closes her eyes and bows her head.
“Filippa?” Jean Luc takes a half step forward when Michal mentions her name, his own eyes widening before flicking to mine. Though he tries to mask his concern, I can still hear the spike of his pulse, his small intake of breath. I nod. “She—she’s alive?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Odessa says.
Jean Luc hesitates, his gaze softening slightly as he glances at my mother. “Can we help her?”
When she doesn’t answer, I swallow hard. “We tried.”
Michal squeezes my hand again, and though Jean Luc tracks the movement, he doesn’t react otherwise. “Filippa is a symptom of the greater disease,” Odessa says impatiently before rounding on Michal. “Why did Death leave us alive at Mathilde’s cottage? His revenants outnumbered us—they’d even incapacitated Dimitri and me—and you were in no fit shape to defend anyone. Filippa held their mother as leverage against Célie, so why did he not kill us all? Why did he not end our little resistance then and there?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mathilde—who sat herself on the bottom step, disgruntled, during Michal’s explanation—taps her temple shrewdly. “He still hasn’t found the missing piece—that special something that makes Filippa unique—and you lot are the only ones who might. If he kills you outright, the secret dies with you, and Death is a coward. He won’t risk following you into his own realm. Not until the veil comes down.” She harrumphs in disdain before speaking directly to me. “But mark my words, girlie—he’ll soon tire of chasing Brides and creating revenants, and he’ll punish you for thwarting him.”
At that, every eye in the grotto swivels curiously in my direction. Skin prickling beneath their attention, I frown at Mathilde. “Thwarting him? I haven’t thwarted him at all. I have no idea why my sister isn’t like other revenants—”
“No?” Mathilde purses her lips, unconvinced. “No idea at all, hmm? Not a single thought in that witless head of yours?”
“Clearly you have one,” Michal says in a terse voice. “I would encourage you to share it.”
“At the risk of sounding obtuse,” Brigitte interjects, “why does it matter if Filippa is different? I thought you said Death wants to bring down the veil, not create another”—those crystalline eyes flick to me—“shadow bride.”
Though my own eyes narrow at the thinly concealed insult, I force myself to take a deep, steadying breath. “It matters because Filippa almost single-handedly brought down the veil when she came back on All Hallows’ Eve. If Death manages to re-create those circumstances, the veil could collapse entirely. Life and death as we know them will cease to exist, and if our current situation is any indication”—I gesture to the maelstrom, to the castle overhead, to the market and forest and world beyond where walls seep blood and ferns weep tears, where everything fades into shades of gray—“that won’t be a good thing for anyone.”
“Including the Chasseurs,” Lou says without lifting her head. She seems to sense rather than see Jean Luc’s and Brigitte’s reticence, or perhaps she just guessed. Burning revenants in Cesarine is one thing; it is tangible, actionable . Confronting literal Death while he rends the world apart is another.
Indeed, Jean Luc and Brigitte exchange a quick, furtive look. The former has never been able to disguise his emotions—in this case, wariness—and the latter doesn’t care to hide her disgust.
“Regardless of what happened to Filippa,” Michal says, ignoring them both and speaking directly to Mathilde, “Death will keep coming after you, and he is clearly growing desperate.”
“Which is why you”—she pokes a crooked finger in his chest—“are going to hide me with the help of these fools.” She jerks her chin toward Lou and Reid, then Odessa near the stairs. “Surely between the four of you, I’ll be safe enough from anything.”
“No one is safe while Death walks among the living,” I say. “He’ll find all of us eventually, even you, but if you help us, we have greater odds of defeating him. I have a plan—”
She starts shaking her head before I’ve even finished. “Not a chance.”
“Mathilde, you are the oldest witch in living memory—”
Her eyes narrow. “That better be a compliment.”
“—which means you’re powerful,” I continue determinedly. “More than that, you’re clever—probably cleverer than the rest of us combined.” Though Lou and Odessa both snort, I ignore them. “You’ve evaded detection for how many years now? Even your own kin didn’t know you were alive. We could use that sort of cunning to our advantage.”
“Careful, now.” She peers down her nose at me, eyes glinting with that same uncanny awareness she displayed in the cottage. And for the first time since meeting Mathilde, I understand just how cunning she must’ve been to have lived this long as a human woman, not an immortal like Michal and Odessa. There is a difference between them, somehow. A vitality I cannot quite place. Arching a silver brow, she says, “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“If the common good isn’t enough,” Michal says, “I shall rebuild your cottage by hand after we’ve banished Death.”
“And my books?”
“All replaced, even the first editions.”
“Deal.” Mathilde cackles then, enormously satisfied with herself. “There are only three copies of The Wizard of Waterdeep’s Staff in the world—two now—so good luck with that.”
“You’ve read The Wizard of Waterdeep’s Staff ?” Lou asks incredulously, pushing up on her elbows to stare at Mathilde. Already, she looks much too pale, much too sick to do what must be done. We have no other choice, however; I can only hope her magic will be enough.
“This explains so much,” Reid mutters.
“Yes, well”—Odessa waves an impatient hand before turning to me—“this is all very good, but what are we actually going to do ? You said you have a plan.”
“I had a thought ,” I say, glancing back at Michal, “at the ruins.” When his eyes darken at the memory, I blush slightly, and—despite our less than cheerful circumstances—Lou’s and Dimitri’s faces split into identical smirks. I ignore them both. “What if we... pretend to bring Mila back?”
Michal understands immediately. “Another resurrection,” he says at once, and through the bond, a tendril of his hope unfurls—small and tentative, but there . My own responds in kind, twining around his and holding it close, strengthening it.
“To bring down the veil—or at least to further damage it.” I nod between him and Odessa, who looks skeptical. Truthfully, I cannot blame her. There are still so many variables, so many things that could go wrong. “If we can create a second maelstrom with magic—a fake maelstrom—we might be able to trick Death into believing Mila’s resurrection caused it, just like Filippa’s did on All Hallows’ Eve. He’ll think the veil is coming down, and he’ll come to investigate.”
“As if he’d ever believe it,” Mathilde sniffs.
“That’s where you come in. What if you create a shock wave through the veil? One powerful enough to bring Death snooping?”
“Even if I could do such a thing, I wouldn’t be able to maintain such an illusion for long. A few minutes at most.”
“Just to clarify,” Jean Luc says incredulously, “your plan is to fake a resurrection and just— hope Death appears?” He glances between us as if waiting for the punch line to the world’s most ridiculous joke. “To what end? So he can kill the spares?” He jerks his chin between himself and Brigitte, my mother. “I’m reasonably certain he doesn’t need to keep the rest of us alive.”
“It’ll be a risk,” Lou says. “All of it. Especially with magic behaving like it has been. Even now, I feel—weak, being this close to the maelstrom.” She flicks Mathilde a probing glance. “I assume you do too, which is why you haven’t agreed.”
Mathilde swells indignantly. “Do you think I’m so easily manipulated? True power speaks for itself. The learned witch needn’t exhibit her magic to prove herself—usually, that is.” She plants her hands on her hips, an eager smile twisting her lips. “In this case, she must do both, apparently, in order to teach half-witted grandchildren their place.” Turning back to me, she says, “ Fine , I will create this shock wave, and then I will leave. Do you understand? I plan to be halfway to Zvezdya when this hell breaks loose—and it will . This is not Frederic you’re dealing with. It isn’t even your ghastly sister. This is Death , and he will not appreciate such buffoonery.”
Odessa shakes her head. “And even if Death does fall for the shock wave, how are we going to incapacitate him? In case you’ve forgotten,” she says to Michal, “he took you down within a matter of moments.”
Jean Luc chuckles at that, but he stops abruptly at the sharp smile spreading across Michal’s face. “A bathtub fell on me, Odessa.”
“And that isn’t quite the boast you think it is,” Dimitri says. “Can we just... push Death into the real maelstrom, and send him back where he came from?” He blinks then before turning to me. “Is that where it goes, do you think? To the realm of the dead?”
“Of course it does. It is the door through which he came.” Odessa heaves an exasperated sigh, turning on her heel to pace now. Nearly cracking the stone underfoot. “So—in this hypothetical dreamland in which we are all currently living—let’s say we do manage to lure Death here. More improbable still, let us say we also manage to shove him into the maelstrom and through the veil. What then? The door still does not close without Filippa.”
“We said we would find another way,” Michal says curtly.
“There is no other way. It’s always been her.” To everyone’s surprise, the words come not from Odessa but from me—and they’re true. They’ve been true since the moment my heart ceased to beat, since Filippa used my blood and Frederic’s magic to claw her way from the grave; they’ve been true since Death slipped through with her, since we tore the veil wide open—the four of us—and created that monstrosity in the sea. Even now, it beckons to me, but I resist, staring intently from one face to another before turning deliberately to my mother.
She rises from her chair slowly as our eyes catch and hold, and I close the distance between us, lowering my voice. “I wanted to save her, Maman. You must believe me. I wanted to—to change her back somehow, to love her enough that she’d want to change too, but Death has twisted her up inside. You saw her at the cottage. Filippa is not the same woman we knew, perhaps never was that woman, and Death... he made her worse. He slaughtered Frederic and preyed on her fears, her loneliness, and I”—pressure builds behind my eyes now, undeserved and wretched —“I think Filippa has felt alone for a very long time.”
My mother says nothing when I take her hands. “Worse still, Death has convinced her that he is her only path to happiness, to her daughter. To her future .” I swallow the lump of emotion in my throat; I have not earned it. I am sentencing my sister to death. “She will not forsake him, Maman.”
When my mother simply stares, I bring her hands to my chest, willing her to forgive me. To feel that place where my heart used to beat—where sometimes, I think it still does. How else could it be bleeding like this? “Please say something,” I whisper.
A shadow shifts in her eyes at that, and it terrifies me.
It reminds me of the woman trapped inside her bed, trapped inside her head , who could not escape even for her daughters. After another long moment, she draws her hands away. “I cannot give you my blessing,” she says quietly, “no matter how badly you wish it. I cannot condemn either of you to such a fate.”
Without another word, she turns away from me, vanishing through the curtain.
Leaving me to stare after her with this terrible ringing in my ears.
“I—” Choking down the word, I glance back at Michal, but it is Jean Luc who steps in front of me when I finally move to follow her. He touches my elbow with light fingers. I do not find pity in his gaze, however, or even the disgust so often present when he looks at me now. Instead it fills with understanding. With sadness.
And with it, I know we will never mend the rift between us. Not properly. Even with his forgiveness, we will never be like we were before he fell in love with me and I fell out of love with him. And—perhaps that is for the best.
Perhaps some hurts run too deeply to ever forget.
Still he squeezes my elbow and says, “I’ll speak to her.”
Then, as he turns away too—
“I’m sorry, Jean.”
The words leave me in a breathless whisper, perhaps too soft for him to hear, but he still hesitates by the curtain, glancing back at me with an inscrutable expression. Perhaps he can disguise his emotions after all. With a sigh, he tips his head toward the desk, where a letter lies open upon its surface. His letter. “I know,” he says quietly.
When he disappears after my mother, I return to the safety of Michal’s arms, to his strong and steady presence, and rest my cheek against his chest. I still do not allow myself to cry, however; I still haven’t earned it. Indeed, I even smile a little as Brigitte stands frozen by the curtain, staring between it and me as if unsure what to do. “Not to be rude or anything,” she says at last, “but who the hell is Mila?”