CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mallory lit the first bundle of herbs as soon as she stepped out of the greenhouse, and spent nearly twenty minutes spreading their smoke around the edges of the formal gardens before approaching the house itself. She entered the main vestibule, trying not to feel ridiculous as she encouraged the smoke to waft over the fine furnishings and behind the heavy drapes, into the chimneys and beneath the tables. Despite the book’s assurances that this method would cleanse the home of bad fortune and unclean energy, she was quite certain the spirits of the House Saphir would not be deterred. The only people who were likely to be affected by the aromatic smoke were those who were very much alive and found themselves wiping their eyes and coughing. She powered through more than one coughing fit herself.
But Mallory had a job to fake, and she was not a quitter.
She went slowly, winding her way through parlors and galleries,leaving a trail of ashes wherever she went. Each bundle burned slowly, as if the herbs knew they had a lot of space to cover.
After completing the first floor, she moved on to the games and billiards rooms on the second, the bedrooms and suites on the third. It took her a while to discover the stairwell that led up to the northern tower—the highest point of the château—and the smoke must have been getting to her, because her head pounded with every step she took up the spiraling limestone staircase, her satchel, heavy with her drawing portfolio banging against her hip.
At the top of the steps, a short ladder finished the journey through a trapdoor cut into the floor of the tower’s uppermost room. Mallory was sweating as she kicked the trapdoor shut so she wouldn’t accidentally fall through it.
She paused, swishing the herbs in front of her—though the smoke was almost immediately blown out through the room’s arched openings. Unlike most of the château, with its centuries of luxury displayed in marble statues, carved pediments, and frescoes, this room was… simple. Rustic. Unfinished.
Mallory couldn’t tell what the purpose of the tower was. Perhaps a watchtower to protect against invading armies. Or maybe there had been an expectation of converting the space into a falconry or dovecote.
Whatever the plan had been, the tower now felt like a forgotten space. A floor of dusty clay tiles. Cracked and broken plaster between the beams of the domed ceiling. In some distant past, vines and birds had decorated the wooden trim, but open air had faded the paint to a hint of what it had been. With no glass in the arched openings, bird droppings coated the banisters, while the dried-mud remnants of barn swallow nests hung among therafters. The only furniture was a small iron table and a few wooden chairs, gray and worn from being exposed to the elements.
As Mallory stood there, a swallow landed on one of the rails, its blue-pointed wings folded back and its copper-red face tilted suspiciously as it eyed the intruder in its midst.
Mallory approached the banister. The bird cocked its head to one side, then—after a hesitation—spread its wings and flapped up to a nest above Mallory’s head. A little gray cocoon crafted of mud and straw.
A light caught Mallory’s attention. She blinked, startled at the sight of a tiny glowing ball, no larger than a galet coin, floating among the rafters. Mallory’s lips parted as the sparkling sphere bobbed closer to her.
As she stared, mesmerized, a second appeared, then a third, emerging from the shadows of the tower’s ceiling and floating leisurely toward Mallory. They surrounded her like curious cats. She held her breath as they brushed through her hair, skimmed down her arms. Mallory lifted a palm, and one of the balls of light hovered above her hand, shimmering in shades of yellow and green.
“Feu follet,” Mallory murmured, hardly able to believe the words from her own mouth. These creatures were said to inhabit the deepest forests of Lysraux. She’d never believed she would encounter them herself.
As soon as she’d spoken, the feu follet danced away from her hand, drifting toward the stone rail that surrounded the tower. Mallory’s feet followed of their own accord, her hand reaching out, drawn to the creature’s gentle, pulsating light. There was something about their soft presence that filled Mallory, coursedthrough her veins, warmed her soul. She felt light. Unburdened by the pressures of paying the rent, providing for her and her sister, searching for an escape from the misfortunes that had plagued their lives. She had no responsibilities. She had no worries.
Her heartbeat slowed. Her breaths deepened.
The feu follet bobbed over the rail, continuing beyond the edge of the tower.
Mallory’s thigh hit the protective balustrade as she reached for the creature, wishing to grasp it and pull it back to her. But it was barely out of reach. She stretched forward, yearning to keep it close.
The barn swallow dove at her head with a screech, tiny talons scratching her scalp.
Mallory gasped. Her center of balance shifted. The world came into focus. Her attention dropped from the feu follet, down to the gardens below.
The air left her lungs.
The gardens were so very,veryfar below.
With a shriek, Mallory stumbled back to the center of the tower.
The light of the feux follets dimmed, as if with disappointment. Then together they flickered and twirled out of the tower, disappearing beyond a distant gable.
The calm that Mallory had felt vanished as if it had never been there at all—replaced with barely tempered panic. She pressed her back to a wooden column and struggled to take in breaths. She sank down to the floor, grasping for the soothing comfort of stable ground. Her head spun. Her stomach felt hollow, asthough the sensation of falling had really happened, and not been entirely in her mind.
“Feux follets,” she said through a groan. “Pretty little things… until they try to kill you.” She buried her face in both hands, feeling utterly foolish for falling prey to such a well-known tactic. She knew that feux follets were as dangerous as any monster, but she had underestimated their powers of enchantment. She had been taken in far too easily.
She squeezed her eyes shut and knocked her knuckles against her skull. “Do not trust pretty things. You know better.”
Her thoughts raced back to the night she’d met Armand at the House Saphir in Morant. When he had wrapped his arm around her as he hauled her out the window. She knew, logically, that he had been trying to rescue her, but every fiber of her body had rebelled at the idea of leaving the safety of the house and letting herself fall.
Do not trust pretty things.
Only when the room had stopped spinning and Mallory’s breaths had grown even again did she open her eyes.
