It took a moment for Mallory to catch her breath and gather her wits. “Oh. Just… there was a salamander.” Her face was flushed with fury as she sat up, but she stilled her tongue before she could recount the travesty of the paper moth. “I was, er… trying to catch it, before it set the house on fire.” She glanced around the stairwell, but the salamander was gone.
“Wily creatures,” said Armand. “And more clever than they look.”
Mallory guffawed. “This one is nothing but a menace.” She quieted, noticing a basket that had spilled across the floor when they’d fallen—some bundled plants, fabric, a couple of small glass bottles. And on Armand’s sleeve… a reddish-brown spot. Blood? “What’s all that?”
Flustered, Armand started putting the basket to rights. “I heard about what happened, with the lou carcolh.”
She didn’t respond. It felt like a trap.
“I was worried you might have been injured. You… or yoursister. Or Julie. I wondered if you needed any medicine? I have calendula for any pain or swelling you might have and valerian root if you need help sleeping. I also had a bit of a tussle with a barberry bush, but lived to tell the tale, and the poultice will help with infection.” His chuckle was charmingly self-deprecating as he indicated some scratches on his wrist. “Doesn’t look as bad as your arm, I guess.”
Mallory straightened the arm that the lou carcolh had grasped. Red welts and bruises had appeared where the tentacles had wrapped around her.
Armand seemed to take the movement as an invitation. He scooted closer and gently took hold of her wrist, his studious gaze raking across the wounds.
“Similar to a burn,” he said. “I think the lavender oil will help.”
“Do you see what I mean?” said Triphine, still loitering on the upper floor of the tower. “What sort of count knows about lavender oil and calendula? He’s very peculiar.”
Mallory bit back a smile. She didn’t disagree—hewaspeculiar.
“Is it painful?” Armand asked.
“Nothing I can’t handle.”
“That sounds like a yes.” He pulled out a small jar of ointment and dipped his fingers into the salve.
If it bothered Armand that they were standing in a dusty stairwell, where any servant could happen by to see the lord of the house tenderly applying a pale pink salve to the bruised arms of his hired witch—he did not show it.
After a minute, it stopped bothering Mallory, too. The salve tingled, and his fingers were both sure and gentle, massaging the ointment into her arms from her wrist to her elbows. Hisexpression always the picture of gentlemanly studiousness—a scientist inspecting a specimen. If it wasn’t for the touch of pink that had risen on his cheeks…
He put the lid back on the ointment and retrieved a length of gauze, winding it around Mallory’s injured arm. “It may not be fashionable,” he said, “but it will give the salve time to seep in and do its work.”
When he was finished, he put his things away into the basket and met her eyes for the first time since he’d begun.
His cheeks darkened further, and he immediately looked away. “Does your sister…?”
“She wasn’t hurt.”
“I’m glad. No one was expecting a lou carcolh in the house. Lutins and salamanders come in from the fields when the weather starts to change. But something that vicious?” He shook his head. “It’s almost as though they’re being drawn here.”
“You said the house has always attracted monsters.”
“Yes, but not usually this many. And nothing like that.”
He spoke so earnestly that Mallory felt captivated. And then his gaze was on her again and she felt suddenly weightless. He was so close to her. Her heartbeat quickened.
He was most peculiar indeed. And she… she liked him. In spite of it. Because of it.
She more than liked him. Shewantedhim, in ways she couldn’t recall ever wanting anybody before.
She had only realized this positively unacceptable reality when they heard the screams.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
She raced toward the sound, Armand at her side. Down the stairs, through endless corridors, infinite parlors and galleries. The screaming stopped, but it was still ringing in Mallory’s ears. Was it Julie? Yvette? Anaïs?
“Where was it coming from?” she panted.
