She was back at the beginning. Still no witchcraft. Still no ability to do anything practical in this situation. And a new, uncomfortable certainty that Monsieur Le Bleu was a far more powerful ghost than she’d ever encountered before.
Mallory’s thoughts churned in never-ending spirals as she sketched wards on the threshold of the greenhouse, which was dark and quiet inside.
She warded the steps of the garden terrace. The wall surrounding the orangerie. A potting shed.
She warded the library, the study, the banquet hall, and every salon on the ground floor.
The guest rooms. The stairwells. The tower ladder. The ballroom floor.
She finally dared to make her way to Armand’s private suites. She hadn’t been to this part of the house yet, but she knew from poring over plans of the house that it held a private library, study, bedroom, and the largest bathtub on the property.
The air smelled different here—more earthy, as if Armand had brought the aromas of the greenhouse with him.
She pulled out her chalk and started drawing sigils on the arched wooden door, making sure to bevery loudabout it.
When Armand didn’t immediately come to investigate, she drew even more elaborate symbols. So elaborate that she was running out of ideas and had resorted to doodling an assortment of random gravestones along the base of the door when it finally opened.
Armand stood before her, bewildered.
Bewildered and…shirtless.
Bewildered and shirtless and… was that blood on his hands?
Mallory jumped away, her back colliding with the wall of the corridor. A painting trembled, threatening to fall. The chalk clattered to the floor and split in two.
Pink rushed into Armand’s cheeks. “Forgive me. I thought you were—I thought maybe Claude had changed his—er. One moment.”
He shut the door.
Mallory stood, unable to move while her heart knocked aroundinside her rib cage, making it difficult to breathe. A practical part of her mind signaled that seeing blood on Armand’s hands was a very bad thing.
The rest of her mind noted that seeing him half-dressed was… less bad.
When the door swung open again a few seconds later, Armand had thrown on a linen work shirt and was rubbing his fingers with a damp towel. “Miss Fontaine. What can I…” He hesitated, noticing the drawings on the door.
Mallory looked, too. She had gotten a little carried away, she supposed. The door was as cluttered with random symbolism as the ceiling of one of Solvilde’s temples.
“What’s all this?”
“I’m warding the house against evil,” she explained in a tone that suggested this should have been obvious. “It isn’t the strongest magic, but after what happened yesterday, it felt like we could use a little extra protection.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again and pointed at the door. “Is that a seahorse?”
Her hand curled into a fist, before she shook it out and rubbed the chalk dust on her skirt. “An ancient symbol of strength,” she lied.
“Seahorses? Really?”
“Are you hurt?” she asked, trying to shake the image of his bare chest from her thoughts. No—not true. She wasn’t trying to shake anything. “Are you bleeding?”
The color in Armand’s cheeks deepened. “I’m fine.”
An obvious lie. He was also more unkempt than she’d ever seen him. Hair uncombed and a shadow of facial hair gracing his jaw.She stepped closer, craning her head. A bandage was poking out of the collar of Armand’s shirt, across the left side of his throat.
“Were you attacked? Was it Le Bleu?”
Armand blinked in surprise, and she could admit she sounded a bit too hopeful. But if Le Bleu could wield a knife…
Armand grimaced. “No. It was…” He made a disgusted sound in his throat. “This is mortifying.”
