Her jaw trembled. “I thought…” She shook her head. “Obviously, I was mistaken.” She scuttled backward and said in a cold voice, “I apologize for interrupting your rest, Mr. Drake.” Then she fled up the stairs.
He clenched his jaw. He wouldnotchase after her and apologize. If he held back his emotions and refused to acknowledge them, eventually, they’d fade.
The bottle in his hands was oddly warm. He turned it around. The glass was deep brown, and the label had long ago worn away, leaving only faint smudges that gave no hint about what might have been held inside. It reminded him of Marguerite. Before she’d abandoned them, his maker had withdrawn into herself, spending most of her time locked in her room with her journal. The few times she’d ventured out, she’d donned a heavy veil that had obscured her features. He suspected it had been an attempt to make her eventual departure easier, but being unable to see what she was so carefully holding inside had only frustrated him.
He popped the cork, tilted the bottle to his mouth, and drank. The bitter liquid contained bits of a sticky substance that caught on his teeth and made him gag. He spat it out and then confirmed what he’d suspected: the wine was full of sediment. After tossing it aside, he rose unsteadily to his feet.
Marguerite had manipulated events from the shadows for long enough. It was time to tear her veil away.
When he reached the house where Felicity had said Marguerite was hiding and kicked down the door, he expected to find his maker inside, cackling gleefully. Instead, she was curled around the bleeding body of a street urchin. Her beautiful, black hair was streaked through with silver, her sharp cheekbones were so prominent that he could almost see each of the individual bones in her face, and when she looked at him, there was no recognition in her eyes.
“Marguerite?” he asked, even though he didn’t expect a response. Whatever had happened to her in the years since he had seen her last, it had taken its toll. She was no longer the vampire she had once been. The image of her he’d held in his mind shattered, and with it a noose that had been wrapped tightly around his heart since she’d vanished slipped away.
The wriggling child in his maker’s arms kicked its feet, striking Marguerite in the cheek and causing a gash to open. She recoiled but did not release her grip on the poor urchin. Blood trickled down her face in scarlet rivulets.
“It’s me,” he said as he approached her. “Let the boy go.”
Something flickered in her eyes. “J-Jon?”
“Yes!” he cried. “That’s me. I’m Jonathan.”
She wasn’t completely gone. There was something left of her.
She blinked several times. “You’re here. That means… Did it work? Did you form the mating bond?”
“No.” He didn’t want to say it, but he couldn’t lie to his maker.
She screwed up her face. “Then I have failed.” Her head lolled to the side. “I am so tired, Jonathan. I fear I no longer have the strength to do what must be done.”
He’d come intending to demand answers, but this frail creature was nothing like the cruel yet beautiful woman heloved. Whatever had happened to her over the previous several decades had changed her for the worse.
She curled around her young victim. “There is still a way. A thread that would cause a new weaver to take my place.” She whipped out a hand and caught Jonathan’s wrist. “You must kill me.”
“No!”
She squeezed so hard, he heard his bones grinding. “You must.”
“Please,” he whispered. “Why are you doing this?”
He’d finally found her. Losing her again so soon was unthinkable.
She closed her eyes. “The pain is too much. Were I to live, the tapestry would unravel, and my children would suffer. I’ve felt the agony of losing a mate, Jonathan. It is worse than you can possibly imagine.”
“What?” A hollow pit opened in his stomach. All those years wishing she would be his fated mate. His nest siblings had thought she’d delayed her search to care for them. He’d been a fool not to realize there had been another reason.
“My Bertrand died before I made Marcus,” she said. “The threads of my mate’s life were impenetrable to my gift. Not knowing his fate terrified me and I… I pushed him away.” Her voice cracked. “He walked into the sun. The pain of his passing broke me, but I was too strong to die. I made Marcus and the rest of you, desperately hoping for another chance at mating.”
His heart ached knowing how she’d suffered. It must have been awful creating fledgling after fledgling, hoping each would be the one that healed the crack in her soul.
The urchin in her arms spasmed, scoring her arms with its newly formed claws.
“No!” he cried, but it was too late. The starving fledgling latched its mouth on to the wound it had made and drank.Marguerite did not even struggle, only bent her head and crooned soothing words.
Jonathan grabbed a jagged length of wood from the floor and thrust it through the fledgling’s chest, turning it to dust.
Marguerite uttered an inhuman screech and began to convulse. He gathered her up and brushed the hair away from her face. No matter what it took, he would not stop until she was restored to sanity, even if she would not have done the same for him.
“You will recover,” he said, willing himself to believe it. He’d take her to Helena. His sister would know what to do. The codex hadn’t provided the cure he’d sought, but it might yet prove useful.
