Run.
A woman’s scream split the night.
I jumped, turning toward my closed door automatically. When I quickly turned back, Rochelle had disappeared.
“No!” I cried. “No!”
This wretched house. I cursed it and myself. I pressed my hands to the glass, repeating the words of the spell in desperation. But the only thing the mirror showed was the reflection of my wild-eyed face and unruly hair. Rochelle was gone.
Only her word remained.Run.
Why would she tell me that? I looked to the mirror again, bracing for a scream.
None came.
Even in the dark the mirror had that too-clear quality that struck me as uncanny. The pour of the silver must have been so refined. I touched the surface with my fingertips, and it did not move. Already her presence felt like a dream. I waited a long time, staring into that mirror.
That night, something changed. I’d seen my sister. I’d called her by name, and she’d come forth. Somewhere, she still lived.
I eased a breath and began to clean up the remnants of the spell. Despite my success, I did not want Death knowing I had tried such a thing. Within moments, the chalk had been wiped clean from the stones, the candles put out, and the carpet rolled back into its proper place. I stood before the mirror again, and it looked back at me, empty and silent.
I had conjured Rochelle. I felt confident now that it was she who had appeared in the chapel. He’d told me she was only an illusion of my longing, but longing alone could not bring forth such a thing—only magic could. I thought about telling him of my success. But I knew he would only call me a little fool. He would say I had been deceived.
I had then a foreign thought, one I feared making sense of, and so I just let it sit there, floating on the surface of my mind. The god Death had been wrong.
HE WAS GONE FOR OVER TWO WEEKS, LONGER THAN HE’D EVERbeen gone from the château since I’d arrived. I grew nearly wild from waiting for him, straining to hear his stallion’s hooves clatter into the courtyard that I stopped being able to do any work and instead wandered the labyrinth of halls, checking for any rooms that would open to me. None did.
One night, while working in his chambers, I fell asleep at my desk. I woke up, bleary-eyed and exhausted, with a long day endlessly stretching before me, and only a moment later he walked into the room. He looked tired, and a thick, reddish mud was spattered all over his cloak.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
I leapt up, legs still asleep. “My lord!”
Stern expression fixed as ever, he looked me over with thosefathomless black eyes—taking in my ink-stained fingers, bleary eyes, and rumpled hair. “Have you been here all night?”
“Well, yes,” I said, about to explain I’d fallen asleep at the desk waiting.
His expression softened. “Oh, ma petite chou.” Without even removing his travel-stained cloak, he grabbed my hands and pulled me, blushing, up to him. “I have something special for you today. A reward for all your hard work.”
“A reward?” I swayed in his hands. He was the sun and his attention, fully directed toward me, was blinding, burning away the phantoms of my fears.
“Go.” He ordered and spun me toward the door. “Go, get dressed. I’ll come collect you as soon as I am cleaned up from my … travels.” He smiled, that too-white smile of a predator chasing down his prey astride his shadowed stallion, and pushed me toward the door, closing himself in his private quarters.
In my room, a filled tub was already waiting for me.
The doubts and fears I’d harbored since seeing Rochelle were like wisps of clouds, lifting off the mountains and burning away in the sun. I washed and wrung out my hair quickly in the warming sun. The dress that had been laid out for me was fit for a goddess. It was a tunic made of soft white silk, long and gathered tightly at the waist with a braided belt of gold. There was no underdress, and my arms and legs both were bared to the warm air. I combed and braided my hair carefully until it shone, for there had been no veil laid out. Finally, I faced myself in the silver mirror.
I had not looked into the mirror since that night, afraid to see something shifted within me marked on my expression that I did not want. But in the bright morning light, I only saw myself as Death intended. Beautiful. My chin proudly lifted. My limbs sleek and soft, the silk falling erotic and liquid across the planes of my body. My failures and struggles and the long road ahead of me under his tutelageall seemed insignificant in this light. For I would not even be alive without Death’s protection and wisdom. He had made a mistake with Rochelle, and it was my privilege, my power then, to overlook it.
He waited for me in the hall, his dark tunic refreshed, the cold angles of his beautifully carved face at odds with the light in his expression when he caught sight of me. He bowed shortly, but I glowed with the show of respect as he offered his arm. “Come, my pupil, today we take your lessonsen plein air.”
XX.
Do You Trust Me?
He led me out into the courtyard, where his stallion waited. Wisps of shadow shook off the stallion’s mane, and his coat shone warm and glossy in the sunshine. The horse did not look as if it had been ridden at all that day, let alone a few hours ago.
Death lifted me up onto the stallion in front of him and wrapped his arms around my waist to take the reins. With a curt command, we galloped off through the hawthorn trees in the courtyard and out into the forest.
