by Emma Hamm
That snapped Alexandre out of his grumpy mood. He leaned far over the sarcophagus, wings spread wide. “That’s impossible.”
“But you’re looking.”
“What moved?”
She hadn’t thought far ahead when she’d exclaimed the words. Mostly, she just wanted him to not stare at her like he would tear her arms off if she didn’t figure out what was happening. “His hand.”
Alexandre leaned closer, inspecting the appendage as if he could make it move again just by staring at it intensely. “I don’t think it did.”
“Perhaps I was mistaken.” She observed the body, surveying him for a few more moments before she asked, “Why did you say it was impossible for him to move? He’s breathing.”
“Breathing doesn’t mean life.”
“Of course, it does. How else would we define life? If a person isn’t breathing, then they’re dead.”
Alexandre shook his head. “Not in this case.”
The words made even less sense than he’d made thus far. It sounded like he already knew the answers she sought. If he knew what was happening here, then why wouldn’t he just tell her? Why make her run around trying to find out the story?
She let out an angry huff of breath. “How do you know he’s a Celestial? What is a Celestial?”
“These are questions I cannot answer.” When he leaned away from the sarcophagus, a flicker of darkness crept over his shoulders. For a moment, they looked like skeletal hands, sinking into the flesh of his arms and neck, squeezing hard. “You will need to find the answers yourself.”
She didn’t understand that logic. He knew what was going on. Or at least, enough that he knew this creature before them wasn’t human.
“Can you at least tell me what the Celestials are?” she asked again. “I know they aren’t human.”
“They are not.” He did not continue, but he had answered her question.
Amicia thought hard about her next words. “Are they like you?”
He shook his head, albeit slowly. Almost as though he wasn’t confident in his answer. “No, they were not like me.”
“But could they be like you?”
The spark in his eyes made her breath catch in her lungs. He stared at her as though she was the most intelligent woman he’d ever met. Stepping much closer, Alexandre reached forward and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His hand lingered at the nape of her neck. “Yes, petite souris. Yes, they could be like me.”
She couldn’t breathe. He was too big, too close, too dangerous. If he wanted to attack her, he could do so with very little effort. All he had to do was lower that hand, wrap it around her throat, and…
Her heart raced at the thought of his hand around her throat. Only this time, fear was a secondary emotion to that of a strange thrill she’d never had before. Why did her heart race at the thought of him touching her? Why did her palms itch to reach out and smooth the gooseflesh she could see decorating his granite-like chest?
The shuddering breath that shook through her ribcage sent an answering warble through her voice. “How? How could they be like you?”
The spark in his eyes disappeared. “That I cannot tell you.”
Amicia didn’t have time at the moment to wonder why she wasn’t afraid of him. Not even a single fiber of her body or a whisper of her soul said he would hurt her. Instead, all she felt was a confidence that she could trust him.
Because he was trusting her.
“There are rules, aren’t there?” she asked. “Rules that say you cannot tell me everything you know.”
“I do not know if there are rules,” he replied. He leaned closer, the torchlight making his horns gleam red. “But I know I don’t want to risk anyone finding out I helped you.”
“I’ve been trying to read the book. The words keep moving, like someone is writing over them in another hand.”
He nodded, then stared at her expectantly. There was another question he wanted her to ask. Another thing that might help her, and yet…
Amicia took a deep breath. “Is there another book that might help me stop the words from moving?”
And again, a glow of pride illuminated his gaze until his eyes were twin fires set within his skull. “The alchemists were the ones who created the book. There are more of their works here in the crypt.”
“Where can I get them?”
“Reach inside the sarcophagus. Underneath his right arm is a book written by the alchemists. Basic alchemy, but it should help you read the book on the Celestials.”
Amicia moved without thinking. She plunged her hand into the sarcophagus once more, this time brushing her finger over the man’s arm as she reached beneath him.
When she pressed against the golden man’s arm, she saw an answering indent in the arm of Alexandre. She couldn’t be certain, for the moment was fleeting, and it passed in a blink of her eye. But it was enough she was certain he was tied to this man who slept in the crypt.
Her fingers closed on the worn edge of a book. She pulled it out into the light and stared down at the blood red cover.
She turned it over in her hands. “No title?”
“There’s no need for titles on books of alchemy. The inside is already filled with darkness. Once you open it, there is no turning back.”
“I thought alchemy was science and magic combined?” She glanced up at him. “How could that be bad?”
“You’ll find out, I’m certain of that.” Alexandre backed away from her. “Be careful with that book. The abilities within are dangerous. Choose carefully which you enact in your life, petite souris.”
“Then why give it to me?”
His throat worked. He opened and closed his fists, then spread his wings wide in a shrug. “I do not know.”
Alexandre left her alone in the crypt, and Amicia felt the book grow heavy in her hands. What had he given her? What madness could this create?
Chapter 22
Amicia bit into an apple, chewing as she read the last bit of the thirteenth spell in the book of alchemy. Tiny flecks of apple juice fell onto the book. Somehow, it always seemed to absorb whatever she spilled onto it. Amicia had given up trying to keep the book clean. If it wanted to eat, let it eat.
“They use a lot of gunpowder,” she remarked, turning the page over. “I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem to make sense.”
Bernard snorted from the other side of the table. He worked on creating the perfect loaf of bread while she read her book. Amicia kept her elbows on the table while she poured over the pages even though she knew it drove him mad.
“If you read less of that book and spent more time helping, I might be done with my work for the evening.”
She turned another page over. “Your job is to feed the masses. My job is to figure out what happened to all of you.”
“We were turned into the Dread. We are now part of the Dread. There is no going back. There is no going forward. We are what we are, and that is something we all must understand.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “What has convinced you otherwise?”
Amicia took another bite of the apple. “Well, there were strange men in bloody hoods walking through the halls. There’s a dead man who isn’t dead in the basement. None of you remember who you are, but some of you are remembering at least a bit of who you might have been. None of this is ringing any warning bells?”
“I only remembered a few things,” Bernard grumbled. “That doesn’t make you the savior.”
He’d remembered something? The apple fell from her numb fingers, rolled across the table, and bumped into the perfect loaf of bread he was struggling to create.
“Amicia,” Bernard groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you? The bread won’t rise if you insist on putting strange things in it. An apple touching the side will make that side fall!”
“You remembered something?” she whispered, still frozen in her seat.
Bernard stiffened. He snapped his wings close to his body and shook his head in denial. �
�No. I said nothing of the sort.”
“You said you remembered a few things. What did you remember?”
“Nothing.”
“Bernard!”
He sighed in defeat. “Just a little, and it was nothing more than a dream. A farmhouse on the edge of a city. A cow that used to kick over the milk bucket just when I finished milking her. That’s all.”
“That’s not nothing,” she exclaimed, hopping down from her stool and grabbing for her crutches. “Bernard, that’s something significant! You remembered who you were!”
She clacked around the table, and he went in the other direction.
“Amicia, go away,” he snapped.
Amicia continued to chase him in circles around the table until he finally relented and let her catch him. She latched on and squeezed his waist hard. “You remembered!”
He struggled in her arms, twisting this way and that. “Okay, enough, get off me. I don’t like this.”
“But we should celebrate!”
“We will celebrate nothing. You were supposed to return to your room hours ago. I’ll already be in trouble if anyone finds out.”
She wasn’t aware she was under curfew, but apparently she was meant to be places at certain times these days. Amicia released her unwilling captive and wrinkled her nose. “I don’t have to be in my room if I don’t want to.”
“Do you remember the last time you did that?”
“Yes. I went to the crypt and had a lovely conversation with your King.”
Bernard pointed at the book on his table as though it were cursed. “And you came back with that. I don’t want to hear any more of that haunted mumbling. As above, so below yourself back to your bedroom, woman!”
“Don’t you think that’s a little dramatic?”
“I think you’re a bad influence.”
Amicia leaned down and picked up her crutches. She tucked them under her arms with a grin. “But if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have remembered that cow.”
“Ah, what a life I must have had led if the first and most important thing I remember is jerking on some disgusting animals teats.” Bernard waved a hand at her. “Off with you. To bed. Tomorrow you can continue reading that terrible book and playing at fantasy heroine in your head.”
Amicia didn’t know what she would have done without the unusual Dread. He made her laugh as she couldn’t remember laughing. In all the darkness and sadness of her life, he was the light at the end of the tunnel that distracted her.
Even if she was a prisoner in the Dread’s chateau, even if she had lost her father and all her friends, he had somehow still made her laugh.
“Good night, Bernard,” she said, gathering the blood red book and tucking it into the waistband of her borrowed dress.
“Good night, mademoiselle. Sweet dreams.”
As Amicia made her way back to the bedroom, she wondered if tonight would be the first night she would have good dreams. Dreams without people reaching out of the shadows or family members on fire asking why she had killed them. She tried her best not to think of the nightmares when the lights were on. But it was getting harder.
She couldn’t help but wonder if they were a message. Were some spirits, maybe not the ones who were here, but the ones from her past, trying to tell her something important? Something she might have missed?
A howl rolled through the halls like a wave that blasted by her and shook the chateau on its foundation. She’d only felt something like this once before, when she first opened the crypt.
This wasn’t a scream of rage, though. It sounded as though an animal were wounded.
Or a man being attacked by nightmares.
She reached the door to her room. Pretty and simplistic, the room beyond would offer a haven. The door even nudged open. It swung on silent hinges, offering her an escape from the sound and the terror now given life in the darkness.
And yet…
Another howl rocked through the chateau. Amicia caught herself on the wall and knew she couldn’t leave him to this pain on his own. Alexandre had relented to a fragile partnership. And even if he had tried to kill her, they were turning over a new leaf.
She thought of him as a strange acquaintance. Someone who could become something like a friend.
Friends shouldn’t suffer on their own. She would be a terrible person if she ducked into her room and ignored the screams of a man who needed help.
Amicia nudged her door open more with her foot, tossed the alchemy book into the darkness beyond, and then turned back to the hallway.
She didn’t know where Alexandre’s room was, but she didn’t need a map. All she had to do was follow the anguished cries. Shockingly, it didn’t take long to find the room where he resided.
He had put her very close to him. Only three turns down a hall and then she was before a door trying to hold in the sound of his pain. Three gashes marked it, like someone had tried to claw their way in multiple times.
Strange, she would have thought he would try to claw his way out. Not in.
Amicia frowned and then tried to figure out how she should enter. Should she knock? Perhaps not. That didn’t sound like the approach would work. He’d tell her to go away, and then she would be at a standstill, making the same decision as she was now.
Did she push the door open and waltz in like she owned the place? It was the riskiest. He might not like her to see him. What if he had injured himself?
Another moan, softer this time, convinced her he wasn’t feasting on some poor soul beyond that door. He was in pain, suffering, agony running through his body with such strength it came out in those sounds that tore her heart asunder.
Rather than bursting through the door like a woman hunting him, she nudged it and stepped inside.
The room beyond would have been splendorous in its day. Red fabric had once hung in beautiful tapestries from the wall, now torn and hanging by threads. A second level housed a four poster bed, equally crimson but broken in two. The ceiling was white marble, angels carved into it and reaching down for the people who stood within the four walls.
A great fireplace roared to her right. The stone carefully placed once, now crumbled on the left side, threatening the entire room with flames.
And before its great hearth, the King of the Dread slumped. His wings askew, chest heaving, he glimmered in the firelight from sweat slicking his skin. Dark hair tangled back from his face, hanging on his horns like spiderwebs.
He arched into himself, arms clawing at his ribs as something shifted inside him. Some darkness that expanded the bones in his body, making even his spine move in a wave until he groaned in pain.
It appeared as though something were trying to crawl its way out of his body.
Amicia stepped closer, trying to maneuver herself through the fragments of old furniture and broken bits of marble that had rained down from the chipped ceiling. “Alexandre?” she asked.
He fell forward onto his forearms, chest still heaving and breath racing through his lungs in great gusts. “You should not be here.”
“You’ve ordered me around the entire time I’ve been here. And I’m always where I’m not supposed to be.” Amicia leaned her crutches against the wall beside the fireplace, then slid down beside them. She stretched her leg out straight, the ache burning up to her ribs. “Can you tell me what’s happening?”
He shook his head.
From this angle, she could see him better. The sweat dripping down his brow, the fangs bared in pain. One of his wings was askew at a different angle than the other, the position painful to look upon.
She’d never pitied him before. Not once. Amicia told herself she would never pity the monster, but he wasn’t a monster anymore. And he was in immense pain.
Just like her.
She cleared her throat and asked, “You can’t tell me what’s happening to you, can you?”
He shook his head again, staring down at the floor. His claws flexed on the marble, which she now realized was raked
with old furrows. He’d done this before.
How many nights had he spent alone like this? How many nights had he suffered with no one to commiserate?
A pile of pillows had been tossed haphazardly near her, most of the cushioning ripped out, but some were good enough. Amicia leaned over, grabbed a handful of them, and shoved them underneath her knee. At least her leg could be comfortable while she waited through the night with him.
Alexandre growled under his breath, “What are you doing, fool woman?”
“I’m keeping you company. I take it there’s nothing I can do to heal you? To make this easier?”
Another wave shifted through him, his bones undulating underneath his skin. He wheezed out a long, low breath before he shook his head once more. His words ripped out of him on the end of a long moan straight from his core, “You should not be here. Not when I’m like this.”
“Why not?” She told herself not to be insulted by a man in pain. He didn’t want her here for his own reasons, not because he thought she was a bad person or…
She didn’t want to entertain the darker thoughts whispering in her mind. The thoughts that told her she wasn’t good enough, and never would be.
He sucked in a deep breath, riding the pain as it moved down his body. She could see his ribs shifting and swore he was growing larger.
“I tried to kill you,” Alexandre choked out. “I threw you off the top of the chateau, and I intended to kill you then. I have frightened you. Convinced you I was nothing more than a monster, and I am. I will be nothing other than what you see now.”
Amicia observed him. Every aching movement and pain-filled wince. When the wave of whatever plagued him finally passed, she shifted onto her side, laying down with the fire at her back. She reached out her good arm and laid her hand, palm up, on the floor near him.
“I think you want to be a monster,” she whispered. “I think all this is so much easier if you believe you deserve it.”
His red gaze met hers, cat-eye slits so narrow they almost disappeared. “I broke your bones. I pierced your skin. Death flirted with your soul because of me. You should not be here, petite souris.”