“I’d love to have tea with you next Thursday,” Celine replied with conviction.
The best she could do was hope. After all, hope was its own kind of magic.
* * *
The sky darkened to a deep purple as the minutes passed. Celine waited at the edge of the balcony, staring up at the stars. She didn’t know when she’d first realized how much the sight of the moon soothed her. Perhaps it had something to do with her mother.
In the far reaches of her mind, Celine recalled walking along a rocky shore as a child, hand in hand with a lithe figure whose black hair fell past her waist in thick waves. In this memory, her mother sang to a full moon, the melody carrying over the inky water, unfurling into the vast sky above.
Perhaps it was a dream. Nothing more.
A branch snapped in the treetops to Celine’s left, drawing her from her thoughts with a sudden jolt. Molten energy coursed through her veins, her skin growing hot like embers stoked to flame. Celine’s eyes flitted in all directions, fear making her aware of every breath. Every scuttle. Every sigh. She focused on the grove of looming oaks, her heart careening in her chest.
A lone owl burst from the shadows, its wings beating in time with her breath.
She almost laughed. Her fingers trembled as they moved to the bare skin of her throat in an effort to soothe her raging nerves.
The next instant, silence fell around her like a hammer on an anvil. The birds stopped stirring in the treetops, the cicadas ceased with their droning. A dull roar echoed in Celine’s ears when she twisted toward the open double doors at her back, intent on making her way inside.
Before she could take a single step, the suddenly mute individuals along the balcony crowded her path. They turned to leave in concert, their expressions blank, their footsteps rote. The trio of girls from earlier linked hands, their eyes glassy as they filed toward the double doors, the last of their ranks pausing to latch them shut behind her, the locks falling into place with an ominous click.
Was this Nicodemus’ doing?
Panic thrummed through Celine’s body. What kind of dark magic was this?
Had Nicodemus lied to her? Was he toying with her? Had he made false promises of his own, all along intending to rid himself of Celine at the first opportunity?
Suddenly each of her memories became that much more precious. She thought about hitching up her skirts and fleeing. Considered racing toward the latched doors and pounding on their oaken surfaces, bellowing for help.
How badly would she injure herself if she were to jump over the balustrade?
Celine had planned to lure the killer to the location of his first murder. To hem him in along the docks, taking advantage of the open spaces and the stretch of water at their backs, thereby thwarting his attempts to escape. And if that didn’t work, she was determined to root him out of his hiding place in the heart of Chartres.
He was not meant to trap her.
Was Nicodemus the killer? Had Celine quite literally waltzed into his clutches?
Her chest rose and fell in rapid succession, the whalebone of her stays laced tight. The only recourse Celine had was that if she screamed loud enough, someone inside was sure to hear her.
But would they reach her in time?
Celine planted her feet, rooting her convictions. If this was to be her one chance, she would take it. Her fingers moved toward the hidden pocket at her hip, pausing a hairsbreadth from the handle of Bastien’s silver dagger.
A murder of crows burst from the branches to her right. She spun around, watching them soar into the moon, wishing with all her might that she could sprout wings of her own and take flight.
Just then, Celine noticed a strange set of markings along the edge of the balustrade. Her feet carried her closer before she had a chance to think.
Four symbols had been inked into the travertine stone, their edges dried to match its veins, their centers a wet, brilliant crimson:
L, O, U . . . P?
A strangled sound emitted from Celine’s throat. She backed away, colliding with a wall of stone. Shock took hold of her when a pair of long arms reached around her waist, gloved hands running up her rib cage.
“Mon amour,” he rasped behind her ear, his cool breath washing across her nape. “You are mine forever.”