and scented candles curled into her nose, painting flashes of memory across her vision. Recollections of a low table decorated in a similar fashion, the fragrances of fruit and myrrh suffusing the air.
The display spiked her curiosity, but Celine did not stop to study it further or ask any questions. She wished to be rid of anything associated with this place as soon as possible, though it troubled her to no longer feel welcome at Jacques’.
“Through here.” Odette reached for the handle of an entrance intended to blend into the paneled walls, its hinges concealed by the folds of a heavy silk curtain. When she pushed against it, the door refused to budge.
“C’est quoi ça?” Odette muttered, shoving harder, lines gathering across her brow. She threw her weight against the heavy oak. Finally it began to give way.
A hand flopped through the opening.
A pale, unmoving hand.
It took a moment for the sight to register. A stutter of time before everything sped forward in a rush.
“Mon Dieu!” Odette exclaimed. Using her shoulder, she rammed through the opening with Celine on her heels. They both stopped short, Pippa trembling behind them.
A girl lay sprawled across the floor of a darkened corridor, her unbound auburn curls thrown over her freckled face. At her throat was a jagged wound. Something had torn through her flesh with razor-sharp teeth, like those of a large animal.
Her fingers shaking, Odette reached for the girl’s wrist, checking for a pulse. When she jostled the young woman’s arm, a lock of wavy red hair fell from her face.
Celine gasped. She knew that face. Had spent the better part of the day in its company.
Anabel.
“Is she—?” Pippa’s voice broke. Then rose into a keening wail.
There was no need for anyone to answer her unspoken question.
Beside Anabel’s lifeless body, a symbol had been drawn in blood:
AN AERIALIST ON A TIGHTROPE
Celine had seen death before.
She was no stranger to the sight. But that did not make it any easier to bear witness to it now. Nor did it make its finality any less severe.
A life had been taken tonight.
Like that, Anabel was gone.
Many realizations gripped Celine in the moments following the body’s discovery:
Anabel had died a violent death. That much was clear from the jagged maw across her throat. Celine had never seen a wound like that. For an instant, she toyed with the idea that Bastien’s snake might be responsible.
Upon further consideration, however, it did not follow that a snake like Toussaint would go to the trouble of killing its prey, only to leave it behind in a darkened corridor. If memory served Celine correctly, pythons did not slash their victims’ throats; instead they opted to squeeze the life out of them slowly.
And of course no snake would leave behind a calling card. Written in blood, no less.
But if the snake wasn’t responsible for Anabel’s death, then who was? And why? Moreover, why had Anabel come to Jacques’ tonight? Clearly she’d followed Celine and Pippa here. But why had she not made her presence known?
It took only an instant for Celine to parse out the truth.
The Mother Superior must have sent Anabel to spy on them. It had to be the reason why the matron of the Ursuline convent had changed her mind so easily earlier this evening, when she’d suddenly granted Celine and Pippa permission to go, after protesting against it at length.
Celine swallowed, her ears going hot. If the Mother Superior’s machinations explained why Anabel had come to Jacques’ tonight, it meant all of them—Pippa, the Mother Superior, and Celine herself—had had a hand in Anabel’s violent death.
In Anabel’s murder.
Finally, if her death was at all related to the one along the docks, then it meant a madman—or madwoman—was on the loose.
Celine’s eyes shifted around the room slowly, her breaths quickening. If someone had murdered Anabel in Jacques’ tonight following their arrival, it meant anyone present now—including all the members of La Cour des Lions—could be responsible for killing her.
Odette. Nigel. Kassamir. Arjun. The man from the Far East with the mother-of-pearl blade. The two ebony-skinned women with their bejeweled claws. Boone. The harried young server below. Not to mention the many nameless individuals who’d been seated throughout the dimly lit chamber.
And of course Bastien.
With each passing second, these thoughts raced through Celine’s mind, her skin tingling from the rush of blood, her foot tapping against the plush carpeting. In contrast, Pippa stared at the marble tabletop before them, her posture hollowing like an apple left out in the