she is as close as you say. That’s all I can risk without reinforcements.”
I briefly close my eyes, hating this plan more and more. But I can’t lose this chance. Ailesse is finally within reach. “Fine. Follow me.”
Cas and I leave the others and press forward through the forest. He stays in step behind me, even though he’s the one carrying the lantern. It doesn’t matter. My nighthawk bone gives me vision in the dark to compensate.
Our surroundings brighten, and the trees around us thin to reveal a moonlit meadow. Burned sulfur reaches my nose before I notice curls of smoke rising off the ground.
Cas’s brow furrows. “This is where the black powder exploded.”
“Exploded what?” I can’t see what’s in the middle of the meadow—the surrounding wild grass masks it—but orange embers glow there.
He shakes his head. “That’s what we need to find out.”
I take his hand, and we race partway into the meadow before he pulls me to a stop. “Look.” Cas points at a hatch that’s flung open on rusted hinges. A staircase leads below. “This must be the entrance.”
My pulse jumps. “We have to hurry.”
“Wait, Sabine.” He squeezes my hand. “This could be a trap.”
It is. The back of my throat tightens. For you, Cas. I hastily glance away. He doesn’t deserve to die.
My eyes land on hazy orange light cutting across the meadow. What I thought were burning embers is actually flickering firelight—from torches? It’s coming from a jagged opening in the earth.
I drop Cas’s hand and move closer. The opening runs deep underground. I’d need to stand right next to the edge to see how far down it goes. The bridge must be below.
“No, I won’t do this!”
Ailesse.
I freeze at the sound of her desperate voice.
“Let him go, Mother!” she cries.
Odiva is with her?
“I’m not going to kill Bastien!”
My breath rushes out of me.
“What’s wrong?” Cas comes to my side. He can’t hear Ailesse like I can.
I shake my head. I’m sick with horror. “He’s not the right boy.”
“Pardon?”
I run for the open hatch.
“Wait!” Cas yells, chasing after me. “We need to exercise caution!”
“There’s no time!”
My mother is trying to make my sister kill her amouré.
But it isn’t Bastien.
50
Ailesse
MY MOTHER’S BROW ARCHES AT my defiance. “It is a full moon, Ailesse, and here we are on a soul bridge. True, you could kill Bastien anywhere, but this is more fitting, don’t you think? You can do what you meant to do when you first laid eyes on him.”
“Mother, I can’t . . .” My chest seizes up. I’m desperate to get Bastien away from her. “I didn’t know him then. I didn’t love him.”
“Love cannot always matter,” she snaps, but her expression flickers with pain.
My teeth set on edge. “When does love ever matter to you?”
“You think I do not love you?”
“I know it. I understand what love is now.” I meet Bastien’s eyes. They overflow with concern—for me, not himself, because that’s who he is.
My mother’s gaze thins. “I have loved deeply, child. I have sacrificed dearly for it. Why do you think—?” Her voice breaks. She swallows to compose herself. “I never wanted you to suffer as I have. I’ve done my best to protect you.”
Protect me? She abandoned me. Her heart is glacier-cold. I’ve fought in vain all my life to thaw it. “If you really love me, you wouldn’t ask me to kill my amouré.”
“You should have never had an amouré. That is what I am trying to set right.”
I shake my head in disbelief. She thinks I don’t deserve love? “Let Bastien go, Mother. Honor my choice. You were once given yours when you met my father.”
She bristles. “Your father was never the man I loved.”
Her words are shards of ice in my chest. “What?” All my limbs go rigid as a sparkle of red at her neck catches my eye. A ruby lodged in the beak of a bird skull. I’ve seen that necklace once before. The memory tears across my mind.
Two years ago . . . my mother on the floor of her chamber beside a golden chest . . . a letter open on her lap—and the necklace pressed to her lips. I’d never seen her cry before, and it frightened me.
Now as I stare at her, my chest heaves with anger, even while my heart feels like it’s shrinking. She holds Bastien in a shaft of moonlight on the bridge. I don’t want her anywhere near him—or me. “You betrayed my father?”