spin around me. I take the letter from Celine, the blood roaring through my body. “My sister,” I mutter as I reread the note. “My sister.”
Mon petit lion. My little lion. I hated that nickname. Only Émilie called me that.
Odette’s shoulders shake with incredulity. “Comment est-ce possible?”
I stare out at the remains of my fire-ravaged home, a flurry of images aligning in my mind. Everything that has happened to us in the last few months shifts. Nothing seems random. It all has a purpose. The murders along the docks close to Jacques’, attributed to Nigel. The attack on Celine at Saint Louis Cathedral. How surprised we all were to know that our lanky, card-loving brother, Nigel Fitzroy, had been the mastermind behind it all.
Perhaps it was not surprise. Perhaps it was disbelief.
The rook. A swindling carrion bird.
“My uncle loves chess,” I say, the words ashen on my tongue. “He’s been a student of it for centuries.”
“He told me that once,” Celine says, “at the masquerade ball.”
“I never play with him, and he never asks me to play with him. It was something he did with Émilie. She was a prodigy, even at a young age. But still she only beat him once. It was the week before she died . . .” My voice fades into silence.
Odette’s hands fly to her mouth. “Mon Dieu,” she whispers. And I know she understands.
“Bastien, what happened?” Celine asks. “You never told me how she died.”
“It was my fault,” I say, my voice hollow. “As a child, I enjoyed playing with sunlight. Creating prisms with the crystals I found throughout the house. I would collect these pieces of glass, even from the chandeliers. In the bright heat of the afternoon, I would stack them until a pattern of rainbows formed along the wall. My father would reproach me for it. He kept saying I would start a fire one day. But I didn’t listen, and no one enforced the rules with me. Even as a boy, I was coddled and given everything I could ever want.
“That afternoon, I left my collection of crystals on my bed upstairs after arranging them just so. Then I went down to the kitchen to bother Émilie. When I returned to my room, a blanket in the corner was smoldering. A small fire had been lit. I was young and afraid of getting in trouble, so I threw the smoldering blanket into my closet and shut the door. You can guess what happened after that. I couldn’t see. I was scared. So I ran to a hall closet upstairs and hid.” I close my eyes, remembering how I’d started to choke. How I’d struggled to see or call out to anyone. “Émilie was the one who ran up the stairs, through the blaze. By the time she found me, the fire had consumed the second-floor landing.” I stop, feeling almost human as I recall that moment. That feeling of powerlessness. “I don’t remember much of what happened next. I was told she wrapped me in a blanket and pushed me out the window so that I could land in the center of a sheet the fire brigade was holding. She never made it out.”
I say nothing for a time, and then a dark burst of laughter flies from my lips. “They never found a body. The fire brigade said it was likely the heat of the blaze had consumed all traces of my sister. For weeks, I hoped someone had rescued her. Found her. I begged my uncle and both my parents to check all the hospitals. To ask all the doctors. I didn’t believe she was dead. I thought if she was dead, I would have known it. There would be some kind of proof. A body, a feeling of loss. I was so sure she was still alive. The only thing my parents did was collect all our belongings and move across the city. They knew—even though no one told me—that we were being targeted by Nicodemus’ enemies. Not long after that, my mother was turned into a vampire. That fire—the one I caused that day—was the beginning of the end for my family.”
“Ce n’est pas possible,” Odette mutters to herself. “Émilie . . . is alive?”
Anguish tugs at the corners of Celine’s mouth. “If she’s alive, why would she turn on her own family?”
“I don’t know. She seems to believe Nicodemus left her to die, though I can’t imagine what would cause her to think that.”