The Malediction: Hidden Huntress Part 30

"Josette isn't a witch."

"But your mother is?"

Cecile hesitated. "I... Yes. I think she has the capability, but I don't think she realizes it. Certainly, I've never seen her use magic."

I wasn't certain I agreed, but I refrained from pressing her. The question would keep.

She lifted a hand to her mouth and began nipping at one of her fingernails until I carefully pulled her arm down.

"If we stop her from killing my mother or me, she'll lose her immortality. Then it will only be a matter of time."

Because this mess needed another layer of complication. "For certain, we need to catch her," I said. "What we do with her after... We can decide that later."

"What do you propose?"

"We bait her out," I said. Originally, my plan with Chris had been to use myself as the bait. a.n.u.shka would know who and what I was, and I did not think she'd stand idly by while I wandered free. But this was better.

"She needs you and your mother," I said. "If word were to spread that I were involved with you, that I intended to take you two away from Trianon, she'll be forced to act, and in doing so, will reveal herself."

One of her eyebrows rose. "What precisely do you mean by involved?"

I shrugged. "This Marquis your mother dallies with is rich, but I'm much richer. What do you say, my dearest wife, of your taking on a patron?"

Thirty-Seven.

Tristan

"You're late," I said, stepping out from the copse of trees where I'd been waiting, Souris trailing along at my heels.

"You needn't cry about it," Chris replied, pulling the pair of grey horses to a halt on the road.

I tried to glare balefully at him, but I was certain the effect was ruined by the tears that were in fact streaming down my cheeks. The sun was wickedly bright, reflecting off the patches of snow and searing into my eyes.

"You're like a mole that's lost its hole."

"I don't know what a mole is," I said, opening the carriage door and lifting the dog inside.

"It's an animal that lives underground. Doesn't see too well."

"Then the comparison is apt." I climbed up onto the seat next to him. I'd never ridden on a carriage before, and despite my discomfort, I was excited about the experience. The coats of the horses were shiny, and the mud splattered against their legs did nothing to detract from their sleek beauty. They seemed entirely different creatures from the plodding draft animals that pulled wagons full of grain into Trollus.

Everything was different from the world I knew, the smells and sounds terrible and wonderful in their unfamiliarity. I felt crowded by the press of life all around me, and yet almost glad my vision kept the true scope of the s.p.a.ce from overwhelming my senses.

Chris flicked the reins and made a sort of clicking sound, and the horses surged forward, their harnesses jingling with each step they took. "I'm a bit surprised Cecile let you go through with this," he said.

"Let me?" The carriage bounced in the frozen ruts of the road, jarring my spine.

Chris snorted loudly and slouched down on the wooden seat, seeming perfectly comfortable. "Don't bother pretending we'd be here if she hadn't agreed to it." He cast a sideways glance at me. "You did tell her where we were going, didn't you?"

"Of course I told her."

"And?"

"She understands the necessity."

Chris chuckled. "Got an earful, I expect."

"I'd forgotten how loud she can be when she's angry," I admitted, bracing a foot against the floorboards to keep my balance. "Souris hid under the bed, and I was tempted to join him."

"And yet here we are."

Here we were, trotting down the road toward Trollus and a meeting that I was both looking forward to and dreading. My freedom should have been an advantage I had over my father, but instead it seemed like the opposite. I felt like I had never had less control, and I didn't like it. I was worried about what had happened in Trollus after I left, about the precarious position in which I'd left my friends and comrades. My father wouldn't harm them out of turn, but if I did not act in a way he wanted, he wouldn't hesitate to use them against me.

"Do you think he'll help?"

I wiped my face dry with an arm, careful not jar my wrists. "I do." I stared up at the vast mountain range to my right, my eyes drawn to our mountain, the sheer peak gleaming with gold in the sunlight. "He could not have predicted this turn of events, but make no mistake, he is pleased with what Cecile has done. To him, it is one very large and certain step toward the freedom of all our kind."

The carriage broke free of the trees that had blocked the ocean from our view, but what stole my attention was the rocky slide blanketing the land between Forsaken Mountain and the coast. It seemed smaller than it had from within, incapable of containing the city that had been my world.

There were numerous artistic renderings of the scene from before the Fall, when Trollus had dominated the valley below the monstrous triangular peak, and the gardens had been full of color instead of gla.s.s, and the port had been filled with ships, and Trollus had been the center of the world. Now it was a sea of barren rock, lifeless and insignificant beyond its natural marvel. It was the center of nothing had been reduced to the inconsequential cage of a sick and dying race. Seeing it this way infuriated me, and for the first time I felt of a like mind with my father.

"That's Esmeralda Montoya's ship," Chris said, pointing to a vessel sailing south, likely headed to Courville.

"How can you tell?"

"Seen it enough times to recognize it." He squinted at the ship. "Have to say, I'm surprised to see her on the move. It's been anch.o.r.ed in the Trianon harbor for at least a month, and I've crossed paths with her a time or two. Though she didn't seem too keen on chatter, if you catch my meaning."

I nodded. Esmeralda had sworn the traders' oaths to my father, and as such, her ability to speak about anything to do with Trollus was limited. But she could still listen. The least I could do would be to track her down and let her know the girls had been well enough when I left. It might ease her mind enough for her to carry on with her business. I did not care to see her come to ruin for fear of missing the chance to enter Trollus should my father reopen the gates.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Chris steered the horses off to the side of the road.

"No." I jumped off the carriage. "Keep watch for anyone coming. This isn't a conversation I want anyone walking into the middle of." I started towards the beach, then paused. "Keep an eye on the dog. Cecile is fond of him, but he makes a mess everywhere he goes." Smiling at Chris's muttered oaths about the consequences of damaging the carriage and the ridiculousness of small dogs, I continued on my way.

The snow was compressed where countless wagons and feet had packed down a track, but I walked along the edge of it, enjoying the way it crunched beneath my feet. There was no snow on the beach, as the water rose high enough to wash away any tracks with each tide, and to the casual eye, the uneven cliff of rock concealing the entrance to the River Road appeared entirely innocuous.

I strode across the rocks and sand and into the shade of the overhang marking the entrance to the tunnel, the river flowing fresh and clean down to the ocean. At high tide, the ocean reached right up to the barrier of the curse, and bits of flotsam littered the path. Ahead, it appeared as though I were walking toward ma.s.sed boulders from which the water flowed, but I knew it was an illusion. And I knew only a handful of trolls could account for the power lurking just beyond it.

"I hope you at least had someone bring you a chair," I said, stopping a safe distance from the barrier. I was taking no chances at getting caught up in the curse's boundary once again.

The illusion fell away to reveal my father. But no chair. I winced in mock sympathy. "I hope you haven't been waiting long."

"I was admiring the view."

I glanced back over my shoulder. "A bit limited from here."

"Not for long."

I looked back. "How did they react?"

"As expected." He leaned a forearm against the barrier, his expression amused. He had no intention of giving me any information about what was going on inside Trollus. He knew it would drive me mad to be kept in the dark, and he'd use the knowledge to negotiate. His was still the position of power, and both of us knew it.

"It would seem a.n.u.shka knows Cecile is hunting her," I said. "Last night she murdered the witch Catherine and either burned or absconded with the grimoire, which means we've lost any method of tracking her."

My father's brow furrowed, and he was silent for a moment. "Why, if she knows who Cecile is, has she not tried to kill her?"

Of course he saw right to the heart of the matter. But I had no intention of revealing Cecile's familial connection to a.n.u.shka just yet. Just as I had no intention of revealing that I knew he controlled Aiden du Chastelier.

"The question crossed my mind," I admitted. "I might have thought it some moral conscience or allegiance to her kind, but she has demonstrated that she's no qualms against killing other humans. Which means there is a reason she hasn't made an attempt against Cecile's life."

"There is something important about Cecile," he said. "The foretelling led us to her, and everything she's done has demonstrated its accuracy. This is only more proof that there is something about her that is significant, something we don't know."

"Something that a.n.u.shka does."

"So it would seem." He slipped a finger into his pocket and extracted a gold coin, flipping it back and forth across his fingers as he thought. "You have a plan?"

"Of a sort." I watched the gold flick across his knuckles. "Cecile has explained that the curse is nothing more than an act of a.n.u.shka's will made physical by magic. Its very existence is predicated upon her desire to keep us contained. Her hate." I tore my gaze away from the gold. "I can only imagine how infuriating it will be for her to discover a troll has broken free of her will. And not just any troll." I squared my shoulders. "The descendant of the one who provoked her hate in the first place."

Which was part of my plan, if not all of it.

The gold coin stopped moving. "You intend to use yourself as bait?"

I nodded. "She'll feel compelled to move against me. I'm certain of it."

He went very still. Nothing showed in his expression, but that lack of motion betrayed his unease with my proposition. "If you announce what you are to the world, you'll put the rest of us at risk. We are yet vulnerable."

"Which is why I have no intention of revealing what I am, only who," I said. "I'll infiltrate their aristocracy we know she walks among them and then I'll parade around in front of her until she's driven to act, and in doing so, will reveal herself."

"Risky," my father muttered. "For one, she might actually kill you, and two, you're dependent on a woman who hasn't made a mistake in five hundred years doing just that."

"Do you have a better idea?" I asked.

He sighed. "I a.s.sume you'll be needing some gold."

Thirty-Eight.

Cecile

Standing on a low podium in only a thin silk shift, I watched in the looking gla.s.s as the dressmaker deftly wrapped a tape measure around my waist. Her fingers brushed against the thick scar on my ribs, and I flinched as her hands twitched away from the unexpected flaw on my body. "You're thinner," she said to hide her reaction. "All the gowns will need alterations and the busts will require padding." She wrapped the tape measure around my b.r.e.a.s.t.s again, glanced at the measurement, and sighed as her original a.s.sessment was confirmed.

Against my will, my cheeks warmed. Her a.s.sistant smiled pertly at me, but I kept my chin up and met her eyes. "I'll have another one of those cakes, please." To the dressmaker I said, "You needn't go overboard I've been unwell, but I'm sure I'll be back to my usual self shortly." Sadly, my usual self would still require the padding.

It was true that I was feeling better. The King's compulsion was still with me, but it no longer felt desperate, no longer consumed me. While I'd be a fool to say we were back in control, our circ.u.mstances no longer felt so dire. With Tristan free, Lord Aiden was no longer a threat, and we had a plan, albeit an uncertain one.

Tristan would have stayed up all night plotting, but I'd insisted he rest. He'd not complained about his injuries, but there was no mistaking how much they troubled him. I wanted to offer to try to heal them, but I was hesitant to do so. It would require my channeling his magic, bending it to my will, and I did not think he'd tolerate that, given recent developments.

A night's sleep had done me a world of good: my head felt clear and my appet.i.te had returned with a vengeance. All of which made me very uneasy. I wished I could believe it was Tristan's presence that was the cause of my improvement that having him at my side had cured what ailed me.

But I couldn't even allow myself to think such drivel. I'd no doubt it was his freedom that had eased my mind, but not because he and I were happy about it. It was because the King was happy about it, which meant all was going according to his plan. Tristan had left to talk to his father this morning, and I was worried about how that conversation had gone.

The a.s.sistant returned with a slice of cake while the dressmaker was helping me into another creation my mother had commissioned. It was the newest fashion, all layers of petticoats and flounce, the bodice and sleeves tight, and the square neckline low. It was the sort of thing my mother would wear, and I felt uncomfortable. There were six of them waiting for me to try on, all of which must have cost her a small fortune.

I'd a sneaking suspicion that my new wardrobe indicated her desire for me to take my place in the salons of Trianon at the Marquis' side. There was no other reason for me to have dresses this elaborate and in these dark colors. Their completion was timely, but not for the reasons she thought.

Taking the tiny plate with its cake, I nibbled on it while watching the entrance to the fitting room. Tristan and Chris should have made it to the hotel by now, but I was waiting for word that they were ready before I put my part of the plan into action. The bell on the door of the shop rang, and moments later, Sabine walked into the room. She raised an appreciative eyebrow at my appearance, then, ignoring the dressmaker, stepped up onto the fitting podium and whispered into my ear, "They've taken rooms at the Hotel de Crillon."

"Is that so?" I murmured, but loud enough for the women to hear. "In a suite?"

"The most expensive rooms." Her breath tickled my ear as she leaned closer. "Chris is all polished up and dressed as a manservant, and he's got his own room. Looks about ready to fly out of his own skin from discomfort, but Tristan seems in his element."

"How exciting." I gave her a wicked little smile. "It's been ages since anyone interesting came to the city, and there are none more interesting than him. Be a doll, and see if you can discover anything about his calendar. We'll go for tea when I'm finished here and you can tell me the details." I kissed her cheek, and watched her leave, hoping my nerves didn't show.

"Have you any performances planned, mademoiselle?" the dressmaker asked around the pin in her mouth. She sounded disinterested, but I knew better. She sewed for the wealthy bourgeoisie and a few of the minor n.o.bility, but what she primarily traded in was gossip.

"A few," I replied, after swallowing my last mouthful of cake. "But I've found reason to keep my calendar open."

"Oh?" She used the one word like a crowbar, prying for information.

"There's a gentleman arrived who has a fine taste for the arts."

"Recently arrived?" She didn't pause in her pinning and tucking.

"Today. Although I'd heard about his impending arrival some days ago. I was fortunate enough to make his acquaintance this summer, and he sent me a letter explaining his intention to take up residence in Trianon."

"From where?"