The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1)(66)

Pippa couldn’t know what she’d done for Celine. What Pippa’s halting statement had meant to her.

It suddenly struck Celine how the simplest words often carried the most weight.

Yes and no. Love and hate. Give and take.

For the first time since she’d killed a man and fled France, she felt understood. Seen.

Safe.



* * *





“Ooofff,” Pippa gasped as she tripped over an uneven stone in the darkened corridors of the Ursuline convent. The basket of basted fabric in her hands almost spilled across the floor, but she managed to hold fast to it.

“Are you all right?” Celine asked in a loud whisper, a few steps behind her.

Pippa’s laughter was soft. Rueful. “My hands are slippery from the water and the soap. Perhaps we should have gone to wash for the night after returning your things to your cell.” She righted herself, her motions awkward as a result of her burden.

“Or perhaps we should have saved the last taper for something besides mocking Catherine.”

“I didn’t mock her!”

“Well, you watched me mock her. And you laughed, which is just as awful.”

“It is not.” Pippa smothered a snicker.

Celine smiled to herself, her soul awash in warmth. At this point, she’d truly lost count of how many times she’d offered silent thanks for Pippa. Perhaps if she’d had a sister—as she’d so often wished when she was younger—she could understand better what it felt like to have an ally by her side through thick and thin. Someone with whom to brave the darkest of nights.

A flash of movement caught Celine’s eye at the end of the arched corridor. Like a shadow stretching in a beam of sunlight.

She stopped short, her last footstep echoing in her ears.

The memory of that shapeless creature gnashing its teeth and scuttling up the side of the building flickered through Celine’s mind, causing her breath to lodge in her throat. Pippa’s skirts swished across the stone floor a few steps ahead, the sound reminiscent of the creature taking flight in a tangle of wind-swept branches.

Celine’s skin bristled as if she’d wandered into a spiderweb. The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight. She stared at the opposite end of the hallway, half of her willing the shadows to shift once again, the other half praying they did not.

A moment later, she decided her tired mind had played tricks on her. With a firm set to her shoulders, she adjusted her grip on her wicker basket and proceeded to follow Pippa.

Outside the door to her cell, Celine rested the basket of sewing bric-a-brac on one hip, then braced herself to push open the heavy wooden door. Just before she took hold of the handle, she turned toward Pippa. “Do you have a free moment tomorrow for me to measure a length of fabric on you?”

“Of course not.” Pippa grinned. “I abhor the idea of being draped in shimmering silk. It’s as if you don’t know me at all.”

Celine snorted. “So then I’ll see you at noon?” She turned the handle of her cell.

The door blew back all at once, drawn by an unexpected draft.

Pippa yelped as Celine’s basket of sewing instruments crashed to the stone floor. Without pausing for breath, Celine yanked a set of shears from the pile beside her feet, brandishing the sharp point as if it were a blade.

The smell hit her first. A mixture of old pennies and the stench of a butcher’s shop.

Of a place in which animals were slaughtered.

“Pippa,” Celine said, her voice even, despite the fear roiling beneath her skin. “Go find the Mother Superior.”

“I’m not leaving you. What if—” Pippa’s words were swallowed in a gasp. A large shadow flitted from the floor of the cell to the ceiling, moving too quickly to distinguish.

“Who’s there?” Celine demanded, her heart thundering in her chest.

Behind her, Pippa struggled to light a long match, the box falling beside her feet in a scatter of twigs.

“Go!” Celine demanded. But Pippa persisted, refusing to leave her side.

The creature hovering on the ceiling chittered, its teeth grating together, causing Celine’s shoulders to pull back and a shudder to course down her spine. On the floor beneath her open window, another creature moaned, the sound a feeble whistle. As though it were caught in the throes of death.

It took an instant for Celine to understand. The demon in the shadows had attacked something in her cell. She moved to help the wounded soul beneath the window, but her toes slid in something wet, her right foot skidding out from under her. Gripping the wall to steady herself, Celine looked up as a dry cackle emanated from above.

Terror racing through her veins, Celine fought to stand straight, her knees threatening to buckle out from under her. Pippa screamed and backed away.

“Be gone from here!” Celine demanded into the blackness looming above her, her fingers trembling around her shears.

The thing blurred from the ceiling to the floor like a tempest across a field of wheat. Then it stood slowly, its long figure unfolding in a beam of waning moonlight. Before Celine could blink, it rushed toward her, taking her by the wrist, slamming her back against the rough plaster wall. It drew close, smelling of blood and rain. The damp of the earth. It breathed deeply of Celine’s neck, its teeth grazing the lobe of her left ear, leaving a trail of sticky wetness.