The Beautiful (The Beautiful #1)(92)

With a small smile, Celine crept along the wall until she arrived at a bolted side door. Taking great care to unlatch the brass lock without so much as a sigh of metal, she slipped through the opening and into the night. Once more, she waited beneath an eave, on the lookout for prowling gazes. Triumph settling on her face, she took a step onto the darkened path, her ears filled with the sound of chirruping insects and her eyes locked on the elegant expanse of saw palmettos in front of Saint Louis Cathedral.

“Marceline.”

The voice at her back was low. Accented. Unthreatening. Nevertheless it frightened Celine to her core. It had been months since she’d heard her full name spoken aloud. Though she did not recognize the voice offhand, its owner pronounced the three syllables with unmistakable purpose. As if he knew how she took her tea, as well as the last occasion she’d prayed to anyone for anything.

Celine froze midstep, her heart galloping through her chest like a spooked horse.

“N’aie pas peur,” the voice reassured from behind her, its baritone rich and clear. “I am not here to harm you.”

For a rash instant, Celine considered running. But something told her she would not get far. The fine hairs on her neck stood on end, as if she’d been sighted through a rifle’s lens, eyes surrounding her on all sides. Though her fingers trembled, Celine managed to unsheathe Bastien’s silver dagger before pivoting on a stockinged heel.

From a fall of nearby shadow emerged a slender gentleman wearing a felted top hat and a suit of darkest blue. The walking stick in his left hand was crowned by a solid gold lion, his pocket watch fashioned of gleaming Spanish bullion. When he removed his hat, Celine stifled a gasp.

She recognized this man.

It was the young man in the oddly colored painting above the fireplace in the suite at the Dumaine. The one that had haunted her from beyond the four-poster bed.

He gazed at her, his expression calm and collected. Then a slow smile unfurled on his cultured face. It startled her, for it was like watching a statue come to life. One second, his expression looked still and smooth, as if honed by the hand of a master. The next second everything softened, making him appear almost human.

Almost.

Like Arjun and Odette and all the other members of the Court, this man was not entirely human. Celine would bet her life on it.

She said nothing as he appraised her in silence. Despite the disbelief flaring through her, Celine knew at a glance who he was. Who he must be.

Bastien’s uncle. Le Comte de Saint Germain.

With nothing to do but return his unflinching study, Celine scoured his features for similarities, as if it would calm her.

The count stared down at her with the same exacting precision as his nephew, the line of his jaw no less cutting. His brow was as dark and expressive as that of Bastien, the tone of his skin several shades lighter.

Celine took in a sharp breath of warm night air. The count must have been no more than a boy himself when he assumed the task of raising his nephew. The painting in the suite at the Dumaine could have been completed yesterday, for Bastien’s uncle did not appear to be a day over twenty-five.

Impossible.

“I am Nicodemus Saint Germain,” he interrupted her thoughts. His accent was difficult to place, though his words were lyrical and precise, as if he’d been an elocutionist in a past life. When he shifted into the faint glow of a distant streetlamp, a current of fear chased across Celine’s skin.

Even the way he moved took her off guard. Like he was limned in smoke. Or deliberately moving slower than usual, as one would with a cornered animal.

On instinct, Celine lifted the silver blade in her hand, as if to ward him away.

A breeze blew past her, shocking her still, riffling the loose tendrils of her hair and the hem of her wrinkled skirt. Before Celine could blink, a figure came into focus. One second, nothing was there, save a swirl of darkness. The next breath, a man stood in its place, fully formed. As if he’d always been there, a watchful specter in his own right.

Jae. The member of the Court Bastien said “eliminated dead weight.”

Whatever that meant.

The graceful young man from the Far East loitered between Celine and the count, short blades in either hand. When he twirled one dagger across his fingers, Celine caught sight of something she’d missed before: countless tiny scars on the backs of his hands, the markings raised and faintly white. Her gaze traveled upward to note the same scars on the side of his neck, reaching just above his starched collar. There did not appear to be a design to the markings, for they’d been sliced at random, some of them crosshatched, every one of them painful to behold.

“In ancient China,” Nicodemus Saint Germain began in a conversational tone, “there was a time when capital punishment was inflicted by a means known as lingchi, or the Death of a Thousand Cuts.”

Celine shrank backward a single step. Then stood straight, determined to hold her ground, despite the fact that every fiber in her body wanted her to flee.

“Jaehyuk was caught some years ago on an errand in Hunan,” Nicodemus continued. “He barely escaped with his life. I am thankful every day he is by our side.”

Jae stared into nothingness, unblinking and unbreathing, as if he had no desire to feign even a semblance of humanity.

“I prize loyalty above most things,” the count said, “and Shin Jaehyuk possesses this quality in spades.”

Inhaling to quell her nerves, Celine said, “Monsieur le Comte, I’m not certain what—”