The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(63)

That same scythelike smile curves up her face. It’s unsettling to behold, for it is a smile that belies a threat. “Nevertheless.” She extends her fingers, and the air around her undulates. An unseen hand takes Arjun by the chin, directing him closer, his feet floating above the sand. When I move to intercede, Arjun stops me with a single glance. “You know as well as any, son of Riya, how . . . displeased I am to discover you in the company of a leech.” She takes his jaw between her thumb and forefinger as she sets him on his feet. “And a blood drinker like him has no business in the Vale.”

Arjun swallows, the knot in his throat bobbing. I am struck again by the weight of my selfishness. He has put himself in great peril by bringing me here, just as he said. And not once did I consider the gravity of his actions. I thought only of what I wanted. To triumph at all costs.

If this is the better version of myself, what kind of young man was I before?

I take another step forward, my fangs retracting. Four of the hooded guards step between me and Arjun, their spears pointed at my chest. “I can explain, if you would—”

“Bastien.” Arjun scowls at me. “Hold your tongue, for once.” He offers the woman in white a sheepish smile. “My lady,” he says, “we are here because my business associate wishes to travel through the Vale to the borders of the Wyld. As you well know, there are no tares from the mortal realm into the Wyld to which a blood drinker may avail himself. I thought to bring him here and entreat upon your unfailing generosity.” He bows. “We humbly ask permission to cross the edges of the Vale in order to reach our desired destination in the winter wasteland of the Wyld.”

The woman’s slender eyebrows arch high into her forehead, her onyx eyes widening. She begins to laugh. Its melody resonates with a familiar note.

Its sound cuts through to my core.

I know this laugh. It is one I often heard in my mortal dreams. A sound I longed to hear even in death. I take another step closer, heedless of the weapons aimed in my direction. My eyes rake across the ageless woman in white. She catches me studying her. Tilts her head just so, a knowing glint in her gaze.

It is there, in that moment, that I see the truth. It steals the words from my tongue.

She is the Lady of the Vale. She is also Celine’s mother.

Celine is an ethereal. The daughter of fey royalty.

Her smile widens. “I am Lady Silla of the Vale,” she says to me, “and you have entered my domain, which puts you at my mercy. If I wish for you to cut off your nose and present it to me as a gift, you will do so without question. And if you desire to traverse my borders freely, there will be a cost.”

“Name your price, my lady.” Arjun executes another crisp bow, and I hear the blood thunder in his veins. “And rest assured that our noses are yours to take, if you should but ask. Though I will say my associate’s is quite elegant. Rather aquiline. Definitely preferable to mine.”

One of the guards coughs to conceal her amusement. Lady Silla arches a brow her way.

I do as Arjun asked and keep silent. The only full-blooded fey I have ever encountered prior to this is Ifan, who served as a warrior in the Sylvan Vale’s Summer Court before he was exiled for falling in love with a blood drinker. From Ifan, I learned never to enter into a binding agreement with any creature of the Otherworld in which the terms are not articulated in advance.

Shouldn’t an ethereal like Arjun be more than aware of this fact? Where is the shrewd attorney I’ve known for the last year? The one who skillfully negotiated so many deals with magical and non-magical folk alike? A knot of doubt in my stomach pulls tight.

Is Arjun trying to betray me?

A disturbing feeling settles on my limbs. Nigel betrayed us all less than three months ago. And he was a member of my family for far longer than Arjun has been. Would the ethereal turn on us, after everything?

Lady Silla directs her guards to stand down. In a single fluid motion, they point their spears toward the sky and step back. “Do not fear, Sébastien Saint Germain. I will allow you to travel through the summer splendor of the Vale toward the frozen wastelands of the Wyld. I have but one condition. A simple one, which need not cost you a great deal of discomfort.”

I almost laugh. I was tricked in this exact way five days ago, by this woman’s daughter. The girl I loved when I was alive. The girl whose laughter haunted my dreams. Celine desired answers from me that night she asked me to kiss her. And now I possess the answer to a question that must have plagued her since childhood.

I know who her mother is. I know why Nicodemus’ glamour is waning on her mind.

Celine has always been part of this cursed world, from the day of her birth.

“Bring the girl to me here in the Vale, Sébastien. Of her own free will.” Lady Silla’s black eyes bore through me. “Bring her here, and you may travel through my lands unimpeded. Though I cannot speak to the dangers you will find in the lawless Wyld.”

Arjun looks to me, then back at the Lady of the Vale. “Girl? Which girl? Jessamine? What did she do now?”

“Do we have a deal?” she asks me, disregarding Arjun entirely.

I press my lips together, my thoughts whirring through my mind like the cogs of a clock. I want to ask the Lady of the Vale if she will harm Celine. But something tells me the question alone would be an insult. I cannot fathom why she would want to see her daughter now, after staying away from her for all these years. “I will not allow her to be placed in harm’s way.”