The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(72)

He averts his gaze. “Nicodemus was the one who sent me to find Mo Gwai, a powerful warlock in Hunan who’d been his enemy for more than three decades. I traveled there, searching in vain for his hidden refuge. But Mo Gwai was the one to find me first. He took my fétiche and tortured me for information on how to best Nicodemus. To rid the world of vampires once and for all. Not once did I capitulate. Soon Mo Gwai began hurting me simply for sport. Because it pleased him to watch me burn beneath his silver blades. When I finally managed to escape, I collapsed in the mountains less than a league away from his lair. If Lady Silla’s Grey Cloaks had not found me, I would have burned to death in the light of the sun.”

“Une punition appropriée,” Hortense mutters through her teeth.

“Lady Silla saved my life,” Jae says. “In my delirium while I healed in the Vale, I asked for a way to seek revenge on Mo Gwai. She told me the time would soon come for my vengeance. Once I could move about, Lady Silla sent me back to Nicodemus. She promised she would tell me where to find both Mo Gwai and my fétiche, when the moment was right.” He inhales. “I did as I was told. I returned to New Orleans, revenge ever present in my mind.” His words become halting. “This obsession so consumed me that I did not protest when my love was taken from me. I did not fight for it. I did not fight for her, as I should have.” Jae swallows, his eyes squeezed shut, his hands forming fists. “But through it all, I will never forget how my vampire brothers and sisters stood at my side. How all of them—even my former love—swore to help me seek my revenge. Swore to burn down the world to regain my honor.” Jae stops talking. I look around at the rest of our family. Hortense is staring at a point of nothingness. Silent tears stream down Odette’s face. Boone’s eyes are closed, his lips pressed together.

They are all lost in the memories of a time long past.

“Lady Silla came to me less than a year later,” Jae says quietly. “She promised to tell me what I wished to know in exchange for a binding promise of my own. One I had already offered her numerous times.” He stares at me. “She asked me to swear fealty to her until the end of my days.”

“And you did it,” I say.

He nods. “Without hesitation. She was the one to save me when Nicodemus sent me into Mo Gwai’s cavern alone.” Jae braces his elbows on his knees. “Like a fool, I did not consider what this would mean. For years I thought she would order me to strike out at Nicodemus. But she did not. In recent times, our communication has been so infrequent, there are moments I trick myself into believing she has forgotten about my promise.”

I brace myself for the answer to my next question. For the dread I know will inevitably follow. “Why does Lady Silla want us to bring Celine to the Vale of her own free will?”

Odette stands straight, her sable eyes wide with alarm. Hortense hisses in fury.

“You know the answer to that already, Sébastien,” Jae says in a hoarse tone.

“I want you to say it regardless.”

“Celine Rousseau is an ethereal. She is—”

“Lady Silla’s daughter,” I finish.

Jae nods once. All around us, everything stills.

Odette speaks first. “Celine’s mother . . . is fey?”

“Not just fey,” Jae says. “Celine is the daughter of the most powerful lady of the Summer Court. A member of its gentry.”

Odette’s arms cross. She begins pacing, her brow set with incredulity. “Why has Celine been kept apart from her mother for all these years?”

“Lady Silla made a promise to Celine’s mortal father that none of her kind would approach their daughter until Celine’s eighteenth birthday,” Jae says.

I frown. “If that is the case, why has Lady Silla breached this agreement? I thought bargains in the Vale were sacrosanct.”

Soft laughter falls from Arjun’s lips as he sends me a rueful smile.

Jae looks at Arjun and then returns his attention to me. “This is the true magic of the Sylvan Vale. Once they find a way to manipulate the language of a promise, they are able to do as they please. It is why Lady Silla wishes for you to bring Celine to the Vale of her own free will. If Celine crosses into the Otherworld by choice, then Lady Silla has not violated the promise she made to Celine’s father.”

Clever. I almost laugh as Arjun did.

“I told you,” Arjun says. “Those in the Vale are far more duplicitous than those in the Wyld. Do not be fooled by the sunny skies and the fragrant food and delectable drinks. Death lurks in every corner.”

I push off the paneled wall and walk toward Jae, my mind humming with questions. When I nearly collide with Odette—who has not stopped pacing since she discovered the truth of Celine’s parentage—a thought occurs to me. “Odette.”

She halts midstep and turns. The instant she sees my face, she understands what I want to ask.

“I know you dislike telling those closest to you about their futures,” I begin, “but—”

“I do hate it,” Odette interjects, though her words are not unkind. “But after what happened with Nigel, I haven’t been able to shake the notion that I might have prevented it, if only I hadn’t been so afraid.”

“Afraid?” Hortense asks. “When have you ever been afraid of anything, sorcière blanche?”