The Damned (The Beautiful #2)(93)

“It was unpardonable of you both to be gone so long,” Odette says, her fingers lacing through Celine’s.

I move closer to them, my eyes continuing to scan the ashes of our former home. For an instant, I think I hear whispers of tinkling glass and catch a glimmer of silver service dishes. Of Kassamir clapping his hands, the servers standing at attention like soldiers.

“If you could do it over again,” I say to Celine, “knowing what you know now, would you have crossed the threshold of Jacques’?”

She takes a sharp breath. “A wise woman would say no. But I can’t regret it, because this is the life I chose. It is mine and no one else’s.”

“Even if Celine hadn’t crossed that threshold,” Odette says, “I think she would have found her way to us. She was as inevitable as the dawn.”

I take a breath of the soot-tinged air. The heat of a New Orleans summer evening has begun to thicken around us, the cicadas droning in the trees. As I step over another pile of rubble, my foot brushes a stack of discarded paper. “Far be it from me to—” I stop short, the air knocked from my lungs.

“Bastien?” Odette blurs toward me, her eyes like sharpened daggers.

I say nothing as I stare at the ground. At the sheaves of scattered paper, their corners curling upward. At the unmarred sheet in the center, anchored by a white marble rook.

A piece of my uncle’s chess set.

The rook. A carrion bird that feasts on the dead. A word synonymous with swindling.

Celine reaches for the piece of pristine paper. I do nothing as she stands, her expression quizzical. She unfolds the note.

“‘Mon petit lion,’” she reads, “‘our family left me to burn. Consider the favor returned.’” She pauses, her eyes going wide. “‘If you ever wish to see our uncle again, find us on the Crown Jewel of the Mississippi. Yours in life and in death, émilie.’” Shock settles on her face. “émilie?” she breathes. “Isn’t that your—”

“Sister,” I say, the world beginning to spin around me. I take the letter from Celine, the blood roaring through my body. “My sister,” I mutter as I reread the note. “My sister.”

Mon petit lion. My little lion. I hated that nickname. Only émilie called me that.

Odette’s shoulders shake with incredulity. “Comment est-ce possible?”

I stare out at the remains of my fire-ravaged home, a flurry of images aligning in my mind. Everything that has happened to us in the last few months shifts. Nothing seems random. It all has a purpose. The murders along the docks close to Jacques’, attributed to Nigel. The attack on Celine at Saint Louis Cathedral. How surprised we all were to know that our lanky, card-loving brother, Nigel Fitzroy, had been the mastermind behind it all.

Perhaps it was not surprise. Perhaps it was disbelief.

The rook. A swindling carrion bird.

“My uncle loves chess,” I say, the words ashen on my tongue. “He’s been a student of it for centuries.”

“He told me that once,” Celine says, “at the masquerade ball.”

“I never play with him, and he never asks me to play with him. It was something he did with émilie. She was a prodigy, even at a young age. But still she only beat him once. It was the week before she died . . .” My voice fades into silence.

Odette’s hands fly to her mouth. “Mon Dieu,” she whispers. And I know she understands.

“Bastien, what happened?” Celine asks. “You never told me how she died.”

“It was my fault,” I say, my voice hollow. “As a child, I enjoyed playing with sunlight. Creating prisms with the crystals I found throughout the house. I would collect these pieces of glass, even from the chandeliers. In the bright heat of the afternoon, I would stack them until a pattern of rainbows formed along the wall. My father would reproach me for it. He kept saying I would start a fire one day. But I didn’t listen, and no one enforced the rules with me. Even as a boy, I was coddled and given everything I could ever want.

“That afternoon, I left my collection of crystals on my bed upstairs after arranging them just so. Then I went down to the kitchen to bother émilie. When I returned to my room, a blanket in the corner was smoldering. A small fire had been lit. I was young and afraid of getting in trouble, so I threw the smoldering blanket into my closet and shut the door. You can guess what happened after that. I couldn’t see. I was scared. So I ran to a hall closet upstairs and hid.” I close my eyes, remembering how I’d started to choke. How I’d struggled to see or call out to anyone. “émilie was the one who ran up the stairs, through the blaze. By the time she found me, the fire had consumed the second-floor landing.” I stop, feeling almost human as I recall that moment. That feeling of powerlessness. “I don’t remember much of what happened next. I was told she wrapped me in a blanket and pushed me out the window so that I could land in the center of a sheet the fire brigade was holding. She never made it out.”

I say nothing for a time, and then a dark burst of laughter flies from my lips. “They never found a body. The fire brigade said it was likely the heat of the blaze had consumed all traces of my sister. For weeks, I hoped someone had rescued her. Found her. I begged my uncle and both my parents to check all the hospitals. To ask all the doctors. I didn’t believe she was dead. I thought if she was dead, I would have known it. There would be some kind of proof. A body, a feeling of loss. I was so sure she was still alive. The only thing my parents did was collect all our belongings and move across the city. They knew—even though no one told me—that we were being targeted by Nicodemus’ enemies. Not long after that, my mother was turned into a vampire. That fire—the one I caused that day—was the beginning of the end for my family.”