Page 115 of The House Saphir
Bastien shifted backward, as if to give her space. She was glad to put the table between them as she weighed the sword in her hand—even knowing that he could pass right through it if he wanted to.
Distantly, she could hear Fitcher and Constantino yelling at her, but she wasn’t listening. They couldn’t help her. She was alone with the monster, and she had no weapons with which to fight him.
“You promise,” she whispered, weighing the sword in her hand before slowly angling the tip at her heart.
Bastien’s eyes burned as blue as the torches. “You have my most solemn vow.”
She knew beyond doubt that he was lying. He cared nothing for vows. Not the ones made to his wives, and certainly not the one made to her.
Then—a scream. Though less a scream than a savage shriek. Julie arose from the shadows and launched herself at Bastien. She knocked him against the wall and, with a strength Mallory would not have expected, wrapped the remains of the rope that had bound her wrists around Bastien’s throat.
Mallory gaped, dumbfounded, as the rope tightened. Julie yanked Bastien against her. He was so much taller. So much broader. He drove one arm back to try to dislodge her grip, but Julie held firm, hatred making her face almost unrecognizable.
“You did this to me, you awful brute!” she wailed. “You did this!”
And though Mallory half believed Julie might actually decapitate the murderer with nothing but a bit of rope—she was outraged enough for it—Bastien soon got the upper hand. Grasping Julie’s arm, he twisted so hard a bone snapped. Julie screamed and fell back.
Despite her pain, Julie threw herself at him again with clawed fingers.
Which was when Mallory realized… they were both ghosts. Which meant that Julie could touch him. Julie couldhurthim.
She scanned the room, but the other ghosts were still in their undead, slumbering state. Why had Julie awoken? Why had she—
The ring warmed in her grip.
Mallory dashed forward, weaving in and out of the brawl as she cut the ropes binding each of the women’s corpses from the hooks. One by one, they tumbled to the floor, heavy and still. Once they were free, Mallory reached for the dishes on the table—knocking one of them over as she grabbed the rings, stealing them from whatever magic spell Bastien had prepared.
Immediately, a change came over the wives. The illusion of physical bodies shed for the hazy illumination of spirits. Their eyes snapped open.
At the same moment, Julie was thrown against the table, which she slipped through, landing beside the gate where Fitcher and Constantino wore identical looks of bewilderment.
“What is happening?” Constantino whispered.
“Ghosts,” Fitcher whispered back. “I would assume.”
“Help me,” Mallory said as Triphine picked herself up off the cellar floor with a look of disgust. “Help me, please. Help Julie!”
They gathered their wits, shaking off the dregs of magic that had held them in their undead stasis. But then—they did help. With more fury than Mallory thought possible, Le Bleu’s victims converged—nails and teeth and elbows and battle cries and vengeance—and when Mallory was certain they would literally tear him apart…
Bastien vanished.
The four women fell back, snarling and panting, a blackish substance that might have been blood on their hands.
The iron bars holding Fitcher and Constantino released them. They stumbled forward, dragging in breaths of air.
“Care to explain what’s going on?” Fitcher asked.
“The wives,” Mallory panted. “They attacked him.”
“Is he dead?” asked Constantino.
“I don’t think so. He… ran away.”
Mallory squeezed her fist around the four rings. She had to get back to Anaïs, to Gabrielle, to Armand. They could end this. Truly end it.
“Where does that door lead?” Constantino gestured to the iron door at the far side of the room. “Is it unlocked?”
It wasn’t, but when Mallory inserted the cellar key—no longer sticky with the illusion of blood—it opened.
