Page 121 of The House Saphir
Cursing, she took a slow step back, her gaze pinned to the voirloup as it lifted its muzzle and released an agitated howl. When it was done, it stared at Mallory, watching her with hungry yellow eyes.
She spied Armand, on the other side of the voirloup. “Oy, mangy beast!” he shouted, waving his arms in an attempt to pull the monster’s attention away from Mallory.
No use. The beast prowled closer, slobber dripping from its maw.
Then, suddenly, Anaïs awoke, screaming. She looked around—at Constantino, who still held her in his arms, to the voirloup, to the blood-filled fountain, then screamed again, louder this time.
“Er… I’m just going to put you down now,” Constantino said, before he unceremoniously dropped Anaïs into a garden bed. Her scream turned into a bewildered, slightly affronted grunt, whileConstantino slung his bow off his shoulder, grabbed an arrow from the quiver—
The voirloup pounded closer. Mallory’s vision went white. The monster was mere paces away when the bowstring snapped, sending the arrow into the voirloup’s shoulder. Golden light flashed. The beast’s momentum carried it forward, even as its body degenerated into a small glass figurine once again. Constantino caught it midair. For a moment, he stood unmoving, fist raised like the monument of an honored warrior.
Then, without warning, Constantino collapsed down onto his rump, his expression dazed. “I would like to be done with all this now,” he breathed.
Giving herself a shake, Anaïs scrambled on her hands and knees toward Mallory. “What… what is…?”
“A lot’s happened,” Mallory said. “Do you remember anything?”
Anaïs shuddered. “The ritual. We were in the chapel, and the candle was lit, and… and that’s the last I remember.”
Mallory looked at the chunks of stone that had been thrown from the fountain’s pedestal when the horse broke free. She spied the fire-breathing salamander that she’d tried to steal her first night at the château.
“He… he can still be bound. Trapped. In the house. That’s what Gabrielle said.” She blinked up at Armand. “Isn’t that what she said?”
“I… don’t really remember, precisely. So much was happening.”
Coughing against the dust in her throat, Mallory reached upand touched the feather behind her ear. “Gabrielle tried to bind his spirit to the candle. It didn’t work, but maybe that’s because he was possessing Anaïs at the time. Now that he has his own body back, I don’t think he can possess people anymore. And we are no longer trying to get rid of a ghost. We are trying to get rid of a sorcerer.”
Armand held her gaze, his hair damp from the rain and clinging to his brow. He accepted her statement with a slow, encouraging nod, even though she could tell he didn’t fully understand what she was saying.Shewasn’t sure she understood what she was saying. But she knew enough about petty magic to hope that she was right.
Gabrielle could not complete the binding spell.
But maybe… maybe she could. If she had her magic.
“With a big enough flame to hold him, and the right spell… maybe…?”
“Yes,” said Armand. “Whatever you’re thinking, yes. Tell me what to do.”
She peered up at the house.
She wasn’t Gabrielle. She wasn’t her mother. She wasn’t a witch. She couldn’t do this.
But shehadto do this.
“I need the rings,” she whispered. “The wedding rings. They’re in the chap—”
“Here,” Armand interrupted. “Everyone kept talking about them like they were important, so…” He held out his hand, revealing five rings in his palm.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
“This isn’t safe for you,” Mallory said as her toes searched for the ladder’s next rung.
Somewhere in the darkness beneath her, Armand responded, “This isn’t safe for either of us, but I’m not letting you do it alone.”
They reached the bottom of the steep passageway.
Even the cellar was changed. The cobwebs had mysteriously vanished. The bars of the gate that had bent to hold Fitcher and Constantino had been straightened and reset into an elaborate design of wine grapes hanging from spiraled vines.
“I’ve never been down here before,” Armand murmured as they left the room with the ritual table and started down the underground cave where wine barrels were stacked three-high on shelves that had been miraculously cleansed of every speck of dust.
