The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer - 44

“Sacrifice myself?” She let out a peal of anxious laughter. “You really are mad.”

“Once you are dead,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken, “the pieces will be in place. I had hoped you’d make this easy for me, and you never fail to disappoint.”

She ground her teeth. He could threaten all he liked, but Bastien had not yet made his fifth sacrifice, and he did not have Gabrielle’s ring.

He hadn’t won, not yet. She searched for a way out. There was that other door, iron and ominous, but Bastien was blocking her path, and she couldn’t leave Fitcher and Constantino down here.

Could she?

A voice told her that she could. She would leave them at the first chance she had to save herself. She barely knew these two men. She owed them nothing. She would choose survival, as she always had.

And yet … she wasn’t sure if it was true.

Julie grimaced and curled into a ball, hands pressed over the wound in her chest. She let out a sob, as if she were dying all over again.

The sound frayed the ends of Mallory’s nerves.

Bastien strolled around the table, caressing each ring with a tip of his finger as he went. He paused when he reached the bowl that had held Julie’s. “I will be needing that back.”

Mallory squeezed the ring tighter in her fist, delighting in how the stone cut into her skin. It was a small rebellion, but one she would hold on to for as long as she could. “You’ll have to take it from me.”

His chuckles turned boisterous. “Yes. That is the plan. Except … you were right.” He reached for the sword on the table, but his hand passed right through it. “A Savoy is within my grasp, but without a mortal body to act for me, what can I do?” He clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “But I am patient, and sooner or later, your sister will have to set Armand free. Unless you intend to kill him, you will not be able to keep me away forever.”

She choked back the bile in her throat, wishing she could do more than glare at him.

“Unless,” he said, drawing out the word in a quiet hiss, “you are willing to bargain with me.”

“I’m not,” she said through her teeth.

“Do not be hasty. You have not heard my terms.”

She snarled. Beside her, Julie shuddered.

“Sacrifice yourself,” he said, his tone so light that he might have been asking her to put on a kettle for tea, “and I will have no need to claim your sister.”

“What’s going on?” said Fitcher. “What is he saying?”

“He wants me to sacrifice myself,” she said. “To save Anaïs.”

Fitcher snarled. “Don’t listen to him. He can’t be trusted.”

“I know that,” Mallory snapped. Even though … she was considering the deal. Weighing her choices, of which there weren’t many.

It was true that Anaïs could not keep Armand tied up forever. When she freed him, Bastien could so easily slip back into Armand’s body. Could so easily catch Anaïs off her guard.

Either way, he would have his fifth sacrifice.

But if Mallory took her own life, this still wouldn’t be over. Bastien required the fifth ring, even now on Anaïs’s finger back in the chapel.

Which meant that the spell wouldn’t be completed yet. There would still be time for the others to stop him.

“You’re doing all this, for what?” she said, stalling for time. “A little bit of immortality? So you can rule over a crumbling wine empire again?”

Bastien cocked his head, evidently entertained by the question. “My descendants have not been as ruthless as I was, and Armand in particular has been a great disappointment. But once I am alive again, I will reclaim our standing. Soon, Ruby Comorre will again be the most desirable wine in Lysraux.” He smirked at Mallory’s skeptical expression. “You did not think it was an accident—did you?—when the competition disappeared, leaving only Saphir estates to provide the world with its favorite vice.”

Mallory frowned. Saphir wines had always been highly coveted—for generations, the only terroir that could grow their particular grapevine. In Bastien’s time, their vineyards alone had survived, unscathed by drought, blight, and fire that had ravaged other crops.

“You were sabotaging them,” she said.

“What is the point of being a sorcerer,” he said, almost jokingly, “if you cannot destroy your enemies? Of course, none of this makes any difference to you. You will be dead. But your sister will be free to go.”

Mallory ground her teeth until her jaw ached. “What would I have to do?”

“Mallory, no!” shouted Constantino. “You can’t.”

Bastien raised an eyebrow at Mallory. “A sword driven through your heart. Very simple.”

“And you promise to leave Anaïs alone?”

“You have my word. I will not require her death, only the ring. Once Armand is within my control again, that will be easily obtained.”

She shuddered to think of him possessing Armand, stealing Anaïs’s ring off her finger—knowing her sister would not give it up easily. She thought of the wives’ dismembered fingers, which Bastien had cut from their bodies after their deaths.

But she could not escape. Could not run. Could not kill him.

With a shudder, Mallory stepped toward the table. Gripping Julie’s ring in one hand, she unsheathed the sword with the other.

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 could hurt him.

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.

Half expecting something useless, like a secondary murder closet, Mallory was surprised to see a ladder leading upward. A metal platform rested at the base, attached to ropes on the walls.

“A dumbwaiter,” said Fitcher. “That must be how they brought the wine barrels down here.”

He picked up the sword and returned it to its sheath. Constantino left his bow on his back.

Mallory was tucking her knife back into her boot when she heard a quiet click. She noticed Fitcher examining his odd golden pocket watch. The needle was spinning, spinning …

A shadow crossed Fitcher’s face, and he slammed the pocket watch shut.

Constantino raised an eyebrow.

“I shouldn’t have looked,” Fitcher said gruffly. “May Wyrdith favor us.”

Though he had played the part of the acolyte, Mallory felt it was the first real prayer she’d heard him utter.

With a glance around at the wives—who stood watching her, bleeding, exhausted, and tousled—she pocketed the rings, grasped the rungs of the ladder, and started to climb.