The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer - 47

“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.

She faced Armand. “I’m sorry if this will be difficult for you.”

He looked amused by the comment. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t exactly share my ancestor’s passion for Ruby Comorre.” He hefted the pickax on his shoulder, the one they’d found in a gardening shed. “All of them?”

Mallory took a sledgehammer in both hands. “As many as possible.”

They attacked, steel and iron smashing into the oak barrels. The wood splintered easily. Gallons of wine splashed across the floor, drenching their shoes and filling the room with an aroma that was too sweet, too cloying.

Mallory was surprised how good it felt to destroy something—especially something of Bastien’s—and judging from the way Armand’s face glowed as they made their way through the cellar, she suspected he felt the same.

They were done too quickly.

“Next?” Armand said.

Hefting the hammer, Mallory crossed to the cellar door. It swung open under her touch.

The house was eerily quiet as they ascended the stairs, hauntingly so after the disaster they’d wreaked in the cellar.

They sneaked into the cupbearer’s room and started uncorking the bottles that filled the shelves. They dumped some in the hall and down the steps. They emptied others in the kitchen, where she paused to grab a knife from a wooden block.

Armed with as many uncorked bottles as they could carry, they slipped out into the banquet hall.

The house remained perfectly still and … beautiful .

Armand sucked in a surprised breath. The mansion was as exquisite as if a staff of hundreds had spent weeks preparing it for a ball of royal proportions. Every candle and lantern burned, casting a jocund glow throughout each room. The floors had been polished to a mirror sheen. Aromatic bouquets of flowers in porcelain vases adorned every alcove—most of them not even in season.

It occurred to Mallory that Bastien didn’t need wealth. He had sorcery. He had everything .

Arrogant bastard.

“Where is he?” Armand whispered.

Mallory shook her head. “He’ll come to us once he figures out what we’re doing. But by that point, the carrots will be cooked. It will be too late for him to do anything about it.”

Armand finished dumping out a bottle of wine on the hallway carpet. “I don’t like how easy you make it sound.”

“Me either,” she agreed.

They reached the main vestibule. Mallory had to trust that by now, Fitcher, Constantino, and Anaïs had finished placing the rings into the designated pentagram outside the house’s walls. This room would be as close to its center as they could get.

Grabbing a silver candlestick lit with a single taper, she sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor and pulled Armand down in front of her. She could still recall the rules of witchcraft she had learned from her mother, though she’d long believed it was useless for her to even attempt to use petty magic.

As for the ritual itself, it would forever be etched into her memory.

If there was a drop of magic in her bones, in her blood, in her soul , she needed it now. Now.

“You do know what you’re doing, right?” Armand said, watching as she sketched out the symbols across the tiles.

“Now you decide to doubt me?”

“I just feel obligated to mention that the candle idea didn’t work out so well earlier.”

“This is going to be a little different.” She cleared her throat. “I can do this.”

After a short silence, punctuated by the scratch of chalk, Armand said, “I do love how you always sound so confident, even when I suspect you have no idea what you’re doing.”

Refusing to let this comment distract her, she handed him the knife. “I need three drops of blood inside the circle. Saphir blood.”

To his credit, he didn’t hesitate to drag the blade across the tip of his finger. Three drops welled up on his skin and dripped down beside the candlestick. She was relieved when the flame continued to burn a steady orange.

As her mother had told her, back when she was too young to truly understand the meaning of her words, fire was a conduit between the mortal world and Verloren. After the others put the rings in place around the house, she would use magic to tether Bastien to its walls so he couldn’t escape. Once the fire burned out, he would have no choice but to return to the underworld.

At least, that was the idea.

She took Armand’s hands, unbothered by the blood on his skin, and caged the candle between them.

The words of the spell had never left her, though Mallory had not uttered them again after that night so long ago. They came whispering back, the song she’d created for them sliding easily from her tongue. She had spent hours poring over her mother’s spell books. She remembered the power she had felt tingling in her fingertips. She could still feel the absolute certainty she’d had in her abilities, her lineage, herself.

Mallory Fontaine. A witch, through and through.

It was overshadowed by the seven years of emptiness that had followed. Seven years disconnected from petty magic. Seven years of guilt and resentment and anger, of being nothing more than a fraud.

She tried to shove those thoughts away, thinking instead of Gabrielle’s words, and trying so very hard to believe them.

He cannot take away what you are.

At first, nothing happened. Mallory felt her fragile hope start to disintegrate. She held tight with both fists, squeezing with every ounce of faith she had.

She was Mallory Fontaine.

Descended from Gabrielle Savoy. Daughter of Noele Fontaine. Her sister was Velos-blessed, and dammit, she had magic, too. She always had. She always would. She was a witch. She was—

The windows shook. The walls trembled. The lock on the entry door was thrown and bolted shut.

Pain burned through Mallory’s chest, emanating from the scar at the base of her throat. She gasped. Her lungs tightened. The words would not come.

Armand’s hands enclosed hers, warm and strong.

She swallowed and spoke again. Her tongue became heavy. Every word threatened to choke her. But as she finished the seventh recitation of the spell, a sudden blackness yawned open between them.

A hole. A cavern. A doorway into nothing.

Mallory didn’t want to be surprised—but she was. She was astonished .

It was working. Her magic was actually working.

Then the candle flame turned blue.

“Mallory … Mallory!” Voices called to her—first from far away, but growing steadily closer. Triphine, Lucienne, Béatrice, Julie … Gabrielle. “Mallory, it isn’t safe. He’s coming, Mallory, he’s coming, you can’t—”

The voices became screams … then fell silent.

Mallory peered around. The wives were surrounding her, their bodies hung from chandeliers and curtain rods, their throats slashed.

An illusion, she told herself. The wives were long dead. This was not them.

She glanced at Armand, wondering if he could see them, too, but Armand’s head was slumped forward. His eyes closed.

“Mallory Fontaine.”

Monsieur Le Bleu stood on the stairs, still solid and human—if an immortal sorcerer could be considered human.

“I am attempting to make this a respectable estate once more, and here I find you and my useless progeny pouring my finest vintages onto the carpets.” He sighed. “Do you honestly think you are going to lure me back into that hole?”

Mallory grabbed the knife and forced herself to stand. “I don’t have to lure you into anything. I just can’t let you leave. And lucky for me … you already did the hard work on my behalf.”

His eyes narrowed.

Her fist tightened on the knife handle.

“Julie was killed in the trophy hall. Gabrielle in the chapel. Lucienne in the tower and Béatrice in the conservatory. And … you. You were killed at the fountain. Funny, isn’t it? Five deaths. Five sacrifices. And if one were to draw them on a map, they would make almost a perfect pentagram. Which, if my spell holds, means that five spirits can never again leave this place. Including yours.”

She couldn’t help glancing at Triphine—alone not included in the spell, and yet, still captured by Bastien’s dark magic. Though she was hanging from the ceiling, Triphine’s eyes were open, watching her.

“Forgive me,” Mallory whispered.

Then she pulled her arm back and threw the knife, striking the priceless vase on the vestibule table. It wobbled and fell, shattering to pieces on the floor. Velvety black roses were flung across the marble tiles.

Bastien stared at them, and she was glad to see that she had, at least, surprised him. “Now you’re just trying to annoy me,” he muttered.

“No. I’m trying to distract you.”

Mallory grabbed the candle from the center of the circle and threw it onto the wine-soaked carpet. She held her breath and—

Nothing happened.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The flame extinguished.

Her jaw fell. No, no, no .

Bastien smirked. “I do enjoy a good monologue. Unfortunately, one needs actual magic to back up a speech like that.” His grin dissolved as he thundered down the stairs and grabbed the knife she had thrown. Then he was upon her, yanking her arm, hauling her body against his.

When he raised the knife, preparing to drag the blade across her throat, Mallory let her instincts take charge. She reached over her shoulder and took hold of his arm, before bucking her hips backward. It was a bit of déjà vu, tossing Bastien to the floor as she had once tossed Armand. He landed with a pained grunt.

Perhaps he couldn’t be killed, but if his breathless cough was any indication, he could certainly be hurt.

Mallory snatched the knife from him while he was still laid out on the floor and drove it into his heart.

He snarled at her, before his body dissolved into wisps of black smoke.

Having no idea how long she had before he returned, Mallory took the tiny salamander ornament from her pocket and threw it as hard as she could at the floor. It shattered, and like a lizard from an egg, a shiny, slimy salamander emerged from the wreckage. It flattened its sticky little toes onto the tile floor, momentarily transfixed as it took in its strange new surroundings.

Then it scuttled toward the fireplace.

“Hold it!” Mallory leaped forward, landing on her stomach with a grunt and a jolt of pain that vibrated up her spine. Her hands clasped around the salamander, trapping it. “I need you!”

Scooping the creature into her fists, she spun around, arms outstretched, and aimed the annoying little pest at the nearest patch of wine-soaked carpet.

When the salamander did not immediately comply, she growled and stuffed its sharp little face into one of the tumbled rosebuds.

The salamander stiffened. Pulled back. Squirmed.

Then it sneezed. A blast of orange fire burst from its mouth. The carpet ignited. Flames flared upward and billowed down the corridor, toward the kitchen and cellar.

Heat surged through the room. The salamander squealed. As soon as Mallory dropped the creature, it disappeared through the narrow crack beneath the entryway door. As the heat singed Mallory’s skin, she threw open the lock and yanked on the door handle.

The door did not open.

Vision going white with panic, she yanked harder, rattling the door in its frame.

It refused to budge.

She ran toward the door to the parlor.

It slammed in her face.

She approached the doorway to the drawing room. A chandelier dropped from the ceiling, directly into her path.

She spun around.

“Armand! Armand, wake up!” She hurried to the window and tried to throw up the sash. That, too, refused to open. Grabbing a heavy bookend off a nearby shelf, she threw it at the glass—but she might as well have thrown a daisy at it. The window stayed intact, proof that Bastien was still there. Perhaps not visible, but perfectly in control of the house. And he was not going to let her leave.

The black void was still in the center of the floor when she smacked Armand hard across the face. His head rocked back, eyelids fluttering. She hit him again, because the flames were growing larger by the second and he was not waking up fast enough.

“Up, get up,” she yelled, pulling his arm.

He groaned, attempting to shake off the dregs of unconsciousness as she hauled him to his feet. The stairs loomed before them. She did not want to go upstairs. Every instinct told her she was condemning both Armand and herself to a smoldering death. But she had no other choice.

Armand stumbled after her, stealing glances at the fire roaring below. “Did it work? Is he gone?”

“Not yet. We need to find a way out of here.” On the second story, she tore through parlors and salons, Armand on her heels.

“We were just in the entryway,” he cried as the smoky air stung their eyes. “Where are you—”

She stopped and faced him. “Bastien doesn’t want us to leave. He is trying to trap us here. No doors, no windows. How do we get out?”

Alarm flashed across his face. They had made it to a hall filled with portraits of his ancestors, their blank eyes watching. She spotted the painting of Triphine perched on a settee, her newborn son bundled in her arms. Bastien stood behind her, a hand on her shoulder. No doubt he was meant to look the doting husband, but Mallory saw him as he was. Domineering. Cruel. Already plotting her murder.

Soon this painting would burn.

They all would.

An explosion shook the house, shuddering through the walls. At the far end of the gallery of rooms, the floor groaned and caved in, quickly engulfed as the flames grew higher.

“I think the fire reached the cellar,” mused Armand.

Bastien’s rough voice echoed at them from every wall. “You are still in my castle, Miss Fontaine.”

Every painting now bore his face—not only the family trio with Triphine and their son, but so many of Armand’s ancestors. Now they all depicted the same sharp cheekbones, the gemstone eyes, the navy-blue beard.

“You will not escape. You will end this spell, or you will burn with me.”

“If that’s what it takes,” she hissed. “I will die before I set you free.”

Hatred seared the air around her.

“Yes,” he said coldly. “You will .”