The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer - 49

For a moment, Mallory feared that she might never be human again. But as soon as her small, scaly feet touched the wet ground and she willed herself back to normal—the magic faded and she stood in her body once again, a little off-balance and still trembling with the rush of fear and adrenaline and the nearness of certain death, but alive and herself.

To her unbridled relief, Armand’s eyes were open when she dropped to her knees beside him, his lashes fluttering in a daze. He had landed in a garden bed full of young, fragrant lavenders. The foliage had helped to break his fall—though Mallory could see the pain etched onto his features.

“You,” he said stiltedly, “make for a very pretty bird.”

She sobbed, bending over and pressing her forehead to his chest. He raised one hand to her hair, trying to brush it back from her face, but his fingers caught in her knotted tangles.

“Barn swallows are disgusting creatures,” she said. “I thought for sure I’d be a hawk.”

Armand wheezed a halfhearted chuckle, then winced in pain.

“Come on,” she breathed, sitting up and gripping his hand. “You need to stand. The fire…”

Though he groaned and hissed in complaint, he allowed her to help him stumble to his feet. She suspected a broken rib or two from how he hunched to one side, but he accepted her support, and together they hobbled away from the house. The others met them halfway across the garden. Fitcher and Constantino flanked Armand, taking his weight onto their shoulders as Mallory fell into her sister’s arms.

When they were safely away, they stopped to watch the flames devour the House Saphir. The blaze grew so bright that Mallory had to shield her eyes, squinting into the fire as the house was consumed. It was not a slow death. Mallory listened for the screams of Count Bastien Saphir I, but the roar of the fire was too loud. Nevertheless, as the inferno ran out of fuel, as the house succumbed and caved in on itself, there was a moment when the flames burned vibrant blue. As they eventually died down and smoldered, smoke and ash dancing on the wind, she knew that the spirit of Monsieur Le Bleu was no longer in this world.

Mallory wasn’t sure when the wives joined them, but at some point she noticed their figures, hazy in a half circle by the garden, watching the house burn. Lucienne toasted the ashes of the house with a bottle she must have had stashed away somewhere. Then, one by one, the ghosts flickered from existence: Lucienne and Béatrice linked arms as they quietly vanished. Julie cast a mournful gaze at Armand, who could not see her, before the wind stole her away. Gabrielle was watching Mallory and Anaïs, smiling a soft, proud smile, as the rain and mist claimed her.

Only Triphine remained, clutching her blue shawl. At first, Mallory did not understand why she hadn’t vanished with the others. But then she remembered that this time, it was her spell that was tethering these spirits, not Bastien’s. The magic she had worked, the ritual she had enacted, had not involved Triphine, who had been killed miles away, in Morant. Her spirit was not tethered to this house. Not like the others. Not like Le Bleu.

“All that wine, wasted,” Constantino murmured, drawing her attention away from the lonely ghost. The first words to be spoken in what felt like ages.

Armand, dirty and bedraggled and so very, very handsome, peered at him. “I own a winery,” he said simply. “There’s more wine.”

Constantino smiled.

A shocked wail invaded their little coterie. Yvette, Pierre, and Gideon stumbled from the forest, where they had been sequestered and sheltered after drinking the drugged ceremonial wine. Their mouths were agape as they stared at the smoldering ruins of the château.

“What … what happened? ” Yvette panted, dropping to her knees in mournful prayer.

Exhausted, dismayed, hardly able to believe she was still alive, Mallory felt a giddiness burble up inside of her. She knew her timing was terrible. She knew it wasn’t appropriate. She knew any member of high society would chastise her for such dreadful behavior.

And yet, she started to laugh.

Armand turned to her, surprised.

Then his eyes crinkled at the corners, and soon, he was laughing, too.