Numbness spread through my body as the reality of what had happened sank in. The identity-shifting, life-altering reality of what had happened. I was Seraphina Dallier: ballerina, opera singer,killer. I waited for the regret. I waited for the shame—the guilt. But they didn’t come. I only felt numb. Only cold.
I had pushed myself beyond the limits of my reserve of magic, and I was exhausted in my bones. I started to shake as I sat there on that bed. Seeing nothing but the blood that was now drying on my hands. Feeling nothing but the cold.
Somewhere in the distance, I could hear running water. I could hear the shuffling sounds of someone doing busy work in the apartment. Someone. Ciaran. I didn’t bother to ask what he was doing. I just didn’t care.
“Come on, love, let’s get you cleaned up.” Ciaran appeared in the doorframe. His angular features were pinched with concern. I was shivering so hard—I couldn’t remember ever feeling this cold.
“I’m going to get you undressed and put you in the bath, alright?” Ciaran approached me, slowly, cautiously. “You’re going into shock, and we need to get you warmed up. And get all that blood off you. Is that alright, love?” His voice was so low, so tender. It cut through the numbness, offering a tiny spark of warmth in the frozen wasteland of my mind.
I nodded, too tired to speak.
Gently, and with utmost care, Ciaran peeled off my clothes, which were soaked through with the viscount’s blood. Had it really only been a few hours since he had taken them off with frenetic need? It felt like that had been another lifetime. The memory felt warm, and I tried to cling to it in the frigidness.
Then, I was being scooped up, strong arms holding me bridal-carry style. I slumped against Ciaran’s chest, naked and shivering.
“Your lips are turning blue. Fuck.” He exhaled as he carried me to the bathroom. Inside, the air was humid and steamy, the mirror fogged up as the tub filled with hot water. Ciaran lowered me into it with heartbreaking tenderness.
I hissed as the heat of the water hit my skin. The numbness in my body started to melt, replaced by pins and needles all over my skin. A memory flashed in my mind—of myself, as a child, swimming in the sea until my toes went numb and my fingers were pruned. My mother, who’s trust I had also betrayed, ran a scalding hot bath to warm me up. The way my feet prickled anditched and tingled as the blood ran back into them. It was at that memory, that moment, that the tears began to flow. Not sobs. Not cries or wails. Just silent salty tears tracking down my face, dropping one by one into the bathwater.
Ciaran scrubbedthe blood off me while I sat silently crying in the tub. And when the water ran pink with all the blood, he drained it and filled it again, scrubbing me until there wasn’t a trace of the viscount left.
We didn’t say anything. Whether it was because he could sense that I wasn’t ready to talk, or because he himself couldn’t get the words out, I didn’t know. Either way, we continued on in silence until I was dressed in clean, dry, comfortable clothes.
“Seraphina…” Ciaran paused in the doorway of the bedroom. I was so bone weary that I was going to fall asleep before my head hit the pillow.
“Yes, Ciaran?” It was the first thing I had said since I opened my throat and sang, blasting a hole in the viscount’s chest. My throat was hoarse.
“I’m sorry,” he said, so quietly. I could feel the shame and guilt pouring off him.
“Me too.” It was all I could get out.
Ciaran flashed a weak smile, closing the bedroom door behind him. I fell onto the bed and into a deep, deep sleep.
RUBY
Ciaran
Seraphina needed to sleep for a long time. It had been days since either of us had truly rested—the events since the masquerade robbing us both of any chance for sleep. I hadn’t depleted my magic in the same way, though. She was at the point where if she didn’t lie down to rest, she would have passed out where she stood.
So, once she was clean, wrapped in the grey flannel sheets in my bed, in that tiny apartment we had both called home for the past months, I left. I had to go fulfill my duties to the City Beneath Lutesse, as much as it broke my heart to leave her side.
These were my people, and they had been brutally attacked. They needed me to appear strong and unafraid, even though I was a broken mess inside. So I spoke to as many people as I could, reassuring them that we were safe—that the intruders were dead. That no one would be persecuting them any time soon. I was trying to convince myself as much as I was convincing any of them.
The viscount’s attack had rocked me to my core. It was more than our bloody, violent history or the intrusion on our city; it was the possibility that someone with our abilities could turn on their own people. That there could be someone out there who hated themselves so much that they were willing to hurt others in the name of something “righteous.” It made me sick.
My history with the viscount wasn’t something I ever talked about. I was reminded of the indelible mark he’d left on my life every time I looked in the mirror. That night in Montmartre, when I had seen Seraphina at his table... I wanted to storm up to them and tear her away. To tell her to stay away from that man and anyone who had anything to do with him. Instead, I had ended up on the rooftop trying to settle my nerves. How ironic, that fate had brought us together that night…
I was no saint, and I had done so many questionable things. I had done things that I wish I could take back. But I could never do something so hateful as what the viscount did. And when I saw Seraphina trapped in his thrall? I nearly lost control of everything.
Ishouldhave murdered them all on the spot before I let him take one more step. The fact that I hadn’t would haunt me for a very long time. I had made so many mistakes. Done so many fucking stupid things. All I could do was pray to the Goddess that Seraphina forgave me for them. I would spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her.
Because until that first moment I had spotted her in Montmartre, I didn’t believe in fate. There was no invisible force that brought me to any one place at any specific time. I didn’t believe in much at all. But then I sawher. The way she twisted her hair around a graceful finger. The way her lips tilted into a coy, playful smile, her other hand gripping a delicate crystal coupe. The rush that hit me in the chest. Her dark, sensuous grin—a knowing grin. None of it directed at me… In that club, thatnight, that city… I was invisible. A phantom.Shewas a song. A song I didn’t even know I needed to hear. Until that moment.
I first noticed her weeks before she showed up in the club with Seff. Before she burst onto that rooftop and into my marrow. She was there with La Carlotta.And while everyone was busy fawning over Carlotta, I was mesmerized byher.Her beauty was not saccharine—not flowers and ruffles and tulle. Instead, she conjured images of still water on a moonless night—reflecting the world back to me in ways I wasn’t sure I was ready to see.Shewas a storm blowing in over a roiling sea. A tempest. Though she appeared so calm, I could see something brewing beneath—from the way her knuckles turned white around that coupe, the way she laughed lifelessly at a joke told by some pompous ass who had the nerve to speak to this divine creature.
I watched her for too long. Far too long. This dark angel, who held me in a chokehold as surely as she gripped that glass. Watched as her lips closed around the rim in a way that made it almost impossible for me to stand, head tipped back, consuming the effervescent liquid as surely as she would consume my every waking thought from that moment on…
And then she was gone—off twirling in the sea of glittering jewels on the dance floor—leaving me burning. Imagine my surprise when she barged out onto the rooftop of the club, just a few weeks later. I had thought of almost nothing but her since then. Done almost nothing but watch her from the shadowy rafters in the opera house. She could not have known that, though. Imagine my surprise when she opened up her lungs and sang to the heavens, cracking me open so thoroughly that my soul leaked out of me like ichor from a wound.
