He glances back once; I glower. He almost stumbles down the stairs, steadying himself on the weathered banister.
When we’re alone again, I check my Rolex for the time—7:30 a.m. “What brings you to my door at the crack of dawn, Mademoiselle de Morel?”
She drags her front teeth over her perky bottom lip, andputain, I need another shower.
“Last night, I threw a coin into the well, and it hit water.” She frees her lip, and it glistens. I must be sporting one hell of a blank stare, because she adds, “Which means it’s your piece.”
I clear my throat. “Right. I assumed as much.”
“Anyway, after I tossed my coin”—color leaches from her skin—“there was splashing.”
I lean against my doorframe and cross my arms. “That’s usually what happens when something solid meets something liquid.”
She regains a little color and shakes her head. “There wasa lotof splashing. Like there was something down there.”
My vertebrae bolt together until my spine feels more steel rod than flexible bone.
“And then this morning, on my way over, I passed by the square, and it’s . . .” She swallows.
I push off the doorframe, my pulse going from zero to a hundred. “Don’t leave me hanging. It’s what?”
“Just . . . come.” She heads down the rickety stairs and opens the front door.
What the hell am I in for? “If there’s a monster eel out there—”
One corner of her absurdly fascinating mouth curls up. “Here I thought you were brave.”
The challenge in her voice combined with her half-smile injects something into my veins. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it courage, but something strong enough to make me lock my door and pound down the stairs.
I grab the edge of the front door and draw it wider. “Smart mouth.”
She levels me with a smile that cordons the blood off from my head and limbs.
Her mouth moves, and it takes my starved brain a moment to make sense of her words. “Did you manage to sleep? You look . . . dazed.”
I grip the collar of my coat, tightening it so no cold air seeps in. “I slept quite well actually. Had some real pleasant dreams.”
“That’s good.”
The sky’s black as pitch. Even so, people are up and about, rushing off to their workplace or heading to the university buildings for early classes. No one looks particularly spritely. My guess is half of them are still recovering from New Year’s Eve.
“And you?”
She shakes her head no.
I’m imagining it was our imminent game ofcapture-the-cursed-leaves-before-Slate-croaksthat kept her up. “What’s the deal with school starting back up so early here? Back in Marseille, classes are out until the middle of the month.”
“Brume runs on a slightly different calendar than the rest of French schools. A lunar one. We start classes on the full moon.”
“For all the werewolf students?” I stage-whisper.
She lets out a cute snort. “Werewolves aren’t real.”
“Are you sure?”
She slows her pace a little, her gaze running over the ice crystallizing the wooden shutters of the stone houses. “There’s no mention of lycanthropy in the history books.”
“And in books, we trust.”
