Nostrata’s raspy voice floated over, softened by the hazy smoke. Mireille cracked an eye open to watch the ancient female.
“Adelphinae, our Creator. We come before you, humble servants, to request passage for but a few hours into the Halfway.”
Nostrata cracked her cane upon the floor—the violent boom shaking Mireille’s bones—and the opal on top glowed even more fiercely. As if the light from the Scales of Nyctima outside the window were flowing through it.
Mireille’s wolf was calm, sitting back on her hind legs with head cocked, tail waving, and ears perked. Listening.
Nostrata’s voice rose again, softly, carried upon the mist itself into Mireille’s mind. “What messages do the wayward souls have for us this evening, Creator?”
The last syllable dissolved into a fading echo, then transformed into a susurration of hushed voices. They were faintat first, then grew louder, and louder, and louder still. So loud that Mireille was certain her vibrating brain was about to leak out her ears.
At the point where Mireille couldn’t take it anymore, ready to run screaming from the ballroom, the voices abruptly faded as a single one crystallized in her mind.
A feminine voice with a hard edge that Mireille hadn’t heard in nearly three hundred years.
A voice she’d never expected to hear again. At least not until she herself was but a mere shadow of a soul.
“Mireille,” the voice whispered.
“My girl.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mireille was seated at the dining table in the cabin in the Oread Woods, her soft, chubby fingers resting on the surface.
By the hearth, Vivienne was bent over a copper pot, a faint, prismatic glow surrounding her. Their cabin was so remote that it had never been outfitted with any magical energy or appliances. It had never bothered Mireille in childhood—she’d never known anything different.
“Mother?” Mireille’s hands rushed to her throat. Her voice was high and youthful. Innocent. Centuries away from her current cynical tone.
Vivienne didn’t answer, just kept stirring that pot.
Outside the window, time was not obeying its normal cadence. In the span of a minute, the sun rose and set twice, and the leaves of the trees vibrated, as if stirred by a violent breeze. A raven with green-black feathers landed on a trembling branch, and a fox scurried through the trunks, a blur of red and brown, its eyes incandescent streaks in the false night.
“Mother,” Mireille asked again, and as Vivienne turned, Mireille braced herself. The last time Mireille had seen her,Vivienne’s throat had been a gruesome mess of torn flesh and serrated muscle.
Mireille vented a relieved sigh as Vivienne faced her, neck smooth and unmarred. She looked exactly as Mireille remembered her.
Vivienne’s coal-black hair was coiled into a low bun, a severe part bisecting her skull. She wore a simple black shirt tucked into a pair of wool trousers.
Her cold, silver eyes swept across her daughter as she joined her at the table. Mireille could count on one hand the number of times her mother had looked upon her with anything resembling true affection.
Whatever was on the hearth continued to bubble and pop in the pot. It had a rich, mouthwatering scent—some kind of meat cooking in broth with a peppery punch of rosemary.
But there was something beneath it. Something game-y. Something that made Mireille’s mouth water at the same time as her stomach roiled with instinctual disgust.
“I had to do it.” Vivienne’s brows knit together in feigned regret. “It was the only way to protect you.” Vivienne grasped Mireille’s hand. Her mother’s fingers were ice-cold, another sign that this was not a true memory. They had always been so hot and dry, as if her wolf had evaporated any lingering moisture from her skin. “I didn’t want him to know you existed, but he tracked us down. He was always the most skilled of hunters.”
Mireille’s gaze caught on something in the window. A cloaked figure, its face half-hidden in shadow, emanating that same multicolored shimmer as Vivienne. Above its broad shoulders rose the pommel of a sword carved into the shape of a grinning skull.
The pale moon crested the figure’s head, a ghostly halo, and in a flashing blur, it moved to the door and began pounding.
“Do not worry,” Vivienne said, emotionless despite the frenzied thuds. “He cannot get you in here. He will never find you again.”
A thump shook the door, but the hinges held. A male voice roared from the other side. “Let me see her!”
“What is in the pot, mother?” Mireille whined, a tear slipping down her cheek.
Vivienne slapped her across the face. “What have I told you about crying? Do notevershow that weakness. You and I are strong, lone wolves.” Vivienne stood from her chair and knelt before Mireille, digging claws into her shoulders. Mireille cried harder. “Youmuststop, Mireille.”
