Page 52 of Marrying Bluebeard

I recall the blurry memory of her red eyes and glistening fangs hovering over me. The cold certainty that I was about to die. The regret.

I’d wasted the life my family so desperately wanted me to live.

“I woke to a stream of blue liquid trickling down my throat from an open vein on her wrist. Moments later my door was being broken down once again. This time by a group of masked figures. I’d later learn they were witches—a coven hailing all the way from Vienna. They’d been chasing Celeste for weeks and had finally caught up with her outside Strasbourg, where they’d begun laying the foundation for a binding curse. It would seem Celeste had drained the life of one of their own at the Mehigrube, in the early hours of the morning following the harlequin ball.”

The faces of my past wives parade through my memory, each one young and meek—grateful for even the smallest scrap of attention. “She’s always had a penchant for wallflowers,” I explain, clenching my fists in shame. They would never have come here had I not led them. Would never have been doomed to a life in that dreadful tower. “Little did she know that particular bloom was guarded by a host of thorns. It would have been her undoing, had she not prepared a fail-safe.”

My throat tightens as guilty shame overwhelms me, and I scrub a hand over my face as I struggle to speak the words that will damn me in Adelaide’s eyes forever. To my surprise, however, it’s not my voice that says them, but hers.

“She made you,” Adelaide whispers. “The liquid she forced you to drink was her blood. The same blood you kept in a flask—the tonic you forbid me to drink. It changed you, didn’t it? Made you like her.”

“No one’s like her, not truly,” I reply. “We share commonalities, of course. We’re both monsters who crave the taste of blood, abominations best left to the shadows. But she’s something more, something ancient. The power she holds over those in her thrall is unthinkably strong. Only distance can weaken it.”

Adelaide shakes her head. “I don’t understand. If she’s so powerful, why would she need a fail-safe? Why didn’t she simply cast the witches under her thrall and be done with them?” Her gaze skims my mouth, and I have no doubt the shiver that runs down her frame is due in part to the memory of me snarling at her in the castle. When she looks away, her voice is barely audible as she whispers, “Why involve you at all?”

I sit on the corner of the bed with a sigh, bracing my forearms against my thighs as I lean forward. “I asked myself the same question for years. Every time Celeste would send me out into the world on her behalf, I would use the opportunity to search for answers. I traced the coven back to its origin and was able to procure one of the member’s journals. It mentioned a medallion that could protect the wearer against the ‘“blood witch’s” mind powers. It was how they managed to capture her in the first place and ink the binding runes onto her skin. She escaped before they finished, however, and it would seem I was the first secluded fool she stumbled upon. She turned me into a weapon—an explosive on the verge of detonation—that only she could control. And when they stepped inside that shabby little room, she lit the fuse.”

I can still hear the witches’ screams and Celeste’s triumphant cackle. Can still recall the copper-tang of their blood on my tongue—my first feed as Celeste’s dutiful pet. It turns the contents of my stomach to acid, and I swallow the rising bile as I push the memory back down.

“She had you kill them,” Adelaide says. There’s no accusation in her voice, and yet her words twist in my gut like a dagger.

All I can do is nod.

Her brow furrows. “But if that’s true… how did she end up at your castle, bound to the tower?” She stands, taking over my previous pacing. “And why would the coven want to bind her in the first place? If they were able to restrain her long enough to ink runes or whatnot on her skin, why not, I don’t know, chop her head off or something? Surely she can be killed somehow.”

I should probably be shocked by her nonchalant suggestion of beheading, but I’m far too fascinated by the intensity in her expression, the way her nose scrunches up as she works things out in her head. As if there’s a mystery to be solved, and she’s determined to get to the bottom of it. Her gaze meets mine, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s expecting me to fill in the gaps.

I clear my throat. “Those are excellent questions.”

“Of course they are. As I’ve said, I’m a clever woman.”

“That you are.” I allow myself a brief moment to drink her in before supplying the answers she seeks. “And you’re right, of course. Celeste can be killed, though not easily. I believe decapitation and incineration of the body are required.”

Adelaide’s eyes widen, her hands flying up in exasperation. “Then why⁠—?”

“Because the moment she dies, she’s reborn,” I explain, releasing a frustrated sigh. “Death will only stall her, not stop her. Not for long. The witches in the coven knew that, so they came up with an alternative—binding her someplace no one could reach, somewhere no one could fall prey to her influence. The journal suggested they planned to seal her in a coffin and bury her deep underground.”

Adelaide gasps. “They were going to bury her alive? But that’s… that’s…”

“Cruel?” I give her a tight smile, the threads of fear I’ve been pointedly ignoring coiling around my neck like a noose. Spending an eternity buried alive is a torture beyond comprehension, and yet how else can you keep an immortal monster contained when its leash is severed? If I can take Celeste with me, it’ll be worth it. “No more cruel than playing with people’s minds and stealing their freedom of choice.”

“Perhaps a bit more cruel,” Adelaide mutters, looking unconvinced. She shakes her head. “So she can be killed, but it’s only temporary. That explains why they tried to bind her, but it doesn’t explain how she ended up locked in your family’s tower.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out the iron key I keep on my person at all times—a key to the tower. Turning it over in my hands, I swallow the growing lump in my throat. It’s been years since she’s taken over that room. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, not anymore. And yet my chest aches all the same. “When I was growing up, the North Tower was my sanctuary, my secret hideout. Or not-so-secret hideout, as apparently everyone in the household knew I liked to squirrel away up there with my spyglass and my books, acting out boyish fantasies and drowning in literary adventures. When my sister was old enough to be a viable playmate, she joined me there, taking on the role of vicious dragon to my heroic knight. It was our special place. After she died…”

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the tears away, but the memories are too bright, too sharp. The moisture runs along the crease of my eyelids until it can no longer be contained and a drop trickles down my face. A featherlight touch whisks it away.

My eyes fly open.

Adelaide is crouched in front of me, her hand hovering an inch away from my cheek. “I’m listening.”

“After she died,” I rasp, “I wore the key around my neck like a talisman. It was there that day, hanging over my heart as I tore through the witches like a feral beast, drenching myself in their blood. It was there as Celeste laughed and praised me, allowing me to drink from her wrist as a reward. It was there as I wiped my mouth, painting my palm sapphire blue. I grasped it out of habit, mixing Celeste’s blood with the blood of the coven and unwittingly finishing the ritual. I bound her to my most special place, and shackled myself even more tightly at the same time. She’s stuck in the tower, and I dwell at her beck and call, relying on her blood to keep myself sane as she devises new ways to punish me.”

But not for much longer. As selfish as my marriage to Adelaide was, it’s done what nothing else has before: it’s pushed me to be a better man. As the contents of the bottle I keep stored beneath the floorboards dwindle, so does my reprieve. Once I’ve seen Adelaide safely off in the carriage, I’ll return to the castle. And this time, neither I nor Celeste will be leaving.

My penance begins in the morning.

35