woman's eyes flew open, locking their abyssal gaze on Marguerite.
Marguerite froze, suddenly paralyzed. Her mouth fell open, and she felt a cry welling up inside her-but no scream came. A motion flickered at the edge of her awareness; the woman's hand was rising out of the water, the long fingers uncurling slowly, opening like a flower.
Marguerite jerked back, screaming. She turned and fled, shielding her candle with her hand as she climbed the stair. Too frightened to look back even after she reached the top, she rushed into the crypts and slammed the door shut. She would have barred it, had there been the means.
Instead, she scurried past Valeska's crypt, through the tomb and out into the hall, also closing this door behind her. Only then did she stop to breathe, pressing her back to the wood as if to bar it. Her chest heaved like a bellows. Her candle flickered madly, filling the hallway with spasms of light.
Wait, she told herself. What if the woman is alive? Marguerite could not imagine someone surviving a journey through an underground stream, but neither could she imagine a drowned corpse raising a hand to gesture at her.
Perhaps the Vistana needed help. If that were so, Marguerite couldn't abandon her. Guilt woutd haunt her forever-if not the woman herself. Marguerite pressed her ear to the door but heard only the silence of crypts beyond.
She had to know. She put her hand to the latch and lifted it, then gingerly pushed the door open-just a crack. Nothing happened. What had she expected? Her mind was playing tricks on her; she had only imagined the open eyes, the fixed stare, the dead woman's subtle, welcoming smile. , Maybe, just maybe, Marguerite had imagined the entire body. After all, Donskoy had forced his hookah smoke upon her; who knew what effects it might have had? Perhaps she had experienced a kind of strange waking dream, brought on by the hookah and the foul dungeon air.
Marguerite pinched herself hard and winced. Then she opened the door and slowly retraced her steps through the crypt. She paused by Valeska's tomb to gather her courage. The sound of her own breathing echoed through the vault. She clenched her jaw and opened the next door, then stepped onto the stair, holding her candle out toward the dark stream.
There was no corpse, at least not where Marguerite could see. Grinding her teeth, she descended the stair, then walked along the bank until she had inspected the entire surface of the small stream. The woman was gone.
Perhaps the body had been caught by a current and dragged downstream. Else it had been sucked under the surface and now lingered somewhere below, waiting for its chance to re-emerge. Marguerite didn't like the thought of that. She turned to leave.
When she came to the top of the stair, she saw that the door had swung shut, though she couldn't recall the sound. No matter; she put her shoulder to the wood and pushed. It held fast. Frantic, she pushed again. Then she laughed. She reached for the latch and pushed a third time. The door swung open with ease. As she stepped past and closed it from the other side, she felt something cold on the back of her hand. It was a sticky black fluid, dripping from the door in a sort of pattern. The pattern looked vaguely familiar- three lines slanting down to the left, running parallel until they intersected a fourth. Like three lines of wind-driven rain, striking the ground. What was it-a devil's mark? And who had left it? Had someone lurked here in this room while she explored beyond? Could Griezell have made such a sign? She raised her candle, scanning the vault around her, but she was alone; only the epitaphs of the dead shone in the light.
Marguerite rubbed the ooze on her skirt. Then she hurried from the tombs, scurrying up out of dungeon and into the keep proper, up the winding stairs, past the low-burning torch now hissing and spitting black smoke. She came to the dismal room with the nest of blind mice and the secret passage to her own locked chamber, then winced at the loud creak as she opened the door and went inside. Crouching beside the stone wall, she searched for the trigger. The passage opened, and she went through, emerging at last in her own room. All the candles still burned in their holders, a dozen warm buds of light. The fire crackled in the hearth. The chamber seemed warm and welcoming. Even safe.
Marguerite caught her reflection in the mirror. The scarlet dress was soiled and torn. Moreover, her hair was slightly singed; she could smell its bitter scent. She must have been careless. She set down the offending candle and peeled off her soiled gown, then remembered the spare candle in her garter. It was gone. No matter; a stray candle was hardly incriminating. She pulled a shawl around her chemise, then put a kettle on the fire and began combing the cobwebs from her hair. She stared at the red silken heap on the floor. Maybe Yelena could save the dress. And if Donskoy asked her to wear it again tomorrow? Well, she couldn't.
Marguerite picked up the rumpled gown and stuffed it into the back of her wardrobe cabinet. Her hand met something square and solid. The book. She had forgotten it completely. In the cabinet lay the fire-scarred manuscript titled Van Rich ten's Guide to the Vistani, still wrapped in its black shroud, where she had hidden it just before Ekhart arrived to take her to the chapel.
She extracted the parcel and carried it to the hearth, laying it on the table beside her favorite chair. Then she took the kettle off the fire, filled her wash basin, and scrubbed the grime from her hands and face. A strange noise, like the flutter of bird wings, sounded behind her. She turned and saw Van Richten 's Guide lying open, its pages turning as though stirred by a draft.
But the air in her chamber was still.
Marguerite drew in a short gasp, then stepped over to the charred tome. The wash cloth slipped from her trembling hand. On the sooty page before her lay a section marked 'traiaks.' At the top was a square enclosing a dot: marked by lord. Below it was the sigil she had seen in the crypt, three lines intersecting the ground. The caption beside it read: cursed.
Her stomach knotted in fear.
it was no coincidence that Griezell had shown her the way to the crypts, then disappeared. Someone had meant her to encounter the body, to see the sigil, to find its meaning in this book. But who? And was she the one cursed? She had done nothing to deserve such a fate. Perhaps Destiny had singied her out with its bony, pointing finger. Perhaps. .
Cursed,
She crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to her neck. Sleep would not come easily.
NINE
Marguerite slept fitfully, turning in her bed until her body had dug itself a linen grave. She dreamed of a Vistana, a black-haired hellion, who opened her coal-dark eyes and rose from the icy stream deep beneath the castle. Slowly the woman came, a dark goddess ascending, drifting up the stairs and gliding through the halls until at last she stood outside Marguerite's door. Mere wood could not prevent the gypsy's passage; she entered. Her red lips parted, whispering words in soft, even measure: The seed he has sown. She raised her white, slender finger toward Marguerite, who lay paralyzed in her bed. The seed he has sotvn shall seal his damnation. And the apparition came nearer, with arms outstretched, slipping over Marguerite's body like a cold, black shadow, sealing her in a tomb.
* * * * *
'Marguerite.'
The voice came to her from above, from nowhere, deep and commanding.
'Marguerite, you must rise.'
She struggled to lift herself from the depths. Her eyes fluttered open, and she squinted at the light. It was morning. The curtains on the right side of her bed had been parted, and Lord Donskoy loomed in the gap.
'Good morning,' he said brightly- He was smiling. 'Rise, my fair one. I have summoned Zosia to look after your welfare.'
'My welfare?' Marguerite asked groggily, rising to her elbows. The vestiges of her dream flitted at the edge of her awareness, taunting her, but the phantom before her demanded her attention. She puzzled over Donskoy's words. 'But I am not ill.'
Donskoy gave a feeble laugh. 'No. Your stock is too strong for that to happen, after mere days in my company. But you may be with child.'
Marguerite pulled herself up from the pit, resting against the pillows. The fragments of her dream
