Ysabeau took a worn iron key from her pocket and fit it into the lock. She turned it and motioned Phoebe inside.
It took Phoebe’s eyes a few minutes to adjust to the changing level of light. This room had only a few small windows fitted with colored panes of glass. Phoebe took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes to help bring them into focus.
“Is this another storeroom?” Phoebe asked, wondering what treasures it might contain.
But the stale air and faint scent of wax soon told her this room had a different purpose. This was the de Clermont chapel—and crypt.
A large stone sarcophagus occupied the center of the small chapel. A handful of other coffins were set into alcoves in the walls. So, too, were objects: shields, swords, pieces of armor.
“Humans think we live in dark places like this,” Ysabeau said. “They are more right than they know. My Philippe is here, in the center of the room as he was once at the center of our family and my world. One day, I will be buried here with him.”
Phoebe looked at Ysabeau in surprise.
“None of us is immune to death, Phoebe,” Ysabeau said, as if she could hear Phoebe’s thoughts.
“Stella thinks we are. She didn’t understand why no one would save Dad,” Phoebe said. “I’m not sure I understand myself. I just knew he wouldn’t like it—that it would be wrong.”
“You cannot make every person you love into a vampire,” Ysabeau said. “Marcus tried, and it almost destroyed him.”
Phoebe knew about New Orleans and had met those of Marcus’s children who survived.
“Stella may have been the first human to ask you to save someone’s life, but she won’t be the last,” Ysabeau continued. “You must be prepared to say no, again and again, as you did last night. Saying no takes courage—far more courage than saying yes.”
Ysabeau took Phoebe’s arm again, and resumed their walk.
“People wonder what it takes to become a vampire.” Ysabeau gave Phoebe a sidelong glance. “Do you know what I tell them?”
Phoebe shook her head, intrigued.
“To be a vampire you must choose life—your life, not someone else’s—over and over again, day after day,” Ysabeau said. “You must choose it over sleep, over peace, over grief, over death. In the end, it is our relentless drive to live that defines us. Without that, we are nothing but a nightmare or a ghost: a shadow of the humans we once were.”
36
Ninety
10 AUGUST
Phoebe sat in Ysabeau’s salon, amid the blue and white porcelain, the gilded chairs, the silk upholstery, and the priceless works of art, and waited, again, for time to find her.
Baldwin strode into the room, his navy suit harmonizing with the room’s color scheme. Phoebe had picked her dress to stand out, however, rather than blend in. It was a bright shade of aquamarine, a color that symbolized loyalty and patience. It reminded her of her mother’s wedding clothes, and Marcus’s eyes, and the color of the sea when it returned to the shore.
“Baldwin.” Phoebe thought about rising and found she was already standing, offering a cheek to the head of her husband’s family.
“You look well, Phoebe,” Baldwin commented after he’d kissed her, his eyes surveying her from head to toe. “Ysabeau hasn’t been mistreating you, I see.”
Phoebe didn’t acknowledge his remark with a response. After the past several weeks, she would walk across deserts for Ysabeau, and was keeping a silent record of every slight uttered against the matriarch of the de Clermont clan.
Phoebe intended to settle those accounts one day.
“Where are your glasses?” Baldwin asked.
“I decided not to wear them today.” Phoebe was battling a headache, and every time the curtains blew she winced, but she was determined that her first long look at Marcus was going to be without any interference. When she’d seen him at the Salpêtrière, she had been too distracted by her father’s condition to pay any attention to her mate.
“Hello, Phoebe.” Miriam entered. She was not in her usual black leather and boots, but in a flowing skirt. Her long hair fell around her shoulders, and her neck, arms, and fingers were covered with heavy jewels.
“Excellent. We can get started,” Baldwin said. “Miriam, do you consent to your daughter’s decision to mate with Marcus, a member of my family and the Bishop-Clairmont scion, son of Matthew de Clermont?”
“Are you actually going to go through the entire betrothal ceremony?” Miriam demanded.