Midnight Strikes by Zeba Shahnaz

Author:Zeba Shahnaz [Shahnaz, Zeba]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

The last moment of my life breaks apart in my memory like it, too, suffered a mortal wound. It splinters my latest murderer until he is just shards of bone, no different from those of the kings who saw me through death.

The person who gave the command must have been Faucher himself. I didn’t expect he would be down there so early in the night, but maybe his task was important enough that he didn’t trust his followers with it. Maybe he was taking the smuggled bombs into the open, beyond the catacombs’ heightened magical protections. But who fired the shot? Someone in the palace already? A courtier? A servant? One of Faucher’s men in disguise?

I abandon that train of thought as quickly as it comes to me. That is not the most pressing mystery I now have on my hands.

Or rather, around my neck.

Perched before the silver-backed mirror in my room, I undo the chain and set the locket down on the vanity. I don’t know if I’m imagining it after my last death in the catacombs, but I can almost sense its dormant power. Like a pinprick of a chill in the depths of summer—unlike the Aubanel daggers, which only flare to life when called upon.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have guessed that the little opal locket I’ve worn since I was a child bore any kind of power, but Clara identified it after only an hour or two in my company. Now there’s no use in me wasting time on a scheme to get into her good graces again just to ask her about the locket.

Not when I can ask the person who gave it to me.

“Does Papa know you’re hiding a blessed object from him?”

Maman barely glances sideways from the selection of gloves that Béatrice is setting out on my bed for her inspection. “My family lost all of our blessed objects in the conquest, you know that.”

The chain rattles in my hand as I give it a good shake in her direction. “Then what the hell is this?”

“Such dramatics, Anaïs. This behavior is really not becoming for a young lady.”

“Tell me, or I’m not going to the ball. What is this?”

She turns my way at last, hands on her hips, affront in the straight line of her brows. “What kind of question is that? You’ve had the locket for years and never once—”

Because I was a fool. “I’m asking now.” For some reason, the image of Leo throwing himself against me in a futile attempt to save us both hovers behind my eyes. “Tell me what I need to know.”

She shifts where she stands, either frustrated or uneasy. “I really don’t—”

“Please, Maman. The truth.”

For the first time all afternoon, perhaps the first time in years, she actually looks at me. Past her vision of who she wants me to be. Straight through to the desperate girl shaking like a leaf in a summer breeze, begging for something real.

At last, she dismisses Béatrice with a murmur, and when she closes the door behind her, she huffs and settles down on the bed.

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