A shriek forced itself from my lips, and I tried to jerk back, but I was stuck. Chris grabbed me around the waist and heaved me up, but the fabric of my dress bunched and caught. I tried to pull my fingers from the skeleton, but my wrist wouldn’t bend enough, and the body shifted and moved with my jerky motions. “Get me out!”

He lifted me clear off the ground and pulled. Fabric tore and pain lanced through my arm, but then we were both tumbling back into the snow.

“What was it?” he demanded, eyes on the gap as though he expected a creature to rise up through it.

“A body.” My voice was shaking, and I rubbed my sore arm with my other hand.

Chris’s eyes shifted to me, and he was quiet for a long moment before saying, “City living has changed you.”

I flushed at his sarcasm, climbing to my feet.

“Write the names and dates down,” Chris said, going to the far side of the tomb to push the lid back into place. “Maybe once we find them all, we’ll see a pattern.”

I nodded uncertainly as I scribbled the names and dates on the back of the map with a pencil. “Let’s go find the rest.”

As the night progressed, we found tombs or graves matching all but two of the markings. One lay far to the south of the city, and the other was the location within the castle walls.

It was nearing the stroke of midnight when we pulled our horses up outside the Regent’s castle. Or at least as near to the castle as we could get. The Indre River roared its way down to the ocean, the bridge leading over it to the island gated, and the walls on the far side guarded by men, marked by the glowing braziers they used to keep themselves warm.

I’d gained entrance so easily yesterday, but tonight the castle’s fortifications did their duty. “She has to be here,” I said through chattering teeth. “Every other location has been a corpse – it has to be her.”

“It’s not proof,” Chris said, shaking the map in my face. “There’s the mark located outside the city that we need to investigate, and besides, for all we know, there could be another corpse hidden somewhere in the castle.”

The snow spun and danced on the wind, the tiny white flakes mesmerizing. She was in there. I knew it.

“Cécile!” Chris shouted my name. Disorientation made me dizzy, and I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“Get away from the gate!” someone shouted. I looked up and saw a soldier in one of the guard posts pointing at us. Though I had no memory of moving, I was now most of the way across the bridge, the guards in plain sight. Fleur shied toward the edge of the bridge, and I clung to her frozen mane, afraid if I lost my seat I’d topple into the icy waters below.