Chapter 138: In Eden 1
MARGAUX
Laurent crouched beside Chris, securing cuffs around his wrist and ankle as he lay on the floor. The metal closed with a soft, final click, and Chris flinched sharply at the sound, recoiling from the cold bite of restraint.
"This is not a punishment," Laurent said, not unkindly. "It is a precaution. If you are under a spell, I cannot have you putting your hands on anyone else until we understand what we are dealing with."
"I am not under any spell." Chris pulled against the restraint, his voice raw. "Margaux, I am not—"
I did not look at him.
I could not, not yet, not while the image of that mark on his throat seared itself into my mind—raw, twisted, a thing that defied the natural world. No amount of his certainty could erase what I had witnessed.
Laurent handed me the tablet.
"Here," he said. "Watch from the beginning."
The footage flickered to life in the dim, deserted corridor outside Séverine’s room. Suddenly, she burst into view, running, her robe barely holding together, fear carved into every frantic motion. I had watched this scene before, Étienne’s anger simmering beside me, but this time my eyes hunted for something new.
There he was.
There he was: the man with the strange blue eyes, the one who had vanished the instant I touched him in that first corridor encounter. He drifted through the footage with the same effortless calm I remembered, helping Prim by lifting Séverine, choking her, and breaking her hand with chilling, detached cruelty.
"Can you see him?" I asked. "This time, can you actually see him?"
Laurent leaned closer to the screen, his brow furrowing with genuine effort. "No. I see Séverine. I see Prim. I do not see anything else in that frame."
I leaned back, letting the contradiction whirl through my thoughts.
"That is strange, is it not?" I said. "Why would he hide himself, yet Prim chose to remain fully visible? If they wanted to play it safe, why not have her stay invisible the entire time and leave no trace of her involvement?"
"That is a fair question." Laurent rubbed his jaw. "I would say that we can add to the conversation that we have you now, and they figured there was no point. But that would just be my opinion, not rooted in any facts. Because... let us face it... What do we actually know about witches, beyond what shows up in old fairy tales told to frighten children?"
I was never really interested in witches, and I did not even know these old fairytales. But Laurent continued anyway.
"Honestly, not much," he admitted. "They are a species that hides itself thoroughly. Far removed from supernatural society, by choice as much as by necessity. From what little I have gathered over the years, they tend to be apathetic toward the affairs of others and are capable of considerable cruelty when it suits their purposes."
"I think that might be exactly the issue," I said. "We are missing something fundamental about how they operate. Something that would make all of this make sense."
I kept watching the footage.
The invisible man’s movements halted abruptly just as Prim, after all her cruelty, slipped out of the frame. He lingered, unmoving. Seconds ticked by with him standing alone in the empty corridor, doing nothing, before he finally stirred and moved on.
"Did you see something?" Laurent asked, catching the shift in my expression.
"Yes." I pointed at the frozen frame. "He came back. After Prim left, he lingered here for several seconds before leaving himself. I half expected him to hurt her further, finish what the attack started. But he did not. He just stood there and then walked away." I looked at Laurent. "That is odd, is it not?"
"It is." He considered it for a long moment. "I have been thinking we should check the library. Each generation of Valcourt Alphas kept their own personal shelf of texts, collected over their lifetimes. Perhaps something in one of them addresses witches more thoroughly than what either of us currently knows."
"Let us go, then."
Laurent glanced back at Chris, still shackled on the floor, his face a portrait of weary frustration edged with resignation.
"Think carefully about your actions," he told him.
I crossed to Chris before following Laurent out, kneeling beside him despite everything that had happened in this room only minutes earlier.
"Whatever they did to you," I said quietly, "I will fix it. I promise you that."
He looked at me, something fragile and grateful flickering across his face before I stood and turned away, following Laurent out into the corridor.
We walked toward the library in silence, my mind circling the footage, the invisible man’s odd hesitation, the mark on Chris’s throat that had vanished as swiftly as it appeared.
"I already went through Alpha Arthur’s shelf," Laurent said as we walked. "Alpha Jules’s as well, and most of Alpha Baptiste’s, after your second attack. I found nothing useful in any of them."
"Then would this not be a waste of time," I said, "if there is a real chance none of these shelves contain anything about witches at all?" I glanced at him. "I think our energy might be better spent convincing Étienne to have Prim taken alive for questioning, rather than executed the moment they find her."
"About that." Laurent’s expression shifted slightly. "Étienne has currently been stripped of his authority by his father. I spoke with Céline directly and convinced her to instruct the sentinels to only use excessive force if the situation becomes genuinely dangerous. Prim will be taken alive, assuming the sentinels follow that instruction properly. They seemed a bit agitated that Céline was now ruling Luna."
A pang of pain struck me for Céline. Shifter society would never change. Yet the news about Prim loosened something tight in my chest, if only a little.
We reached the library and pushed open the heavy doors, stepping into the familiar scent of old paper and dust, the aroma woven deep into the wood by generations.
I turned a corner too quickly and collided with someone.
"I am so sorry," I said immediately, stepping back.
The man before me wore clothes that belonged in a museum, not a modern estate: a high collar, an embroidered waistcoat, his entire appearance conjured straight from a regency-era portrait.
"No worries at all," he said pleasantly. "Usually, people simply walk through me entirely."
"You are rather hard to miss," I said, before I had fully processed the strangeness of his statement.
I glanced toward Laurent, expecting him to share in my confusion about the man’s outfit at the very least.
Laurent was looking at me like I had lost my mind.
"Who are you talking to?" he asked.
"What do you mean?" I turned back toward the man, gesturing at him. "Him. You do not see him?"
"It is rude to point," the man said, swaying slightly away from my extended finger with an expression of mild offense.
I lowered my hand slowly, looking between Laurent’s bewildered face and the apparition standing calmly in front of me.
"My name," the man said, straightening his already immaculate collar, "is Amine Valcourt. Alpha Amine Valcourt."
"Amine Valcourt," I repeated slowly, the name unfamiliar on my tongue.
Laurent’s eyes went wide.
"That is Alpha Dorian’s great-grandfather."