Seleste, Then

SEVENTY YEARS AGO

M erveille was a nightmare.

Seleste had been in the city solving a case regarding a missing heirloom and was caught in the mayhem of a funeral.

Everything Cal accomplished during his reign had all but evaporated under the rule of King Leopold and his heir, his nephew Frederic Peridot I. Over the last four decades in power, the tyrants had undone all of Cal's laws and put oppression back in place.

Leopold was even been rumoured to have tied a mixed-race couple to the legs of warhorses and had them dragged through the streets until they'd both torn open and perished.

Tragically, his nephew, Frederic, was no better.

How a vile monster like Frederic had been born of Elsie Bardot was beyond comprehension. But the young woman had died in childbirth with the boy, and he'd been raised solely by his abusive, childless uncle—Leopold, the distant cousin who had married Emmaline to further secure his position as heir to the throne after King Caliban.

Despite Cal's intervention while he was alive, Elsie's widower and his heir had never changed. Young Frederic had a violent temper like his deceased father and was sent away to be educated, though he'd returned as a man only more volatile. He had married and been the first in ages to produce a direct heir, his capricious behaviour was rampant.

Cal had been dead close to forty years, and all the lines he'd smudged were firmly drawn back with angry lines.

The aristocrats, clad in their funeral blacks opposed to their usual gaudy brightness, were dabbing their eyes. Meanwhile, the lower class stood at the back of the crowds, heads bent and a thick fear stooping shoulders as King Leopold was lowered into his coffin.

Seleste watched as the young Prince Frederic II shifted from foot to foot, his mother, Queen Ana?s, and his advisors prodding him, whispering in his ear until he stopped fidgeting. Perhaps this prince would someday right the wrongs of his great uncle and the new king, who was already ageing rapidly.

Seleste looked back over those gathered in dark robes around Prince Frederic II, her heart sinking. He would only bring change as Cal had if he could stand against the advisors of old and the new ones they were rumoured to appoint in the wake of the former king's death. A chill ran up her arms and Seleste hugged her cloak tighter, looking up at the dimmed-for-daylight Strawberry Moon that would soon give way to Reaping.

King Leopold's coffin was slowly lowered into a ceremonial grave. Walking forward on shuffling feet, King Frederic I and Prince Frederic II tossed in handfuls of dirt, the soil landing with a thunk on the coffin's polished wood. Soon, more words would be spoken and the crowds would finally disperse. Then, the king's coffin would be lifted from the liturgical grave and he would be taken to his final resting place—the Royal Seagovian Crypt.

Something moved in the tree above Seleste, the full branches swaying. The leaves would soon begin to die and fall, and she would hand the Grimoire to Aggie again. One of the branches creaked unnaturally as if something heavy was perched on it. Squinting against the sunlight, Seleste strained her neck to see up in the tree.

Stifling a gasp, she clapped a hand over her mouth. There was Aggie, perched in the tree like a raven, a glimmer of magic cloaking her.

What in Hades?

She needed to get as far from her Sister as she could before something terrible happened. They'd never tested it—being together outside of the Solstice or Equinox—but she wasn't inclined to try it now, with hundreds of people gathered at a royal funeral.

Pulling her hood low, Seleste snaked through the crowd and into the graveyard. She would visit the royal crypt, cloaked in her magic before the procession toward it for King Leopold would begin.

She'd almost reached it, skirting a fresh grave when she caught a flash of copper hair and a pair of bat wings. Seleste doubled her cloaking magic, hidden from even her Sister's eyes, and slunk closer, watching as Aggie darted past guards unaware of her.

Sister Autumn slowed as she reached the crypt, running a hand over it tenderly. Toward the back of the stone mausoleum, Aggie stopped completely. Pressing her hand to the stone, she lowered her head against it solemnly. "I'm sorry," her lips mouthed.

Sorry? What could Aggie have to be sorry for?

Then, Seleste watched as her Sister Autumn made her way through the cemetery toward the main road leaving Merveille. Mabon flitted around above her head as she stopped at the edge of the road where it met the graveyard. Aggie stooped at a small, unmarked grave, and sat.

Seleste watched her Sister until the sky darkened, promising rain. Her magic felt strange, volatile. She blinked and Aggie was gone, the sun beginning to peek out as the clouds dispersed as quickly as they'd come.

Baffled, Seleste traced Aggie's footsteps to the crypt, eyeing where she had stopped. Then, Seleste slipped into the crypt, eerily quiet but not for much longer.

There was a slab cut out, awaiting the fresh corpse it would hold for eternity. Next to it, precisely where Aggie had whispered her apology from the outside, the plaque read King Caliban.

Aggie had never expressed any allegiance to the monarchy. In fact, she loathed it. What was she doing at King Leopold's funeral? Why was she so apologetic for the death of Cal that happened forty years ago?

As sudden as a tidal wave, it all made sense.

Aggie's depression. Her hidden trauma these last decades. Her isolation and anger.

Cal's assassin never found. The only lead a lone, red hair.

Aggie's killing calm .

" Hespa ," Seleste breathed, sinking to her knees on the crypt's cold stone floor. "Hespa, help my Sister."

She should hate Aggie for this, for taking Cal. But she knew…she knew Aggie was broken. Aggie was controlled by the Grimoire as much as the rest of them. There was no way her Sister would have done anything like that of her own accord.

Did it have something to do with Seleste's Order to give Cal the potion all those years ago? Did it have something to do with the string of deaths that led to Cal being king at all?

Someone was coming. She had to get out.

And she had to ensure that her Sister never found out it was Seleste's Summer boy she'd killed.