Blood & Honey

by Shelby Mahurin

  My voice hardened. “Lou—”

  “Just leave it alone,” she snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it.” We glared at each other for a long moment—me rubbing my bruised rib mutinously—before she visibly deflated. “Look, forget I said anything. It’s not important right now. The others will be up soon, and we can start planning. I’m fine. Really.”

  But she wasn’t fine. And neither was I.

  God. I just wanted to hold her.

  I scrubbed an agitated hand down my face before glancing at Madame Labelle. She still slept. Even Beau had burrowed back into his bedroll, oblivious to the world once more. Right. Before I could change my mind, I hauled Lou into my arms. The stream wasn’t far. We could be there and back before anyone realized we’d gone. “It’s not tomorrow yet.”

  A Warning Bell

  Reid

  Lou floated atop the water in lazy contentment. Her eyes shut. Her arms spread wide. Her hair thick and heavy around her. Snowflakes fell gently. They gathered in her eyelashes, on her cheeks. Though I’d never seen a melusine—only read of them in Saint-Cécile’s ancient tombs—I imagined they looked like her in this moment. Beautiful. Ethereal.

  Naked.

  We’d shed our clothing at the icy banks of the pool. Absalon had materialized shortly after, burrowing into them. We didn’t know where he went when he lost corporeal form. Lou cared more than I did.

  “Magic has its advantages, doesn’t it?” she murmured, trailing a finger through the water. Steam curled at the contact. “All of our fun bits should be frozen right now.” She grinned and peeked an eye open. “Do you want me to show you?”

  I arched a brow. “I have quite the view from here.”

  She smirked. “Pig. I meant magic.” When I said nothing, she tipped forward, treading water. She couldn’t touch the bottom of the pool, not as I could. The water lapped at my throat. “Do you want to learn how to heat water?” she asked.

  This time, I was ready for it. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t hesitate. I did, however, swallow hard. “Sure.”

  She studied me through narrowed eyes. “You aren’t exactly emanating enthusiasm over there, Chass.”

  “My mistake.” I sank lower in the water, swimming toward her slowly. Wolfishly. “Please, O Radiant One, exhibit your great magical prowess. I cannot wait another moment to witness it, or I’ll surely die. Will that suffice?”

  “That’s more like it,” she sniffed, lifting her chin. “Now, what do you know about magic?”

  “The same as I did last month.” Had it only been a month since she’d last asked that question? It felt like a lifetime. Everything was different now. Part of me wished it wasn’t. “Nothing.”

  “Rubbish.” She opened her arms as I went to her, and I brought them around my neck. Her legs locked around my waist. The position should’ve been carnal, but it wasn’t. It was just . . . intimate. This close, I could count every freckle on her nose. I could see the water droplets clinging to her lashes. It took all my resolve not to kiss her again. “You know more than you think. You’ve been around your mother, Coco, and me for the greater part of a fortnight, and on Modraniht, you—” She stopped abruptly, then faked an elaborate bout of coughing. My heart plummeted to my feet. And on Modraniht, you killed the Archbishop with magic. She cleared her throat. “I—I just know you’ve been paying attention. Your mind is a steel trap.”

  “A steel trap,” I echoed, retreating into that fortress once more.

  She didn’t know how right she was.

  It took several seconds to realize she was waiting for my response. I looked away, unable to face those eyes. They were blue now. Almost gray. So familiar. So . . . betrayed.

  As if reading my thoughts, the trees rustled around us, and on the wind, I swore I heard his whispered voice—

  You were like a son to me, Reid.

  Gooseflesh erupted across my skin.

  “Did you hear that?” I whipped my head around, clutching Lou closer. No gooseflesh marred her skin. “Did you hear him?”

  She stopped talking mid-sentence. Her entire body tensed, and she looked around with wide eyes. “Who?”

  “I—I thought I heard—” I shook my head. It couldn’t have been. The Archbishop was dead. A figment of my imagination come to life to haunt me. Between one blink and the next, the trees fell resolutely still, and the breeze—if there’d been one at all—fell silent. “Nothing.” I shook my head harder, repeating the word as if that would make it true. “It was nothing.”

  And yet . . . in the sharp pine-scented air . . . a presence lingered. A sentience. It watched us.

  You’re being ridiculous, I chided myself.

  I didn’t release my hold on Lou.

  “The trees in this forest have eyes,” she whispered, repeating Madame Labelle’s earlier words. She still looked around warily. “They can . . . see things, inside your head, and twist them. Manifest fears into monsters.” She shuddered. “When I fled the first time—the night of my sixteenth birthday—I thought I was going mad. The things I saw . . .”

  She trailed off, her gaze turning inward.

  I hardly dared breathe. She’d never told me this before. Never told me anything about her past outside Cesarine. Despite her bare skin against mine, she wore secrets like armor, and she shed them for no one. Not even me. Especially not me. The rest of the scene fell away—the pool, the trees, the wind—and there was only Lou’s face, her voice, as she lost herself in the memory. “What did you see?” I asked softly.

  She hesitated. “Your brothers and sisters.”

  A sharp intake of breath.

  My own.

  “It was horrible,” she continued after a moment. “I was blind with panic, bleeding everywhere. My mother was stalking me. I could hear her voice through the trees—her spies, she’d once laughed—but I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I just knew I had to get away. The screams started then. Bloodcurdling ones. A hand shot out of the ground and grabbed my ankle. I fell, and this—this corpse climbed out on top of me.” A wave of nausea rolled through me at the imagery, but I didn’t dare interrupt. “He had golden hair, and his throat—it looked like mine. He clawed at me, begged me to help him—except his voice wasn’t right, of course, because of the”—she touched her hand to her scar—“the blood. I managed to get away from him, but there were others. So many others.” Her hands fell from my neck to float between us. “I’ll spare you the gory details. None of it was real, anyway.”

  I stared at her palms faceup in the water. “You said the trees are Morgane’s spies.”

  “That’s what she claimed.” She lifted an absent hand. “Don’t worry, though. Madame Labelle hides us inside camp, and Coco—”

  “But they still saw us just now. The trees.” I seized her wrist, examining the smear of blood. Already, the water had eroded it in places. I glanced at my own wrists. “We need to leave. Right away.”

  Lou stared at my clean skin in horror. “Shit. I told you to keep an eye on—”

  “Believe it or not, I had other things on my mind,” I snapped, hauling her toward the bank. Stupid. We’d been so stupid. Too distracted, too wrapped up in each other—in today—to realize the danger. She squirmed as she tried to free herself. “Stop it!” I tried to hold her flailing limbs. “Keep your wrists and throat above the water, or we’re both—”

  She stilled in my arms.

  “Thank you—”

  “Shut up,” she hissed, staring intently over my shoulder. I’d barely turned—just glimpsing patches of blue coats through the trees—before she shoved my head underwater.

  It was dark at the bottom of the pool. Too dark to see anything but Lou’s face—muted and pale in the water. She held my shoulders in a bruising grip, cutting off the circulation. When I shrugged beneath her touch, uncomfortable, she clung tighter, shaking her head. She still stared over my shoulder, her eyes wide and—and empty. Combined with her pale skin and floating hair, the effect was . . . eerie.

&nbs
p; I shook her slightly. Her eyes didn’t focus.

  I shook her again. She scowled, her hands biting deeper into my skin.

  If I could’ve managed, I would’ve breathed a sigh of relief. But I couldn’t.

  My lungs were screaming.

  I hadn’t had time to draw breath before she’d pushed me under, hadn’t been able to brace myself against the sudden, piercing cold. Icy fingers raked my skin, stunning my senses. Stealing my senses. Whatever magic Lou had cast to warm the water had vanished. Debilitating numbness crept up my fingers. My toes. Panic swiftly followed.

  And then—just as suddenly—my eyesight blinked out.

  The world went black.

  I thrashed against Lou’s hold, loosening the little breath I had left, but she clung to me, wrapping her limbs around my torso and squeezing, anchoring us to the bottom of the pool. Bubbles exploded around us as I fought. She held me with unnatural strength, rubbing her cheek against mine like she meant to—to calm me. To comfort me.

  But she was drowning us both, and my chest was too tight, my throat closing. There was no calm. There was no comfort. My limbs grew heavier with each passing second. In a last, desperate attempt, I pushed upward from the ground with all my strength. At the jerk of Lou’s body, the silt solidified around my feet. Trapping me.

  Then she punched me in the mouth.

  I rocked backward—bewildered, my thoughts fading to black—and prepared for the water to rush in, to fill my lungs and end this agony. Perhaps it’d be peaceful, to drown. I’d never given it thought. When I’d imagined my own death, it’d been at the end of a sword. Perhaps twisted and broken by a witch’s hand. Violent, painful endings. Drowning would be better. Easier.

  At the breaking point, my body inhaled involuntarily. I closed my sightless eyes. Wrapped my arms around Lou, buried my nose in her neck. At least Morgane wouldn’t have us. At least I wouldn’t know life without her. Small victories. Important ones.

  But the water never came. Instead, impossibly crisp air flooded my mouth, and with it, the sweetest relief. Though I still couldn’t see—though the cold remained debilitating—I could breathe. I could think. Coherency returned in a disorienting wave. I took another deep breath. Then another, and another. This—this was impossible. I was breathing underwater. Like Jonah’s fish. Like the melusines. Like—

  Like magic.

  A sliver of disappointment pierced my chest. Inexplicable and swift. Despite the water around me, I felt . . . dirty, somehow. Sordid. I’d loathed magic my entire life, and now—now it was the only thing saving me from those I’d once called brothers. How had it come to this?

  Voices broke around us, interrupting my thoughts. Clear ones. Each rang out as if we stood beside its owner on the shore, not moored beneath feet of water. More magic.

  “God, I need a piss.”

  “Not in the pool, you idiot! Go downstream!”

  “Be quick about it.” A third voice, this one impatient. “Captain Toussaint expects us in the village soon. One last search, and we leave at first light.”

  “Thank God he’s eager to return to his girl.” One of them rubbed his palms together against the cold. My brow furrowed. His girl? “Can’t say I’m sorry to leave this wretched place. Days of patrols with nothing to show for them except frostbite and—”

  A fourth voice. “Are those . . . clothes?”

  Lou’s fingernails drew blood now. I barely felt it. My heartbeat roared in my ears. If they examined the clothing, if they lifted my coat and shirt, they’d find my bandolier.

  They’d find my Balisarda.

  The voices grew louder as the men drew closer. “Two piles, it looks like.”

  A pause.

  “Well, they can’t be in there. The water is too cold.”

  “They’d freeze to death.”

  Behind sightless eyes, I imagined them inching closer to the water, searching its shallow blue depths for signs of life. But trees kept the pool shaded—even in the rising sun—and silt kept the water clouded. The snowfall would’ve covered our footsteps.

  Finally, the first muttered, “No one can hold their breath this long.”

  “A witch could.”

  Another pause, this one longer than the last. More ominous. I held my breath, counted each rapid beat of my heart.

  Tha-thump.

  Tha-thump.

  Tha-thump.

  “But . . . these are men’s clothes. Look. Trousers.”

  A haze of red cut through the unending blackness. If they found my Balisarda, I’d tear my feet from the silt by force. Even if it meant losing said feet.

  Tha-thump.

  Tha-thump.

  I would not yield my Balisarda.

  Tha-thump.

  I’d incapacitate them all.

  Tha-thump.

  I would not lose it.

  “Do you think they drowned?”

  “Without their clothes?”

  “You’re right. The more logical explanation is that they’re wandering around naked in the snow.”

  Tha-thump.

  “Perhaps a witch pulled them under.”

  “By all means, go in and check.”

  An indignant snort. “It’s freezing. And who knows what could be lurking in there? Anyway, if a witch did pull them under, they’ll have drowned by now. No sense in adding my corpse to the pile.”

  “Some Chasseur you are.”

  “I don’t see you volunteering.”

  Tha-thump.

  A distant part of my brain realized my heartbeat was slowing. It recognized the creeping cold down my arms, up my legs. It pealed a warning bell. Lou’s grip around my chest slowly loosened. I tightened my arms on her in response. Whatever she was doing to keep us breathing, to strengthen our hearing—it was draining her. Or perhaps it was the cold. Either way, I could feel her fading. I had to do something.

  Instinctively, I sought the darkness I’d felt only once before. The chasm. The void. That place where I’d fallen as Lou lay dying, that place I’d carefully locked away and ignored. I fumbled to free it now, reaching blindly through my subconscious. But it wasn’t there. I couldn’t find it. Panic escalating, I tipped Lou’s head back and brought my mouth to hers. Forced my breath into her lungs. Still I searched, but there were no golden cords here. There were no patterns. There was only freezing water and sightless eyes and Lou—Lou’s head drooping against my arm, her grip slipping from my shoulders, her chest stilling against mine.

  I shook her, my panic transforming to raw, debilitating fear, and wracked my brain for something—anything—I could do. Madame Labelle had mentioned balance. Perhaps—perhaps I could—

  Pain knifed through my lungs before I could finish the thought, and I gasped. Water flooded my mouth. My vision returned abruptly, and the silt around my feet disbanded, which meant—

  Lou had lost consciousness.

  I didn’t pause to think, to watch the gold flickering in my periphery take shape. Clutching her limp body, I launched to the surface.

  Pretty Porcelain

  Lou

  Heat radiated through my body. Slowly at first, then all at once. My limbs tingled almost painfully, nagging me back into consciousness. Cursing the pinpricks—and the snow, and the wind, and the coppery stench in the air—I groaned and opened my eyes. My throat felt raw, tight. Like someone had shoved a hot poker down it while I slept. “Reid?” The word came out a croak. I coughed—horrible, wet sounds that rattled my chest—and tried again. “Reid?”

  Cursing when he didn’t respond, I rolled over.

  A strangled shriek tore from my throat, and I reeled backward.

  A lifeless Chasseur stared back at me. His skin was bloodless against the icy shore of the pool, as most of said blood had melted the snow beneath him, seeping into the earth and water. His three companions hadn’t fared much better. Their corpses littered the bank, surrounded by Reid’s discarded knives.

  Reid.

  “Fuck!” I scrambled to my knees, hands flutter
ing over the enormous, copper-haired figure on my other side. He lay facedown against the snow with his pants haphazardly laced, his arm and head shoved through his shirt as if he’d collapsed before he could finish dressing.

  I rolled him over with another curse. His hair had frozen against his blood-spattered face, and his skin had turned an ashen blue-gray. Oh god.

  Oh god oh god oh god

  Pressing a frantic ear against his chest, I nearly wept with relief when I heard a heartbeat. It was weak, but it was there. My own heart pounded a traitorous beat in my ears—healthy and strong—and my own hair and skin were impossibly warm and dry. Realization swept through me in a wave of nausea. The idiot had almost killed himself trying to save me.

  I flattened my palms against his chest, and gold exploded before me in a web of infinite possibilities. I skipped through them hastily—too panicked to delay, to think about the consequences—and stopped when a memory unfolded in my mind’s eye: my mother brushing my hair the night before my sixteenth birthday, the tenderness in her gaze, the warmth of her smile.

  Warmth.

  Be safe, my darling, while we part. Be safe until we meet again.

  Will you remember me, Maman?

  I could never forget you, Louise. I love you.

  Flinching at her words, I yanked at the golden cord, and it twisted beneath my touch. The memory changed within my mind. Her eyes hardened into chips of emerald ice, and she sneered at the hope in my expression, the desperation in my voice. My sixteen-year-old face fell. Tears welled.

  Of course I do not love you, Louise. You are the daughter of my enemy. You were conceived for a higher purpose, and I will not poison that purpose with love.

  Of course. Of course she hadn’t loved me, even then. I shook my head, disoriented, and clenched my fist. The memory dissolved into golden dust, and its warmth flooded over and into Reid. His hair and clothing dried in a burst of heat. Color returned to his skin, and his breathing deepened. His eyes drifted open as I attempted to shove his other arm through his sleeve.