You haven’t been yourself.
You see what you want to see.
Do you think I want to see you as—
As what? As evil?
Burying my face in my hands, I sank to my knees and wept.
Proper Knights
Reid
A face.
I woke to a face. Though mere inches from my own, I struggled to bring its features into focus. They remained shapeless, dark, as if I stood in heavy fog. But I wasn’t standing. I couldn’t move my limbs. They felt heavier than normal—impossibly heavy and cold. Except my wrists. My wrists burned with black fire.
Eyes closing, opening—lethargic, each blink enormous effort—I tried to lift my head. It slumped uselessly against my shoulder. I thought the shape of lips might’ve moved. Thought a voice might’ve rumbled. I closed my eyes again. Someone pried my jaw apart, forced something bitter down my throat. I vomited instantly.
I vomited until my head pounded. My throat ached.
When something hard struck my face, I spat blood. The taste of copper, of salt, jarred my senses. Blinking faster now, I shook my head to clear it. The room swam. At last, the face before me took shape. Golden hair and gray eyes—like a wolf—with straight nose and chiseled jaw.
“You’re awake,” Auguste said. “Good.”
Beside me, Madame Labelle sat with her wrists bound behind her chair. It forced her shoulders out of socket. Though blood trickled from a puncture at the side of her throat, her eyes remained clear. It was then I noticed the metal syringes in Auguste’s hand. The bloody quills.
Injections.
He’d drugged us—drugged me—like I was a—a—
Bile burned up my throat.
Like I was a witch.
Madame Labelle struggled against her binds. “Really, Auguste, this isn’t necessary—”
“You dare address His Majesty so informally?” Oliana asked. Her voice pitched and rolled with my consciousness.
“Forgive me,” Madame Labelle snapped. “After birthing a man’s child—and all that predicates such a happy occasion—I assumed formalities would cease. An egregious mistake.”
I vomited again, unable to hear Oliana’s reply.
When I reopened my eyes, the room sharpened. Mahogany shelves filled with books. A carved mantel. Portraits of stern-lipped kings and embroidered carpet beneath booted feet. I blinked, vision honing in on the Chasseurs lining the walls. At least a dozen. Each held a hand to the Balisarda at his waist.
Except the Chasseur who stood behind me. He held his at my throat.
A second moved to stand behind Madame Labelle. His blade drew blood, and she stilled. “At least clean him up,” she said weakly. “He isn’t an animal. He is your son.”
“You insult me, Helene.” Auguste crouched before me, tracking a hand in front of my face. My eyes struggled to follow it. “As if I’d allow even my hounds to sit in their own spew.” He snapped his fingers. “I need you to focus, Reid. Mass starts in a quarter hour, and I cannot be late. The kingdom expects me to mourn that sanctimonious prick. I shan’t disappoint them.”
Hatred burned through the haze of my thoughts.
“But you understand the importance of keeping up pretenses, don’t you?” He arched a golden brow. “You had all of us fooled, after all. Including him.” My stomach heaved again, but he leapt backward just in time, lip curling. “Between the two of us, I’m pleased you killed him. I cannot count the times that filthy hypocrite presumed to admonish me—me—when all this time, he’d stuck his cock in Morgane le Blanc.”
“Yes, a filthy hypocrite,” Madame Labelle echoed pointedly. The Chasseur behind her ripped her hair backward, pressing his blade deeper into her throat. She said no more.
Auguste ignored her, tilting his head to study me. “Your body reacted to the injection. I suppose that proves Philippe’s claim. You are a witch.”
I forced my head upright through sheer power of will. For one second. Two seconds. “I would like to see . . . your body . . . react to hemlock . . . Your Majesty.”
“You poisoned them?” Beau asked in disbelief. Another Chasseur held him in the corner of the room. Though his mother shook her head desperately, he didn’t acknowledge her. “You put hemlock in those injections?”
“A fucking gilded tower.” Auguste rolled his eyes. “I have little patience for your voice at the moment, Beauregard—or yours, Oliana,” he added when she tried to interrupt. “If either of you speak again, you will regret it.” To me, he said, “Now, tell me. How is it possible? How did you come to exist, Reid Diggory?”
A grin rose, unbidden, and I heard Lou’s voice in my head. Even then—trapped backstage with two of her mortal enemies—she’d been fearless. Or perhaps stupid. Either way, she hadn’t known how right she was. “I believe,” I gasped, “when a man and a . . . witch . . . love each other very much—”
I anticipated his strike. When it came, my head thudded against the chair and stayed there. A laugh bubbled from my lips, and he stared at me like I was an insect. Something to quash beneath his boot. Perhaps I was. I laughed again at the irony. How many times had I drugged a witch? How many times had I worn his exact expression?
He grabbed my chin, crushing it between his fingers. “Tell me where she is, and I promise you a quick death.”
My grin receded slowly. I said nothing.
His fingers bit harder. Hard enough to bruise. “Are you fond of rats, Reid Diggory? They’re ugly little creatures, to be sure, but beneath their beastly hides, I must admit to sharing a certain kinship with them.”
“I’m not surprised.”
He smiled then. It was cold. “They’re intelligent, rats. Resourceful. They value their own survival. Perhaps you should heed their good instinct.” When still I said nothing, his smile grew. “It’s a curious thing when you trap a rat atop a man’s stomach—let’s say, for example, with a pot. Now, when you apply heat to said pot, do you know how the rat responds?” He shook my head for me when I didn’t answer. “It burrows through the man’s stomach, Reid Diggory. It bites and claws through skin and flesh and bone to escape the heat. It kills the man, so it might survive.”
At last, he released me, standing and flicking a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped the vomit from his fingers in distaste. “Unless you desire to be that man, I suggest you answer my question.”
We stared at each other. The shape of his face wavered. “I won’t,” I said simply.
The words echoed in the silence of the room.
“Hmm.” He picked something up from his desk. Small. Black. Cast iron. “I see.”
A pot, I realized.
I should’ve felt fear. Perhaps the hemlock prevented it. Perhaps the rolling nausea or splitting headache. He wanted me to fear him. I could see it in his eyes. In his smile. He wanted me to tremble, to beg. This was a man who relished dominance. Control. I’d helped him, once. As his huntsman. I’d sought his approval as my king. Even after—when I’d learned his role in my conception, my suffering—I’d wanted to know him, deep down.
I’d dreamed up a version of him from my mother’s stories. I’d accepted her rose glasses. But this man was not him.
This man was real.
This man was ugly.
And—looking at him now—all I felt was disappointment.
Slowly, he placed the pot on a rack above the fire. “I shall ask you one more time—where is Louise le Blanc?”
“Father—” Beau started, pleading, but with the wave of Auguste’s hand, the Chasseur struck him in the head. When he slumped, dazed, Oliana’s shrieks filled the cabinet. She rushed toward him, but Auguste caught her around the waist, flinging her against his desk. She collapsed to the ground with a sob.
“I said be silent,” Auguste snarled.
Madame Labelle’s eyes widened.
“Who are you?” Her voice climbed higher with disbelief. “The man I loved would never have treated his family this way. That is your wife. These are your sons—”
“They are no sons of mine.” Auguste’s face flushed as he gripped the arms of Madame Labelle’s chair. As he bent low in her face, eyes burning with wild intensity. “And I shall have another son, Helene. I shall have a hundred more sons to spite that heinous, white-haired bitch. My legacy will live on. Do you understand me? I don’t care if I have to fuck every woman in this godforsaken spit of land, I will not yield.” He lifted a hand to her face, but he didn’t touch her. His fingers clenched with hatred. With longing. “You beautiful, fucking liar. What am I going to do with you?”
“Please, stop this. It’s me. It’s Helene—”
“You think I loved you, Helene? You think you’re any different from the others?”
“I know I was.” Her eyes shone with fierce conviction. “I could not tell you I was a witch—and for that, I apologize—but you knew me, Auguste. As one soul knows another, you knew me, and I knew you. What we shared was real. Our child was born from love, not from lust or—or obligation. You must rethink this blind hatred and remember. I am the same now as I was then. See me, mon amour, and see him. He needs our help—”
Auguste did touch her now, twisting her lips between his fingers. He pulled them a hair’s breadth from his own. “Perhaps I shall torture you too,” he whispered. “Perhaps I shall see which of you breaks first.”
When she glared back at him, resolute, pride swelled in my chest.
Love.
“Why doesn’t the hemlock work on you, mon amour?” He released her lips to stroke her cheek. They could’ve been the only two people in the room. “How do you remain unaffected?”
She lifted her chin. “I’ve injected myself with hemlock every day since the day we met.”
“Ah.” His fingers tightened, clawing her skin. “So much for it being real.”
The door to the cabinet burst open, and a liveried man swept in. “Your Majesty, I’ve delayed the priests as long as possible. They insist we begin Mass immediately.”
Auguste stared at my mother for a second longer. With a sigh, he released her and straightened his coat. Smoothed back his hair. “Alas, it seems our conversation must wait until after the festivities.” Donning black gloves with practiced efficiency, he slid his mask back into place. His persona. “I shall call for the two of you when they’re over—if she hasn’t arrived by then.”
“We’ve told you.” I closed my eyes to stop the spinning. To stop the nausea. When the darkness made it worse, I forced them open once more. “Morgane is already in the city.”
“I speak not of Morgane, but of her daughter.” His smile emanated through the room, casting shadows in my heart. The first flicker of fear. “If you love her as you say, she will come for you. And I”—he patted my cheek as he strode past—“I will be waiting.”
If possible, the dungeons were colder than even the air outside. Icicles had formed in the corner of our cell where water had dripped down the stone. Pooled on the earthen floor. I slumped against the iron bars, muscles weak and useless. Though Madame Labelle’s hands remained bound, she rubbed her sleeve against the ice to wet the fabric. Knelt beside me to clean my face as best she could.
“With the emetic and your body mass,” she said, trying and failing to soothe, “the effects of the injection should wane soon. You’ll be fit as a fiddle when Louise comes to rescue us. We can only hope she realizes what has happened before we’re eaten by rats.”
“She isn’t coming.” My voice rang hollow. Dull. “We had a fight. I told her she was like her mother.”
Beau broke off an icicle and shattered it against the wall. “Brilliant. That’s just brilliant. Well done, brother. I can’t wait to see how your spleen looks when a rat opens you up.” He whirled to Madame Labelle. “Can’t you—I don’t know—magic us out of here somehow? I know you’re bound, but all it takes is a twitch of your finger, right?”
“They’ve coated our irons in some sort of numbing agent. I can’t move my hands.”
“Can you use your elbow instead? Perhaps a toe?”
“Of course I could, but the magic would be clumsy. I’d likely do more harm than good if I attempted it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Manipulating patterns requires dexterity, Your Highness. Imagine tying a knot with your elbows or toes, and you might grasp the difficulty. Our hands—our fingers—enable us to signify intent with much greater specificity.” Color rose on her cheeks as she scrubbed my own. “Also, though it has clearly escaped your great mental prowess, there are four huntsmen standing guard at the end of this corridor.”
He prowled the cell like an angry cat. Hackles raised. “So?”
“Mother’s tits.” She dragged her forehead across her shoulder in exasperation. “So I realize that I’ve accomplished many extraordinary magical feats in our time together, Beauregard, but even I must admit defeat when confronted with escaping prison, defeating four huntsmen, and fleeing the city with only my damned elbow.”
“Well, what are we supposed to do, then?” Beau flung his hands in the air. “Sit here and wait for my father to feed us to his rats? Excellent plan, approaching him, by the way,” he added with a snarl. “He loved me once, my ass.”
“Beau,” I said when Madame Labelle flinched. “Shut up.”
“He isn’t going to feed you to his rats, Your Highness,” she said. “Despite his bluster, I don’t think he means you any real harm. You’re his only legitimate heir. The law dictates he cannot pass the kingdom to Violette or Victoire.”
Beau whirled to face the corridor, crossing his arms angrily. “Yes, well, forgive me for no longer trusting your instincts.” I stared at his profile as the pieces clicked into place. Her rose-colored glasses. He’d worn them too. Despite their unhappy relationship, Beau had still dreamed of more with his father. Those dreams had publicly shattered on the floor of the throne room.
I’d lost the idea of my father. Beau had lost the real thing.
“Hang on.” Beau gripped the bars abruptly, his eyes fixating on something at the end of the corridor. I turned my head. Eased myself up the bars as panicked cries resounded from behind the door. Hope swelled, sharp and unexpected. Could it be . . . ? Had Lou come for us, after all? Beau grinned. “I know that voice. Those little shits.”
Footsteps pounded away from us, and with them, the shouts faded. The corridor door creaked open.
A mischievous face poked through. Violette. I didn’t know how I knew it was her rather than her sister, but I did. Instinctively. She skipped down the corridor toward us with a smirk. In her hand, she swung the guards’ keys. “Hello, taeae. Did you miss me?”
“Violette.” Beau thrust his face between the bars. “How are you here? Why aren’t you at Mass?”
She rolled her eyes. “Like Papa would let us outside the castle with Morgane on the loose.”
“Thank God for small mercies. Right. We need to hurry.” He held his hand out insistently. “The huntsmen could be back any second. Give me the keys.”
She settled a hand on her narrow hip. “They won’t be back any second. I told them Victoire accidentally impaled herself on her blade, and the idiots dashed upstairs to help her.” She scoffed. “As if Victoire would ever accidentally impale someone.”
“Yes,” he said impatiently, “but when they don’t find Victoire bleeding to death, they’ll know you tricked them. They’ll come back down—”
“No, they won’t. There’s quite a bit of blood.”
“What?”
“We snuck into the apothecary’s stores and stole his lamb’s blood. Victoire was a bit heavy-handed with it on the carpets, but she has several more vials. She’s leading the huntsmen on a wild-goose chase. It should keep them busy for a few moments at least.”
“You gave Victoire blood?” Beau blinked at her. “You just . . . gave it to her? To play with?”
Violette shrugged. “Couldn’t be helped. Now”—she dangled the keys in front of his nose—“do you want to be rescued or not?” When he swi
ped for them, she snatched them out of reach. “Ah, ah, ah. Not so fast. You owe us an apology.”
“Yes.” A second voice joined hers, and Victoire materialized. Her eyes gleamed in the semidarkness, and blood coated her hands. She extended her sword to the tip of Beau’s nose. “Apologize for leaving us, taeae, and we shall free you.” Her nose wrinkled when she looked at me. At Madame Labelle. “You. Not them. Papa says they deserve to burn.”
Beau swung for the keys again. Missed. “Do me a favor, girls. When Father opens his mouth, close your ears. His voice will rot your brains.”
“I think it’s awfully romantic.” Violette tilted her head to study me in an eerie impression of Auguste. Whereas his gaze had been cold, however—calculating—hers was shyly curious. “Metua vahine said he sacrificed everything to save the girl he loves. She doesn’t like you much,” she added to me, “or your maman, but I think she respects you.”
“It’s not romantic. It’s stupid.” Victoire kicked the bar closest to me before turning to Beau. “How could you choose this son of a whore over us?”
“Don’t say that word,” Beau said sharply. “Don’t say it ever again.”
She ducked her head, glowering but chastised. “You left us, taeae. You didn’t tell us where you’d gone. We could’ve come with you. We could’ve fought the witches by your side.”
He lifted her chin with his finger. “Not all witches are bad, tuahine, tou. I found some good ones. I intend to help them.”
“But Papa said he’d disinherit you!” Violette interjected.
“Then I suppose you’ll be queen.”
Her eyes widened.
“I’m sorry I didn’t say goodbye,” Beau said softly, “but I’m not sorry I left. I have a chance to be part of something extraordinary. Together, all of us—humans, witches, werewolves, maybe even mermaids—we have a chance to change the world.”
Violette gasped. “Mermaids?”
“Oh, shut it, Violette.” Victoire snatched the keys from her and tossed them to Beau. “Do it.” She nodded to him curtly. “Break it. Make it better. And at the end of it—when you put the pieces back together—I want to be a huntsman.”
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