Beau’s hands fell to his hips. “What are we supposed to do, then? We have an empty bandolier, a negligent god, and”—he gestured to Nicholina in distaste—“an abysmal poet. Oh, don’t give me that look. Your work is derivative at best and juvenile at worst.” His frown deepened as he looked to each of us in turn. “What else is there?”
I’m sick with hope, but I can’t make it go away. It’s still here, even now. Poisoning me.
Only the sound of the waves answered.
And there it was.
I met Coco’s gaze directly. “We don’t have a choice.”
Shaking her head with regret, she closed her eyes and whispered, “The Wistful Waters.”
Part II
La nuit porte conseil.
The night brings advice.
—French proverb
Death at the Waters
Nicholina
The huntsman and the princess mean to punish me with their poisoned ropes, but we relish the friction. We rub until our wrists are raw. Until her wrists are raw. Because it’s the mouse and her huntsman who suffer most—she cannot feel it, no, but he can. He knows she’s trapped. She knows it too. She doesn’t see the gold as we do. Though she summons it, though she pleads, it cannot listen. We will not let it. And if voices not our own murmur a warning, if they hiss—if they know we do not belong—the patterns cannot fix it. They can only obey.
We can only obey.
Even if something is wrong. Even if below the gold magic, a newfound presence lingers. A newfound presence waits. I do not like it. I cannot use it. Unknown to the mouse, it coils like a snake preparing to strike, to protect. It is a gift, and it frightens us.
We cannot be frightened.
They were never meant to know, to suspect. Now they gather their packs to find L’Eau Mélancolique. Nasty waters. Cursed waters. They hide secrets but reveal them too, oh yes. But they cannot reveal this one. Not mine. They cannot spill its truth.
The princeling watches me while the others pack, but he watches his princess more. It matters not. We do not want to escape. They seek L’Eau Mélancolique, but Chateau le Blanc is its sister. Its neighbor. We will not struggle. We will not fight. Though our right hand is numb, they do not know our left has sensation. Has pain. We can move through pain. And the gold cannot respond to the mouse, no, but it must respond to us. Though I fear it—though it does not trust me—we will send a message. It is necessary.
The gold bursts in a delicate spray as the letters carve themselves into our flesh. Into our back. THEY KNOW. And then—DEATH AT THE WATERS.
Our mistress will not be pleased with us.
I am disappointed, Nicholina, she will say. I told you to kill them all.
We glance at our wrists. At the red smear of blood there. Her blood. La Princesse Rouge. Kill them all, she will say. Except the princesses.
Except the princesses.
More potent than pain—more potent than magic—our fury simmers and bubbles, a poison all its own. Noxious. We must not kill her. Though she has forsaken her family, forsaken my mistress, we must obey.
We must make our mistress proud. We must show her. Then she will realize our worth, yes, she will realize our love. She will never speak of her treacherous niece again. But the others . . .
I will drown them in L’Eau Mélancolique.
They think they’ve trapped me with their ropes, with their threats, with their bane, but their threats ring empty. They know nothing of pain. No, no, no, true pain lies outside the sensation of blood and skin. It lies beyond blisters.
It lies deep within.
The mice continue squeaking as the huntsman pulls me forward. Rocks line the path at the edge of the forest. Above us, thick smoke still darkens the afternoon sky. Below, waves crash tumultuously, oh yes. They warn of a storm. Of calamity. Do not fret, little mouse, we tell the princess, inhaling deep. Reveling. The dead should not remember.
I am not dead.
Soon, we promise. Very soon, your mother shall devour your body, and we in turn shall devour the rest. Like a mouse in a trap.
One might say you’re the mouse now, Nicholina.
Oh?
My mice press closer, ever curious, and we smile as the huntsman scowls over his shoulder. “Is something funny?” he snaps. Though we smile all the wider, we will not answer. He cannot stand our silence. It aggrieves him, and he expels a sharp breath through his nose, muttering a promise of violence. We welcome it. Relish it.
The mouse continues without hearing his words. We laugh because he cannot hear hers either.
It’s true, she insists. The others were never meant to know about La Voisin’s betrayal. They were never meant to know about you. But you failed at the lighthouse, and Morgane won’t forget it. I know my mother. You’ve broken her trust. She’ll kill you at the first opportunity—like a mouse in a trap.
We scoff through her nose, smile vanishing. Our mistress will protect us.
Your mistress will sacrifice you for the greater good. Just like my mother will sacrifice me. As if sensing something within us—she senses nothing—she pushes brazenly against our consciousness. We feel each kick, each elbow, though she has no feet or arms. It matters not. She cannot touch us, and soon she will fade into the others. Soon she will be ours. You’ve chosen the wrong side, Nicholina. You’ve lost. Reid and Coco will never allow us near the Chateau now.
My mice hiss and whisper their uncertainty. She knows nothing, I croon to them. Hush now, mouses. “The dead should not remember, beware the night they dream. For in their chest is memory—”
The huntsman jerks us forward viciously, and we stumble. A crow startles from a nearby fir.
It has three eyes.
You know what’s coming, Nicholina. It isn’t too late to stop it. You can still relinquish my body, ally with us before Morgane and Josephine betray you. Because they will betray you. It’s only a matter of time. Me, Reid, Coco, Beau—we could protect—
Bitterness pulses through us at the promise. Promises, promises, empty promises. They taste black, acrimonious, and we shall choke her with them. We shall fill her throat with eyes, eyes, eyes until she cannot breathe beneath their weight. Her consciousness does not flinch under our pressure. We push harder. We restrict and contract and compress until at last she recoils, hardening into a small, hopeless blemish. A blight in our nest. You think you are clever, we hiss, but we are cleverer. Oh yes. We shall kill them all—your precious family—and you shall forget each one.
NO—
But her panic means nothing. It tastes empty, like her promise. She is already dead.
Her friends will join her soon.
A Murder of Crows
Reid
Nicholina stopped walking abruptly. Her face twitched and spasmed as she muttered what sounded like nasty over and over again. Her mouth twisted around the word. “What’s nasty?” I asked suspiciously, tugging her forward. She yielded a single step. Her eyes fixed on a distant tree at the edge of the forest. A fir. “What are you looking at?”
“Ignore her.” Coco glanced at us over her shoulder, huddling deeper in her cloak. Along the coast, the wind blustered stronger than in La Fôret des Yeux. Colder. “The sooner we reach a village, the sooner we’ll find black pearls for Le Cœur Brisé.”
“Pearls.” Beau scoffed and kicked a rock into the sea. “What a ridiculous payment.”
“Le Cœur guards L’Eau Mélancolique.” Coco shrugged. “The waters are dangerous. They’re powerful. Without payment, no one broaches their shores.”
Beside Thierry, Célie wrinkled her nose as I forced Nicholina another step. Two. “And you think we’ll find these . . . black pearls in the next village?”
“Perhaps not the next one.” Coco marched back to prod Nicholina along. She’d seemed to grow roots. She still stared at the fir tree, tilting her head in contemplation. I looked closer, the hair on my neck rising. A solitary crow perched there. “But there are a handful of fishing villages between here and L’E
au Mélancolique.”
Worse still—the white dog had reappeared, stalking us with those eerie, silent eyes. With a panicked curse, Beau kicked another rock at him, and he disappeared in a plume of white smoke.
“Aren’t black pearls . . . rare?” Célie asked delicately.
Yes. Thierry noticed the crow as well. His brow furrowed. Though he hadn’t spoken his plans aloud, I suspected he’d travel with us as long as we continued north. Toward L’Eau Mélancolique. Toward Chateau le Blanc. Morgane had tortured him and his brother—that much had been clear in his memories—yet Thierry was here. Toulouse wasn’t. But anything can be bought for the right price, he said softly.
“Move, Nicholina,” Coco snapped, joining me at the rope. Nicholina jolted at the words, and we realized our mistake too late. With a vindictive smile, she curled her pointer finger toward her palm.
A single feather fell from the crow’s wing.
“Oh, shit—” Hastily, Coco tried to recoat the ropes, but the sharp scent of magic already punctured the air. The feather touched the forest floor. Alarmed now, I pulled sharply on Nicholina’s wrists, but she smashed her head into my nose, flinging herself backward on top of me. We both crashed to the ground as the feather began to—to change.
“A mouse in a trap,” she hissed. “Who are the mice now?”
The delicate black filaments multiplied, slowly at first, gaining momentum. Melting together into a misshapen lump of clay. From that clay, another bird formed, identical to the one perched in the tree. The latter cawed again, and from the former, a second feather fell. Another bird rose. Three now. All identical. Nicholina cackled.
But the birds hadn’t finished yet. Within the span of five heartbeats, five more had formed. They multiplied faster. Ten now. Twenty. Fifty.
“Stop it.” I crushed her hands in mine—those hands that should’ve been rendered numb, useless—but she twisted away as the birds rose above us in a horrifying black mass. Scores now. Perhaps hundreds. “Reverse the pattern. Do it now.”
“Too late.” Laughing in delight, she bounced on her toes. “Look, huntsman. It’s a murder of crows. They shall peck, peck, peck all your flesh, flesh, flesh.” The plague above us built like a tidal wave preparing to break. “Did you hear me, huntsman? Crows. Murderous ones. Tell me, which shall they eat first: Your eyes or your tongue?”
Then the wave broke.
The birds swooped as one, arrowing toward us with alarming speed. Though I threw up my hands against the onslaught, frantically searching for a pattern, they attacked with single-minded focus. Talons slashed my face, my fingers. Beaks tore into my knuckle. Others drew blood from my ear. Coco tackled Nicholina to the ground, and the two scrabbled in the snow as the crows descended on the others, pecking skin, pulling hair.
Angry caws muffled Célie’s panicked shrieks, Beau’s vicious curses, Nicholina’s outraged cries. I craned my neck to see her writhe as Coco recoated her ropes with blood. The crows didn’t stop, however. My own blood streaked down my forearms, my neck, but I kept my head bowed, searching. Gold rose in a tangled web.
There.
I yanked the pattern with all my might, and a powerful gust of wind blasted the birds backward. I braced as it blasted me too. A necessary sacrifice. I needed space to breathe. To think.
I secured neither. More birds darted to replace the others, shrieking indignantly.
It was no good. There were too many of them. Too many patterns. Seizing Nicholina, I charged toward the cliffs with talons on my neck. Coco sprinted behind with Beau, and Thierry swooped Célie up in his arms to follow.
“Reid!” I didn’t slow at my brother’s incredulous shout. “What are we doing?”
No. I maintained my focus, searched blindly for the right cord. If we hoped to survive with our eyes and tongues, we’d have to jump. My vision pitched at the thought. Madame Labelle had once said a witch could fly with the right pattern. Deveraux had said a cardinal couldn’t if it didn’t believe.
Well. We were about to test their theories.
If you’re listening, Deveraux, please, please, help us—
I didn’t get the chance to finish the prayer.
A deafening roar shook the cliffside, the trees, and an amethyst wing parted the clouds of smoke overhead. An enormous amethyst wing. Membranous. Razor-tipped. Fire sprayed in a wide arch, silhouetting the great, hulking shape of a serpentine body. A scaled leg appeared. A barbed tail.
An entire dragon followed.
The Dragon and Her Maiden
Reid
I could only stare as it dove toward us.
It roared again, and from its great mouth, more fire spilled forth. The heat of it nearly blistered my skin. Finally regaining my senses, I dropped to the ground, covering Lou’s body as the crows overhead shrieked in agony. Their burning corpses fell around us like macabre rain—those that fell at all. The dragon incinerated most midair. It snapped vicious jaws around others, devouring them whole.
The others had tumbled with me, covering their heads as if their arms might shield them from the dragon’s flames. Except Thierry. He too had fallen, but he didn’t cower, instead gazing at the dragon with an unfathomable expression. I could’ve sworn it looked like—like relief. But that couldn’t be right. We’d leapt from the pot into the fire. Literally.
Even with magic, with knives—even if I’d still wielded my Balisarda—we couldn’t hope to defend ourselves against a dragon. We had to flee. Now. While we still had a chance. We just needed a diversion. Quickly, I pulled at the golden web of patterns. Something loud. Something big. Something to slow the beast as we sprinted for the cliff. Could I fell a tree? A forest of trees? Yes. A cage of wood for—
For a fire-breathing dragon.
I closed my eyes. Fuck.
But I was out of time. It’d have to do. Bracing myself for the consequences, I gathered the golden cords in my hand. Before I could pull, however, the dragon snorted, and fresh smoke engulfed us. I glanced up. Spotted a miniature flame through the haze. My eyes narrowed as I looked closer, harder. It wasn’t flame at all, but hair. Red hair. A person.
Seraphine smiled down at me from the dragon’s back.
The earth shook as it landed with another roar, tossing its great head. Between one blink and the next, its horns unraveled into lavender curls, and its tail rippled into black satin. Reptilian eyes blinked to brown. Amethyst scales smoothed to skin.
“Thierry.” Voice low and hoarse, Zenna caught Seraphine in her arms, transformation complete, before placing her swiftly on her feet. They both hurried toward their fellow troupe member. I gaped at them. We all did. Even Nicholina.
Zenna. Seraphine. He reached them just as Seraphine extended her arms, and he lifted her from the ground to spin her in a circle. You’re here.
“So are you.” Zenna didn’t look pleased. “Imagine our surprise when Claud sensed you at last—in northern Belterra, of all places. Not the tunnels we’d been searching for weeks.” She seized one of his hands. “We’ve been worried sick, Thierry. Care to tell us where you’ve been? Where is Toulouse?”
Thierry’s face fell.
I pushed myself to my feet, pulling Nicholina up with me. “You—you’re—”
“A dragon, yes.” Zenna heaved a long-suffering sigh, and smoke curled from her nostrils. After inspecting Thierry one last time, she casually wiped the blood from her lips. She’d painted them gold today. They matched the blooms embroidered on her gown. “Bonjour, Mort Rouge. Shall we all digest together? Go ahead. Take a moment.”
“It’s going to take a hell of a lot longer than a moment.” Beau staggered upright and dusted off his trousers in vain. “This is—I can’t believe—we shared the same bed, and you never told me? I slept with a dragon!” He whirled to face me as if I hadn’t heard him, arms splayed wide. “An actual dragon!”
Coco stood faster than humanly possible. “You what?”
He lifted his hands just as quickly. “It was entirely platonic.” When her eyes nar
rowed to dangerous slits, he retreated a step in my direction. I ignored him. Nicholina had wormed away from me. I pulled her back with a scowl. “I was cold,” Beau continued defensively, “so Seraphine offered her spot.”
Seraphine rested her head on Thierry’s shoulder. Refused to release his arm. He squeezed her hand with equal fondness, like a brother might a sister. “Some nights I can’t sleep,” she said.
“Yes, exactly.” Beau nodded to Coco. “She’s unusually kind, this one, even read to me until I—”
“She did?” Coco clapped her hands together with a terrifying smile. “Do tell me more. Tell me all about your cold night between Zenna and Seraphine.”
“Well, it wasn’t cold after that,” Beau said, either woefully ignorant or determined to prove his innocence. “I woke up sweltering. It was terrible. Almost died of heatstroke.”
“My temperature does run hotter than a human’s,” Zenna said.
“You see?” Beau nodded again—as if this settled the matter for good—while I tightened Nicholina’s binds. “Tell her, Zenna. Tell her it was platonic.”
Zenna arched that brow again. “Does it matter?”
Coco mirrored her expression. “Yes, Beauregard. Does it?”
He stared between them in horror.
“Don’t make me tie your ankles too, Nicholina.” I planted her in front of me when she tried to wriggle away again. “I’ll do it. I’ll carry you all the way to L’Eau Mélancolique if necessary.”
She leaned back, rubbing her cheek against my chest like a cat. “I think I’d like that, huntsman. Oh, yes. I think I’d like it very much.”
Mirroring my own frown, Zenna inhaled deeply. If she detected a new scent from Lou, she said nothing, instead shaking her head and returning her attention to Thierry. “Where is your brother, Thierry? Where is Toulouse?”
Though Thierry stiffened, he exhaled a resigned breath. Toulouse remains at the Chateau. I . . . escaped.
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