Beau burst into laughter.
“What?” Hastily, she looked down at herself, smoothing her shirt. Checking her hair, tucking an errant strand into her hat. “Is it not convincing?”
“Oh, it’s convincing,” he assured her. “You look like an idiot.”
Beside me, Nicholina giggled from her spot on the ground. We’d bound her wrists again, coating her entire hands in Coco’s blood. Now she couldn’t move a finger if she tried.
Startled, perhaps even scandalized by Beau’s bald honesty, Célie’s brows shot up. “Cosette often wears trousers—”
“But not a beard,” Beau said. “You don’t need a disguise, Célie. Your face isn’t on those wanted posters.”
“Well, I—I just thought I might—” Her face flamed. “Perhaps I’m not wanted by the Crown, but my father will eventually search for me. Jean Luc has spies throughout the kingdom. Should I not take precautions?” At our impassive stares, she lifted her chin defiantly and repeated, “Cosette and Louise wear trousers.”
Beau spread his hands with a smirk. “And there it is.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Your Majesty, please take no offense, but you are a good deal less pleasant than I would have liked to believe.”
Still chuckling, he slung an arm over Coco’s shoulder. “None taken, I assure you.”
Coco pushed him away. “He gets that a lot.”
Crooking his finger at Célie, Beau led her into the first village.
We’d decided the two of them would search for black pearls. Though not ideal, Coco and I needed to remain with Nicholina. We couldn’t easily drag her through the streets with bound and bloody hands. I shuddered to think of her actually speaking if we did find someone who sold them.
By the third village, I’d heard enough of her to last a lifetime.
She reclined atop a rock on the edge of the forest now, moaning and tugging against her rope. Her hands hung limp and useless from her wrists. Like bloody carcasses. “We’re hungry. Shall we venture into just one hamlet? Just one? Just one, just one, to have some fun?” She cast me a wicked glance. “Just one to find a sticky bun?”
I looked away from her blistered hands. Couldn’t bear the sight of them. “Shut your mouth, Nicholina.”
Coco lazed within the roots of a knotted tree while we waited. She picked at the fresh cut on her palm. “She won’t stop until you do.”
“Oooh, clever mouse.” Nicholina sat up abruptly, leering at me. “We don’t just live beneath her skin, no no no. We live beneath yours. It’s warm and it’s wet and filled with short—angry—breaths—”
“I swear to God, if you don’t stop talking—”
“You’ll do what?” With a cackle, she pulled at her ropes again. I pulled back. She nearly toppled from the rock. “Will you harm this pretty skin? Will you strike this freckled flesh? Will you punish us, oh husband, with a good, hard thrash?”
“Ignore her,” Coco said.
Heat suffused my face. My neck. My hands clenched the rope. I could ignore her. I could do it. She wanted a reaction. I would give her none.
Another handful of minutes passed in silence. Then—
“We need to relieve ourselves,” Nicholina pronounced.
I scowled and shook my head. “No.”
“Perhaps in the trees?” She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Perhaps they deserve it. Naughty, naughty trees. Perhaps they’ll observe it.” Rising to her feet, she cackled at her own perverse joke. I tugged her rope irritably.
“I said no.”
“No?” Disbelief—still feigned, still disingenuous, as if she’d somehow expected my response—laced her voice. Lou’s voice. The sound of it made me ache and rage in equal measure. “You’d have us piss down our leg? Your own wife?”
“You aren’t my wife.”
A sick wave of regret washed through me at the familiar words. At the memory. The ring I’d once given Lou, golden band and mother-of-pearl stone, weighed heavy in my pocket. Like a brick. I’d kept it with me since Léviathan, anxious to return it to her. To slide it back on her finger where it belonged. I would do just that at L’Eau Mélancolique. I would marry her right there on the beach. Just like last time, except proper now. Real.
Nicholina gave a feline grin. “No, we aren’t your wife, are we? Which makes us your . . . what, exactly?” A pause. She leaned closer, brushing her nose against mine. I jerked back. “She fought, you know,” she breathed, still grinning. My entire body went still. My entire being. “She screamed your name. You should have heard her in those last moments. Absolutely terrified. Absolutely delicious. We savored her death.”
It wasn’t true. Lou was still in there. We would free her.
“She can’t hear you, pet.” Nicholina pursed her lips in a sugar-sweet display of sympathy, and I realized I’d spoken the words aloud. “The dead don’t have ears. She won’t hear your cries, and she won’t see your tears.”
“That’s enough,” Coco said sharply. Though I could see her trying to tug the rope from me, I couldn’t feel the movement. My fist remained locked. Blood roared in my ears. “Shut the hell up, Nicholina.”
She fought, you know.
Nicholina giggled like a little girl. Shrugged. “All right.”
She screamed your name.
I took a deep breath. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. One after another. Again and again.
You should’ve heard her in those last moments. Absolutely terrified.
I should’ve been there.
It’s your fault it’s your fault it’s your fault
Beau and Célie arrived at that moment, and Coco succeeded in tugging the rope from me. Glowering at their empty hands, she snapped, “Nothing? Again?”
Célie shrugged helplessly while Beau lifted said hands in a lackadaisical gesture. “What would you like us to do, Cosette? Shit the pearls into existence? We aren’t oysters.”
Her nostrils flared. “Oysters don’t shit out pearls, you idiotic piece of—”
“Shit?” Nicholina supplied helpfully.
Coco closed her eyes then, forcing a deep breath, before looking up at the sky. Though smoke still obscured the sun, it must’ve been late afternoon. “The next village is about two hours up the road. It’s the last one before L’Eau Mélancolique.” Her expression hardened, and she met my gaze. Jaw still clenched, I nodded once. “Reid and I will search it too.”
“What?” Beau looked between the two of us incredulously. “Célie and I are perfectly capable—”
“I am sure that’s true,” she snapped, “but this isn’t the time for a pissing contest. We need to find those pearls. This is our last chance.”
“But”—Célie leaned forward, blinking rapidly—“but Nicholina . . .”
Coco lifted her fist. She’d wrapped the rope around it. The movement forced Nicholina closer, and Coco stared directly into her eyes. Every word promised violence. “Nicholina will behave herself. Nicholina doesn’t want to die, and she’s wearing the face of the most notorious witch in Belterra.” She tugged her closer. Nicholina had stopped grinning. “If she causes a scene—if she steps one toe out of line—they’ll lash her to a stake right there in Anchois. Nicholina understands that, doesn’t she?”
Nicholina sneered. “You won’t let us burn.”
“We might not be able to save you.”
Nicholina glowered now but said nothing. Though I reached for her rope once more, Coco shook her head and started forward. “She stays with me,” she said over her shoulder. “You can’t bring yourself to kick her ass, but I can. It’s what Lou would want.”
Anchois boasted three dirt-packed streets. One of these led to the dock, where dozens of fishing boats bobbed along black water. One housed the villagers’ ramshackle dwellings. Carts and fish stands littered the market of the third. Though the sun had fully set, firelight danced on merchants’ faces as they hawked wares. Shoppers slipped arm in arm between them, calling to friends. To family. Some clutched brown paper package
s. Others wore seashell necklaces. Bits of agate sparkled in the hair of impish children. Gnarled fishermen gathered at the beach to sip ale in groups of twos and threes. Grousing about their wives. Their grandchildren. Their knees.
Coco peered down the market street, trying to see through the gaps in the crowd. She’d tied one of Nicholina’s hands to hers. The sleeves of their cloaks hid all blisters. All blood. “We should split up. We’ll cover more ground that way.”
I tugged Célie away from a cart of scrying stones. “Fine. You two go to the dock, ask if anyone has heard of black pearls in the area. We’ll search the market.”
A gleam of wonder entered Célie’s eyes as she watched a young man pull a roughly hewn flute from his pocket to serenade another. Some maidens nearby giggled. One even stepped apart from the rest, brave enough to dance. Célie nodded eagerly. “Yes. Let us do that.”
Coco eyed us, skeptical. “Is this what you’ve been doing, Célie?”
Beau scoffed and shook his head. Mutinous.
I gripped Célie’s elbow with pointed assurance. “If they’re here, we’ll find them.”
Though Coco still seemed doubtful, she relented with a nod, fidgeting with the locket at her throat. Readjusting her hood. “Fine. But you’d better search the market, not stroll down memory lane.” She jabbed a finger at my nose. “And be in plain sight when we get back. I want to see hands.” Jerking her chin toward Beau and Nicholina, she left Célie and me standing alone in humiliated silence.
Heat pricked my ears. Her cheeks burned tomato red.
“Thanks, Cosette,” I muttered bitterly. Forcing my jaw to unclench, I took a deep breath, adjusted my own cavalier, and guided Célie into the street. When the merchant rattled his scrying stones in our direction—he’d carved them from fish bones—I kept walking. “Don’t listen to her. She’s . . . going through a lot.”
Célie refused to meet my gaze. “I don’t think she likes me.”
“She doesn’t like anyone but Lou.”
“Ah.” For a split second, resentment flashed across her doll-like features. But then she smoothed her face into a polite smile, squaring her shoulders. Straightening her spine. Always the lady. “Perhaps you’re right.” Her smile turned genuine as she spotted a shabby confiserie. “Reid, look!” She pointed to the tins of almond candy in the window. Calisson. “It’s your favorite! We simply must purchase some.” With a pat to her leather satchel—I’d slung it over my shoulder, where it jostled against my own—she tried to steer me toward the confiserie’s pink door.
I didn’t move. “We’re here for black pearls. Not candy.”
Still she tugged on my wrists. “It’ll take two minutes—”
“No, Célie.”
As if Coco’s reprimand had struck the ground between us like a bolt of lightning, she dropped my hands. Pink returned to her cheeks. “Very well. Lead the way.”
We made it all of two minutes before she stopped again. Anger forgotten, she peered ahead at a group of men huddled around a barrel. Eyes wide and childlike, curious, she asked, “What are they doing?”
I glanced over their shoulders as we passed. A handful of dirty bronze couronnes littered the top of the barrel. A pair of wooden dice. “Gambling.”
“Oh.” She craned her neck to see too. When one of the men winked at her, motioning her closer, I rolled my eyes. Some disguise. She tapped her satchel again, oblivious. “I should like to try gambling, I think. Please hand over my bag.”
I snorted and kept walking. “Absolutely not.”
She made an indignant noise at the back of her throat. “I beg your pardon?”
Though I’d barely met Violette and Victoire, I imagined this was how an elder brother felt. Exasperated. Impatient. Fond.
“Reid.”
I ignored her.
“Reid.” She actually stamped her foot now. When I still didn’t turn, didn’t acknowledge her inane request, she seemed to snap, tearing after me and latching on to the bag with both hands. Hissing like a cat. Her nails even scored the leather. “You will release my bag this instant. This is—you—this is my bag. You cannot control it, and you cannot control me. If I wish to gamble, I shall gamble, and you shall—” Finally, I swung around, and she swung with me. My hand shot out to steady her when she stumbled backward. She swiped it away with an unladylike snarl. “Give me my bag.”
“Fine. Here.” I tossed the satchel to her, but it slipped from her fingers. Coins and jewelry alike spilled across the snow. Cursing, I knelt to block the gamblers’ view with my shoulders. “But you promised to help us. We need your couronnes to buy the pearls.”
“Oh, I am well aware you need my help.” Angry tears sparkled in her eyes as she too knelt, returning fistfuls of treasure to her bag. “Perhaps you are the one in need of a reminder.” I glared pointedly at interested passersby. My hands swiftly joined hers, and though she tried to swat me away—
I straightened abruptly, my fingers curling around familiar glass. Cylindrical glass. Cold glass. Her nails cut into my knuckles as I moved to withdraw it. “Wait!” she cried.
Too late.
I stared at the syringe in my palm. “What is this?”
But I knew what it was. We both did. She stood perfectly still now, her hands knotted together at her waist. She didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. I didn’t blame her. If she moved, her tearful facade might shatter, and the truth might spill forth. “Where did you get it?” I asked, voice hard.
“Jean gave it to me,” she whispered, hesitating briefly, “when I told him I was leaving.”
“When you told him you were coming to find us.”
She didn’t contradict me. “Yes.”
My gaze snapped to her face. “Were you going to use it?”
“What?” Her voice cracked on the word, and she clutched my forearm, oblivious to Coco’s and Beau’s heads bobbing through the crowd. They hadn’t yet spotted us. “Reid, I would never—”
“You’re still crying.”
She wiped her face hastily. “You know I cry when I’m upset—”
“Why are you upset, Célie? Did you think you’d lost it?” My fingers closed around the glass. The hemlock injection didn’t warm, however. Devil’s Flower, the priests had called it. It’d grown on the hillside of Jesus’s crucifixion. When his blood had touched the petals, they’d turned poisonous. “It shouldn’t matter if you had. You weren’t going to use it.”
“Reid.” Her hand on my arm crept downward. Even now, she ached to have it in her possession. “It was just a precaution. I never planned to use it on you or—or anyone else. You must believe me.”
“I do believe you.” And I did. I believed she’d never planned to use it. If our reunion had gone wrong, however, she wouldn’t have hesitated. The fact that she’d brought it here, that she’d hidden it, meant she’d been prepared to hurt us. I tucked the syringe in my pocket. “You know this is poison, right? Standard issue. Witch or no, it’d incapacitate you much faster than it would me. It’d take down Jean Luc. King Auguste. All of them.” She blinked in confusion, confirming my suspicions. She’d thought it a weapon unique against witches. I shook my head. “Fuck, Célie. Are you really that afraid of us? Of me?”
She flinched at the profanity, color rising high on her cheeks. But not in embarrassment. In anger. When she lifted her chin, her voice didn’t waver. “Is that even a question? Of course I fear you. A witch murdered Filippa. A witch locked me in a coffin with her remains. When I close my eyes, I can still feel her flesh on my skin, Reid. I can still smell her. My sister. Now I’m terrified of the dark, of sleep, of dreams, and even awake, I can hardly breathe. I’m trapped in a nightmare without end.”
My own anger withered to something small. Something shameful.
“So, yes,” she continued fiercely, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks, “I packed a weapon against witches. I hid it from you. How could I do otherwise? Whether or not I like it, you’re a witch now. You’re one of them. I’m trying—truly, I am—
but you cannot ask me not to protect myself.” She took a deep, steadying breath then, and met my gaze. “Truthfully, you cannot ask me anything. I won’t live in another grave, Reid. You’ve moved on. It is time for me to do the same.”
Though a hundred words of comfort rose to my lips, I didn’t utter one. They weren’t enough for what she’d suffered. No words would ever be enough. I handed her the syringe instead. She seized it instantly, lifting it to her eyes with a truly terrifying expression. Not like Lou. Not like Coco. Not like Gabrielle or Violette or Victoire. Like Célie.
“When I next see Morgane, I will stab this needle in her heart,” she promised.
And I believed her.
A Simple Favor
Reid
Beau, Coco, and Nicholina found us shortly after. I drew them into the shadow of an abandoned stall, away from the whispers of the villagers. “Well?” Coco looked between the two of us expectantly. “Anything?”
Nicholina snickered while Célie stuffed the injection into her pocket. “We, ah—my apologies, but Reid and I got . . . well, distracted.”
Coco frowned. “Distracted?”
“We haven’t found them yet,” I said shortly, hoisting her satchel back over my shoulder. “We need to keep looking.”
“The waters go down, down, down,” Nicholina sang, her face hidden within the hood of her cloak. “And there you’ll drown, drown, drown.”
Coco lifted a hand to rub her temple. “This is such a shit show. No one at the dock knew anything, either. One of them threw a hook at us when we asked about black pearls. He must’ve heard rumors about L’Eau Mélancolique.” She sighed. “Fishermen. They’re superstitious on the best of days, but they fear melusines most of all. I wouldn’t be surprised if he calls the Chasseurs. They’ll be swarming these streets by morning.”
Beau held up a stack of rumpled wanted posters in his hands. “At least he didn’t recognize us.”
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