Gods & Monsters

by Shelby Mahurin

  She snarled, squeezing harder, her own murderous impulse warring against her loyalty to La Voisin, who had told her not to kill me. Who had told her I was for Morgane.

  She’ll kill you if you do, I hiss. I’ll kill you if you don’t. Either way, you die.

  Choking against her rage, she bared her teeth and forced me to the blood-soaked ground. I fed that rage. I fed it and stoked it and watched it consume her.

  “She’ll forgive us, yes,” she breathed, wholly crazed. “Our mistress will understand—”

  You stink with fear, Nicholina. Perhaps you were right—perhaps we are alike. Perhaps you fear death too. I forced a grin despite the blinding pressure in my head. Cords hung between us like the strings of a marionette—because Nicholina was a marionette. If I cut her free, she would fall. She would drown. The words raked up my battered throat like shards of glass. Like knives. I forced them past my swollen tongue, gasping, “You’ll soon . . . join Mathieu . . . in the Summerland.”

  At his name on my lips, Nicholina made a guttural sound, forgetting her mistress, forgetting everything except her own bloodlust. Pressing her knee into my stomach, she leveraged her entire body, all her strength, against my throat. Her elbows locked.

  And I had won.

  Bridging upward with all my strength, I punched her arms at the elbow, breaking her grip, and hooked a foot outside hers. Air returned in a dizzying wave as I rolled atop her. I struck her face once, twice, before shoving off her chest to my feet. When I stumbled backward, heaving, La Voisin dropped to one knee beside the unconscious woman. She gripped the woman’s chin hard and lifted her face.

  I nearly lost my footing.

  Coco stared back at me.

  I shook my head incredulously, still reeling from lack of oxygen. It couldn’t be Coco. It had to be someone else—someone nearly identical—

  Nicholina tackled me from behind without warning, and we plummeted back into the icy churn of waters. With a high, maniacal laugh, she forced us down an even colder current. I tensed instinctively, fighting the pull, but it was too late.

  We landed in a battered bedroom of Chasseur Tower. Bits of broken furniture littered the ground around us. I seized a shard of bedpost as we rolled. When I thrust it at her chest, she lurched sideways, and it lodged in her arm instead. Relentless, I twisted it, relishing her shrieks. “Give up.” I lunged for another piece of wood. “You’re alone. Your lover, your son—they’re gone. They’re dead. Josephine is going to kill you too, and if she doesn’t, Morgane will. You’re in over your head—”

  She wrenched the wood from her arm and used it to block my strike. “We are not alone, little mouse. We are never alone.” Giggling softly, she flicked her eyes behind me. “Not like you.”

  I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. I wouldn’t look. I wouldn’t—

  Like a moth to a flame, my gaze drifted over my shoulder, following Reid’s voice. I dreaded the sound of it. The look on his face. Nicholina cackled without moving to attack.

  She’d already chosen her weapon.

  She was trying to drown me too.

  Reid towered over my pitiful form, his voice loud and angry and hurt. Estelle’s sister still cooled at our feet, but neither of us looked at her. We had eyes only for each other. “I’m a Chasseur!” he roared, wringing his hands. His knuckles clenched white. “I took an oath to hunt witches—to hunt you! How could you do this to me?”

  “You—Reid, you also made an oath to me.” I listened to my own impassioned plea with bitter regret. “You’re my husband, and I’m your wife.”

  His expression darkened, and my stomach rolled. An ache built at the back of my throat.

  “You are not my wife.”

  Cold, familiar despair chilled my bones at his words. How often had I heard them? How often had this exact scene plagued my nightmares?

  “You see?” Nicholina crept closer, blood dripping in her wake. The puncture in her arm, however, had already vanished. I tore my gaze from Reid to study the smooth alabaster skin there. The waters had healed her. Nicholina realized it at the same moment I did, and a heinous grin split her face. She twirled the bloody shard of wood between her fingers. “Lucky you tricked him, really. Lucky, lucky, lucky.”

  I picked up my own shard to match, lifting it high. “He would’ve loved me anyway.”

  Then we were drowning again, caught up in fresh currents. When she tried to drive her shard into my skull, the wood burst in a geyser, spraying her face as we left the previous memory. Burning her. She shrieked again, and in that moment, I saw another scene flash: a dark tent and cloaked figures, my mother and La Voisin. They shook hands amidst the smoking sage while Nicholina hovered in the corner. Her heart rioted.

  “We cannot do this,” she muttered, following her mistress from the tent. Her face and shoulders twitched in agitation. “Not the children.”

  La Voisin turned without warning and slapped her roundly across the cheek. “We do what is necessary. Do not forget your place, Nicholina. You wanted a cure for death, and I gave you one. My benevolence extends only so far. You will follow me, or I will revoke my gift. Is that what you want?”

  Nicholina thrashed in humiliation and hurt, tearing us from the memory. You see? My voice echoed cruelly even to my own ears. But we couldn’t continue this way forever. The time had come for one of us to end—and one of us would end. I would die before I returned to the surface with Nicholina. She doesn’t love you. She isn’t a sister or mother or family at all. You mean nothing to her. Give up, and go peacefully. You have nothing to fear in death, Nicholina. Mathieu will—

  She lashed out viciously then, pulling me along the coldest current of all.

  Glittering masks.

  A cavernous open space.

  And—and Ansel.

  My stomach bottomed out at her intent. My nails bit into the skin of her arm. No longer to harm her, but to escape. Every fiber in my being recoiled from the memory, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop it.

  And I would drown, after all.

  She alighted, catlike, at the bottom of the amphitheater, and I landed sprawled at her feet. Dazed, I scrambled away before she could touch me, before she could force my gaze to the group at the center of the primitive stage. But I couldn’t look at them. I couldn’t spend these last precious moments staring at myself, at Coco or Beau, even at Reid—at the hideous relief on all our faces. We’d thought we’d won. We’d thought Claud had swooped in to save us, that we’d eluded Coco’s prophecy, that we’d defeated my mother at last.

  We’d thought so many things.

  Morgane inched toward the back tunnel, where Ansel stood near. Too near. His beautiful face contorted with concentration as he looked from her to Claud to me.

  He’d looked to me, and I hadn’t seen it.

  I bolted toward him now.

  Rationally, I knew this memory would play out regardless of my presence, my interference. My feet, however, weren’t rational. My heart wasn’t either. Both carried me forward with foolish urgency as Morgane began to applaud. Skidding to a stop in front of him, I looked around wildly for anything I might use to shield him, to protect him. My eyes landed on the fallen knife. I bent to snatch it up, triumphant, but my fingers passed through the hilt, billowing into smoke before re-forming.

  “No.” I stared down at them. This didn’t make sense. I’d—I’d touched the wood in Chasseur Tower. I’d stabbed Nicholina, for Christ’s sake. “No.” At my vehement refusal, Claud’s eyes seemed to flicker in my direction before finding Morgane once more.

  “We can’t change the past, little mouse, even in our memories. Not truly.” Nicholina pursed her lips in saccharine pity. Her silver eyes glittered. “We can’t save him, no. He is dead. He is dead, he is dead, with that knife in his head.” She inclined her chin to the knife, which remained firmly upon the ground. Nicholina sauntered forward as Morgane inched backward. “Such a pity.” When she reached out to stroke his cheek, I knocked her hand away, widening my stance bet
ween them. She grinned. “Such a pretty pity. He was your family, wasn’t he, Louise? The only one who never betrayed you.”

  I scowled without looking at her. My attention remained on Morgane, who blithered about rules and games, still creeping backward. “Coco hasn’t—” But Nicholina held knowledge that I did not, secrets of Coco and—and her mother. Nicholina laughed at my wide-eyed expression, at my slack jaw, as those secrets became my own. “No.” I shook my head, a cold wave of shock washing over me. “Coco would have—”

  Morgane lunged, and I could only stand there, immaterial between them, as she plunged her knife through me. My form rippled at the contact. Bone crunched. When Ansel crumpled to his knees, I went with him, trying and failing to catch his broken body, wrapping invisible arms around him to cushion his fall. Still stunned. Still numb. His blood soaked my dress, and my mind simply . . . fled. “Perhaps you didn’t deserve your mother’s ire,” Nicholina mused, circling us idly as Morgane darted into the tunnel, as my own screams shattered the night, “or your huntsman’s hate. But this”—she bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet—“this you earned, Louise.”

  Cutting my own strings mercilessly, she repeated the words I’d told him.

  “You wreck everything you touch, Ansel. It’s tragic how helpless you are.” Snip. Snip. “You say you’re not a child, Ansel, but you are.” Snip. “You’re a little boy playing pretend, dressing up with our coats and boots. We’ve let you tag along for laughs, but now the time for games is done. A woman’s life is in danger—my life is in danger. We can’t afford for you to mess this up.”

  Snip, snip, snip.

  As if my life had been worth more than his.

  As if his life hadn’t been worth all of ours together.

  I’d known it, even then. I’d known how much better he was than us. I stared down at his profile now, his eyes wide and unseeing. Blood matted his hair. It slicked down his graceful neck, stained the back of his coat. “Did you love him, Louise?” Nicholina echoed my mother’s jeer. “Did you watch as the light left those pretty brown eyes?”

  Why hadn’t I told him? Why hadn’t I hugged him one last time?

  Closing my own eyes, I crumpled to my knees, pressing my forehead against his cheek. I couldn’t feel him, of course. Couldn’t feel anything. Was this what it was to drown? How strange. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry—not when Coco wrenched the knife from his skull, not when Reid pried his lips apart. Not when Nicholina loomed over me, the discarded knife in hand.

  She wouldn’t be changing the past by killing me.

  Part of me had died here already.

  What It Is to Swim

  Reid

  I didn’t pause to unlace my boots, unfasten my coat. When she hit the water, I moved to follow, already ankle-deep.

  A low growl rumbled from behind.

  Stiffening, I turned. Amber eyes reflected back at me. White fur gleamed in the moonlight.

  I swore softly.

  The fucking dog.

  It paced along the path, hackles raised and teeth bared. Snorting, it shook its head before whining once. Twice. Its eyes bored into mine as if trying to . . . to communicate something. When it inched closer, I drew a knife. Unsettled. “Not another step,” I said darkly. Flattening its ears, it snarled again, louder now, vicious, and did just that. To Coco, I asked, “How did it get here? Where is Constantin?”

  “Leave it.” She watched our standoff while hastily shucking off her own boots. “It isn’t harming anything.”

  “Every time something catastrophic happens to us, that dog is there. It’s an ill omen—”

  “Lou is probably drowning.” Her fingers moved to the laces of her bodice next. I looked away hastily. “Get your ass in there before—”

  We both froze, scenting it at the same time: sharp yet sweet, barely there on the breeze. My nose still burned with its familiar scent.

  Magic.

  Not mine and not hers. Someone else’s. Which meant—

  Célie’s scream split the night. The dog’s ears pricked forward in response, but instead of turning toward it, he stared fixedly at a point within the waters. My blood ran cold. Torn with indecision—rooted in fear—I didn’t move fast enough. I couldn’t block it.

  With preternatural speed, the dog careened past me, straight into the heart of the Wistful Waters.

  The decision came easily then.

  I dove in after it.

  The Final Verse

  Lou

  Nicholina didn’t strike right away. Though I kept my eyes closed, the scene still burned through our shared consciousness. Leisurely, she lifted the knife through the smoke, admiring Ansel’s blood along the blade, while I remained bowed over his corpse, my hands clenched desperately around his shoulders. Through her eyes, I saw how pitiful I’d become. And she relished it. She relished this hideous pain inside me, this dark and noxious poison. It was exactly like hers.

  I should’ve forced myself to my feet then—to fight, to flee, to something. And if I couldn’t have stood, I should’ve crawled. I should’ve lifted my fists and raged through the ringing in my ears, should’ve spat in her face before she drove her knife into my back.

  But I couldn’t do any of it. I couldn’t even lift my head.

  “It isn’t my birthday until next month,” he said sheepishly, but he clutched the bottle to his chest anyway. The fire cast flickering light on his quiet joy. “No one’s ever—” He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “I’ve never received a present before.”

  He’d never received a birthday present.

  “I’m sick and tired of everyone needing to protect me. I’d like to protect myself for a change, or even—” When my frown deepened, he sighed and dropped his face into his hands, grinding his palms into his eyes. “I just want to contribute to the group. I don’t want to be the bumbling idiot anymore. Is that so much to ask? I just . . . I don’t want to be a liability.”

  A liability.

  “She keeps looking at you.” Ansel tripped over a stray limb, nearly landing face-first in the snow. Absalon leapt sleekly from his path.

  “Of course she does. I’m objectively beautiful. A masterpiece made flesh.”

  Ansel snorted.

  “Excuse me?” Offended, I kicked snow in his direction, and he nearly tumbled again. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. The proper response was, ‘Goddess Divine, of course thy beauty is a sacred gift from Heaven, and we mortals are blessed to even gaze upon thy face.’”

  “Goddess Divine.” He laughed harder now, brushing the snow from his coat. “Right.”

  Gasping now, half laughing and half sobbing, I rocked back and forth, unable to stand it for a single second longer—this great, gaping hole in my chest where Ansel had been. Where Estelle and my mother and Manon and my father and Coco and Beau and even Reid had been. I had once been there too. Happy and whole and safe and sound. What had happened? What had led us here? Surely we’d done nothing to deserve this life. If someone like Ansel had received only neglect, loneliness, and pain for his efforts, for his goodness, what hope could the rest of us have? I’d lied, killed, and cheated—I’d shredded the very fibers of my soul—yet here I was, still standing. He deserved better. He deserved more, so much more than he’d ever been given. In another time, I would’ve screamed and raged at the injustice of it all, at the senselessness, but no amount of anger would change anything now. This was life.

  And Ansel was dead.

  In another day, another week, another month, this would be Reid’s lifeless body I inevitably held, or Coco’s. Beau’s own father would probably kill him, as my own mother would eventually kill me. There really was only one way this story could end. I’d been so foolish to think otherwise. So stupid and naive.

  “It’ll be quick,” Nicholina lied in a whisper, bending over me. Her fingers caressed the back of my head, and her hair tickled my cheek. Around us, the entire cavern succumbed to black flame. “Painless. You will see him soon, little mouse.
You can tell him exactly what he meant.”

  But if I died now, his death would mean nothing.

  My eyes snapped open at that cruel reality, and I stared numbly at the flames in front of me. Ansel deserved better. He deserved more than my self-pity. Summoning the final dregs of my strength—the absolute last of them—I lifted my head. She lifted her knife. Our eyes met for one synchronized beat of our hearts.

  Then something moved in the tunnel.

  Confusion flashed through us both before we turned. Coco’s fire had driven everyone in memory into that tunnel, and none should’ve reappeared. We’d all fled straight to Léviathan after La Mascarade des Crânes. Could someone have crept back? Could they have returned for Ansel’s body? I instantly quelled the thought. Even if someone had miraculously traversed the cursed fire, this was my memory. It should’ve ended the moment I’d disappeared in pursuit of Morgane. Why hadn’t it?

  Through the smoke, a white dog emerged.

  Nicholina bared her teeth at it, blasting awareness through me the second before the dog transformed. If I’d been standing, my legs would’ve buckled. As it was, I rose slowly to my knees, the ringing in my ears deepening to a rushing sound. A roar of blood and hope and fear. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.

  Ansel ambled toward me.

  “Hello, Lou.” At my dumbstruck expression, he grinned, the same sheepish grin he’d given a thousand times and the same sheepish grin of which I wanted a thousand more. He wore a pristine powder-blue coat with golden tassels and buttons—my heart ached at the familiarity—with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pants. An eternal initiate. No blood marred his person, not his hair or his skin, and his brown eyes sparkled even in the dark. “Did you miss me?”

  I stared at him for a second too long, swallowing hard. And then—

  “Ansel.” My voice broke on his name.

  His gaze softened as he came to stand beside me, extending a slender hand to help me to my feet. Hardly daring to breathe, I accepted it tentatively and marveled at its warmth. When he glanced down at his broken body, his smile dimmed slightly, and he shook his head. “What are you doing here, Lou?”