Gods & Monsters

by Shelby Mahurin

  Josephine hissed, and her hand flew to her own chest, where an identical wound had formed.

  My confusion deepened as I stared at it. Nicholina’s memories hadn’t revealed anything like this. Not that I’d known to look for it.

  “What the hell is happening?” I breathed to Coco. Josephine and Angelica still glared at each other, bleeding, in a silent standoff. “You said your mother was dead.”

  “I said my aunt said she was dead.”

  “And now?”

  She shrugged stiffly. “Now it looks like they’re blood bound.”

  “Blood bound?”

  “It’s a dangerous spell between Dames Rouges. It binds their lives together. Their magic.”

  I looked again at their twin wounds. “Oh shit.”

  She nodded. “That about sums it up.”

  On the heels of that unpleasant realization, however, came another. “Does that mean we can’t—we can’t kill your aunt without killing your mom?”

  “Apparently.”

  My stomach plunged as Josephine readjusted her grip on Célie, pressing the dagger to the back of her head. “Your threat is empty as always, sœur,” she said, “while you clutch at others’ skirts and hide where I cannot reach you.” She laughed harshly. The only time I’d heard her laugh at all. “No. You will not inflict real harm on yourself to hurt me, or you would have done so centuries ago.”

  Right. I couldn’t kill her, then. Testing my patterns swiftly, I followed each one to their sacrifice. I just needed to knock the knife from her hand—something simple. A gust of wind, perhaps. A spasm of her fingers. “Wait,” I whispered to Coco as I searched. “If you thought your mother was dead, why were you trying to summon her?”

  “I wasn’t trying to summon her. I just—the waters spoke to me. I listened.”

  “You gave them your blood”—I cut an incredulous glance at her over my shoulder—“because they asked nicely? Did they at least say please?”

  “I was born of them,” she muttered defensively.

  “Surrender Louise,” Josephine insisted, ignoring our low, fervent conversation. Angelica kept her blade loose at her side. Her blood dripped from its tip to the seafloor, and black pearls formed from each drop. I glanced again at Constantin. “Surrender Cosette”—Josephine’s fingers tightened around her own dagger—“or I will dispose of this pathetic child. I will dispose of the mortal prince.”

  Like hell.

  Gritting my teeth in a sharp burst of hatred, I clenched my fist, and my anger sparked along a pattern. I watched as it sizzled between us, feeling the heat of it leave me. The cord disintegrated to golden ash as Josephine yelped, dropping her dagger and clutching her burned hand. I grinned in satisfaction and wiggled my fingers. “It’s time for you to go, Josie.”

  Angelica lifted her own hand in emphasis, and the waters responded, surging past the shoreline to reclaim Célie and Beau, depositing each of them at our feet. But they didn’t stop there. They continued to flood the sand, to reclaim the beach, sweeping away the silver chalices. They chased Josephine’s hem with sentient determination, and she had no choice but to back away quickly. Just as Nicholina had feared the dark, it seemed Josephine feared the strange magic fortifying these waters.

  She still refused to cede.

  When she turned to shout orders to the remaining Dames Rouges, however—commanding them to hold their ground—her eyes widened, and she finally saw the battle had been lost. The blood witches had already fled into the cliffs. Josephine stood alone.

  “Leave this place, sœur,” Angelica said. From the steely edge to her voice, I knew this was her final warning. “And never return. I cannot promise your safety if you continue to provoke Isla.”

  “Isla.” Josephine’s face twisted at the name. The waters kept coming, however, forcing her back until she stood atop the first rocks of the path. Her black eyes bored holes into Angelica’s beautiful face. “The Oracle. Your mistress.”

  “My friend.” With another wave of Angelica’s hand, the waters climbed higher, and Josephine leapt backward, away from them. She moved with surprising agility for a thousand-year-old hag. “You would do well to respect her,” Angelica continued. “Though she rules below, she has not turned a blind eye to the war above. You do not want her as an enemy.” A peculiar light built in those pale eyes as her gaze turned inward. “Though it seems you’ve already displeased her siblings.” For our benefit, she added, “The Triple Goddess and the Wild Man of the Forest.”

  Do you have a family, Monsieur Deveraux?

  As a matter of fact, I do. Two elder sisters. Terrifying creatures, to be sure.

  “All these years, I have watched you, Josephine.” Sadness softened Angelica’s voice, and the ethereal glow slowly faded from her eyes. “I have hoped for you. You think me a coward, but you are a fool. Have you learned nothing from our mistakes?”

  Josephine didn’t visibly react to her sister’s piteous words. She merely continued to walk backward, her face inscrutable, her eyes burning like twin flames in the darkness. “There are no mistakes, sister.” She smiled at each of us in turn. “We shall see each other soon, I think.”

  Then she turned, cloak billowing behind her, and disappeared into the night.

  A Lie of Omission

  Lou

  I collapsed at Reid’s side the next moment, and Coco followed suit with Beau and Célie. To my surprise, Angelica knelt too, brushing Constantin’s cheek with the back of one slender hand. Unlike her sister, she wore her emotions proudly for all to see. This one looked akin to . . . wistfulness.

  I gestured to the floodwater on the beach, both irritated and impressed. “Maybe lead with that next time.”

  She laughed softly.

  Shaking my head and grumbling—her laughter sounded like a goddamn bell—I pressed my ear to Reid’s chest to listen to his heart. It beat strong and steady. When I checked his temperature, his skin felt warm—but not too warm—beneath my wrist. I lifted his eyelids next, sparking a light on the tip of my finger with residual anger. His pupils contracted like they should’ve. Right. I sat back in relief. He was perfectly healthy, just . . . asleep. He’d probably claimed Morgane’s consciousness to give us time to flee, sacrificing his own in the process. I only needed to wake him up. As I searched for a pattern to do that, however, I couldn’t quash my curiosity. Glancing at Angelica and Constantin, I asked, “Didn’t he betray you?”

  Her pale eyes rose to mine. “He did.”

  Coco didn’t look up. Tension radiated from her clenched jaw, her taut shoulders. She snatched my dagger to reopen the cut on her palm. Like me, however, she couldn’t seem to help herself. “And you still loved him?”

  “You needn’t do that, darling.” Angelica’s gaze flicked to the wall of water on our right. In response, a thin stream twisted toward us like a serpent. It reached first for Beau, touching the deep puncture in his leg and flowing into his very skin. The wound closed almost instantly, followed by the one on his shoulder. A second tendril unfurled toward Célie, and a third stretched to Angelica. All of their injuries vanished.

  “You see?” Angelica smiled, and my breath might’ve caught in my throat a little. I forced a scowl to compensate. “Do not fatigue yourself.” She looked again at Constantin’s lifeless body, her gaze lingering at the hole in his chest, before swallowing hard. The movement made her seem almost human. “But yes, Cosette. I loved him the way we all love things we shouldn’t—to excess. He hurt me in the way those things always do.” That palpable sadness crept back into her voice. “I am sorry he is dead.”

  I am sorry he is dead. Just like that, she became something strange and foreign once more.

  Coco’s hands clenched around Beau’s collar as his eyes fluttered open. She didn’t thank her mother for healing him. I didn’t blame her. Instead, I scooted closer, pulling Reid with me, and braced my shoulder against hers in silent support. She leaned into the touch, dropping Beau’s shirt as he sat upright. “What happened? Where’s Mor�
��” His eyes widened when he caught sight of Angelica. To his credit, he only blinked stupidly for about three seconds before turning to Coco. Then he blinked a few times more. “Is this . . . ?”

  Coco nodded curtly. When her hand rose to clench her locket in a death grip, Angelica’s eyes followed, widening in disbelief. “You . . . wear my locket,” she said. It sounded like a question.

  “I—” Coco stared at the ground with ferocious intent. “Yes.”

  A fierce sort of protectiveness pricked my chest at her obvious discomfort. Perhaps I should’ve been angry with her for never telling me about her mother. How many times had we talked about Angelica together? How many times had she chosen not to tell me? A lie of omission was still a lie. Hadn’t I learned that the hard way?

  Nicholina had called it a betrayal. Perhaps I should’ve been upset, but I wasn’t. We all had our secrets. I’d certainly kept my fair share. Though I didn’t know why she hadn’t confided in me, I did know Coco had been six years old the last time she’d seen her mother. I knew she didn’t need an audience for this reunion. What she needed was time to process, time to decide what she wanted her relationship with Angelica to look like. To decide if she even wanted that relationship at all.

  Resolute, I settled on a pattern to wake Reid, flicking his nose to wield it, eager to distract the others from this painfully awkward situation. One night of my own sleep in exchange for his consciousness now. Simple, yet effective. Nothing too harmful. With Reid awake, we could move on. We could gather our allies to march on Chateau le Blanc or return to Cesarine or—well, I didn’t know exactly, but we could do something other than gawk.

  I flicked Reid’s nose once more, waiting for the pattern I’d enacted to dissipate. It didn’t budge. I tried again, clenching my fist this time. It actually recoiled, twisting into a different pattern altogether. And the other patterns in my web—they did too. They grew hopelessly knotted in a way I couldn’t trace or understand, as if the magic itself had grown confused.

  I frowned down at him.

  What the hell had he done?

  Distracted by my nonsensical patterns, I didn’t see or hear Angelica move behind me. Her hand landed on my shoulder. “He will not wake,” she said gently. “Not until he is ready.”

  I shot her an irritated look, shrugging away from her touch. “What does that mean?”

  “His mind needs time to heal.” She dropped her hand without insult, lacing her fingers together in a maddeningly calm pose. “He is lucky to be alive, Louise. This spell could have done irreparable damage to more than his mind.”

  “What spell?” When she didn’t answer, my frown deepened to an outright glower. I pushed to my feet, my cheeks hotter than usual. Claud, Constantin, Angelica—what was the point of omniscience, of omnipotence, if one didn’t use it? I shook my head. “If his mind has been harmed, why can’t you heal him? You healed everyone else!”

  She only smiled again, a horrible, pitying smile. “Only he can heal himself.”

  “That’s horsesh—”

  “Do not worry, Louise.” A hint of that unnatural glow reentered her eyes, and I stepped back despite myself. “His injuries are not fatal. He will wake—of that, I am certain. His path forward, however, cannot yet be seen.”

  The waters see things we cannot see, know things we cannot know. Constantin’s warning repeated in my mind. Angelica was a seer, and her magic shaped them.

  “Your path, on the other hand, is clear.” She gestured down the narrow split in the waters. It led straight into the heart of L’Eau Mélancolique. In the silver light of the moon, the mist from its flowing walls sparkled like flecks of diamond. She looked almost apologetically to Coco. “I am sorry, fille, that our reunion is fraught with such complication. When you summoned me—”

  “I didn’t know I was summoning you,” Coco interjected.

  Angelica nodded, though something like pain flashed through her eyes. “Of course. When you called upon the waters, I heard it. I felt your need, and I—well, I needed to answer it.” Her voice gentled as she continued, though she spoke with no less certainty. “There is much you don’t understand, Cosette. I know you are angry with me—as you well should be—but we do not have the luxury of time for lengthy explanations and apologies.”

  Coco stiffened at the straightforward words, and I squeezed her arm. Angelica was right, however; this wasn’t the time or place for this conversation. Not with Morgane and Josephine roaming near, not with a corpse at our feet, trapped between colossal walls of water. I eyed them nervously as a long silver fin flicked past.

  “To do so,” Angelica continued, recapturing my attention, “you must understand three things. First, I am no longer safe outside these waters. Isla’s benevolence protects me, and she risked much in allowing me to come here. My sister lives in fear of my magic—in fear of Isla herself—but if Josephine had tried to enter these waters, I would not have been able to stop her. For as much as this magic is yours through birth, it is also hers because of our blood bond.”

  She didn’t give us another chance to interrupt. “Understand this second: all of your life, Cosette, I have watched you.” Those blue eyes eddied with white, and fresh gooseflesh lifted the hair on my arms. It lifted Coco’s too. “I know where you have been and who you have loved. I know you have scoured the kingdom—from La Fôret des Yeux to Le Ventre to Fée Tombe—for allies against Morgane. You have befriended the Beast of Gévaudan and the Wild Man of the Forest. You have entranced dragons and witches and werewolves alike.”

  For the first time, she hesitated, the white in her eyes flaring brighter. To me, she said, “You still wish to defeat your mother?”

  “Of course I do, but what—?”

  “Isla would make a powerful friend.”

  Coco clutched my arm so hard that I nearly lost sensation in it. But her voice didn’t falter. “Whatever you’re trying to say, maman . . . say it.”

  “Very well.” She waved her hand at the waters once more, and streaming tendrils shot forth, weaving midair to form a liquid lattice. They looked much like the roots of a glass tree, clear and bright and shining. Twining beneath Reid, they lifted his body and suspended it at waist level. I reached out to seize his hand with my free one. When Angelica motioned him down the path, the waters obeyed. He floated away from us, and I darted to keep up, dragging Coco along with me. “Stop it! What are you—?”

  Her mother spoke in a strained voice. “I wish I could offer you a choice, fille, but truthfully, you have already made one. When you called upon the waters, you asked of them a favor. Now we must ask one of you.”

  Coco dug in her heels, incredulous. “But I didn’t know—”

  The waters began to close behind us, blocking our path to the beach. We stared at them in horror. “Isla wishes to speak with you in Le Présage, Cosette—you and your friends.” Angelica’s beautiful face pinched with regret. “I’m afraid you must all come with me.”

  A Magpie’s Nest

  Lou

  Le Présage.

  I’d heard the name once, spoken amidst breathless giggles at the maypole. Another witchling had suggested we seek it out as we’d twirled and danced in the sweltering midsummer heat. Manon had refused, repeating a story her mother had told her about melusines drowning unsuspecting witchlings. We’d all believed it at the time. Melusines were bloodthirsty, after all. Treacherous and uncanny. The boogeyman hiding beneath our beds—or in our backyard, as was actually the case. Some days, I’d been able to see the mist from their shore through my window at sunrise. It wasn’t until I’d first played with Coco that I’d realized melusines posed no real threat. They held dominion over an entire world below—a world apart from the rest of us, greater and stranger than our own. They had little interest in the affairs of witches.

  Until now, it seemed.

  I shot surreptitious looks at the black waters as we trudged along the footpath. They twined beneath Reid, towing him forward, while more water flooded the path behind, forcing us
deeper along the seafloor. Within the waves on either side, shadows moved, some small and innocuous and others alarming in their size and dexterity. Beau appeared to share my disquiet. He nearly clipped my heel in his haste to flee the serpentine faces pressing in on the pathway. “Fish women, eh?” he muttered at my ear.

  “Legend says they could once walk on land, but I’ve never seen it in my lifetime.”

  He gave a full-body shudder. “I don’t like fish.”

  Another silver face flashed through the waters, sticking her forked tongue out at him.

  Angelica glanced over her shoulder as she continued to glide forward. “Whatever you do, do not insult them. They’re incredibly vain, melusines, but never vapid. They value beauty almost as much as gentility—manners are of utmost importance to a melusine—but they have vicious tempers when provoked.”

  At Beau’s alarmed expression, Coco added, “They love flattery. You’ll be fine.”

  “Flattery.” Beau nodded seriously to himself, tucking the knowledge away. “Right.”

  “Are they very beautiful, then?” Célie asked, clutching her leather satchel over her shoulder with both hands. Dirt was caked beneath her cracked nails, and her hair spilled haphazardly from her chignon. Blood and grime stained her porcelain skin, the once-rich velvet of her trousers. The lace trim at her sleeves now trailed gently behind her in the wind. “Since they value beauty?”

  “They are.” Angelica inclined her head with an almost impish smile. “They are not, however, human. Never forget that, child—beautiful things can have teeth.” Célie frowned at the words but said nothing more, and Angelica turned her attention instead to Coco, who studiously ignored her. She stared at her daughter for a long moment, deliberating, before clearing her throat. “Are you well, Cosette? Have your own injuries healed?”

  “It’s Coco.” She glared at a beautiful fish flitting past, its golden fins rippling behind it. “And I’ve survived worse.”