The first spark of anger lit in my chest. Aurore’s blessing? A sea urchin? “Is that why you invited me here? To satisfy your curiosity?”
She didn’t answer, instead turning to Beau. “What about you, princeling? Do you find Louise intelligent?”
He carefully returned his spoon to his plate before answering. “I do.”
“Do you find her extraordinarily intelligent?”
“Y—” His reply caught in his throat, however, and his gaze cut to mine, abruptly panicked. Rueful. My anger spiked in response. He couldn’t lie—not here, not caught in Isla’s web of magic—even to spare my feelings. The knowledge hurt, but it didn’t cut deep enough to scar. I might not have been extraordinarily intelligent, but I had intelligence enough to know Isla wanted to hurt me. To shock and awe me. I just didn’t understand why.
“As I thought. Tell me, princeling, do you find her extraordinarily beautiful, then?”
He frowned, eyes still darting between us. Her gaze, however, still didn’t stray from mine. It bored into me with disturbing intensity. With disturbing clarity. Beau tugged at the collar of his shirt before muttering, “Of course I find her pretty. She’s my”—his throat worked again, failing to form the words—“she’s like my sister.”
“How quaint. I asked if you find her beauty extraordinary, however. Is Louise among the fairest you’ve encountered?” When he didn’t answer right away, she inclined her head. “Just so. Do you consider her extraordinarily brave instead?” Again, he didn’t answer. “No? Extraordinarily true, perhaps? Extraordinarily just?” Still Beau said nothing, swallowing hard around words that couldn’t come. Sweat beaded along his forehead at the effort. His foot pressed against mine with enough force to crack my bones.
A peculiar hum started in my ears at the pressure, and my vision tunneled on Isla’s superior expression. How dare she treat us this way? We were guests in her realm. She’d invited us here—and for what? To torment us? To poke and prod until we snapped? An almost childlike indignation flooded my system at the injustice.
Isla was supposed to be an ally.
“I don’t—why do you ask such questions?” Beau ground out.
She ignored his struggle, continuing ruthlessly. “Is Louise a leader, Beauregard? A visionary?”
“She—not as such—”
“Has she offered you riches in exchange for your loyalty? Has she offered you magic?”
He nearly choked on his answer.
“Is she extraordinary in any way?”
“She—” He looked to me, helpless, color rising in his cheeks. Across the table, Célie shot us covert looks, still pretending to listen to Elvire. Coco didn’t pretend at all. She glared at Isla with eyes that blazed with hatred while the hum in my ears grew louder.
“—is just as I feared,” Isla finished for him. “She is ordinary. Painfully, intolerably ordinary, yet she inspires the loyalty and devotion of my sister, my brother, you.” Scoffing, she shook her head and signaled for another course. “A wasted blessing, to be sure.”
“I am not blessed.”
“You don’t even realize, do you? I shouldn’t be surprised. Aurore may say what she likes about Morgane, but at least your mother possesses a modicum of awareness.”
My fingers shook at the comparison. At the insult. I curled them into fists, staring at the pan-fried dulse without seeing it. “Why did you summon us here?”
Again, she ignored my question, reaching across Beau to seize the diamond pin in my hair. “Help me understand, Louise. Why do they follow where you lead? I have only ever watched you fail—watched you murder, watched you lie, watched you cheat. Indeed, like a sea urchin, the only feat you’ve managed in all your life is survival. In doing so, you have harmed every person in this beloved family of yours, yet each one remains. Why?”
“Perhaps it’s my extraordinary sense of humor.” The words fell heavy from my lips. Hard. Heat rippled from my chest through my limbs now, and my entire body trembled. White edged my vision. Ordinary. She’d said it as an expletive. Something basic and coarse, something inferior.
“No.” With an errant flick of her wrist, my diamond pin clattered to the floor. Vaguely, I realized the table had stilled around us. Every eye had turned in my direction. “I do not think so. Even with Aurore’s blessing—even with your precious allies—you are not equipped to win this war, Louise le Blanc. Quite simply, my sister chose wrong.”
That heat kept spreading. Hotter than anger now. Hotter than embarrassment. Brows furrowing in alarm, Beau stared at my hand when I slammed it atop the table. “You speak of blessings,” I said, the words spilling forth wildly and with abandon, “but what good are the loyalty and devotion of the Wild Man of the Forest and the Triple Goddess? My mother—my own mother, the person who should’ve loved me most in the world—has tried to kill me three times. She murdered my best friend in front of me. Since then, I’ve spent days, perhaps weeks, possessed by Nicholina. Earlier tonight she almost drowned me in these wretched waters, where my mother also tried to kill me. Again. Now Reid sleeps under an enchantment I cannot break while you insult me in front of your entire court.” My chest heaved. “If this is the blessing of a goddess, I’d hate to see her curse.”
Isla only smiled.
With a single finger, she pushed the dish between us—still covered—in my direction. The flippant gesture only enraged me further. I shoved to my feet, prepared to stalk from the hall, to seize Reid’s body and leave, when my eyes dropped to the silver cloche. To my reflection there.
Too late, I registered the sharp scent of magic.
Coco’s eyes held wonder, fear, as she too pushed from the table. “Lou?”
But I didn’t recognize my reflection. Round brown eyes stared back at me, and straight, wheat-colored locks replaced my own. Pink cheeks replaced freckles. My gown hung from diminutive shoulders, the excess fabric pooling at my feet. As I stared at it, the heat in my chest morphed slowly to something else—something innocent, youthful, inquisitive, alive.
Without realizing, I’d transformed into the Maiden.
When Isla stood to stroll toward me, her entire court stood too. She trailed a casual finger across my throat. Scarless now. “You were saying?”
I swallowed hard against her nail, refusing to look at anyone. Especially my reflection. “How—how is this possible?”
“Claud warned Morgane. He told her what would happen if she continued to defy us. Morgane arranged your possession regardless.”
“But that”—Beau pushed his plate away with a slack expression—“that means—”
“Yes, princeling.” Isla moved behind me, fanning my hair across my shoulders. “The sea urchin has become La Dame des Sorcières. A pity, if you ask me, but admittedly a useful one.”
“Does Morgane know?” Coco asked sharply.
In answer, Angelica tensed, her eyes eddying until she no longer saw the room but something else. Somewhere else. “Yes.” She returned to us after another moment, shaking her head and wincing. “She is not pleased.”
I spoke through numb lips. “Why did you bring us here?”
Her hands tightened on my neck, and at last—at last—she answered. “My darling Angelica believes we should ally ourselves with you in this tedious struggle against Morgane.” I felt her shrug, as if we discussed the weather and not my very life. “I must confess, I care not for it. Neither your death nor your mother’s will affect us here.” She moved beside me then, offering a hand. I had no choice but to accept it. Tucking my arm in hers, she led me about the room while the others tracked us with their eyes. No one dared resume eating.
“I am not, however, a fool.”
I didn’t correct her.
“You present a unique opportunity for me and my people—and most of all for Angelica. I treasure her, you know,” she added. The woman in question kept her head bowed and her hands clasped, as all the melusines did. “Twenty years ago, a ring of hers was stolen while she dallied above water, creating your r
ather beautiful friend.” Isla waved a vague hand toward Coco. “You have heard of this ring. You have called it by name.” Reaching around me, she lifted my right hand to stroke my empty ring finger. “You have even wielded its magic. You do not, however, know it as we do. It is not a simple ring of immunity and invisibility, as your foolish kin believe. More importantly, it does not belong to them. It does not belong to any of you. It is Angelica’s Ring—it is her very power—and we shall have it back.”
Vindicated, I almost laughed at the realization. At the hard, delicious truth. For all her extraordinary intelligence, beauty, and bravery, here she was . . . in need of me. A sea urchin. “If you know I’ve used it, you also know I don’t have it any longer. My mother does. It’s kept under lock and key at Chateau le Blanc.”
“Precisely.”
“I don’t quite grasp what you’re implying. Ordinary brain, you know. If her ring is so important, surely you can retrieve it yourself?”
When she turned me to face her abruptly, her smile shone hard and bright, and her nails dug painfully into my forearm, longer and sharper than before. She lifted a finger to my lips when I tried to protest, and the metallic taste of blood followed. My blood. “Ah, ah, ah.” Her eyes dipped to my lips, to her finger, before flicking back to my own. “Do not disrespect me, or you shall never hear my proposition.”
I glared at her in mutinous silence.
She arched a devilish brow. “I cannot retrieve the ring myself because I cannot directly intervene. My melusines cannot do it for me because they cannot leave the waters without it. Do you understand now, mon pouffiasse? It is, as you say, a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
Her words rang in my ears as the rest of her fingers curled around my face, squeezing my cheeks hard enough to bruise. “Tomorrow, you shall return to the surface, and you shall steal back Angelica’s Ring from your mother. Then—and only then—will my people join you against her.”
The Most Beautiful Shade of Blue
Lou
On deck a scant hour later, Angelica pulled Coco aside as Aurélien, Olympienne, and Sabatay hovered around Célie, bidding her tearful farewells. Truly. Actual tears dripped down Olympienne’s lavender cheeks. Scoffing, Beau readjusted his pack and started down the plank. Halfway to the seafloor, he turned to jerk his chin at me. “Come on.”
I hoisted my own pack over my shoulder. After dinner, Isla had wasted no time in expelling us from her realm. She might’ve been the most conceited creature alive, but she had gifted us supplies for the journey ahead, at least. That included fresh clothes. Sensible ones, this time, and warm ones too. I’d also slipped a new sheath around my thigh, just in case.
Reid drifted along behind, still comatose, as Elvire and Leopoldine escorted us from the city. With each step, the unease I’d been avoiding grew impossible to ignore. It set my teeth on edge, pulsing painfully in my right temple.
Despite my pleas, Isla hadn’t woken him. She’d insisted she couldn’t intervene. I’d insisted we couldn’t rob Chateau le Blanc with a six-and-a-half-foot, two-hundred-pound, unconscious man in tow.
Truthfully, I’d expected him to wake by now. He’d been unconscious for hours.
Do not worry, Louise. His injuries are not fatal. He will wake—of that, I am certain.
My head continued to throb.
The others walked toward the gates in silence, seemingly oblivious to our rather giant problem, except for Beau. He threw more than one anxious glance my way.
I assumed he expected me to transform into the Maiden at any moment. I half expected it myself. Even now, I wasn’t sure how I’d done it, but I took care not to think too long or too hard about that shiver in my skin—that heady sensation of wild abandon. Curiously enough, it reminded me of . . . rooftops. If I closed my eyes, I could almost feel the wind tangling in my hair, my arms stretching wide, as I propelled myself upward, outward, from shingles into empty air. Exhilaration swooped low in my stomach for those precious seconds. Those precious seconds when I might’ve flown.
When my hands began to ripple, my eyes snapped open.
Beau still stared at me.
“What is it?” I snapped. “Spit it out.”
“Are you okay? With”—he jerked his chin toward my hands—“that?”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Are you?”
He tipped his head, considering, before a fierce smile broke across his face. “I think it’s the most impressive fucking thing I’ve ever seen. You’re a . . . Lou, you’re a goddess now.”
“Goddess Divine.” I matched his smirk with one of my own, despite Isla’s words ringing loud and true in my ears. My sister chose wrong. “Queen of the sea urchins.”
His smirk vanished at the last, and he stared resolutely at the back of Elvire’s head. “About that. I . . . want to apologize.” He cleared his throat. “For earlier.”
“Ah.” I exhaled with a soft chuckle. “There’s no need.”
“There is a need—”
“You told the truth.”
“It wasn’t the truth.” He shook his head in agitation. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Isla, she—she twisted my words—” Clearing his throat, he tried again, lowering his voice so the others couldn’t hear. “I do find you extraordinary. Perhaps not extraordinarily brave or just or true, but extraordinary nonetheless.” When I rolled my eyes, politely skeptical, he stepped in front of me, forcing us both to a halt. “Who else would have accepted the spoiled son of a king? The misused aristocrat? The sacrilegious huntsman? In the eyes of the kingdom, we are nothing.” His voice dropped lower still. “You’ve given us all a place, a purpose, when before we didn’t have one. You are the reason we’re here, Lou. And I don’t care about the waters’ truth—you are my sister. Never forget it.”
He sped up to walk beside Coco and Célie without allowing me to answer. Probably for the best.
I couldn’t speak around the emotion in my throat.
When we finally reached the shores of L’Eau Mélancolique, the water supporting Reid burst—the last of Angelica’s magic falling away—and he collapsed upon the sand. I immediately dropped to my knees beside him. “Shit.” I checked his pulse again, pried open his eyelids to assess his pupils. All sounded and looked perfectly healthy.
Exhaling harshly, I poked him in the ribs. Nothing. I flicked his nose. Nothing again. I blew in his face, his eyes, unlaced his boot to tickle his foot, even slapped him smartly across the cheek. Nothing, nothing, nothing. My chest tightened with frustration as I dragged him to the water’s edge. When splashing his face yielded no results, I swore viciously and prepared to dunk his entire head—his entire body, if necessary—but Beau stopped me with an impatient hand. “I don’t think drowning him is an option.”
“It worked for me—”
“You’ve tried magic, I assume?” His eyes darted up the path and into the mountains. I didn’t blame him. Morgane and Josephine could’ve been watching us at this very moment. Still . . . as much as Isla had insisted she wouldn’t get involved, I doubted she’d forgive an attack on her people so quickly. Constantin had been under her protection. It would be a very brave witch indeed—or perhaps a very stupid one—who trespassed on these shores again. Morgane and Josephine were neither brave nor stupid.
Here, we were safe. For now.
“The patterns are in a knot.” I resisted the urge to snap at Beau again in light of his confession. It must’ve been hard to admit such things aloud. I appreciated them. “I can’t make any sense of it.”
Coco approached tentatively. “I could take some of his blood.”
My mind immediately recoiled from the idea. The last time Coco had taken blood, she’d foreseen Ansel’s death, and I’d had quite enough of misinterpreting the future.
“Angelica said—” Célie started, but I interrupted impatiently.
“We don’t have time for cryptic advice. He needs to wake now.”
Célie crouched beside me in response, placing a comforting hand on my back,
and I felt like the world’s greatest ass.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I just don’t know what to do. If we don’t wake him, we can’t steal Angelica’s Ring, and if we don’t steal Angelica’s Ring, we can’t count on the melusines to join us against Morgane. Without the melusines—”
“I understand.” Her hand drew soothing circles. “At least Reid is all right. He is. Look at him.” Forcing my eyes open, I watched him breathe, each swell and fall of his chest a small comfort. Célie smiled. “Truly, he could be only sleeping. An enchanted sleep, perhaps, but—”
Her eyes flew wide.
“What?” I lurched upright. “What is it, Célie?”
“One of the stories my mother used to read me,” she said breathlessly, clapping her hands together. “It was about a princess cursed with eternal sleep. The only way to break the spell was the kiss of true love.”
Coco scoffed and threw herself on the sand. “That’s a fairy tale, Célie. It isn’t real.”
“We just bathed and dined and conversed underwater in the royal palace of melusines, where octopi walked on leashes and the Goddess of the Sea served us salted sea lettuce.” Célie’s cheeks burned pink. “None of this should be real.”
Beau arched a brow. “She makes a fair point.”
“Fine.” With a sigh of fatigue, Coco fell to her back, folding her hands on her chest. “Kiss him, then. Kiss him good. Just do it quickly. And when that inevitably fails, I’ll prick his finger, and we can make real progress.”
I looked between each of their expectant faces, feeling utterly ridiculous. True love’s kiss. Célie had apparently mistaken this nightmare for a sweeping romance, complete with the white knight charging in to save his fair maiden. I glared at Reid’s lips. To be fair, it had started that way, once upon a time. He’d crossed the entire kingdom to save me from Morgane’s sacrificial altar. Perhaps the roles could be reversed now that he was in need. And what real harm could there be in a kiss?
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