“I think we should consider the possibility. Your patterns have never been white before, have they?”
“You’ve never been La Dame des Sorcières before either,” Beau pointed out. Though Coco and I both glared at him, it was too late. The damage had been done, and Reid’s menacing presence loomed behind me.
“You’re La Dame des Sorcières?”
With my newfound awareness, I could feel the weight of his footsteps. I could feel the snow and moss tamp beneath his boots. His presence was heavier than the others’, harder and stronger. Darker. I scoffed. “Barely.” Turning to Coco, trusting Beau and Célie and even Jean Luc to protect my back, I said, “It doesn’t feel like Morgane. It feels familiar, yes—almost familial—but it also feels like me. I . . . I think I trust it.”
She nodded once in understanding. But how could she? I hardly understood myself. Though I implicitly trusted the wholeness of this magic, the purity, I felt much like a rowboat at sea. The ache in my chest kept building, pulling me adrift. Dragging me beneath the current. “Then do it,” she said firmly. “Do it quickly.”
Closing my eyes, ignoring Reid’s vehement protest, I spread my awareness outward, farther and faster than before. There. A mile north, beneath the infamous bridge, a river crashed into the ocean. With the wave of my hand, the water solidified to ice, changing state of matter. The white pattern burst, and my friends and I dissolved into shadow.
With our first steps on the bridge, my body attempted to rematerialize, limbs accumulating and dispersing with violent shudders. Except it wasn’t my body at all. Gritting my teeth in concentration, I glanced down at my unfamiliar, disembodied hand. The Maiden’s hand.
“Shit.”
My whisper floated in the darkness as said hand dispersed to shadow once more. “What is it?” Coco asked sharply. I could just see her shadowed form beside Beau’s, though the finer details of their appearance—such as the expressions on their faces, the gleam in their eyes—had been lost to the enchantment. Now they simply appeared pieces of night darker than the rest. Human-shaped shadows. None would notice us unless they looked, and even then, the smoke obscured all traces of moonlight. We were near invisible.
“Nothing. I just—feel weird.” Though incorporeal, my head still swam at the magnitude of power before me. At the sheer breadth of it. How had my mother withstood this? How had it not crushed her? “It’s too much. It’s like I can’t breathe.”
“So don’t,” Reid offered.
If I’d had hands, I might’ve strangled him. Perhaps I still would’ve tried if I hadn’t looked up, past the gatehouse, to the empty expanse of mountain all around the Chateau. I blinked slowly, unable to believe my eyes. Where before a mighty forest had prospered, now only rocks and dirt greeted me. “Where are the trees?”
Someone bumped into me from behind. Jean Luc. “What do you mean?”
“The trees.” I gestured to the rocky incline above us, forgetting he couldn’t see me. “There used to be trees here. Trees everywhere. They covered this entire mountain face.”
“It’s true.” Reid’s heavy footsteps stopped beside me. “I remember.”
We all crept forward, slower and warier now. “Perhaps they chopped them down,” Beau said. “And recently. Look—no snow.”
I instantly disagreed. “They didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“There are no stumps,” Coco said, leaning forward. “See? The ground does look disturbed, though.”
“Perhaps Zenna scorched them all, then.” Beau pointed to the charred markings on the bridge, on the gatehouse ahead. Evidence of Zenna’s wrath. Still, the hair on my neck lifted. These trees hadn’t been burned. Of that, I was certain.
“They look like they just . . . uprooted and walked away.”
Reid made a low, disparaging sound at the back of his throat. I ignored him. Instead, I started for the gatehouse once more, focusing on the sound of my feet on the wood.
Whatever damage Zenna had caused with her attack, little evidence remained. The structural integrity of the Chateau remained intact, and even the facade bore little sign of fire. Magic was helpful that way. I supposed Morgane wouldn’t have liked the soot underfoot. We paused inside the crumbling entrance to listen. Though the air in the courtyard could chill bone, the temperature within felt warm and balmy, despite the overgrown ruins of the hall. And the castle—it came alive at night. Voices echoed from all around: beyond the grand stairwell, through the corridors, within the great hall. Two lovers swept past hand in hand, and soon after, a manservant bustled through with a tray of what smelled like custard tarts. A handful of witchlings passed us a moment later to make shapes in the snow outside. Though I recognized none of them, the familiarity of it all made me smile. Nothing had changed.
Reid unsheathed another knife beside me, and my smile faded.
Everything had changed.
At least Morgane hadn’t deployed forces to Cesarine. Not yet, anyway.
“Keep close,” I murmured, starting toward the staircase. Though my body remained like shadow, I kept to the edges of the room. Smoke had obscured the moonlight outside, yes, but inside, lit candles dripped from their candelabra and cast flickering light. I would take no chances. “Morgane and Josephine are here somewhere. Perhaps Nicholina too.”
“And the treasury?” Reid murmured.
“Follow me.”
I led them through a narrow door beneath the staircase, into the winding passage beyond. Though it would take longer to reach the treasury’s tower this way, few others traveled it, and I . . . I couldn’t explain the creeping dread in my chest. The longer I concealed my friends in shadow, the more agitated I became. Like the magic itself was—was rebelling against me. Against them. It made little sense, yet wasn’t the purpose of La Dame des Sorcières to protect her home?
We were trespassers here, all of us, intent on thieving a sacred treasure.
My magic didn’t trust us, I realized in a burst of clarity.
The air in the passage tasted stale, damp, and the moss on the stones muted our footsteps. A good thing too—for at that exact moment, a door cracked open ahead, and three figures spilled out into the semidarkness. I froze mid-step, my heart pounding in my ears. I heard their voices before I saw their faces.
Morgane, Josephine, and Nicholina.
They strode forward, deep in harried conversation, and I seized Reid before they could see us, pushing him into the nearest alcove. Célie and Jean Luc barreled in behind as Coco and Beau did the same across the hall. The space was too small, however. My cheek smashed against Reid’s chest, and behind me, Jean Luc’s knee stabbed my thigh. Célie trembled visibly. Contorting my arm, I wrapped it around her to hide the movement and comfort her in equal measure. No one dared breathe.
“I do not care what you say,” Morgane hissed at Josephine, visibly agitated. She’d swept her white hair into a tangled braid, and her eyes remained shot through with blood. Fatigue lent a grayish hue to her skin. “The time is now. I tire of these incessant games. The trees have mobilized, and we shall follow, striking hard and true while the conclave deliberates.”
Josephine shook her head curtly. “I do not think this wise. We must proceed with the plan as scheduled. Your daughter, the king’s children, they will—”
Morgane wheeled to face her, nostrils flaring with sudden rage. “For the last time, Josephine, I do not have a daughter, and if I must repeat myself again, I shall rend your tongue from your miserable throat.”
I do not have a daughter.
Ah. My heart twisted unexpectedly. Though I’d suspected she’d forgotten me, suspecting the truth versus knowing it—versus hearing it—were two entirely different things. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but here, in my childhood home—surrounded by sisters who’d cheered as my blood had spilled—it . . . pinched. Just a bit. I searched Reid’s shadowed face. This close, I could see the shape of his eyes, the set of his mouth. He glared ba
ck at me.
I looked away.
Cackling, Nicholina sang, “The dead should not remember. Beware the night the dream. For in their chest is memory—”
Morgane struck her across the face without warning. The angry crack resounded through the passage.
“You do not speak”—a vein pulsed in my mother’s forehead—“you do not breathe unless I will it. How many times must I punish you before you understand?” When she lifted her hand once more, Nicholina flinched. She actually flinched. Instead of striking her, however, Morgane rapped her knuckles across Nicholina’s forehead. “Well? How many? Or are your ears as addled as your brain, you worthless imp?”
Nicholina withdrew visibly at the insult, her expression emptying. She stared past Morgane as a red handprint bloomed on her cheek.
“As I thought.” With a sneer, Morgane proceeded toward us up the corridor, her own mottled cheeks visible even in the candlelight. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”
Josephine only arched a brow at her ward and followed.
Célie wasn’t the only one trembling now. My own hands shook as Nicholina drifted after them—as vacant and lifeless as the wraiths outside—and even Reid’s heart beat an uneven tattoo against my ear. He stood rigid as she passed, but I felt his hand creep slowly up my back. I felt his knife. Whether he meant to kill me or Nicholina, I never discovered. Because before she disappeared around the corner, Nicholina turned toward our alcove.
Her eyes met mine.
And I knew—as instinctively as I’d known the trees had walked and my magic wanted to protect Chateau le Blanc—I knew that she’d seen me.
Reid’s knife stilled with her footsteps. “Hello, mouse,” she whispered, her fingers wrapping around the bend. Pure, unadulterated fear snaked through me at the words. I could do nothing but stare. Paralyzed. A single shout from her could kill us all.
We waited, breaths bated, as Nicholina tilted her head.
As she slipped around the corner without a sound.
“What are we doing?” Reid’s voice sounded in my ear, low and furious. “We can still catch her. Move.”
I stared at the spot from which she’d vanished, my mind reeling. She didn’t reappear, however, and no sounds of alarm rent the silence. No sounds of pursuit. “She let us go.”
“To kill us later.”
“She could’ve killed us just then, but she didn’t.” I scowled now, thoroughly disenchanted with his single-minded intensity. It bordered on pigheaded. Had he been this stupid when I’d first met him? Was his mind the addled one? “I don’t know why, but I do know I won’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth. She’s with Morgane and La Voisin,” I added when he tried to move around me. I planted my feet. “Now isn’t the time for this confrontation. We made a deal with Isla—we get in, we get out, and we give her the ring.”
“Unacceptable.” That knife finally pressed between my shoulder blades. “I am not here for a magic ring, Louise. If you don’t move out of my way, I will find another witch to kill.”
I poked him in the chest. Hard. “Listen to me, jackass.” My voice rose at the word, and I hastened to lower it once more. “Isla needs that ring. We need the melusines. The sooner we finish here, the sooner we can unite our allies, the sooner we can formulate a plan of attack—”
“I have a plan—attack. Morgane is here, not in Cesarine.”
“Your mother is in Cesarine.”
“I don’t care about my mother,” he snarled, shouldering past me at last. I stumbled into Jean Luc, who overcorrected, knocking Célie into Reid and plunging me into the corridor alone.
I whirled to face him, swearing loudly—then froze.
Manon stared back at me.
“Hello?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, flitting over my dark shape, and she lifted a hand as if to touch me. I scuttered backward. I had no choice. If she touched me, she’d realize without a doubt that I was human. When her frown deepened, I winced, realizing too late that shadows didn’t scutter. “Who’s there?” She flicked a thin blade from her sleeve. “Show yourself, or I’ll summon the sentries.”
Why did every plan I ever made go to complete and total shit?
Lips flattening, I cracked open that door of power in my chest, beneath which the white web shimmered. It would be a risk to change forms, but Morgane was clever. Though she’d undoubtedly realized the Triple Goddess had revoked her blessing, perhaps she hadn’t yet told our kin. Either way, I couldn’t simply stand here with a knife in front and a knife behind, and I couldn’t reveal my true form either. This newfound power would make it easier, surely.
I sought to remember my childhood classroom, wracked my mind for everything I knew of the Triple Goddess and her forms.
Her final counterpart is the Crone, who embodies aging and ending, death and rebirth, past lives and transformations, visions and prophecies. She is our guide. She is dusk and night, autumn and winter.
Fitting, as we’d probably all die here anyway.
I focused on those traits, tried to center myself around them, as other memories consumed—my life in this castle, my blood in the basin, my farewell to Ansel. That feeling of bone-deep acceptance. My transformation into the Maiden had happened easily, without intent, but this transformation came easier still. Perhaps once I would’ve empathized most with the Maiden—and I still did, to an extent—but that joyous season of light had passed. I’d lived in winter for too long. To my surprise, I didn’t regret the change. I relished it.
My hands withered and cracked as the shadows around them dissipated, and my spine bowed beneath years of fatigue. My vision clouded. My flesh sagged. Triumphant—exorbitantly pleased with myself—I lifted a gnarled finger to Manon’s startled face. I’d done it.
I’d transformed.
“Out for a moonlit stroll, dearie?” My voice warbled, unfamiliar and deep and unpleasant. I cackled at the sound, and Manon retreated a step. “Not much moonlight tonight, I’m afraid.” My tongue flicked past the gap in my eyeteeth as I leered at her. “Shall I join you?”
She sank into a hasty curtsy. “My lady. I am sorry. I—I didn’t recognize you.”
“Some nights I must pass unseen, Manon.”
“Of course.” She ducked her head. Too late, I realized she’d been crying. The kohl around her eyes had tracked down her cheeks, and her nose still ran. She sniffed as quietly as possible. “I understand.”
“Is something wrong, child?”
“No.” She spoke the word too quickly, still backing away. “No, my lady. I am sorry to have bothered you.”
I didn’t need the Crone’s Vision to see her lie. Truthfully, I needn’t have asked at all. She still grieved her dead lover, Gilles, the man she’d killed with her own hands. All because he’d been a son of the king. “A cup of chamomile tea, my dear.” When she blinked, confused, I clarified, “In the kitchens. Brew and steep a cup. It will settle your nerves and send you to sleep.”
With another curtsy and word of thanks, she departed, and I sagged against the nearest wall.
“Holy shit,” Beau breathed.
“That was incredible,” Coco added.
“Release me.” Reid broke Jean Luc’s hold swiftly, efficiently, his throat corded with strain. He whirled on him in a storm of fury. “She was isolated. The situation controlled. We should’ve struck—”
“And then what?” Flinging my hands in the air, I hobbled toward him. “Really, what’s the next step in this master plan of yours, Chass? We hide her body for someone to stumble across? We stuff her in the closet? We can’t risk anyone knowing we’re here!”
“You’re jeopardizing the mission, Reid,” Jean Luc agreed darkly, “and you’re endangering everyone here. Follow her orders, or I’ll incapacitate you.”
Reid stepped toe to toe with him. “I’d like to see that, Jean.”
“Oh, shut it, or I’ll stuff your body in the goddamn closet.” Losing patience completely, I whirled—though in reality, it looked more like a s
huffle—and doddered up the passage once more. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”
Reid followed in mutinous silence.
Deadly and Beautiful Things
Reid
Chateau le Blanc was a labyrinth. I hadn’t ventured beyond the Great Hall on Modraniht, so I could do nothing but follow Lou. Lou. She hadn’t told me who she was. Of course she hadn’t. She hadn’t told me she’d inherited her mother’s power—that she had become La Dame des Sorcières.
She struggled to climb a set of rickety stairs now. Coco and Beau supported her on either side. Their shapes remained dark. Unnatural. Like shadows. “You could always change back,” the latter muttered, catching her stout frame as she stumbled.
“This is better. If we meet anyone else, they won’t look too close.”
The stairs wound up a narrow tower. Here, however, the ceiling had collapsed in places. As in the Great Hall, the elements had overcome most rooms. Snow fell gently in the solar, where an ornately carved fireplace crackled. Its light danced on tapestries of magical beasts and beautiful women—each of their eyes seemed to follow us as we passed. I swore one even craned her elegant neck.
“This room is for Morgane’s personal use.” Lou pointed to the wooden desk in the corner. A peacock-feather quill scratched at parchment of its own volition. The falling snow didn’t mar the paper, nor the carpets or tapestries. It didn’t stain the decorative woodwork. It simply melted into nothing in the warm, balmy air. In the corner, a harp plucked itself gently.
The entire scene was eerie.
“Her bedchamber is also in this tower.” She gestured to a room beyond the harp. “And her oratory. She forbade me from entering this part of the castle, but I snuck in anyway.”
“And the treasury?” Jean Luc asked.
“Directly above us.” Shuffling to the bookcase beside the desk, she studied the tomes there. Her silver brows furrowed in concentration. “The door is somewhere . . .” Her fingers stilled on an ancient book bound in black cloth. On its spine, letters had been stamped in gold: L’argent n’a pas d’odeur. She tapped it with a wicked grin. “Here.”
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