Gods & Monsters

by Shelby Mahurin

  Clenching her own eyes shut, Coco rubbed her temples. “And plated glass. I also saw chains and swords and—” Her gaze snapped to Lou’s once more, and realization passed between them like a bolt of lightning.

  “The window,” they said together.

  Lou nodded frenetically. “We’ll need to climb.”

  Coco was already dragging Beau and Célie back up the steps. “It’ll be risky—”

  “No riskier than a choke point—”

  The implication of their words finally settled in. My stomach churned. “No.”

  “You’ll be fine.” Patting my arm in a distracted way, Lou raced toward the stairs. “I won’t let you fall.” When I made no move to follow—when the shouts behind grew louder—she lost patience, doubling back and yanking at my hand. I yielded one step. Not another. She spoke with frantic cajolement, still tugging. “Please, Reid. We have to climb, or we’re never getting out of here. They won’t just kill me. They’ll kill you too. Horribly. Slowly. You want a choke point? You don’t have a Balisarda, so you’ll feel every single moment.”

  I bared my teeth in a grin. “I’ll risk it.”

  Frustration flared in her eyes, and she lifted her hand once more. “If you don’t move, I’ll make you move.”

  “Please”—triumphant, I swept my coat aside, revealing the Balisarda and pivoting between her and the stairs—“do.”

  When her mouth fell open, astonished, I relished it. Relished her surprise, her fear, her—

  The hilt of another knife smashed into my crown, and I staggered forward, into her. She tried to catch me. We both nearly broke our necks. Behind, Beau stood panting, knife still raised. “I don’t need magic to knock your ass out. I’ll drag you onto the roof if necessary. You aren’t dying like this.”

  Jean Luc appeared beside him. They stood shoulder to shoulder, towering over me. As if they could intimidate. As if they could threaten—

  “We can’t defeat an entire castle of witches by ourselves,” Jean Luc said, treacherous and cowardly in equal measure. Judas incarnate. “This is our best option. Get up the stairs, or I’ll help him drag you.”

  Footsteps pounded louder now. Biting back a curse—because they were right—I seized Manon and sprinted past them. The scent of magic burst behind me as Lou relocked the door. Upstairs, she swung her arms in frantic movements. The treasure complied, settees and wardrobes shifting, stacking, to form a precarious ladder. “It’s fine.” Beau bent double, hands braced against his knees. “They can’t get through the door. We have time—”

  I flung Manon into an empty chair. “We don’t.”

  Still rigid, she slid sideways to the floor. “They’ll surround the castle soon.” To Lou, she whispered, “I told you that you won’t escape again.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Lou stomped over as Jean Luc boosted Célie on top of the wardrobe. Beau and Coco scrambled up behind her. Crouching beside the witch’s prostrate body, Lou flipped her over with another wave. Manon relaxed instantly, and Lou—I stared incredulously—she helped the witch sit up with gentle hands. “Morgane ordered you to kill your lover, Manon. Gilles is dead because of her. How can you still serve such a woman? How can you stand idly by as she tortures and kills children?”

  Her words acted as a spark to kindling. Manon lurched forward with a feral snarl, snatching Lou’s shoulders. “My sister is one of those dead children, and Morgane did not kill her. I did. Gilles died at no other’s hands but my own. I made a choice in that ally—a choice I cannot undo. I have gone too far now to turn back.” Tears spilled freely down her cheeks at the confession. When she spoke again, her voice broke. “Even if I wanted to.”

  I watched, stricken, as Lou hastily wiped her tears. “Listen to me, Manon. No, listen. Look around you”—she motioned to the others, to herself and to me—“and tell me what you see.”

  “I see traitors—”

  “Exactly.” Lou reached up to clutch Manon’s wrists, eyes wide and imploring. “I betrayed my coven. Reid and Jean Luc have betrayed their Church, and Beau and Célie have betrayed their Crown. All of us—we’re fighting for a better world, just like you are. We want the same thing, Manon. We want peace.”

  Manon’s entire body trembled with emotion as her tears continued to fall. They stained Lou’s lap. Stained the dirty floor between them, glittering bright in the firelight. At last, Manon dropped her hands. “You’ll never have it.”

  Lou studied Manon’s face wistfully for a moment—regretfully—before rising to her feet. “You’re wrong. There are very few choices in life that can’t be unmade, and the time has come for you to make another one. I won’t restrain or otherwise harm you. Go. Tell Morgane you saw me if you must, but don’t try to stop us. We’re leaving.”

  Manon didn’t move.

  Lou stalked to the furniture without another word—then hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder. Instead of Manon, however, her eyes found mine, and she spoke in a murmur. “You’ve stalled long enough, Reid. Climb up. I promise you won’t fall.”

  I swallowed hard. Somehow, she knew my chest had tightened and my vision had narrowed. She knew my palms had started to sweat. She knew I’d hesitated beside Manon not to protect the group from her wrath, but to prolong the inevitable. To think of some way—any way—out of this room except the window. And that meant she knew my weakness, my vulnerability. Anger blazed through the thick paralysis of my thoughts, spurring me toward the furniture.

  “Why did you get to keep yours?” Manon whispered behind us.

  Sadness clouded Lou’s face as she gazed back at me. “I didn’t.”

  One by one, we squeezed through the window onto the roof. My head pounded. My heart raced. Twice on the furniture, my foot had slipped, and I’d nearly crashed to the floor. Though Lou had maintained a steady stream of encouragement, I longed to wring her neck. This rooftop could’ve been a steeple, a needle, so pitched was its slope.

  “I will kill you for this,” I promised her.

  Crouching low, she peered over the eave to where the others scaled rock with their knives. Their limbs trembled with effort. With strain. “I look forward to it, believe me.” She slipped her own knives from her boots. “Until then, do you think you can reach that turret?”

  I followed the direction of her knife. Directly below us, at the base of the tower, a spire jutted from the side of the castle. It looked likely to collapse at any moment. “This is madness.”

  “You go first. I’ll follow.”

  Peeling each finger from the shingles—they’d become my lifelines—I scooted down the slope. Lou crab walked beside me. “That’s it.” She nodded with excessive cheer, her eyes too bright. Her smile too wide. She either worried more than she said, or she enjoyed this more than she should. Both were unacceptable.

  When I inched over the eave, my foot slipped a third time.

  A rush of wind.

  A sickening, weightless sensation.

  And a hand.

  Her hand.

  It caught mine as it slipped from the edge, and her second followed, wrapping around my wrist. My vision swam with black spots as I dangled midair. As the wind roared past my ears. My heart thrashed wildly. I couldn’t see her properly, couldn’t hear her panicked instructions. There was only the ground looming beneath me, my body suspended midair. Helplessly, I clawed at her. Her arms shook beneath my weight.

  “Lift me up!” My shouts sounded delirious to even my ears. “Lift me up now!”

  A shadow shifted in her eyes at the command. She flashed a feline grin. “Tell me I’m pretty.”

  “I—what?”

  “Tell me,” she repeated in a hard voice, “that I’m pretty.”

  I stared at her for one heart-stopping moment. She couldn’t be serious, yet she was. From her weak arms to her spiteful eyes to her sharp smile, she was serious. She could drop me—she would drop me—if I didn’t appease her soon. She couldn’t support my weight indefinitely. But what was she asking? For me to lie? To flatter
her? No. She wanted something else. Something I couldn’t give her. Through gritted teeth, I spat, “You said you wouldn’t let me fall.”

  “You’ve said a lot of things.”

  I’d told her the truth. I wanted to kill her. To kill all of them. I couldn’t concede to this heresy—this grand romance she’d dreamed up between us. As if it were possible. As if a witch and witch hunter could be more than enemies. I remembered none of it. I wanted to remember even less. In that second, however, the wind swept past with terrifying glee, and I glanced down. A mistake. Black edged my vision. My hand slipped a millimeter within hers. “Fine,” I said quickly, loathing myself. Loathing her more. “You’re . . . you are very pretty, Lou.”

  “The prettiest you’ve ever seen?”

  I nearly wept in frustration. “Prettier, even. I can’t think when I look at you.”

  She beamed, and the tension melted from her face as quickly as it’d come. Her arms stopped shaking. Too late, I realized her game: her magic couldn’t work on me because of the Balisarda, but she’d used it to strengthen her own body instead. She’d been pretending to struggle this entire time. Stoking my fear. She probably could’ve lifted me with a single finger. Fresh anger burned white-hot in my chest. “Now,” she said, immensely pleased with herself, “tell me that I’m an excellent singer.”

  “You—you—”

  “I’m waiting,” she trilled.

  “You’re an excellent singer. You sing like a bird. An angel. And if you don’t lift me up this second, I’m going to snap your pretty neck.”

  She waited another second just to spite me. Then another. And another. “Well, now that we’ve sorted that.” With a mighty heave, she pulled me over the eave once more. I collapsed beside her in a pool of shaking limbs, nearly retching at her feet.

  “Don’t you ever lie to me again.”

  She poked my cheek. “I wouldn’t have dropped you.”

  “Lies!”

  “Well”—she lifted an easy shoulder—“maybe I would’ve, but I wouldn’t have let you splatter.” Her smile turned almost self-deprecating. “Come on, Chass. I would’ve moved the entire castle before I let you die.”

  “Why?” The word burst from me, sudden and unbidden. This wasn’t the time for such a question. This wasn’t the place, either—not with witches crawling within and without. They probably gathered below even now, waiting to devour us. Manon would’ve told them. She would’ve pressed their advantage. No shouts sounded from the ground, however, and no magic ensnared us. “Why did you save me? Why did you let the witch go? You—you comforted her. You wiped her tears. We both want to kill you.”

  The realization shocked me into silence. Manon had wanted to kill her. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. Manon and La Voisin and even Morgane, her own mother, wanted her dead. But—my thoughts congealed like mud—that wasn’t quite right either. I do not have a daughter, Morgane had claimed. Could she too have forgotten her daughter, as I had forgotten my wife? Or had Lou lied about both? I regarded her suspiciously as she rose. “Why?” I repeated firmly.

  Patting my cheek, she slipped over the eave without me. Her voice drifted upward with the wind. “Ask me no questions, mon amour, and I shall tell you no lies.”

  I frowned at the simple words. Then winced. These felt different than others, biting and snapping like insects. I shook my head to dislodge them, but they remained. They burrowed deeper. Familiar and painful and jarring. Ask me no questions. Though I remained on the rooftop, my vision pitched abruptly, and instead of shingles and smoke, I saw trees, gnarled roots, a bottle of wine. Blue-green eyes. Sickening déjà vu. And I’ll tell you no lies.

  No. I shook my head, wrenching free of the imagery, and stabbed my knife into stone. This was here. Another stab. This was real. I swung myself lower. This was now. Stab, stab. I didn’t remember her. Stab. It hadn’t happened. Stab, stab, stab.

  I repeated the mantra the entire way down. I repeated it until those blue-green eyes faded with the trees and the wind and the Hollow. Fresh pain cleaved my head at the last. I ignored it, focusing on the world below me. The others waited for me in silence. No witches hid in the shadows. Manon, it seemed, had not betrayed us. I didn’t understand it. Without looking at anyone, I jumped, landing heavy on my feet.

  “Are you all right?” Lou steadied me instinctively. When I cringed away without answering, she sighed and motioned us toward the rocks behind the tower, slipping through the shadows like she’d been born there. I watched her go with a pang in my chest.

  Ask me no questions, mon amour, and I’ll tell you no lies. Another half-formed memory. Useless. Broken.

  Like a witch hunter who couldn’t kill a witch.

  Truth or Dare

  Lou

  Halfway through our return to L’Eau Mélancolique, Célie fell asleep on her horse. Jean Luc—who’d succumbed to a stupor hours ago—hadn’t been able to catch her in time, and she’d plummeted face-first into the mud, bloodying her nose in the process. We’d quickly agreed a rest stop was necessary. Jean Luc had procured two rooms at the next inn, sneaking us in a back door under cover of darkness.

  “I’ll be back with food,” he’d promised. Though smoke still obscured the night sky, it must’ve been between midnight and dawn. We’d made excellent time, all things considered—in and out of Chateau le Blanc in just over an hour. Still, few inns served supper at three in the morning. I suspected the sight of Jean Luc’s blue coat, however, might’ve helped the innkeeper forget the aberrant hour.

  Coco, Célie, and I claimed one of the rooms for ourselves while we waited, and Reid and Beau disappeared into the one next door. Almost immediately, Célie collapsed facedown on the hay-filled mattress, her breath deepening and her mouth falling open. The trickle of drool on her pillow painted her the quintessential gentlewoman. Coco and I each tugged a boot from her foot.

  “I don’t think I can make it to supper,” Coco said, hiding a yawn behind her hand.

  My stomach growled audibly. “I can.”

  “Save me some food, will you?”

  I grinned as she flopped onto the bed beside Célie. It was a tight fit. Neither of them seemed to notice. “Will do.”

  Jean Luc edged the door open a few moments later, carrying a tray of dried figs, brioche, and comté. From the silver tureen at its center, the heavenly scent of beef stew drifted outward, curling around my nose. I immediately began to salivate, but he stopped short when he saw Coco and Célie. Lifting a finger to my lips, I plucked the fruit, bread, and cheese from the tray and left it on the table beside the bed. I motioned him back into the hallway, hesitating for only a second before breaking off a piece of cheese.

  I loved cheese.

  “They’re exhausted.” Closing the door behind me, I popped the morsel into my mouth and nearly moaned. “They can eat when they wake.”

  Though clearly irritated at the prospect of dining with me and not Célie, Jean Luc nodded and led me into the men’s room. Beau had lit a candelabra on the dressing table, and it cast soft, ambient light over the sparse furnishings: a single bed, as in our room, and a porcelain bowl for washing. The entire place had a worn yet welcoming atmosphere, probably aided by the colorful quilt on the bed and warm wooden floors.

  “The girls are asleep,” Jean Luc grunted, kicking the door shut.

  “Should I be insulted?” I pirouetted onto the bed, landing dramatically across Beau’s lap. He sat with his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out in front of him, taking up more than his fair share of space. Snorting, he shoved me off the bed.

  “Yes.”

  Unperturbed, I crossed the room to investigate the contents of the tureen, but Jean Luc knocked my hand aside. Ladling it into cracked wooden bowls, he jerked his chin behind him. “Go wash, for the love of God. Your hands are filthy.”

  Unfortunately, Reid stood beside the washbowl. He scowled as I approached, shifting subtly so as not to touch me. When I accidentally splashed him with water, he stalked to the
other side of the room. “If we leave after breakfast, we’ll reach L’Eau Mélancolique this afternoon,” I said to no one in particular. Jittery energy coursed through me as I accepted my stew, and I inhaled it greedily—standing over the basin like a rat—to stop from filling the dead air between us. If this was the inner sanctum of masculinity, I wanted no part of it.

  My eyes slid to Reid.

  Well. I wanted little part of it.

  We ate in silence until none of the stew remained. Then a light knock sounded on the door.

  “Captain Toussaint?” a thin, unfamiliar voice asked. Jean Luc’s eyes flew wide, and he wheeled to face us, mouthing, The innkeeper. “My humblest apologies, but might I enter for just a moment? My wife scolded me for my appalling lack of manners below, and she’s quite right. I have a bottle of whiskey as recompense—we distill it here with my brother’s own wheat”—his voice rose with pride—“and I’d be delighted to pour you a drink personally.”

  “Er—” Jean Luc cleared his throat. “Just—just leave it at the door.”

  It sounded like a question.

  “Oh.” It was a gift of this innkeeper, surely, to pack so much disappointment into one small word. “Oh, well, yes. Quite right. How rude of me. It is very late, of course, and I’m sure you need your rest. My humblest apologies,” he said again. The bottle plunked against the door. “Good night, then, Captain.”

  His footsteps didn’t recede. I could almost picture him hovering in the corridor beyond, perhaps leaning an ear against the wood, hoping the great captain would pity him and change his mind. Reid and I exchanged an anxious glance.

  As if on cue, Jean Luc groaned quietly. “Er—Monsieur Laurent?” He shot us an apologetic look before hastily stacking our bowls and chucking them behind the washbasin. My eyes narrowed in disbelief. Surely he couldn’t mean to—? “I’d love a drink. Please, come in.”