Hidden Huntress

by Danielle L. Jensen

  “Catch them. Quick, turn here.” He nudged me around a corner and into the entranceway of a building. It reeked of alcohol and urine, and even in the dim light I saw his nose wrinkle with distaste.

  We waited in silence, but not for long. “I don’t see them,” a woman whispered.

  “They went this way,” her companion responded. Both voices were deeply familiar to me.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Skipping around Tristan, I stepped out of the entranceway.

  Sabine and Chris both jumped in surprise. “Cécile!”

  “What are you two doing following me?”

  “We wanted to see where he would take you.”

  “More accurately, where she’s taking me.” Tristan stepped out of the shadows. “I’m afraid I’m quite at her mercy in this strange city of yours.”

  Sabine clapped a hand over her mouth and Chris’s eyes bugged out. “Tristan? Is it really you?”

  “None other.” His attention turned to Sabine, his curiosity apparent. “Am I correct to presume you are Mademoiselle Sabine?”

  Expression wary, she nodded.

  “It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ve heard fine things about your character.”

  Her jaw tightened. “I wish I could say the feeling was mutual. You aren’t what I expected.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “You know perfectly well you don’t disappoint,” she scoffed, her lip curling up with disgust. “I’d thought you’d be something I could pity, and that pity would allow me to forgive you for what you did to her. I was wrong.”

  “Tristan.” Chris interrupted the exchange before it could devolve further. “Where are the rest of the trolls? How is it that you are free? What is the plan?”

  “I’m uniquely privileged in my freedom,” Tristan said, his eyes flicking in my direction. “As to why and how that is the case, you’ll have to ask Cécile, as she has not yet graced me with an understanding of how it came to pass. Among other things.”

  He said it with lighthearted indifference, as though the answer were of no consequence to him at all. But I knew differently, and now I knew why. His name. It was his greatest secret. The one thing he told no one, not even me. Yet somehow I knew it, and I’d used it. The complex twist of strange syllables capable of bending him to my will. And even as I knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west, I knew this would not sit well with him.

  “Cécile?” It was Chris who asked the question.

  “I…” A gust of wind blew across us, carrying with it the heavy smell of wood smoke. “Something’s burning.” With the wooden homes packed together as they were in Pigalle, even a small fire had the potential for disaster. But there was something more, a worry that sent prickles down my spine.

  “There.” Chris pointed and our eyes went to the orange glow in the distance.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.” Then I started to run, pulling my skirts up in one hand as I sprinted toward the street Catherine’s shop was on. As I rounded the corner, I saw the crowd of people, buckets passing from hand to hand in a fruitless attempt to extinguish the inferno engulfing the shop. A shriek filled my ears, and it took me a moment to realize it came from my lips. Clapping a hand over my mouth, I stared for a second, then started running.

  I sprinted up to the next road, then down it until I reached the building with the adjoining yard. Tearing open the front door, I ignored the shouts of those inside as I ran through the clutter of cots and out the back. In the yard, I jumped, catching hold of the top of the stone fence and hauling myself over.

  “Cécile, what are you doing?” I heard Tristan yell, but I ignored him, dropping into the dirt on the far side. The fire was intense, the heat radiating from it making me flinch away, my eyes stinging and watering. It didn’t matter that Catherine had betrayed me. She was involved in this because I’d asked her to be, so if she was in there, I had to help her.

  I started to walk toward the flames, the smoke making me cough and choke, then magic locked around my waist, pulling me back.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Tristan shouted into my ear, dragging me toward the fence.

  “Catherine might be in there.” I struggled against his grip, trying to go back to the fire. “I have to help her.”

  Fingers of magic caught hold of my chin, forcing me to look at him through the haze. “If she’s in there, she’s dead. There’s nothing you can do.”

  Logically, I knew what he was saying was true, but the idea of leaving Catherine in there to burn was more than I could bear. Tears trickled down my cheeks, cool against my overheated skin. “She has Anushka’s grimoire. I need it to find her. I need it to keep my mother safe.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I need it!” I screamed the words in his face, my desperation to retrieve the grimoire twisting me into a mindless frenzy.

  Tristan swore, and I could hear him talking with Chris over my head, but the words were meaningless. Nothing mattered more than finding the witch. No sacrifice was too great.

  Then Tristan was pushing me at Chris and walking toward the fire. “What’s he doing?”

  Exactly what you asked him to. The realization that I’d just put a book ahead of Tristan’s safety slapped me in the face, and I scrabbled forward to catch his coat, but Chris jerked me backwards.

  “Cécile, calm down,” he shouted into my ear. “He knows how to take care of himself.”

  The flames crept higher, catching at the buildings to either side, the efforts of the bucket brigade futile against the inferno. Nothing could survive in that heat, and I could hear the splintering and cracks of timbers that told me the roof was on the verge of collapse. Logic told me that Tristan’s magic would keep him safe, but instinct made me scream warnings for him to get out.

  Then, through the smoke, I saw him walking toward us, a limp form floating ahead of him.

  Chris let go of me, and I started to run toward them, but an invisible rope of power caught me, lifting me up into the air and setting me in the corner of the yard. “What are you doing?” I coughed, clawing at the magic. “I can help her.”

  “She’s beyond help.” Tristan set her on the grass, but I couldn’t make anything out through the haze. “You don’t need to see this.”

  “Let me go!”

  Tristan only shook his head, ignoring Chris, who had taken one look and was now retching against the wall. “She’s dead, Cécile. Someone slit her throat, and then the fire did its work. It isn’t something I want you to see.”

  I didn’t deserve to be protected, I deserved to see what had befallen Catherine because I’d involved her in a plot far bigger than she knew. “What about the grimoire?”

  “Not on her. And if it’s inside, there’s nothing left but ash.”

  Our only hope was gone. Slumping into the dirt, I rested my cheek against the mossy stone of the wall and watched the shop burn. Then a motion at my arm caught my attention, a soft tongue licking at my hand.

  Looking down, I saw the bedraggled form of a dog. “Souris!” I clutched him to my chest, petting his fur, and whispering comforts to him that I wished I could feel. As I held him, part of the roof collapsed with a whoosh of hot air, and the rear door of the building slammed, making me look up.

  My hands turned cold, making me long for the returned heat of the fire as I stared, my comprehension coming quick and my reaction slow. “Tristan,” I called, my voice ragged. “Chris!”

  The tone of my voice made them look over, and with one shaking finger, I pointed to the closed door of the burning house. Any doubt I had about who had killed Catherine was gone.

  Painted in thick red across the wood was the letter A. Anushka had killed Catherine, and she had left a message.

  And the worst part about it was, I was certain it was for us.

  Thirty-Five

  Cécile

  We stayed at the fire until it was under control, Tristan creating a sort of magical chimney to keep the flames from spr
eading any further. Bystanders whispered that it was a miracle the whole quarter hadn’t gone up, but it did not appear to cross the mind of any of them that the tall young man watching from the street had anything to do with it.

  Chris helped with the bucket brigade, while Sabine and I circulated through the crowd, listening for any hints as to how the fire might have started. No one knew anything. No one had seen anything. But there were plenty who believed the flames that had been chasing the infamous La Voisin these past four years had finally caught up with her. Only the four of us knew how right they were.

  We’d lost the grimoire. Whether it had burned in the fire or been taken by Anushka, it didn’t really matter. Without it, I had no way to track her, and I felt as though I’d fallen back to where I’d been that night the King had summoned me to the beach. Everything I’d done had been for naught.

  Well, almost everything. Lifting my head, I regarded Tristan’s lean form walking ahead of me, his head slightly turned as he talked with Chris, pestering him with questions about the city. Not so very long ago, it would have felt like a dream to have him be the only troll free of the curse, but now that dream seemed entirely short-sighted, as all our problems remained. I squeezed Souris to my chest with one arm and pressed closer to Sabine, who had her elbow linked with mine.

  “Is there really no way to break this bond between you two?”

  “Only death,” I said, sighing. “And even if there were a way, I wouldn’t take it. I love him.”

  She was silent.

  “You’re being awfully quick to judge, given you just met,” I said.

  “I know enough.” Her voice was low. “Just looking at him makes my skin crawl. I cannot understand what you see in that… that thing.”

  I flinched, but a second later, anger chased away the hurt and I dragged her to a stop. “There were those in Trollus who said the exact same thing to him,” I snapped. “Except I was the thing. I was the one who was different. But he didn’t see it that way, and neither do I.”

  Chris coughed, and I looked up to see them both watching me. Tristan’s face was hidden in the shadows of his cloak, but I knew he’d heard what I said.

  “Tomorrow, then?” Chris said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

  “Outside the south gate.”

  I frowned, realizing they’d come up with some sort of plan and annoyed that I hadn’t been involved.

  “Remember what I said about a disguise. In the daylight, no one will believe you’re human.” Chris jerked his chin at Sabine. “I’ll walk you home.”

  “What plan is this?” I asked once my friends were out of earshot. “I didn’t realize we had one.”

  “We need to find Anushka,” Tristan replied, his voice low. “I can see the effects of the promise you made to my father written all over you. I can feel them. When was the last time you ate? Slept? And that was when you had an avenue to find her – an avenue that is now lost to us. We must use another tactic, or we’ll both be dead within the week.”

  His words spoke of concern, but that wasn’t what I felt. Tristan was frustrated and angry, and all I heard in his words were blame. My temper snapped. “What exactly would you have had me do? Turn my back and walk away while he had you beaten? Stand silently while he dragged out every individual in Trollus whom I cared about and tortured them? Killed them? I’m well aware that he manipulated me, but what I don’t understand is how you think I could possibly have made another choice.”

  “Cécile…”

  “Don’t!” I held up a hand to silence him. “You’ll barely even look at me, and do you think I don’t know why?” Once I started speaking, the words refused to stop. I needed everything out in the open so that it would be over and done, and no more words would hang unspoken. “Do you have any idea what it felt like knowing that in choosing to help you that I had disappointed you? That everything I’ve done and all the sacrifices I’ve made have been the exact opposite of what you wanted me to do?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut, furious that they seemed intent on undermining my anger with tears. “I feel more allied with your cursed father than you, and just the thought of it makes me sick.”

  Forcing my eyes open, I searched his face for some sign of what he was thinking. Something that might dull the anger and frustration mirroring my own. But there was nothing. He said nothing.

  The snowflakes landing on my face felt blissfully cold against my overheated skin, and I tilted my chin up so that more would land, the little droplets of water running down my face serving as a disguise against any tears that might sneak out. I knew what I needed to tell him, but I was afraid what having it out in the open would mean for us. “A curse is an act of will cemented by power, and tonight I learned it can be broken by an act of will fueled by power. Only Anushka added in another element, one uniquely important to your kind.”

  “A name.” His voice was rough, a statement and a question in one.

  “Yes.” I stared at the dark sky. “But you never told me what your kind is really called, and ultimately, even if I had known, my desire to see the trolls free is too plagued by doubt to have managed the task.” I was circling around what needed to be said. But part of me was scared to put voice to what I knew. To what I had done. Because it was impossible for me to un-know it, and I was afraid he’d never come to terms with me having this much power over him.

  Lowering my face, I met his gaze. “When you were taking me through the labyrinth, I had a dream – a dream that I did not remember until tonight. I was in a place of endless summer filled with creatures more colorful than any rainbow. And I met a man who made my eyes burn as though I were staring into the sun, and he gave me the name of that which I most desired.” I blinked once. “Your name.”

  Shock slammed into me like a battering ram, but Tristan barely twitched. “My great-uncle told you? That’s impossible.”

  I shook my head. “Clearly it isn’t.”

  His jaw twitched, and in an instant, everything he felt washed over his face. But before I could react, he turned his back on me. I stared at his slumped shoulders, uncertain of what to do or what to say. He was not all right. I could see it and I could feel it, but I didn’t know what I could do to make it right. “Tristan?” I reached out to touch his back, but he only flinched away from my hand, unwilling to accept anything he perceived as pity.

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” I said, trying logic instead. “Someone had to have named you, and it seems fitting that it would be him. And he wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t think I’d need it. I’m sure he wouldn’t have told me lightly.”

  “How can you be sure of something you know nothing about?” he snapped.

  I tried not to let his tone hurt, but it was hard. “If I know nothing that’s because you’ve chosen to keep me in the dark. As you so often do.”

  “It’s the way I am. You’ve always known that.”

  Exhaustion settled over me, turning my body and mind numb. “You’re right. I have always known it. But I never said that I’d be content with it.”

  The words left a burning sensation in their wake as so often the truth does. But once they were out, I felt the relief of knowing that there was nothing more that I could say. I waited a moment to see if he would respond, and when he said nothing, I started walking home.

  Normally I resented how quick to tears I was, but as I trudged down the snow-dusted walkways, with eyes dry as sawdust and my chest so tight I could scarcely breathe, I longed for the release sobbing would bring. Instead I felt every sleepless night, every missed meal, every mistake I’d made, and every hurt I’d caused. Never in my life had I felt so hopeless, and the result was that I was ill-equipped to deal with it. No matter how I racked my brain, I could not see a way through, and the realization was crippling.

  The lamp in the front entrance was the only light in the empty house, my mother having disappeared to the Marquis’ country home and the servants gone for the night. I had walked away from the one person I’d
never thought I’d turn my back on, and now I was alone. I stood motionless in front of the lamp, staring at the flame while the snow melted, puddling around my boots.

  A knock sounded at the door. I didn’t move. I knew it was Tristan, and I knew I couldn’t ignore him. He was in an unfamiliar place with nowhere to go, and leaving him out in the cold was cruel.

  Turning the bolt, I eased the door partially open and spoke right away so there would be no awkward pause. “I can direct you to where Chris lives,” I said. “Or to a hotel. I have coin, if you need some. Whatever you prefer.”

  He hesitated, looking past me into the house. “What I’d prefer is to be with you,” he eventually said, his voice quiet. “Though that I’ve made you think otherwise indicates I probably don’t deserve the privilege.”

  A sigh of relief ran through me. “Is that supposed to be an apology?”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “I was working my way in that direction.”

  The need to close the distance between us was almost unbearable, but I held my ground. “Work harder.”

  The wind swirled, snowflakes melting before they touched his cheeks. It made me think of the time we were on the lake, and I had described the seasons to him until the feel of his lips on my skin had chased away all thought. That was what I wanted now: not to have to speak or listen, but just to feel. I held my breath.

  “I am sorry.” There was a faint shake in his voice. “I love you above all things in this world or any other, and yet there are times when I think I subject you to the worst of me, and I can’t explain why.”

  I opened the door the rest of the way, then stepped aside so he could come in. The corners of his borrowed cloak brushed against my skirt, pressing the damp fabric against my skin, making me shiver. The foyer was wide, but he remained close enough that I could smell the smoke clinging to his clothing, feel the heat radiating from his skin, see the lamplight glittering in eyes that nothing of this world possessed. Close enough to touch, and oh, how I wanted to.