Lou stared down at him, still smiling, her eyes shining with unfamiliar malice.
Except it wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d seen it many times.
Just never on her.
“Lou?”
When I touched her, that terrible smile finally broke, and she gasped, clutching her chest. I pulled her behind me as the two men charged. She couldn’t breathe, I realized in alarm. Despite her own warning, she’d given the air from her lungs to throw that knife—not as much as it would’ve taken to throw the man. Enough that red splotches had appeared in her eyes, enough that her chest worked furiously to replenish what it’d lost. “I’m fine,” she said, struggling to rejoin me. Her voice was raw. Weak. I stepped in front of her. “I said I’m fine.”
Ignoring her, I swung my Balisarda wide—unnerved by her ragged breathing, the thick stench of magic in the air, the blood roaring in my ears—to drive the other two back, to shield her. But my foot throbbed, and I stumbled. “Let us leave,” I said, voice low and desperate, terrified for them. No—not for them. For Lou. “Let us leave, and we’ll let you live.”
The first rose from beside his companion’s corpse. His smile had vanished. Eyeing my injured foot, he pressed closer. “There are rumors, you know. In the city. They say you’re the king’s bastard son.”
My thoughts scattered at this new information. How could they know? The only ones privy to that information were those in our own company: Lou, Ansel, Coco, Beau, and—
The last piece clicked into place.
Madame Labelle.
“We can help you,” the second coaxed, shadowing the first’s steps. “We can free you from this witch’s spell.”
Every instinct screamed at me to engage. To fight, to protect. But those weren’t the same things right now. I retreated faster, stumbling again. Lou steadied me.
“Please,” she sneered. “He practically sleeps with his Balisarda, you idiots. I couldn’t enchant him if I tried.”
“Shut your mouth, witch.”
“What of your dead friend?” she asked silkily. “Should he speak for me instead?”
I pushed her behind me again.
My eyes darted to the door, the windows. Too far. Though the rational part of my brain knew I maintained the advantage—knew my wanted poster said alive, knew they couldn’t risk killing me—the same wasn’t true for Lou. Her life was forfeit in this fight, which meant theirs were too. I’d have to kill them before they could touch her, before she could retaliate. Even outnumbered, I could dispatch them. Even injured. But if I engaged, Lou would too. She wouldn’t let me fight alone.
Once more, she tried to move to my side, and once more, I moved her behind.
I couldn’t allow her to fight. Not with magic. Not after what I’d just seen. She could damage herself irrevocably. Yet I couldn’t leave her defenseless either. Clutching her hand, I backed her against the wall. Caged her with my body. “Reach inside my coat,” I whispered as the men closed in. “Get a knife.”
She knocked my Balisarda from my hand instead.
“What’re you—?” I leapt after it, incredulous, but she beat me to it, sliding it under her foot as the men charged.
“Trust me!” she cried.
With no time to argue, I pulled two knives from my bandolier and met them strike for strike. My mind anticipated their every movement. My weapons became extensions of my arms. Even the sharp pain in my foot receded to a dull ache. Inexplicably agitated, I watched—disconnected—as my body feinted, dipped, and twisted with unnatural speed. Jabbing here. Kicking there. Soon the men slowed, bloody and winded. Hatred twisted their faces as they gazed at Lou. But she’d remained behind me, hadn’t entered the fray—
I glanced back. My vision tunneled on her contorted fingers, and shock punched through me, stealing my breath. No. Not shock. Fury. Yes, I’d seen this before. I’d seen it many times.
She was using me like a fucking marionette.
At my expression, her fingers faltered, and my arms dropped to my sides, strings cut. Limp. “Reid,” she whispered. “Don’t—”
The men finally saw their opportunity.
The quickest of them spun around me, slashing my hands and knocking my knives to the ground. Before I could stop him, his companion had thrust his blade to my chin. The first quickly followed with a sword in my rib.
“Don’t make this difficult, Diggory,” one of them panted, punching me hard in the stomach when I struggled. “The king wants you alive, and we’d hate to disappoint him.”
They jerked me around to face Lou, who’d swooped to retrieve my Balisarda.
“Easy, love.” They pushed their blades deeper. Warning her. Warning me. A rivulet of blood ran down my throat. Slowly, Lou rose to her feet. Her expression was murderous. “That’s right. No sudden movements. You can go ahead and slide that knife over here.”
She kicked it toward the door instead, eyes flickering at something she saw there. I didn’t dare look. Didn’t dare draw attention.
She took a deep breath. Before our eyes, her expression transformed. Batting her lashes, she gave the men a saccharine smile. My stomach dropped. With her white hair—her eyes green tonight instead of blue—she looked like someone else entirely. “Did you know,” she said, holding her hands erect, motionless, “that physical gesticulation is necessary to perform magic? We have to signal intent, otherwise we risk channeling patterns with errant thought. Gesticulation is manifestation.” She recited the last as if from a textbook. Another smile. This one wider than the last. Sweeter. They stared at her in bewilderment. I stared at her with dread. “The smallest gesture will do. As you witnessed, I impaled your friend with a twitch of my finger. Took less than a second.”
Their grip on me tightened.
“Lou.” My voice was low, strained. “Don’t do this. If manipulating mere memory is dangerous, you don’t want the consequences of manipulating lives. Trust me.” Her eyes flicked to the door and back. I swallowed hard, grimacing against the blade. She was stalling. That’s all this was. But that smile—it unnerved me. I tried again. “There are two of them. Even if you kill one, the other—”
“—will slit his throat,” the man on my left finished, pressing his knife deeper for emphasis. His hand was clammy. Cold. I could smell the perspiration through his clothes. She frightened them. Under pretense of struggling, I glanced behind us. My heart leapt to my throat. Ansel, Coco, Madame Labelle, and Beau were dragging Roy and his unconscious friends out the door. Why hadn’t they listened to me? Why hadn’t they left? Instead, they helped the last of the trapped villagers to safety. Claud Deveraux sifted frantically through the wreckage at the bar.
“I suppose you’re right.” Lou winked at me, and the facade cracked. Relief flooded my system. “But I certainly enjoy watching you squirm.”
Losing his patience, the one on the right barreled toward her. “And I’ll enjoy cutting off your mouthy—”
A crow of triumph sounded behind us, and the men finally turned.
Standing behind the bar—holding a lit match—Deveraux grinned. “Good evening, messieurs. I do hate to interrupt, but I believe it’s in poor taste to discuss beheading a lady in front of her.”
He flicked the match toward us, and the entire building exploded.
White Shadows
Lou
Fire is such bullshit.
I’d already burned once—burned and burned on a metaphysical stake until I was nothing but a husk—but it seemed the flames hadn’t gotten enough of me. They wanted another taste.
Well, too fucking bad.
I dove toward Reid as the pub detonated around us, flinging a hand toward the pattern that shimmered between us and the flames. The golden cord siphoned the icy fear from my chest—wrapping a protective barrier around us in cold, glittering crystals—before bursting into dust. We clung to each other, untouched, as the fire raged.
The bounty hunters weren’t so lucky.
I tried not to enjoy watching them burn to a crisp. Reall
y, I did. Without the fear I’d just sacrificed, however, there was only rage—a rage that burned hotter and brighter than even the flames around us. Blood from Reid’s throat still trickled onto his collar, staining it. Even amidst our heinous trek through the wilderness—our week-long stay in the Hollow—he’d managed to keep his clothing immaculate. But not now. A couple of bounty hunters would’ve bested us if not for Claud Deveraux.
Speaking of which . . . where was Claud Deveraux?
Still fuming, I scanned the blazing pub for any sign of him, but he was gone.
Reid clutched me tighter as the bottles of whiskey behind the bar exploded. Glass pelted against our melting shield, and black, noxious smoke began to curl beneath it. I coughed, tugging his ear to my mouth. “We need to move! The shield won’t hold much longer!”
Nodding swiftly, his eyes darted to the exit. “Will the shield move with us?”
“I don’t know!”
He grabbed my hand, bolting through the flames toward the door. I hurtled after him—scooping up his Balisarda as I went—and forced myself to breathe. One thready gasp after another. My chest ached from earlier, and my head still pounded. My vision quickly blurred. Smoke burned my nose and throat, and I choked, the first tendril of heat licking up my spine. It razed my shoulders and neck, and my panic finally returned as the last of the shield melted.
Memory of another fire razed through me.
“Reid!” I shoved his back with all my might, and he tumbled out the door, sprawling in a heap on the ground outside. I collapsed beside him and buried myself in the frigid mud, heedless of decorum, rolling side to side like a pig wallowing in a sty. A sob tore from my throat.
“We have to move!” Reid’s hands seized my own, and he wrenched me to my feet. Already, more men had surrounded us, drawing makeshift weapons. Pitchforks. Hammers. The flames of the pub reflected in their hateful eyes as they loomed above me, and their shouts echoed through the fog steadily clouding my mind.
Witch!
Hold her!
Fetch the Chasseurs!
A heavy weight settled in my limbs. Groaning, I stumbled into Reid’s side and stayed there, trusting him to support my weight. He didn’t disappoint. My voice sounded muffled as I said, “My back hurts.”
He didn’t answer, instead prying his Balisarda from me and swinging it at the men, clearing a path. The world began to drift in a pleasant, distracting sort of way, like one’s thoughts the moment before one falls asleep. Was that Claud watching us from the crowd? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized perhaps I’d caught on fire. But the realization was quiet and far away, and the only thing that mattered were Reid’s arms around me, the weight of his body against mine . . .
“Lou.” His eyes appeared directly in front of me, wide and anxious and perfectly blue. Except—there shouldn’t have been four of them, should there? I chuckled, though it came out a rasp, and reached up to smooth the furrow between his brows. He caught my hands. His voice drifted in and out of focus. “Stay awake . . . back to camp . . . the Chasseurs . . . coming.”
Coming.
I’m coming for you, darling.
Panic punched through my stomach, and my laughter died abruptly. Shuddering against him, I tried to wrap my arms around his waist, but my limbs wouldn’t cooperate. They dangled limply at my sides, heavy and useless, as I collapsed against him. “She’s coming for me, Reid.”
Vaguely aware of him hoisting me upward—of his mouth moving reassuringly against my ear—I struggled to collect my nonsensical thoughts, to banish the shadows in my vision.
But shadows weren’t white—and this shadow was blinding, incandescent, as it tore through my throat and feasted on my blood—
“I won’t let her hurt you again.”
“I wish I was your wife.”
He stiffened at the unexpected confession, but I’d already forgotten I’d spoken. With one last drowsy inhalation—of pine and smoke and him—I slipped into darkness.
Crosses to Bear
Lou
I woke to voices arguing. Though the pain in my back had miraculously vanished, my chest still felt tight, heavy. Honey coated my tongue, so I almost missed the sharper, coppery taste hiding amidst its sweetness. I should’ve been apologetic, but exhaustion made it difficult to muster anything but apathy. As such, I didn’t open my eyes right away, content to feign sleep and cherish the breath in my lungs.
They’d laid me on my stomach, and night air caressed the skin of my back. The bare skin of my back. I almost laughed and gave myself away.
The deviants had cut open my shirt.
“Why isn’t it working?” Reid snapped. A hot presence beside me, he clenched my hand in his own. “Shouldn’t she have woken up by now?”
“Use your eyes, Diggory.” Coco’s voice cut equally sharp. “Her burns have obviously healed. Give her internal injuries time to do the same.”
“Internal injuries?”
I imagined his face turning puce.
Coco sighed impatiently. “It isn’t humanly possible to move a knife—let alone throw one—with only the air in our lungs. She compensated by using the air from her blood, her tissues—”
“She did what?” His voice was dangerously soft now. Deceptively soft. It did little to hide his ire, however, as his grip nearly broke my fingers. “That could’ve killed her.”
“There’s always a cost.”
Reid scoffed. It was an ugly, unfamiliar sound. “Except for you, it seems.”
“Excuse me?”
I fought a groan, resisting the urge to insert myself between them. Reid was an idiot, but today, he would learn.
“You heard me,” he said, undeterred by Coco’s proximity to his arteries. “Lou is different when she uses magic. Her emotions, her judgment—she’s been erratic since the pool yesterday. Tonight was worse. Yet you use magic without consequence.”
All desire to shield him from Coco disappeared. Erratic? It took a great deal of effort to keep my breathing slow and steady. Indignation seared away the last of my fatigue, and my heart pounded at the small betrayal. Here I was—lying injured beside him—and he had the gall to insult me? All I’d done at the pool and pub was keep his ungrateful ass alive.
Eviscerate him, Coco.
“Give me specific examples.”
I frowned into my bedroll. That wasn’t quite the response I’d expected. And was that—was that concern I detected? Surely Coco didn’t agree with this nonsense.
“She dyed her hair with little to no forethought. She tried to strangle Beau when it went wrong.” Reid sounded as if he were ticking items from a carefully constructed list. “She wept afterward—genuinely wept—”
“She dyed her hair like that for you.” Coco’s voice dripped with disdain and dislike, and I peeked an eye open, slightly mollified. She glared at him. “And she’s allowed to cry. We don’t all suffer from your emotional constipation.”
He waved a curt hand. “It’s more than that. At the pub, she snapped on Claud Deveraux. She laughed when she hurt the bounty hunter—even though she hurt herself in the process. You saw the bruise on her ribs. She was coughing up blood.” He raked a hand through his hair in agitation, shaking his head. “And that was before she killed his friend and nearly herself in the process. I’m worried about her. After she killed him, there was a moment when she looked—she looked almost exactly like—”
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Stop.” Blood still beaded Coco’s hand, which clutched an empty vial of honey. Her fingers shook. “I don’t have any comforting words for you. There is nothing comfortable about our situation. This sort of magic—the sort that balances life and death on a knife point—requires sacrifice. Nature demands balance.”
“There’s nothing natural about it.” Reid’s cheeks flushed as he spoke, and his voice grew harder and harder with each word. “It’s aberrant. It’s—it’s like a sickness. A poison.”
&nb
sp; “It’s our cross to bear. I would tell you there’s more to magic than death, but you wouldn’t hear it. You have your own poison running through your blood—which, incidentally, I’ll boil if you ever speak like this in front of Lou. She has enough steaming shit to sort through without adding yours to the pile.” Exhaling deeply, Coco’s shoulders slumped. “But you’re right. There’s nothing natural about a mother killing her child. Lou is going to get worse before she gets better. Much, much worse.”
Reid’s fingers tightened around mine, and they both peered down at me. I slammed my eye shut. “I know,” he said.
I took a deep breath to collect myself. Then another. But I couldn’t ignore the sharp burst of anger their words had evoked, nor the hurt underlying it. This was not a flattering conversation. These were not the words one hoped to overhear from loved ones.
She’s going to get worse before she gets better. Much, much worse.
My mother’s face tugged at my memory. When I was fourteen, she’d procured a consort for me, insistent that I live a full life in only a handful of years. His name had been Alec, and his face had been so beautiful I’d wanted to weep. When I’d suspected Alec had favored another witch, I’d followed him to the banks of L’Eau Mélancolique one night . . . and watched as he’d laid with his lover. Afterward, my mother had cradled me to sleep, murmuring, “If you are unafraid to look, darling, you are unafraid to find.”
Perhaps I wasn’t as unafraid as I thought.
But they were wrong. I felt fine. My emotions weren’t erratic. To prove it, I cleared my throat, opened my eyes, and—stared straight into the face of a cat. “Ack, Absalon—!” I lurched backward, startled and coughing anew at the sudden movement. My shirt—cut from my back in ribbons—fluttered at my sides.
“You’re awake.” Relief lit Reid’s face as he sat forward, tentatively touching my face, sweeping a thumb across my cheek. “How do you feel?”
“Like garbage.”
Coco knelt next to me as well. “I hope you nicked more clothing from that peddler. Your others quite literally melted into your back tonight. They were fun to remove.”
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