Blood & Honey

by Shelby Mahurin

  “We have to move,” Coco said urgently. She pulled at my arms, trying to lift me. Blood trickled from the crook of her elbow, and charred, bitter magic burned my nose. I glanced down to my stomach, where the flesh had begun knitting itself back together. “Come on. My blood won’t hold it closed without honey. You have to help me. We have to get to the wagons before the Chasseurs show up.”

  I looked up, disoriented, and took in the field for the first time. Chaos reigned. Someone had freed my throwing knives, and everywhere I turned, actors and thieves battled.

  Deveraux chased one into the trees with a bejeweled rapier. Toulouse and Zenna fought back-to-back against three others. Toulouse’s hands blurred in the air, and the thieves fell to the ground instantly. Ansel tackled the knees of another—this one descending on Seraphine. When the man disarmed him, Thierry rushed in, but he needn’t have. Ansel nearly bit off the man’s ear, and Seraphine kicked in his teeth. Madame Labelle and Beau fought together against the others, the former incapacitating them and the latter slitting their throats.

  I tried to sit up, stopping short when my elbow met something soft. Warm.

  Beside me, their leader lay still with a bloody hole where his eye should’ve been.

  I pushed him away, scoured the scene for Lou. Found her mere feet away.

  She and Bas circled each other like wolves. Though blood oozed from Bas’s nose, it soon became clear Lou was on the defensive. “I don’t want to hurt you, Bas,” she hissed, deflecting yet another of his attacks with my Balisarda. “But you need to stop being an idiot. It’s me. It’s Lou—”

  “I’ve never met you before in my life, madame.” He lunged once more, and his blade caught her shoulder.

  Her mouth flew open in disbelief as she clutched the wound. “Are you kidding me? I saved your fucking skin in the Tower, and this is how you repay me?”

  “I escaped the Tower on my own—”

  With a shriek of rage, she launched herself at him, swinging up and around until she clung to his back. Her legs encircled his waist. Her arms encircled his throat. “This isn’t funny. We’re trouncing your motley crew. It’s over. It’s finished. There’s no reason to keep pretending—”

  “I’m. Not. Pretending.”

  She tightened her hold until his eyes bulged, and he jerked his knife upward, aiming for her eye. Releasing him hastily—too hastily—she fell on her back in the snow. He was on top of her within seconds, his knife poised at her throat.

  Again, I struggled to rise, but Coco pinned me in place. “Let me go,” I snarled.

  “You’re too weak.” She shook her head, eyes wide as she watched them. “Lou can handle him.”

  “Bas. Bas, stop.” Lou’s hand closed around his wrist. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, as if fighting back panic. “How do you not remember me?” He pressed his knife harder in response. Her arms trembled against his strength. “You’re not pretending. Shit. Shit.”

  He hesitated, as if her curses had sparked something in him. A memory. “How do you know me?” he asked fiercely.

  “I’ve known you for years. You’re one of my best friends.” When she reached up to touch his face, his jaw, his hand eased on the knife. “But I—did I do something to you in the Tower?” Her brows furrowed as she strained to remember. “You were locked away. They were going to kill you unless—” Realization dawned in her turquoise eyes. “Unless you gave them the names of the witches at Tremblay’s. That’s it.”

  “You—you know about Tremblay’s?”

  “I was there.”

  “You couldn’t have been. I would remember.”

  Finally, she pushed his knife away. He didn’t stop her. “Bastien St. Pierre,” she said, “we met backstage at Soleil et Lune two summers ago. A rehearsal for La Barbe Bleue had just ended, and you hoped to steal a moment or two with the leading lady. You were courting her at the time. A week later, you”—her face contorted with pain against some unseen force, and the scent of fresh magic burst through the air—“you started courting me.”

  “How do you—?” He lurched away from her abruptly, clutching his head as if she’d cleaved it in two. “Stop it! Stop it, please!”

  “I stole your memories from you. I’m simply returning them.”

  “Whatever you’re doing, please, please just stop—”

  Falling to his knees, Bas begged and pleaded, but Lou did not stop. Soon his wails drew the attention of the others. Madame Labelle—who’d just dispatched the last of the thieves—froze. Her eyes widened. “Louise, stop it. Stop,” she said sharply, tripping over her skirts in her haste to reach them. “You’ll kill yourself!”

  But Lou didn’t listen. Her and Bas’s eyes rolled back simultaneously, and together, they collapsed.

  I succeeded in pushing away Coco’s hands, in staggering to Lou’s side. The smell of incense choked me—sharp and sweet—and I coughed violently. Pain lanced through my stomach at the movement. “Lou.” I cupped her neck as Bas regained consciousness. “Can you hear me?”

  “Louey?” Bas bolted upright, clutching her hand with sudden urgency. He patted her cheek. “Louey, wake up. Wake up.”

  Nausea churned as her eyes fluttered open, as she blinked up at me. As she turned to face him.

  As I realized the truth.

  Lou had lied. Again. She had rescued her lover from the Tower. Right under my nose. It shouldn’t have surprised me—shouldn’t have mattered—but the deception still cut deep. Deeper than it should have, deeper than any flesh wound ever could. I felt raw, exposed, cut past muscle and bone to my very soul.

  I dropped my hands, collapsing on the ground beside her. Breathing heavily.

  With all eyes on us, none saw the thieves’ leader climb to his feet behind Coco. None except Lou. She tensed, and I turned to see him raise his knife with deadly intent, aiming for the spot between Coco’s shoulders. A death blow.

  “Look out!” Bas cried.

  Coco whirled, but the man was already upon her, the tip of his blade poised to pierce her chest—

  Lou threw my Balisarda.

  End over end, it soared between them, but the man moved at the last second, jerking his arm out of its path. And so it continued to fly, unimpeded, straight past. It didn’t stop until it sank deep into the tree behind them.

  And then the tree ate it.

  My mouth fell open. My breath abandoned me. I could do nothing but watch as the whole trunk shuddered, swallowing the precious steel inch by inch until nothing remained. Nothing but the sapphire on its hilt. And the tree—it changed. Veins of silver spread through its bark—once black—until the entire tree glinted in the moonlight. Midnight fruit bloomed on stark branches. Thorns enveloped each bud. Sharp. Metallic.

  The kites nesting in its boughs took flight with startled cries, shattering the silence.

  Coco moved quickly. With brutal efficiency, she stabbed the man in his heart. This time, he didn’t rise.

  But I did.

  “Reid,” Lou said placatingly, but I couldn’t hear her. A ringing had started in my ears. A numbness had crept through my limbs. Pain should’ve razed my body with each step, but it didn’t. Agony should’ve destroyed my heart with each beat. Gone, it should’ve thumped. Gone-gone, gone-gone, gone-gone. But it didn’t.

  I felt nothing.

  Without my Balisarda, I was nothing.

  As if floating above, I watched myself reach out to touch the sapphire, but Lou’s hand descended on mine. “Don’t touch it,” she said breathlessly. “The tree could suck you in too.” I didn’t drop my hand. It kept reaching, reaching, until Lou managed to wrestle it to my side. “Reid, stop. It’s—it’s—it’s gone. But don’t worry. We’ll—we’ll get you another one. All right? We’ll—” She broke off when I turned to look at her. Pink tinged her cheeks. Her nose. Alarm widened her eyes.

  “Let him go, Louise,” Madame Labelle said sternly. “You’ve done quite enough damage for one day.”

  “Excuse me?” Lou whirled to face her, lip cur
ling. “You don’t get to speak about damage done.”

  Coco stepped to Lou’s side. “None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t waited so long to intervene. These men didn’t know you had magic. You could’ve ended this as soon as it began. Why didn’t you?”

  Madame Labelle lifted her chin. “I do not answer to you.”

  “Then answer to me.”

  At my strained words, everyone in the camp turned in my direction. The troupe members huddled close, watching with wide eyes. Deveraux looked aghast. When Ansel took a tentative step forward, Beau pulled him back with a shake of his head. I ignored them all, locking eyes with my mother. She blanched. “I—”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Lou’s laughter held an ugly edge. “She wants you to use magic, Reid. She waited until the last possible moment to see if your defense mechanisms would kick in. Isn’t that right, mother dear?”

  I waited for my mother to deny such an outrageous accusation. When she didn’t, I felt myself stumble back a step. Away from her. Away from Lou.

  Away from my Balisarda.

  “I almost died,” I said simply.

  Madame Labelle’s face crumpled, and she stepped closer, lifting a mournful hand. “I never would’ve let you—”

  “You almost didn’t have a choice.” Turning on my heel, I strode toward the amber wagon. Lou moved behind, but I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t trust myself to speak.

  “Reid—”

  Without a word, I shut the door in her face.

  The door couldn’t keep Coco away.

  She wasted no time in following me, in accosting me with honey. With jerky movements, she pulled the jar of amber liquid from her bag and tossed it to me. “You’re bleeding.”

  My eyes dropped to my stomach, where my wound had pulled open. I hadn’t noticed it. Even now—as fresh blood seeped through my shirt—a bone-deep weariness settled within me. Lou’s and my mother’s voices rose outside. Still arguing. I closed my eyes.

  This will always be your life with her—running, hiding, fighting.

  No. My eyes snapped open, and I pushed the thought away.

  Coco crossed the wagon to kneel at my side. Dipping a bloody finger into the jar of honey, she rubbed the mixture over my wound. The flesh drew together almost instantly.

  “Why did your blood burn that man?” I asked, voice hollow.

  “A Dame Rouge’s blood is poison to her enemies.”

  “Oh.” I nodded mechanically. As if it made sense. “Right.”

  Finished, she rose to her feet, staring at me as if deliberating. After several awkward seconds, she pressed a fresh vial of blood and honey into my palm. “What happened out there wasn’t fair to anyone, least of all you.” She closed my fingers around the vial. It was still warm. “Take it. I think you’ll need it before all of this is over.”

  I glanced back at my stomach in confusion. The wound had already healed.

  She gave me a grim smile. “It isn’t for your flesh. It’s for your heart.”

  Dagger of Bone

  Lou

  Deveraux insisted we keep moving. With bodies piled up outside of Beauchêne, it would only be a matter of time before someone alerted the local authorities. We needed to be far, far away before that happened. Fortunately, Deveraux didn’t seem to sleep like a normal person, so he harnessed the horses immediately.

  Unfortunately, he suggested I join him.

  The wagon rocked beneath us as he eased the horses into motion.

  One of the twins drove the wagon behind us. The amber wagon, Claud had called it. I didn’t care about its name. I only cared that Reid was currently inside it, and I was not.

  Reid and Coco. I should’ve been grateful they were getting along.

  I wasn’t.

  Burrowing deeper in my blanket, I glared up at the stars. Claud chuckled. “Couronne for your thoughts, little one?”

  “Do you have a family, Monsieur Deveraux?” The words popped out of their own volition, and I resisted the urge to clap a hand over my mouth.

  With a knowing look—as if he’d been expecting such a question—he coaxed the horses into a trot. “As a matter of fact, I do. Two elder sisters. Terrifying creatures, to be sure.”

  “And . . . parents?” I asked, curious despite myself.

  “If I ever did, I no longer recall them.”

  “How old are you?”

  He chuckled, his eyes cutting to mine. “What an impolite question.”

  “What a frustratingly vague answer.” When his chuckle deepened to a laugh, I switched tactics, narrowing my eyes. “Why are you so interested in me, Deveraux? You know I’m married, right?”

  He wiped a tear from his eye. “Dear child, a pervert I am not—”

  “What is it, then? Why are you helping us?”

  Pursing his lips, he considered. “Perhaps because the world needs a whit less hate and a trifle more love. Does that answer suffice?”

  “No.” I rolled my eyes, crossing my arms and feeling petulant. A second later, my eyes drifted back to him of their own accord. “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Ah.” He shook his head, eyes turning inward. “Love. The most elusive of mistresses. In all my years, I must confess to finding her only twice. The first was a headstrong young shepherd much like your Reid, and the second . . . well, that wound is not quite healed. It would be foolish to reopen it.”

  In all my years. It was an odd turn of phrase for someone who appeared to be in his forties.

  “How old are you?” I asked again, louder this time.

  “Very old.”

  Odd, indeed. I stared at him. “What are you?”

  He chuckled, his eyes cutting to mine. “I simply . . . am.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Of course it is. Why must I bind myself to fit your expectations?”

  The rest of the conversation—indeed, the rest of the night—passed in a similarly frustrating fashion. When the sky had lightened from pitch black to dusky gray to dazzling pink, I was no closer to figuring out the mystery of Claud Deveraux.

  “We near Cesarine, little one.” He nudged my shoulder and motioned to the east, where wisps of chimney smoke curled into the golden light of dawn. Pulling gently on the reins, he slowed the horses. “I dare venture no closer. Wake your companions. Though her own lodgings have burned, I believe Madame Labelle has contacts within the city. Together, we shall procure a safe place for your return, but we must say adieu for now.”

  For now.

  I studied his placid face in bemusement. It made no sense, him helping us. None at all. The suspicious side of my nature cried foul—surely he had hidden motives—but the practical side told it to shut the hell up and thank him.

  So I did.

  He merely clasped my hand in both of his own, staring me directly in the eye. “Be safe, my darling, while we part. Be safe until we meet again.”

  I knocked softly on the wagon door.

  “Reid?” When he didn’t answer, I heaved a sigh, resting my forehead against the wood. “It’s time to go.”

  No response.

  Despair threatened to swallow me whole.

  Once, when I was a child, my mother took an influential lover—a man from la noblesse. When she tired of him, she banished him from the Chateau, but he didn’t leave easily. No, this was a man unaccustomed to rejection, with nearly infinite funds and power at his disposal. He soon hired men to haunt the forest, capturing our sisters and torturing them to reveal the Chateau’s location. My mother’s location.

  He was an idiot. I hadn’t been sorry when she’d killed him.

  I had been sorry when she’d cut open his chest and filled him with rocks, dumping his corpse into L’Eau Mélancolique. I’d watched him sink out of sight with a sense of shame. His wife would never know what had happened to him. Or his children.

  “Fret not, darling,” Morgane had whispered, her bloody fingers squeezing mine in reassurance. “Though a secret is a lie in pretty clothing,
some secrets must be kept.”

  But I hadn’t been reassured. I’d been sick.

  This silence between Reid and me felt something like that—like leaping into the sea with rocks in my chest, helpless to stop sinking. To stop bleeding. Only it wasn’t my mother who had cut me open this time.

  It was me.

  I knocked harder. “Reid. I know you’re there. Can I come in? Please?”

  The door finally cracked open, and there he stood, staring down at me. I offered a tentative smile. He didn’t return it—which was fine. Really. It was. If I kept saying it, maybe it’d become true. After several awkward seconds, Coco swung the door open and stepped outside. Ansel followed. “We’ll be right back,” she promised, touching my arm as she passed. “We just need to . . . be somewhere else.”

  Reid closed the door behind me.

  “I should pack too,” I said, my voice overly bright. Cursing internally, I cleared my throat and adopted a more natural tone. “I mean—there isn’t much to pack, but still. The quicker we’re on the road again, the better, right? The funeral is tomorrow. We only have today to convince Blaise to join us.” I cringed into the silence. “If you need more time here, though, one of Claud’s horses threw a shoe, so they aren’t waiting on us, per se. More like Thierry. I think he’s the troupe farrier, something about apprenticing for a man up in Amandine . . .” Hunched over his bag, Reid gave no indication he was listening. I kept talking anyway, incapable of stopping. “He might be the only person alive who speaks less than you do.” I gave a weak chuckle. “He’s quite the brooding hero. Did—did I see him using magic against the bandits last night? Are he and his brother—?”

  Reid gave a terse nod.

  “And . . . did you happen to persuade them into joining us against Morgane?”

  Though his entire body tensed, he still didn’t turn. “No.”

  My nausea intensified to something akin to guilt. “Reid . . .” Something in my voice finally made him turn. “Last night was my fault. Sometimes I just react—” I blew out a frustrated breath, worrying a strand of my hair. “I didn’t mean to lose your Balisarda. I’m so sorry.”