Blood & Honey

by Shelby Mahurin

  When she screamed in frustration, flailing wildly, he ignored her. “But you’re right,” he continued. “I never should’ve left. It is a mistake I will not make twice.” He paced before a line of corpses, growing steadily taller with each step. Nausea pitched violently in my stomach when I looked closer. When I recognized my mouth on one face. My nose on another. My jaw. My eyes.

  Deveraux spotted the toddler, and his voice darkened. “For too long, I’ve sat quietly—watching you drown others, watching you founder yourself—but no longer. I will not let you do this, ma chanson.” He glanced at Lou, and the terrible fury in his eyes softened. “She could have been ours.”

  “But she’s not,” Morgane spat, throat bulging with strain. “She’s not mine, and she’s not yours. She is his. She is theirs.” She pointed to me, to Ansel, to Coco and Jean Luc, to Beau and Blaise. “She was never mine. She has chosen her side. If it’s the last thing I do, I will make her suffer as her sisters have suffered.”

  Several witches crept toward the main tunnel now. Blaise—face bloody, mouth dripping—blocked the entrance, but he numbered only one. When the witches engaged, streaking past, the Chasseurs gave chase, deserting us. Ansel edged back to guard the smaller actors’ tunnel. Trembling beside the corpses, Célie stood alone. When she turned to look at me—alive, terrified—I beckoned her over. The slightest twitch of my fingers. Her face crumpled, and she raced toward us. Lou caught her, and I wrapped my arms around them both.

  We would survive this. All of us. I didn’t care what Coco’s vision said.

  Deveraux watched us for a moment, his expression wistful, before turning back to Morgane. He shook his head. “You are a fool, my love. She is your daughter. Of course she could have been yours.” With the wave of his hand, Morgane floated back to the ground. Her hands broke apart. “This game is over. My sister has grown rather fond of Louise.”

  My arms tightened around her, and—shuddering with relief—she dropped her head to my shoulder. To my surprise, Célie stroked her hair. Just once. A simple gesture of comfort. Of hope. The unlikeliness of it startled me, shattered me, and warm relief swept in. My knees buckled. We really would survive this. All of us. With Deveraux and his sister on our side—a god and goddess—Morgane’s hands were tied. For all her power, she was human. She couldn’t hope to fight this war and win.

  Panting and flexing her wrists, she glared at Deveraux with pure animosity. “Your sister is the fool.”

  His eyes flattened, and he motioned for Blaise and Ansel to step away from the tunnel entrances. “You try my patience, love. Leave now, before I change my mind. Undo what can be undone. Do not attempt to harm Louise again, or feel my sister’s wrath—and mine. This is your final warning.”

  Morgane backed toward the tunnel slowly. Her eyes darted upward, watching the last witches flee from sight and the last huntsmen follow. Deveraux let them go. Morgane would never surrender with an audience. Now the auditorium was nearly empty. Only our own remained—and Manon. She stared at Gilles’s empty face, her own equally lifeless. Lou looked as if she might approach her, but I squeezed her waist. Not yet.

  “My final warning,” Morgane breathed. “The wrath of a goddess.” When she lifted her hands, everyone tensed, but she only brought them together in applause. Each clap echoed in the empty auditorium. A truly frightening grin split her face. “Well done, Louise. It seems you have powerful pieces in our game, but do not forgot I have mine. You have outplayed me . . . for now.”

  Lou stepped away from Célie and me, swallowing hard. “I was never playing, Maman. I loved you.”

  “Oh, darling. Didn’t I tell you love makes you weak?” A wild gleam lit Morgane’s eyes as she inched backward. She was close to the tunnel now. Close to escape. Ansel hovered nearby with an anxious expression. It mirrored my own. I glanced to Deveraux, praying he’d change his mind—capture her—but he didn’t move. He trusted her to leave, to obey her goddess’s command. I didn’t. “But the game isn’t over yet. The rules have simply changed. That’s all. I cannot use magic, not here. I cannot touch you, but . . .”

  I realized her intent too late. We all did.

  Cackling, she swooped up my fallen knife and lunged, driving it into the base of Ansel’s skull.

  The End of the World

  Lou

  The world didn’t end in a scream.

  It ended in a gasp. A single, startled exhalation. And then—

  Nothing.

  Nothing but silence.

  Something Dark and Ancient

  Lou

  I could do nothing but watch him fall.

  He dropped to his knees first—eyes wide, unseeing—before falling forward. There was no one to catch him, no one to stop his face from hitting the ground with a sickening, definitive thud. He did not move again.

  Ringing silence filled my ears, my mind, my heart as blood surrounded him in a scarlet halo. My feet wouldn’t move. My eyes wouldn’t blink. There was only Ansel and his crown, his beautiful limbs draped behind him as if—as if he were just sleeping—

  By midnight, a man close to your heart will die.

  A scream pierced the silence.

  It was mine.

  The world rushed back into focus then, and everyone was shouting, running, slipping in Ansel’s blood—

  Coco tore her arm open with one of Reid’s knives, and her own blood spilled on Ansel’s face. They turned him over on Reid’s lap, forcing his lips apart. His head lolled. Already, his skin had lost its color. It didn’t matter how they shook him, how they sobbed. He wouldn’t wake.

  “Help him!” Coco lurched to her feet and took Claud by the coat. Tears streamed down her face, burning everything they touched, sparking tendrils of flame at our feet. And still they fell. She was breathless now, no longer shaking him, but clutching his shoulders. Keening. Drowning. “Please, please, bring him back—”

  Claud removed her hands gently with a shake of his head. “I am sorry. I cannot interfere. He is . . . gone.”

  Gone.

  Ansel was gone.

  Gone gone gone. The word swirled around me, through me, whispering with finality. Ansel is gone.

  Coco sank to the ground, and her tears fell thicker, faster. Fire curled around her like molten petals. I relished the heat. The pain. This place would burn for what it’d taken. I hoped the witches were still here. I hoped the red-faced devil and his friends had not yet escaped. Blowing each shimmering pattern, I fanned the flames higher, hotter. They would all die with Ansel. Each one of them would die.

  Laughter echoed from the darkness of the tunnel.

  With a guttural roar, I tore after it. Jean Luc said I’d rotted, but that wasn’t true. Magic didn’t rot. It cracked, like a splintering mirror. With each brush of magic, those cracks in the glass deepened. The slightest touch might shatter it. I hadn’t corrected him at the time. I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge what was happening to me—what we’d all known. But now—

  “Did you love him, Louise?” Morgane’s voice echoed in the darkness. “Did you watch as the light left those pretty brown eyes?”

  Now I shattered.

  Light exploded from my skin in every direction, illuminating the entire tunnel. The walls shook, the ceiling cracking and raining stones, collapsing beneath my wrath. I pushed harder, wrenching patterns blindly. I would bring the tunnel down on her head. I would break the world and tear down the sky to punish her for what she’d done. For what I had done. At a gap in the passage, Morgane stood frozen, mouth parted in surprise—in delight. “You are magnificent,” she breathed. “Finally. We can have some fun.”

  Closing my eyes, I tipped my head back, holding all of their lives in my fingers. Reid. Coco. Claud. Beau. Célie. Jean Luc. Manon. I tested the weights of each one, searching for a thread to match Morgane’s. She had to die. Whatever the cost.

  And if another must die in return? the voice whispered.

  So be it.

  Before I could pluck the thread, however, a body slammed int
o me. Blood soaked his shirt. I tasted it in my mouth as he trapped me against the wall, as he lifted my hands above my head. “Stop, Lou. Don’t do this.”

  “Let me go!” Half screaming, half sobbing, I fought Reid with all my strength. I spat out Ansel’s blood. “It’s my fault. I killed him. I told him he was worthless—he was nothing—”

  At the mouth of the tunnel, Claud, Beau, and Jean Luc struggled to contain Coco. She must’ve followed me in. By her feral expression, she’d planned a similar fate for my mother. Fire roared behind her.

  When I turned back to Morgane, she’d disappeared.

  “Let her go,” Reid pleaded. Tears and soot streaked his face. “You’ll get another chance. We have to move, or this whole place will come down on top of us.”

  I slumped in his arms, defeated, and he exhaled hard, pressing me into his chest. “You don’t get to leave me. Do you understand?” Cupping my face, he wrenched me backward and kissed me hard. His voice was fierce. His eyes were fiercer. They burned into mine, angry and anguished and afraid. “You don’t get to do this alone. If you retreat into your mind—into your magic—I’ll follow you, Lou.” He shook me slightly, tears glistening in those frightened eyes. “I’ll follow you into that darkness, and I’ll bring you back. Do you hear me? Where you go, I will go.”

  I looked back to the auditorium. The flames burned too high now for us to retrieve Ansel’s body. He would burn here. This dirty, deplorable place would be his pyre. I closed my eyes, expecting the pain to come, but there was only emptiness. I was hollow. Vacant. No matter what Reid claimed . . . this time, he wouldn’t be able to bring me back.

  Something dark and ancient slithered out of that pit.

  Old Magic

  Lou

  Late afternoon sunlight shone through the dusty window, illuminating the warm woods and thick carpets of Léviathan’s dining room. La Voisin and Nicholina stared at me from across the table. They looked out of place in this ordinary, mundane room. With their scarred skin and haunting eyes, they were two creatures of a horror story who’d escaped their pages.

  I would bring their horror story to life.

  The innkeeper had assured me that we wouldn’t be disturbed here.

  “Where were you?”

  “The tunnels separated us.” La Voisin met my gaze impassively. We still hadn’t found the others. Though Blaise and Claud searched relentlessly, Liana, Terrance, Toulouse, and Thierry remained lost. I assumed Morgane had killed them. I couldn’t bring myself to care. “When we reached the Skull Masquerade, Cosette had already set it on fire. I instructed my kin to flee.”

  “Sea of tears and lake of fire.” Nicholina rocked back and forth on her chair. Her silver eyes never left mine. “To drown our foes on their pyres.”

  “My niece tells me you’ve had a change of heart.” La Voisin glanced toward the door, where the others waited in the tavern. All except one. “She says you wish to march on Chateau le Blanc.”

  I met Nicholina’s unflinching stare with one of my own. “I don’t want to march on Chateau le Blanc. I want to burn it to the ground.”

  La Voisin lifted her brows. “You must see how that upsets my agenda. Without the Chateau, my people remain homeless.”

  “Build a new home. Build it on my sisters’ ashes.”

  A peculiar glint entered La Voisin’s eyes. A smile touched her lips. “If we agree . . . if we burn your mother and sisters inside their ancestral home . . . it does not solve the larger problem. Though your mother’s methods have grown erratic, we are still hunted. The royal family will not rest until every one of us is dead. Even now, Helene Labelle remains captive.”

  “So we kill them too.” My voice sounded hollow to my own ears. “We kill them all.”

  La Voisin and Nicholina exchanged a glance, and La Voisin’s smile grew. Nodding—as if I’d passed some sort of unspoken test—she drew her grimoire from her cloak and placed it on the table. “How . . . cruel.”

  Nicholina licked her teeth.

  “They want death,” I said simply. “I’ll give them death.”

  La Voisin rested her hand atop her grimoire. “I appreciate your commitment, Louise, but such a feat is easier said than done. The king has numbers in his Chasseurs, and the Chasseurs have strength in their Balisardas. Morgane is omniscient. She has . . . powerful pieces on her board.”

  It seems you have powerful pieces in our game, but do not forgot I have mine. I frowned at the turn of phrase.

  “Did you never wonder how she found you in Cesarine?” La Voisin stood, and Nicholina followed. I rose with them, unease prickling my neck. The door behind them remained shut. Locked. “How she slipped a note into my own camp? How she knew you traveled with Troupe de Fortune? How she followed you to this very inn?”

  “She has spies everywhere,” I whispered.

  “Yes.” La Voisin nodded, moving around the table. I fought to remain still. I would not flee. I would not cower. “Yes, she does.” When she stood only a hair’s breadth from my shoulder, she stopped, staring down at me. “I warned Coco against her friendship with you. She knew I disliked you. She was always so careful to protect you from me, never revealing even a scrap of information about your whereabouts.” Tilting her head, she considered me with predatory focus. “When she heard of your marriage to the Chasseur, she panicked. It made her careless. Reckless. We followed her trail back to Cesarine, and lo and behold—there you were. After two years of searching, we had found you.”

  I swallowed hard. “We?”

  “Yes, Louise. We.”

  I bolted then, but Nicholina flashed in front of the door. In a sickeningly familiar movement, she pushed me into the wall, yanking my hands above my head with inhuman strength. When I smashed my forehead into her nose, she simply leaned closer, inhaling against the skin of my neck. Her blood sizzled against my skin, and I screamed. “Reid! REID! COCO!”

  “They can’t hear you.” La Voisin flipped through the pages of her grimoire. “We’ve enchanted the door.”

  I watched, horrified, as Nicholina’s nose shifted back into place. “It’s the mice,” she breathed, grinning like a fiend. “The mice, the mice, the mice. They keep us young, keep us strong.”

  “What the hell are you always talking about? Do you eat mice?”

  “Don’t be silly.” She giggled and brushed her nose against mine. Her blood continued to boil my face. I thrashed away from her—from the pain—but she held strong. “We eat hearts.”

  “Oh my god.” I retched violently, gasping for breath. “Gaby was right. You eat your dead.”

  La Voisin didn’t look up from her grimoire. “Just their hearts. The heart is the core of a blood witch’s power, and it lives on after one dies. The dead have no need for magic. We do.” She pulled a bundle of herbs from her cloak next, setting each beside her grimoire and calling them by name. “Bayberry for illusion, eyebright for control, and belladonna”—she lifted the dried leaves to inspect them—“for spiritual projection.”

  Spiritual projection.

  What was the book in your aunt’s tent?

  Her grimoire.

  Do you know what’s in it?

  Curses, possession, sickness, and the like. Only a fool would cross my aunt.

  Oh shit.

  “Fang of an adder,” Nicholina chanted, still leering at me. “Eye of an owl.”

  La Voisin set to crushing the herbs, the fang, the eye into powder on the table.

  “Why are you doing this?” I kneed Nicholina in the stomach, but she pressed closer, laughing. “I agreed to help you. We want the same things, we want—”

  “You are easier to kill than Morgane. Though the plan was to deliver you to La Mascarade des Crânes, we are flexible. We will deliver you to Chateau le Blanc instead.”

  I watched in horror as she slit her wrist open, as her blood poured into a goblet. When she added the powder, a plume of black smoke curled from the foul liquid. “So kill me, then,” I choked. “Don’t—don’t do this. Please.” />
  “By decree of the Goddess, Morgane can no longer hunt you. She cannot force you to do anything against your will. You must go to her willingly. You must sacrifice yourself willingly. I would simply feed you my blood to assume control, but the pure, unadulterated blood of an enemy kills.” She gestured to Nicholina’s blood on my face, to my ravaged skin. “Fortunately, I have an alternate solution. It’s all thanks to you, Louise. The rules of old magic are absolute. An impure spirit such as Nicholina’s cannot touch a pure one. This darkness in your heart . . . it calls to us.”

  Nicholina tapped my nose. “Pretty mouse. We shall taste your huntsman. We shall have our kiss.”

  I bared my teeth at her. “You won’t.”

  She cackled as La Voisin crossed the room to lift the goblet to her lips. Drinking greedily, she relaxed her hands, and I bucked away from her, lunging for the door—

  La Voisin caught my injured wrist. I arched away, screaming—screaming for Reid, for Coco, for anyone—but she caught my hair and forced my head back. My mouth open. When the black liquid touched my lips, I collapsed and saw no more.

  Evil Seeks a Foothold

  Reid

  Deveraux’s face was unusually grim as he sat down across the table in Léviathan. At least it was human. The Woodwose’s face had been . . . unsettling. I shook my head, staring into my tankard of beer. It’d gone flat an hour ago. Jean Luc brought me another one. “Drink up. I have to leave soon. The king wants us in the catacombs within the hour.”

  “What will you tell him?” Deveraux asked.

  “The truth.” He chugged his own tankard before nodding to Beau, who’d draped an arm around Coco at the next table. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and she turned a glass of wine in her hand without seeing it. Beau coaxed her into taking a sip. “He’s already after all of you,” Jean Luc continued. “This changes nothing.”