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Il n’y a pas plus sourd que celui qui ne veut pas entendre. There are none so deaf as those that will not hear. —French proverb
“Bon appétit.” We watched, transfixed, as he stuffed the bread into his mouth—and choked. Beau roared with laughter. Eyes watering, Reid hastened to swallow as Ansel pounded on his back. “It’s good,” he assured me, still coughing and trying to chew. “Really. It tastes like—like—” “Char?” Beau bent double at my expression, laughing riotously, and Reid glowered, still choking but lifting a foot to kick his ass. Literally. Losing his balance, Beau toppled forward into the moss and lichen of the forest floor, a boot print clearly visible against the seat of his velvet pants. He spat mud from his
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“Ask me no questions, mon amour, and I shall tell you no lies.” When he clenched his jaw, clearly battling his temper, I braced myself for the inquisition. Though Reid no longer wore his blue uniform, he just couldn’t seem to help himself. The law was the law. It didn’t matter on which side of it he stood. Bless him. “Tell me you didn’t steal it,” he said. “Tell me you found it in a hole somewhere.” “All right. I didn’t steal it. I found it in a hole somewhere.”
“You’re impossible.” “I’m impractical, improbable, but never impossible.”
“My God,” Beau said, voice thick with disgust. “It looks like he’s eating her face.”
“I understand your reluctance to confront this, Louise, but closing your eyes will not make it so the monsters can’t see you. It will only make you blind.”
With an aggrieved sigh, Beau pitched upright and interrupted loudly, “Hello! Yes, pardon! As it seems to have escaped your notice, there are other people here!” In a low grumble, he added, “Though clearly those other people will soon shrivel up and die from abstinence.”
“Imbeciles!” Madame Labelle cried, her voice so loud—so shrill and unpleasant—that a couple of turtle doves fled into the sky. “Cretins! Stupid, asinine children. Are you capable of thinking with the northernmost regions of your bodies, or are you ruled entirely by sex?”
He leaned low to whisper, “You shouldn’t have done that for me.” “I would do far worse for you.”
distaste. I didn’t care that she was Reid’s mother. In that moment, I wished her not death, per se, but—an itch. Yes. An eternal itch in her nether regions that she could never quite scratch.
Beau paused in rummaging through Coco’s rucksack. “Side effects?” “Death, mostly. Nothing to fret about.”
“She wasn’t naturally blond, of course, but her other natural assets more than made up for it.” When Coco’s gaze flattened—and her fingers tightened painfully on my shoulder—Beau smirked. “Whatever is wrong, ma chatte? You aren’t . . . jealous?” “You—” I patted her hand, wincing. “I’ll dismember him for you after we’ve finished.” “Slowly?” “Piece by piece.”
“Never once did I claim to know what I’m doing.” My stomach rose. “But you said—” “What I said is that I helped a paramour dye her hair, but that was only to piss off Cosette. What I actually did was watch a paramour dye her hair, while feeding her strawberries. Naked.” “If you fuck this up, I will skin you alive and wear your hide as a cape.” He arched a brow, lifting the bottles to examine their labels. “Noted.” Honestly, if a naked paramour didn’t start feeding me strawberries soon, I’d burn the world down.
Ansel’s gaze shifted to Reid. “Don’t do that. I think Reid likes your eyes.” As if afraid he’d offended me somehow, he hastily added, “And I do too. They’re pretty.”
He laughed in a self-deprecating way that I loathed. “I don’t even know their names. I was too frightened of Father Thomas to ask. He did once tell me Maman was an obedient, God-fearing woman, but for all I know, she could’ve been a witch.” He hesitated, swallowing hard, and finally met my eyes. “Just like—just like Reid’s mother. Just like you.”
I tugged at a strand of hair, wincing at the sharp pain that followed. This wasn’t normal, was it? Something had to be wrong. “Beau, get some water—” The word ended in a strangled cry as the strand of hair came away in my hand. “No.” I stared at it, horrified. “No, no, NO.” Reid was at my side in an instant. “What is it? What’s—?” Shrieking, I hurled the gooey clump of hair at Beau’s face. “You idiot! Look what you’ve—WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” He pawed the slime from his face, eyes wide and alarmed, and scrambled backward as I advanced. “I told you I didn’t know what I was doing!”
Someday, I wouldn’t need to hoard Reid’s smiles, and someday, he wouldn’t need to ration them.
“You lived without magic for years.” “That wasn’t living. That was surviving. Besides, without . . . all of this”—she gestured around us—“who am I?” The urge to seize her had been overwhelming. Instead, I’d leaned low—until we were eye to eye and nose to nose—and said fiercely, “You are everything.”
I couldn’t see her grin, but I could sense it. She was enjoying herself. I wanted to strangle her.
“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.”
“And she’s allowed to cry. We don’t all suffer from your emotional constipation.”
They could murder us in our sleep. They could turn us into toads. They could—” “Tell you that you have lipstick on your teeth,” Lou finished. Zenna glared at her. “It’s true,” Beau said helpfully. “Right there at the side.”
“Don’t worry. The trees here are loyal to my aunt.”
I’d spent the remainder of the night riding up front with Claud. He’d tried to pass the time with conversation. When I hadn’t kept up my end, he’d started to sing, and I’d regretted my grave error. For hours.
“Your wish has been granted, Louise le Blanc. The Dames Rouges will join you in Cesarine, and I myself will rend your mother’s beating heart from her chest.”
“Mother’s tits, you are petulant.” I whirled to face her, incredulous. “What did you just say?”
That was one choice I couldn’t unmake—and even if I could, I wouldn’t. I’d lied when I’d said I’d made my choice. In truth, there’d been no choice at all. There never had been. I loved her. And if I had to run, hide, and fight for that love, I would. For the rest of my life, I would.
“Louise’s story does not end in happiness. It ends in death. Whether at her mother’s hands or her own, she will not remain the girl with whom you fell in love.” Pressure built behind my eyes. “I’ll love her anyway.”
“A noble sentiment. But you owe no one unconditional love. Take it from someone who knows—when a person brings you more hurt than happiness, you’re allowed to let them go. You do not have to follow them into the dark.” She smoothed her skirts before extending a hand to me. Her fingers were warm, steady, as she led me toward the stage. “Let her go, Reid, before she takes you with her.”
I managed not to impale ...
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Never before had I thought of the women I’d burned. Not even Estelle. I’d thought only of Lou, who wasn’t like them. Lou, who wasn’t like other witches. How convenient, she’d told me before we’d parted. You see what you want to see.
Perhaps Lou wasn’t like other witches. Perhaps they were like her.
Thierry’s hand came down on my shoulder. You see magic as a weapon, Reid, but you’re wrong. It simply . . . is. If you wish to use it for harm, it harms, and if you wish to use it to save . . . Together, we looked to Toulouse, who tucked a flower behind the woman’s ear. She beamed at him before rejoining the crowd. It saves.
No words could ever erase what I’d done to him. What I’d taken. “So you see,” Blaise said, voice rough with emotion, “you owe me blood.” I still couldn’t speak. When he began to shift once more, however, I choked, “I don’t want to fight you.” “Nor I you,” he growled, bones shuddering, “but fight we shall.”
“I know I might’ve gotten a little carried away in the process. With—with the ice. I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.” I promise. For days I’d waited to hear those words, yet now they rang hollow in my ears. Empty. She didn’t understand the meaning of them. Perhaps couldn’t. They implied truth, trust. I doubted she’d ever known either. Still—I wanted to believe her. Desperately. And an apology from her didn’t come lightly. I swallowed against the sudden tightness in my throat. “Thank you.” We stayed quiet for a long time after that.
I opened my mouth to refuse—or to vomit—but
“I know things have changed between us. But I want you to know that I love you. Nothing can ever change that. And if you die today, I will find you in the afterlife and kick your ass for leaving me. Understand?” My voice was weak. “I—” “Good.”
A hollow pit opened in my stomach as her voice faded into the crowd. I love you. Nothing can ever change that. Damn it. I didn’t get to say it back.
“Everythin’s fine, Lyle! This one ’ere busted ’is ankle and needs a lift is all.” “Well, tell ’im we don’t want no—” “I’ll tell ’im what I want to tell him!”
He stared at me for a long moment, white-faced and trembling. At last, he dropped his hands and stepped back. The anguish in his eyes cleaved my chest in two, and fresh tears trickled down my cheeks. “No,” he finally murmured, brushing them away one last time. A farewell. “It makes you your mother.”
“Perhaps you should have a code word for when things go wrong.” With a skeletal grin, Nicholina slipped her face between Beau’s and mine. “I suggest flibbertigibbet. Or bumfuzzle. Bumfuzzle, bumfuzzle, meaning to puzzle—” Beau pushed her face away without hesitation.
“Stop laughing! Stop it now!” At long last, she wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, Your Majesty. I shall never tire of that story—which is, in fact, the story my girls thought so amusing. If it soothes your wounded pride, I’ll confess I too have experienced my share of humiliating encounters. I often perused these tunnels myself as a younger woman. Why, there was a time your father spirited me down here—” “No.” Beau shook his head swiftly, waving a hand. “No. Do not finish that sentence.” “—but there was a feral cat.” She chuckled to herself, lost in memory. “We didn’t notice him until it was too
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Auguste stiffened visibly at his son’s arrival. His eyes never left Beau’s face. “The prodigal son returns.” “Père.” Beau’s smirk reappeared. His armor, I realized. “Did you miss me?” Absolute silence reigned as Auguste studied his son’s rumpled hair, his filthy clothes. “You disappoint me.” “I assure you, the sentiment is mutual.”
“Are you fond of rats, Reid Diggory? They’re ugly little creatures, to be sure, but beneath their beastly hides, I must admit to sharing a certain kinship with them.” “I’m not surprised.”
“She isn’t coming.” My voice rang hollow. Dull. “We had a fight. I told her she was like her mother.” Beau broke off an icicle and shattered it against the wall. “Brilliant. That’s just brilliant. Well done, brother. I can’t wait to see how your spleen looks when a rat opens you up.”
“Also, though it has clearly escaped your great mental prowess, there are four huntsmen standing guard at the end of this corridor.” He prowled the cell like an angry cat. Hackles raised. “So?” “Mother’s tits.” She dragged her forehead across her shoulder in exasperation. “So I realize that I’ve accomplished many extraordinary magical feats in our time together, Beauregard, but even I must admit defeat when confronted with escaping prison, defeating four huntsmen, and fleeing the city with only my damned elbow.”
“Apologize for leaving us, taeae, and we shall free you.” Her nose wrinkled when she looked at me. At Madame Labelle. “You. Not them. Papa says they deserve to burn.” Beau swung for the keys again. Missed. “Do me a favor, girls. When Father opens his mouth, close your ears. His voice will rot your brains.”
“Reid.” He spun me to face him, gripping my arms when I thrashed. His eyes were wide. Wild. “She made a choice, all right? She chose to save you. If you go back now, you won’t be helping her. You’ll be spiting her.” He shook me harder. “Live today, Reid, so you can fight tomorrow. We’ll get her back. If I have to burn down this castle myself, we will get her back. Do you trust me?” I felt myself nod, felt him pull me along once more. Behind us, her screams echoed in the distance.
Was I waiting for something? I didn’t know. Either way, the only answer I received was silence.
“What happened?” I demanded, snatching my hand away. “I did not ask. He will tell us when he’s ready.” “Oh.” That one simple word echoed my heartache better than a hundred others ever could. I was part of that us now, an outsider, no longer privy to his innermost thoughts or secrets. I’d pushed him away, frightened—no, nearly crazed—that he would do it first. He hadn’t, of course, but the effect remained the same. And it was my fault—all my fault. Slowly, I sank back onto the eave. “I see.” Claud raised a brow. “Do you?” “No,” I said miserably. “But you already knew that.”
