Her ghostly chuckle reverberates. If you cannot master this one simple fear, you will not survive L’Eau Mélancolique. Oh, no. Our husband plans to baptize us, but he doesn’t realize. He doesn’t understand. Our mistress will stop him. The image of a dragon flashes—there and gone before I can properly see. Even if not, the waters go down, down, down, down, and there they drown, drown, drown, drown.

My own surprise and bewilderment stretch between us now. L’Eau Mélancolique? Though I wrack my memory to place the name, the darkness only seems to condense around it. I know those words. I know them. I just can’t—I can’t seem to remember them. Fresh panic swells at the realization, but—no. I won’t give in. I push against the darkness angrily.

Reid, Coco, Beau, Ansel. If Reid plans to baptize me in these waters, he must have a reason. I have to trust him. I can swim.

It has nothing to do with swimming. Another image arises through the inky mist. A woman. She walks with purpose toward an unnaturally smooth sea—a sea so smooth it resembles the face of a mirror. Endless. Gleaming. She doesn’t break stride as she crosses into its depths, and the water . . . it seems to absorb her movements. Not a single ripple breaks its surface. She keeps walking, submerging her knees. Her hips. Her chest. When her head slips beneath the water, she does not reemerge. You aren’t the first to seek the waters’ embrace. Many have come before you, and many will come behind. She cherishes her lovers. She kisses each to sleep, tucking them in bed and healing them with brine.

A thought strikes like lightning. What happens to you if I die?

You’ve seen an Ascension, she says. I feel rather than see her turn her attention to Etienne, who trembles beneath her observation. He’s forgotten his name again. The soul can live for an indefinite amount of time without a body.

Indefinite isn’t forever.

No.

So . . . you could die if I do.

It will not come to that.

Why not?

Another chuckle. My mistress resides at the Chateau. She will have brought my body. If you succumb to the waters’ lure, I will return to it. You will die, and I will live.

How do you know your body is there? I ask her, pushing again. Repeating the names. You’ve failed, Nicholina. My mother attacked you, and you openly challenged her. Your mistress needs her more than she needs you. Perhaps your body won’t be there at all. Perhaps you will die.

I have not failed. The darkness writhes in agitation at the words, and Legion hisses and spits. The emotion only partly belongs to them, however. No, they also feel . . . curious, and there—deep within their essence—a sense of longing pervades. A sense of hope. My mistress tasked me with bringing you to Morgane le Blanc—Nicholina spits the name—and I will do so, regardless of your foul family. We will see who dances and who drowns.

Reid, Coco, Beau.

Laughing again, Nicholina withdraws.

Reid Coco Beau Reid Coco Reid Coco Reid Coco

Hold on, Etienne says.

Then he slips into Legion once more.

Wake up, little mouse.

I rouse as if waking from deep sleep, and immediately, I sense something has changed. Though darkness still shrouds everything, it dissipates into eerie wisps at Nicholina’s words, drifting in the wind. Clinging to trees and rocks and—

And people.

I study the man beside me. Copper hair tousled, he stalks along a mountain path with rope in his hand, bickering with the young woman beside him. Look at them, Louise. Look one last time. Your family. A hateful pause. Have you forgotten them?

Though their names rise slowly, as if through tar, I hold on to each for dear life. Reid and Coco. No.

Coco’s dark eyes—so dark they’re almost black—lift to the sky before landing on me. No. Not on me. On Nicholina. “Even with the pearls, you know we’re walking into a trap, right?”

Nicholina giggles.

Shaking his head, Reid pulls us along faster. My vision pitches with each step. “Not necessarily.”

They will die, Nicholina croons. All of them. My mistress will come. She will cut out their hearts.

They will not. She will not.

“We don’t have a choice.” Reid’s words brook no argument. “The Wistful Waters are our only hope.”

“And after? What then, Reid?” They both stare at me for a long moment. “Chateau le Blanc is near. With Lou as herself again—if Zenna doesn’t raze the castle to the ground—maybe we could slip inside and . . . finish this.”

The two walking in front slow their footsteps at the last. Both black-haired. Both unfamiliar.

“It was Nicholina who wanted to storm the Chateau,” Reid says adamantly, “not Lou. Which means it’s the last thing we should do. Morgane and Josephine might be expecting . . .”

But his voice begins to fade as the scene shifts around me.

Say goodbye, Louise. The shadows thicken and solidify into darkness once more. It crushes me beneath its weight, and I’m swept away—away from Reid, away from Coco, away from light. You will not see them again.

Yes, I will.

The words are quiet and small, so insignificant that Nicholina doesn’t hear them. But others do. Though Etienne is gone, Legion wraps their presence around me, folding me into their depths. Their intent is not to harm, however, not to claim. Instead they hold me apart. They keep me together. Hope isn’t the sickness. They hum their own litany now. Their own prayer. It’s the cure.

Another Grave

Reid

Célie emerged from the trees clad in fitted pants and knee-high leather boots. She’d tucked a billowing shirt into them. Jean Luc’s shirt. I recognized the stitching on the collar, the sleeves. Deep blue—Chasseur blue—and gold. On her head, she wore a feathered cavalier hat. On her face, she wore a neatly trimmed beard.

Beau burst into laughter.

“What?” Hastily, she looked down at herself, smoothing her shirt. Checking her hair, tucking an errant strand into her hat. “Is it not convincing?”

“Oh, it’s convincing,” he assured her. “You look like an idiot.”

Beside me, Nicholina giggled from her spot on the ground. We’d bound her wrists again, coating her entire hands in Coco’s blood. Now she couldn’t move a finger if she tried.

Startled, perhaps even scandalized by Beau’s bald honesty, Célie’s brows shot up. “Cosette often wears trousers—”

“But not a beard,” Beau said. “You don’t need a disguise, Célie. Your face isn’t on those wanted posters.”

“Well, I—I just thought I might—” Her face flamed. “Perhaps I’m not wanted by the Crown, but my father will eventually search for me. Jean Luc has spies throughout the kingdom. Should I not take precautions?” At our impassive stares, she lifted her chin defiantly and repeated, “Cosette and Louise wear trousers.”

Beau spread his hands with a smirk. “And there it is.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Your Majesty, please take no offense, but you are a good deal less pleasant than I would have liked to believe.”

Still chuckling, he slung an arm over Coco’s shoulder. “None taken, I assure you.”

Coco pushed him away. “He gets that a lot.”

Crooking his finger at Célie, Beau led her into the first village.