Our body looks as a corpse in the shadows of the corner. Sickly and pale. Scarred. We hover above it, regret wafting through us now. A tendril of hurt. No fire warms the chamber. No candlelight. But it matters not. We feel no cold, no, and our mistress knows this. She knows. She knows pain is fleeting. She will relish our greeting.

You’ve failed, Nicholina.

It matters not.

Your mistress needs her more than she needs you.

Pain is fleeting.

You’ve chosen the wrong side, Nicholina. But it isn’t too late. You could ally with us before they betray you. Because they will betray you. It’s only a matter of time.

Our mistress would never betray us.

Slowly, we sink into ourselves, first a finger, a toe, then a leg and an arm and a chest until our entire body settles in on itself with a heavy breath. Heavy. So heavy. So weary. Images of lavender and wraiths and sickly, corpselike little boys flicker. Memories of family. The word tastes different now than it did then. Once, it tasted of comfort, of love, of warmth. We do not remember what warm feels like now. We do not remember love. Within her we’d felt it—a brief flicker in the shadows, in the dark. She’d felt it so strongly. We hold on to it now, that memory. We hold on to that warmth we’d felt when she looked upon her huntsman, her family.

Our own eyes do not open as we lie upon this hard, cold stone. We do not move to the bed. Our mistress did not want us there.

Sometimes we think our mistress does not want us at all.

Angelica

Lou

Without warning, Reid collapsed face-first into the water, and that—

That is when I lost my shit completely.

Fresh shouts erupted from shore as I dove toward him, slinging an arm across his shoulders and spinning him to his back, looping his elbow through mine and cradling his head against my shoulder. The sharp, potent scent of magic clung to him. Though his chest still rose and fell, the movement seemed shallow, harsh, as if he was in terrible pain. “Reid!” I shook him desperately, struggling to stay afloat. We both went under. Water burned my throat, my eyes. Choking on it, I kicked harder, propelling us above the surface for a few precious seconds. I could swim, yes, but towing a limp two-hundred-and-something-pound man was something else entirely. “Reid!”

The shouts around us escalated, and I glanced to shore. My heart lodged in my ravaged throat.

Morgane had lost consciousness with Reid.

Whatever magic he’d done, it’d affected her too, and absolute chaos reigned. The Dames Blanches nearest her shrieked and rushed forward, pulling her away from Josephine, from Coco, from us. “Do not be foolish!” Josephine’s vehement shouts cut through the mist, which had descended with a vengeance once more. “This is our chance! Get the girl!”

But even the blood witches wouldn’t step foot in the waters again—not when they continued to ripple.

Not when Coco rose, her binds having vanished after Morgane’s collapse.

Not when she stepped back into the waters, nor when she lifted her hands. Her dark eyes fell first to Constantin, then to Beau and Célie—still blood-soaked and unconscious—and they burned with retribution. “You should’ve known better than to follow us here, tante. I was born in these waters. Their magic is my own.”

I foundered beneath the waves, surging up in time to see Josephine clench her fists.

“Their magic is hers,” she spat. “Not yours. Never yours.”

“I am part of her.”

“You are mine.” The last shred of Josephine’s control seemed to snap, and she swept a long, crooked dagger from her cloak. Her hands shook. “She abandoned you. She abandoned me. She—”

“—is on her way,” Coco finished grimly, eyes flicking to her own uplifted hand. A fresh wound I hadn’t noticed sliced her palm. Blood dripped from it into the waters, and with a start, I realized Coco’s steps hadn’t woken L’Eau Mélancolique at all.

Her blood had.

And the waters weren’t merely rippling now.

They were moving, parting down the center as if the heavens had drawn a line from Coco to the horizon. They swelled on either side of that line, growing and growing and growing—like twin tidal waves—until a footpath along the rocky seafloor appeared. Small enough for a single person to walk unhindered. I clung to Reid as the waves battered us, the currents dragging us under before thrusting us upward once more. When I shouted Coco’s name, coughing and spluttering and desperately kicking for shore, she turned to look at us. Her eyes widened with panic before we went under again.

When we reemerged, another current swept us up between one breath and the next. This one, however, seemed determined not to drown us, but to deliver us to Coco. I didn’t fight or question it, focusing all my attention on keeping Reid’s head above water. My arms shook with the effort. My legs seized. “Come on, Chass.” I pressed the back of his head into the crook of my neck once more. “We’re almost there. Stay with me. Come on, come on—”

The current dropped suddenly, and we plummeted with it, straight through the icy water to the seafloor path. When we landed, stunned and shivering, Coco sprinted out to meet us, pulling at my arms, my hands, pushing Reid’s soaking hair out of his face, checking his pulse. She ignored Josephine and the blood witches completely. They still didn’t dare enter L’Eau Mélancolique, even on the path. “Are you hurt?” Coco demanded, checking every inch of me in harried, clumsy movements. “Are you—?”

I caught her hands and grinned. “You look like shit, amie. Those eye bags are as big as Beau’s head.”

Coco dropped her forehead to our joined hands, exhaling in relief. “You’re you.”

“I’m me.”

“Thank god.”

“Thank Ansel.”

She chuckled on a weak exhale, lifting her head—then froze. Her stare fixed on something over my shoulder, something farther up the footpath. Its silver reflection, just a speck in the darkness, shone bright in her eyes. Whoever or whatever it was, it approached not from shore, but from the depths of L’Eau Mélancolique. I tensed instinctively. A face drifted in my mind’s eye from Nicholina’s memories, and suspicion lifted the hair at my neck. Gooseflesh rose on my arms.

When Josephine turned ashen, however, I knew. When she stumbled—actually stumbled—back a step, I clutched Reid tighter in my lap, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Several of the blood witches fled without a word. My gaze remained locked on Coco as the silver speck in her eyes grew larger. Nearer. Too near now to ignore.

I twisted to look over my shoulder at last.

And there she was.

A full-body chill swept through me at the sight of her: tall and statuesque with thick black curls and rich brown skin, nearly identical to Coco in every way. Except for the eyes. At some point between Nicholina’s memory and now, they’d turned a pale, icy shade. Her gown matched the peculiar color—the iridescent fabric swirling between white and green and purple and blue—and rippled in the breeze as she approached. Like a goddamn fairy-tale princess.

She stopped a pace behind me. I might’ve gaped. My mouth might’ve fallen open like a bug-eyed fish. Up close, she appeared even more beautiful than from afar: her face perfectly heart-shaped, her lips perfectly bowed. Silver powder dusted her cheeks and nose, as well as her brow and collarbones, and ornate moonstone jewelry gleamed from her fingers, her wrists, her ears, her throat. She’d braided her hair around a teardrop opal headpiece. The precious stone glittered against her forehead.