“I didn’t know I was summoning you,” Coco interjected.

Angelica nodded, though something like pain flashed through her eyes. “Of course. When you called upon the waters, I heard it. I felt your need, and I—well, I needed to answer it.” Her voice gentled as she continued, though she spoke with no less certainty. “There is much you don’t understand, Cosette. I know you are angry with me—as you well should be—but we do not have the luxury of time for lengthy explanations and apologies.”

Coco stiffened at the straightforward words, and I squeezed her arm. Angelica was right, however; this wasn’t the time or place for this conversation. Not with Morgane and Josephine roaming near, not with a corpse at our feet, trapped between colossal walls of water. I eyed them nervously as a long silver fin flicked past.

“To do so,” Angelica continued, recapturing my attention, “you must understand three things. First, I am no longer safe outside these waters. Isla’s benevolence protects me, and she risked much in allowing me to come here. My sister lives in fear of my magic—in fear of Isla herself—but if Josephine had tried to enter these waters, I would not have been able to stop her. For as much as this magic is yours through birth, it is also hers because of our blood bond.”

She didn’t give us another chance to interrupt. “Understand this second: all of your life, Cosette, I have watched you.” Those blue eyes eddied with white, and fresh gooseflesh lifted the hair on my arms. It lifted Coco’s too. “I know where you have been and who you have loved. I know you have scoured the kingdom—from La Fôret des Yeux to Le Ventre to Fée Tombe—for allies against Morgane. You have befriended the Beast of Gévaudan and the Wild Man of the Forest. You have entranced dragons and witches and werewolves alike.”

For the first time, she hesitated, the white in her eyes flaring brighter. To me, she said, “You still wish to defeat your mother?”

“Of course I do, but what—?”

“Isla would make a powerful friend.”

Coco clutched my arm so hard that I nearly lost sensation in it. But her voice didn’t falter. “Whatever you’re trying to say, maman . . . say it.”

“Very well.” She waved her hand at the waters once more, and streaming tendrils shot forth, weaving midair to form a liquid lattice. They looked much like the roots of a glass tree, clear and bright and shining. Twining beneath Reid, they lifted his body and suspended it at waist level. I reached out to seize his hand with my free one. When Angelica motioned him down the path, the waters obeyed. He floated away from us, and I darted to keep up, dragging Coco along with me. “Stop it! What are you—?”

Her mother spoke in a strained voice. “I wish I could offer you a choice, fille, but truthfully, you have already made one. When you called upon the waters, you asked of them a favor. Now we must ask one of you.”

Coco dug in her heels, incredulous. “But I didn’t know—”

The waters began to close behind us, blocking our path to the beach. We stared at them in horror. “Isla wishes to speak with you in Le Présage, Cosette—you and your friends.” Angelica’s beautiful face pinched with regret. “I’m afraid you must all come with me.”

A Magpie’s Nest

Lou

Le Présage.

I’d heard the name once, spoken amidst breathless giggles at the maypole. Another witchling had suggested we seek it out as we’d twirled and danced in the sweltering midsummer heat. Manon had refused, repeating a story her mother had told her about melusines drowning unsuspecting witchlings. We’d all believed it at the time. Melusines were bloodthirsty, after all. Treacherous and uncanny. The boogeyman hiding beneath our beds—or in our backyard, as was actually the case. Some days, I’d been able to see the mist from their shore through my window at sunrise. It wasn’t until I’d first played with Coco that I’d realized melusines posed no real threat. They held dominion over an entire world below—a world apart from the rest of us, greater and stranger than our own. They had little interest in the affairs of witches.

Until now, it seemed.

I shot surreptitious looks at the black waters as we trudged along the footpath. They twined beneath Reid, towing him forward, while more water flooded the path behind, forcing us deeper along the seafloor. Within the waves on either side, shadows moved, some small and innocuous and others alarming in their size and dexterity. Beau appeared to share my disquiet. He nearly clipped my heel in his haste to flee the serpentine faces pressing in on the pathway. “Fish women, eh?” he muttered at my ear.

“Legend says they could once walk on land, but I’ve never seen it in my lifetime.”

He gave a full-body shudder. “I don’t like fish.”

Another silver face flashed through the waters, sticking her forked tongue out at him.

Angelica glanced over her shoulder as she continued to glide forward. “Whatever you do, do not insult them. They’re incredibly vain, melusines, but never vapid. They value beauty almost as much as gentility—manners are of utmost importance to a melusine—but they have vicious tempers when provoked.”

At Beau’s alarmed expression, Coco added, “They love flattery. You’ll be fine.”

“Flattery.” Beau nodded seriously to himself, tucking the knowledge away. “Right.”

“Are they very beautiful, then?” Célie asked, clutching her leather satchel over her shoulder with both hands. Dirt was caked beneath her cracked nails, and her hair spilled haphazardly from her chignon. Blood and grime stained her porcelain skin, the once-rich velvet of her trousers. The lace trim at her sleeves now trailed gently behind her in the wind. “Since they value beauty?”

“They are.” Angelica inclined her head with an almost impish smile. “They are not, however, human. Never forget that, child—beautiful things can have teeth.” Célie frowned at the words but said nothing more, and Angelica turned her attention instead to Coco, who studiously ignored her. She stared at her daughter for a long moment, deliberating, before clearing her throat. “Are you well, Cosette? Have your own injuries healed?”

“It’s Coco.” She glared at a beautiful fish flitting past, its golden fins rippling behind it. “And I’ve survived worse.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“I know what you asked.”

An awkward moment passed before Angelica spoke again. “Are you warm enough?”

“I’m fine.”

Then another.

“Your hair looks lovely, I must say,” she tried again. “Look how long it’s grown.”

“I look like a drowned rat.”

“Nonsense. You could never look like a rat.”

“Though you do look a bit peaky,” Beau interjected helpfully. “A bit limp.”

They both turned cold gazes upon him, and he shrugged, not at all contrite. When they turned away once more, I elbowed him in the ribs, hissing, “You ass.”

“What?” He rubbed the spot ruefully. “That’s likely the first time they’ve ever agreed on something. I’m trying to help.”