No. Realization twisted my already knotted stomach. Into Reid’s.

She’d fled into Reid’s arms, not mine. She probably still thought me a whore. She’d said as much once, right before kissing my husband at the Saint Nicolas Day ball. The knot in my stomach tangled further, and the silence lengthened as I stared at her, as she stared at anything but me.

Right. I sat forward in the tub, loathing the awkwardness between us. There was nothing for it. I’d have to ask her.

Coco sighed hard through her nose before I could speak. Flicking an impatient look in my direction, she started to say, “Thank you,” at precisely the same moment I said, “Are you still in love with Reid?”

Startled, Célie finally looked up, and the blush on her cheeks fanned to an open flame upon seeing me naked. She stumbled back a step, and the tray slipped from one hand. Though she did her best to right herself, one hand still flailed wildly, finding purchase against Reid’s—

Oh shit.

My eyes flew wide. With a small cry, she snatched her hand away from him, and the tray went flying, china shattering against the wall, the carpets, while tea sprayed in every direction. It dripped from her beautiful dressing robe as she dropped to her knees, trying and failing to fix it. “I—I’m so s-sorry. How terribly clumsy—”

Guilt reared her ugly head like a bitch, and I swung my legs over the tub, searching for something with which to cover myself. Coco threw another robe my way. I hurried to tie it as Célie continued spluttering on the sodden carpet, collecting the shards of china in vain. “I didn’t mean—oh, the maids will be so upset. And your poor stomachs—”

I knelt beside her, stilling her hand before she cut herself. Her gaze swung upward and locked on mine. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Our stomachs will be fine, Célie.” Gently, I took the shards from her and deposited them back on the floor. “We’ll all be fine.”

She said nothing for a long moment, simply staring at me. I looked back at her with feigned calm and waited, though I longed to rise, to seek the ease and familiarity of Coco’s presence amidst this painfully awkward situation. Célie had no such person to comfort her. She had no familiarity here. And though we weren’t friends, we weren’t enemies either. We never had been.

When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. Barely discernible. “No. I am not in love with him. Not anymore.” Some of the tension left my shoulders. She spoke truth. The waters wouldn’t have allowed the words otherwise. “And I’m sorry.” Her voice fell quieter still, but she didn’t lower her gaze. Her cheeks shone brilliant scarlet. “You aren’t a whore.”

Coco knelt beside us now, a clean robe in hand. She snorted, puncturing the unexpected sincerity of the moment. “Oh, she is, and I am too. You don’t know us well enough”—she extended the robe, arching a meaningful brow—“yet.”

Célie glanced down at herself, as if just realizing she’d been doused with tea.

“Take it.” Coco pressed it into her hands before motioning toward the dressing screen.

Célie blushed again, looking between us. “You probably think I’m a prude.”

“So?” I waved a hand over the broken china set, and the golden pattern connecting each shard dissipated. Sharpness pierced my chest as the pieces knit themselves back together. I lifted a hand to rub the spot, torn between sighing and wincing. Forgiveness was a painful thing. A sacrifice in itself. “You shouldn’t care what we think, Célie—or anyone else, for that matter. Don’t forfeit your power like that.”

“Because who cares if you’re a prude?” Coco pulled Célie to her feet with both hands. She gestured to me. “Who cares if we’re whores? They’re just words.”

“And we can’t get it right no matter what we do.” Winking, I slipped a satin ribbon from the armoire, tying it around my throat before falling into the hammock once more. Reid swayed beside me. I ignored the knot of panic in my chest. He hadn’t so much as stirred. Instead, I flicked his boot and added, “We might as well do it our own way. Being a prude or being a whore are both better than being what they want us to be.”

Célie blinked between us, eyes huge, and whispered, “What do they want us to be?”

Coco and I exchanged a long-suffering look before she said simply, “Theirs.”

“Be prudish and proud, Célie.” I shrugged, my hand curling instinctively around Reid’s ankle. “We’ll be whorish and happy.” He would wake soon, surely. And if not, Isla—the Oracle, Claud’s sister, a goddess—would help us fix everything. We just needed to dine with her first. I glared at the brush on the dressing table. Following my gaze, Coco seized it before I could melt its golden handle into ore.

Planting one hand on her hip and grinning in challenge, she said, “It’s time, Lou.”

I glared at her now. “Everyone knows not to brush wet hair. The strands are weaker. They could break.”

“Shall we summon a maid for a fire, then?” When I didn’t answer, she waved the brush under my nose. “That’s what I thought. Up.”

Rolling my eyes, I slid from the hammock and stalked toward the mildewed chair. It sat before a full-length, gilded vanity mirror that had clouded with age. Golden serpents twined together to form its frame. I stared peevishly at my reflection within it: cheeks gaunt, freckles stark, hair long and tangled. Water still dripped from its ends, permeating the thin silk of my robe. I didn’t shiver, however; the melusines had cast some sort of magic to keep the air balmy and comfortable.

Before Coco could lift the brush—I suspected she secretly enjoyed tormenting me—Célie stepped forward tentatively, hand extended. “May I?”

“Er—” Coco flicked her gaze to mine in the mirror, uncertain. When I nodded once, part curious—mostly curious—she handed Célie the brush and stepped aside. “The ends tangle,” she warned.

Célie smiled. “So do mine.”

“I can brush my own hair, you know,” I muttered, but I didn’t stop her as she lifted a small section and began working the brush through the ends. Though she held the hair firm, she moved with surprising gentleness.

“I do not mind.” With the patience of a saint, she set about untangling two gnarled locks. “Pip and I once brushed each other’s hair every night.” If she felt me still, she didn’t comment. “We dismissed our maid when I was ten. Evangeline was her name. I couldn’t understand where she’d gone, but Pippa—Pippa was old enough to realize what had happened. We often snuck into our father’s safe as children, you see. Pippa liked to steal his ledger, sit at his desk, and add his sums, pretending to smoke his cigars, while I played with our mother’s jewels. She knew our parents had lost everything in a bad investment. I didn’t know until all of Maman’s diamonds disappeared.”

Successfully untangling the knot, she moved on to another section of hair. “Père told us not to worry, of course. He said he would make it right.” Her smile twisted in the mirror’s leaden reflection. “He did just that, I suppose. Slowly but surely, Maman’s jewelry returned, along with all manner of other strange and unusual objects. He changed the lock on his safe shortly thereafter—an impossible lock even I could not pick. Not then, anyway.”