We were trespassers here, all of us, intent on thieving a sacred treasure.

My magic didn’t trust us, I realized in a burst of clarity.

The air in the passage tasted stale, damp, and the moss on the stones muted our footsteps. A good thing too—for at that exact moment, a door cracked open ahead, and three figures spilled out into the semidarkness. I froze mid-step, my heart pounding in my ears. I heard their voices before I saw their faces.

Morgane, Josephine, and Nicholina.

They strode forward, deep in harried conversation, and I seized Reid before they could see us, pushing him into the nearest alcove. Célie and Jean Luc barreled in behind as Coco and Beau did the same across the hall. The space was too small, however. My cheek smashed against Reid’s chest, and behind me, Jean Luc’s knee stabbed my thigh. Célie trembled visibly. Contorting my arm, I wrapped it around her to hide the movement and comfort her in equal measure. No one dared breathe.

“I do not care what you say,” Morgane hissed at Josephine, visibly agitated. She’d swept her white hair into a tangled braid, and her eyes remained shot through with blood. Fatigue lent a grayish hue to her skin. “The time is now. I tire of these incessant games. The trees have mobilized, and we shall follow, striking hard and true while the conclave deliberates.”

Josephine shook her head curtly. “I do not think this wise. We must proceed with the plan as scheduled. Your daughter, the king’s children, they will—”

Morgane wheeled to face her, nostrils flaring with sudden rage. “For the last time, Josephine, I do not have a daughter, and if I must repeat myself again, I shall rend your tongue from your miserable throat.”

I do not have a daughter.

Ah. My heart twisted unexpectedly. Though I’d suspected she’d forgotten me, suspecting the truth versus knowing it—versus hearing it—were two entirely different things. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did, but here, in my childhood home—surrounded by sisters who’d cheered as my blood had spilled—it . . . pinched. Just a bit. I searched Reid’s shadowed face. This close, I could see the shape of his eyes, the set of his mouth. He glared back at me.

I looked away.

Cackling, Nicholina sang, “The dead should not remember. Beware the night the dream. For in their chest is memory—”

Morgane struck her across the face without warning. The angry crack resounded through the passage.

“You do not speak”—a vein pulsed in my mother’s forehead—“you do not breathe unless I will it. How many times must I punish you before you understand?” When she lifted her hand once more, Nicholina flinched. She actually flinched. Instead of striking her, however, Morgane rapped her knuckles across Nicholina’s forehead. “Well? How many? Or are your ears as addled as your brain, you worthless imp?”

Nicholina withdrew visibly at the insult, her expression emptying. She stared past Morgane as a red handprint bloomed on her cheek.

“As I thought.” With a sneer, Morgane proceeded toward us up the corridor, her own mottled cheeks visible even in the candlelight. “I should’ve killed you when I had the chance.”

Josephine only arched a brow at her ward and followed.

Célie wasn’t the only one trembling now. My own hands shook as Nicholina drifted after them—as vacant and lifeless as the wraiths outside—and even Reid’s heart beat an uneven tattoo against my ear. He stood rigid as she passed, but I felt his hand creep slowly up my back. I felt his knife. Whether he meant to kill me or Nicholina, I never discovered. Because before she disappeared around the corner, Nicholina turned toward our alcove.

Her eyes met mine.

And I knew—as instinctively as I’d known the trees had walked and my magic wanted to protect Chateau le Blanc—I knew that she’d seen me.

Reid’s knife stilled with her footsteps. “Hello, mouse,” she whispered, her fingers wrapping around the bend. Pure, unadulterated fear snaked through me at the words. I could do nothing but stare. Paralyzed. A single shout from her could kill us all.

We waited, breaths bated, as Nicholina tilted her head.

As she slipped around the corner without a sound.

“What are we doing?” Reid’s voice sounded in my ear, low and furious. “We can still catch her. Move.”

I stared at the spot from which she’d vanished, my mind reeling. She didn’t reappear, however, and no sounds of alarm rent the silence. No sounds of pursuit. “She let us go.”

“To kill us later.”

“She could’ve killed us just then, but she didn’t.” I scowled now, thoroughly disenchanted with his single-minded intensity. It bordered on pigheaded. Had he been this stupid when I’d first met him? Was his mind the addled one? “I don’t know why, but I do know I won’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth. She’s with Morgane and La Voisin,” I added when he tried to move around me. I planted my feet. “Now isn’t the time for this confrontation. We made a deal with Isla—we get in, we get out, and we give her the ring.”

“Unacceptable.” That knife finally pressed between my shoulder blades. “I am not here for a magic ring, Louise. If you don’t move out of my way, I will find another witch to kill.”

I poked him in the chest. Hard. “Listen to me, jackass.” My voice rose at the word, and I hastened to lower it once more. “Isla needs that ring. We need the melusines. The sooner we finish here, the sooner we can unite our allies, the sooner we can formulate a plan of attack—”

“I have a plan—attack. Morgane is here, not in Cesarine.”

“Your mother is in Cesarine.”

“I don’t care about my mother,” he snarled, shouldering past me at last. I stumbled into Jean Luc, who overcorrected, knocking Célie into Reid and plunging me into the corridor alone.

I whirled to face him, swearing loudly—then froze.

Manon stared back at me.

“Hello?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, flitting over my dark shape, and she lifted a hand as if to touch me. I scuttered backward. I had no choice. If she touched me, she’d realize without a doubt that I was human. When her frown deepened, I winced, realizing too late that shadows didn’t scutter. “Who’s there?” She flicked a thin blade from her sleeve. “Show yourself, or I’ll summon the sentries.”

Why did every plan I ever made go to complete and total shit?

Lips flattening, I cracked open that door of power in my chest, beneath which the white web shimmered. It would be a risk to change forms, but Morgane was clever. Though she’d undoubtedly realized the Triple Goddess had revoked her blessing, perhaps she hadn’t yet told our kin. Either way, I couldn’t simply stand here with a knife in front and a knife behind, and I couldn’t reveal my true form either. This newfound power would make it easier, surely.

I sought to remember my childhood classroom, wracked my mind for everything I knew of the Triple Goddess and her forms.

Her final counterpart is the Crone, who embodies aging and ending, death and rebirth, past lives and transformations, visions and prophecies. She is our guide. She is dusk and night, autumn and winter.

Fitting, as we’d probably all die here anyway.

I focused on those traits, tried to center myself around them, as other memories consumed—my life in this castle, my blood in the basin, my farewell to Ansel. That feeling of bone-deep acceptance. My transformation into the Maiden had happened easily, without intent, but this transformation came easier still. Perhaps once I would’ve empathized most with the Maiden—and I still did, to an extent—but that joyous season of light had passed. I’d lived in winter for too long. To my surprise, I didn’t regret the change. I relished it.