“A skeleton key?” she asked.

“It’s a warded lock. Those notches you see are meant for false protrusions, which prevent the mechanism from opening. A skeleton key has none. Form the key in your mind—long and narrow, with none but two true protrusions on the end. Shape them to fit the last notches, and push.”

Coco shifted from foot to foot, her expression bewildered. “I don’t understand. Why would Morgane have created simple keys and locks when she has magic?”

“Who the hell cares?” Beau hovered anxiously by the stairs, keeping watch. “It’s an enchanted lock for an enchanted door in an enchanted fucking castle. None of this makes sense. Just hurry up, will you? I think I heard something.”

Lou gritted her teeth, pale and trembling now. “If one of you had tried to open this door, you wouldn’t have seen a lock. It’s meant for La Dame des Sorcières alone, but it’s also—it’s the previous matriarchs’ magic testing mine. I can feel their challenge. Their treasures lie within, and I must—earn—entry.” Her head twitched abruptly with each word, and her eyes flew open, snapping to the doorknob. It responded with a simple click. Heavy silence descended as we stared at it.

Lifting a single finger to the wood, Lou pushed tentatively.

The door swung inward.

We stepped into a room of gold—or at least, it appeared so at first glance. In reality, the vaulted ceiling and octagonal walls had been erected from plates of mercury glass. They reflected the golden couronnes. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. The coins spilled forth from every corner, stacked precariously into piles, forming towers of their own. Narrow footpaths wove between them as roads and alleys in a colossal, glittering city.

“This . . .” Beau craned his neck to study the highest crest in the ceiling. Built at the top of a tower, the room stretched taller than wide—cylindrical—like we’d walked into a music box. A basin of fire sat atop a pedestal in the center of the chamber. No logs fed the flames. They emitted no smoke. I inhaled deeply. Though magic coated everything, it tasted almost stale here. Like a thick blanket of dust. “Is not what I expected,” he finished at last.

Lou examined a set of rusted chains near the door, the links thicker than her fists. A dried substance flaked from the metal. Brown, almost black. Blood. “What did you expect?”

He picked up what looked like an ancient human skull. “A dusty cupboard full of creepy dolls and old furniture?”

“It’s a treasury, Beau, not an attic.” She pointed to a heap of gold across the path. A wooden figurine sat atop a stained settee. Beside it lay a golden comb and a rose-handled mirror. “Though there is a doll there. Morgane once said it was cursed.”

Beau blanched. “Cursed how?”

“Just don’t look it in the eye.” Replacing the chains, she seemed to choose another path at random and strode forward. “Right. We should split up. Give a shout if you find something that resembles a golden ring, but don’t touch anything else.” She arched a brow over her shoulder at us. “Here there are many deadly and beautiful things.”

I slipped behind her as the others scattered to search. At the sound of my footsteps, she turned with a small smile. Here, in this dark room with its cursed gold and magic fire, she looked more a witch than I’d seen her. Strange and mysterious. Almost surreal. “Just couldn’t stay away, could you?”

I didn’t know why I’d followed her. I didn’t respond.

When she slipped behind a wardrobe—its black cabinets painted with tiny flowers—I drew a knife from my bandolier. Her ghostly chuckle echoed through the thickly scented air. It seemed to shimmer where she’d disappeared, firelight illuminating the dust motes gold. A fingertip brushed my nape. Whirling, I found her standing directly behind me. Her eyes gleamed unnaturally bright. Blue. No, green. “I won’t let you kill me, you know,” she said. “You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself later.”

My fingers ached on the hilt of my knife. My throat tightened. I couldn’t breathe. “I just want my memories back, witch.”

Those haunting eyes fell to my blade, and she stepped forward. Once. Twice. Three times. She walked until her chest met its tip, and then she leaned farther still, drawing a bead of blood. Only then did her eyes return to mine. Only then did she whisper against my lips, “I want that too.”

I stared at my knife. At her blood. A quick thrust would do it. One simple movement, and La Dame des Sorcières would be dead. Incapacitated, at the very least. She’d be helpless to stop me from pitching her body in the fire—the magic fire. It’d be almost poetic to watch her burn upon it. She’d be ash before the others could save her.

A quick thrust. One simple movement.

She would drive me mad unless I did it.

We stayed that way for another second, another hundred seconds—tense, poised—but a shout sounded from across the treasury, breaking our standoff. “It’s here!” Célie’s laughter swelled between us. “I found it!” With a smirk, Lou stepped backward. Away from me. In her absence, I could breathe again. I could hate.

The woman would drive me mad until I did it.

“You’re lucky,” I said darkly, sheathing my knife.

“Funny. I don’t feel lucky at all.”

Her smirk seemed brittle as she turned to follow Célie’s voice, gifting me her back. Every fiber in my being longed to lunge. To attack. I even bent my knees, stopping only when a sapphire glinted in my periphery. I froze. From within a drawer of the wardrobe peeked the silver hilt of a Balisarda. It looked as if it’d been stuffed there haphazardly. Stowed away and forgotten. A jolt seared through my body. A lightning strike.

Carefully, quietly, I slipped the Balisarda into my bandolier.

We found Célie, Jean Luc, and Beau congregated beside the fire. Coco converged on them the same moment we did. Immediately, Célie thrust the unexceptional ring into her palm. “I found it,” she repeated, breathless with excitement. With something else. When her eyes flicked to Coco’s collar near imperceptibly, I followed the movement. A locket glittered there. “Here. Take it.”

Coco examined the ring for a long moment before she smiled. “You would be the one to find it.” With an appreciative nod to Célie, she handed it to Lou, who slipped it on her finger like it belonged there. I frowned. “Thank you, Célie.”

“We should go,” Beau urged. “Before Morgane comes back.”

In agreement, we retreated down the stairs, but it wasn’t Morgane who met us at the door.

It was Manon.

Ask Me No Questions

Reid

Feet planted wide—arms gripping each side of the threshold—she met us with a frighteningly blank expression. Trapping us here. All traces of her tears had been scrubbed away since the corridor below. “Chamomile tea, Louise?”

Lou edged to the front of our group, her hand brushing mine as she passed. The touch tingled. I jerked away. “You looked like you needed it,” she said, gesturing to Manon’s general dishevelment. Her airy tone felt forced, as did her smile. “I’m assuming you didn’t heed my advice and drink it. When have you last slept?” Manon didn’t answer. Shouts below wiped the smile from Lou’s face all the same. Her eyes flew wide. “You—did you tell my mother—?”