I spoke over her. “Has the cauchemar harmed anyone?”

Father Achille shrugged. “It hardly matters.”

“It matters to me.”

“That mob is coming, boy. You’ll get yourself killed.”

“You don’t care.”

“That’s right.” His nostrils flared. “I don’t. Cauchemars are notoriously cruel, but this creature hasn’t yet attacked. Last night, it broke into the boucherie and stole some scraps, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.” When I exchanged a glance first with Lou, then with Beau, he gritted his teeth and said, as if the words physically pained him, “You should stay out of it. This isn’t your fight.”

But a mob burning an innocent creature alive sounded exactly like my fight. They would do the same to Lou, if given the chance. The same to Coco. My mother. Me. Familiar anger, thick and viscous, simmered in my gut. These villagers alone weren’t guilty. Though they would slaughter this innocent, Morgane had tortured and maimed my siblings, my brothers and sisters—all collateral damage in this war they hadn’t chosen. A war this cauchemar hadn’t chosen.

No more.

A brief stop at the lighthouse wouldn’t hurt anything. We could warn the cauchemar before the mob struck—perhaps even free it—and still leave by sunrise. It was the noble thing to do. Lou might’ve chosen the wrong path for us, but this felt a step in the right direction. Perhaps it would set us on a new course. A better one.

At the very least, it would delay our arrival to Chateau le Blanc. And perhaps . . .

“I vote no.” Coco’s voice cut sharp from beneath her hood. “Cauchemars are dangerous, and we can’t afford distractions. We should proceed to the Chateau.”

Lou grinned and nodded.

“If we help this cauchemar,” I murmured, “perhaps it’ll help us. Here is your mysterious ally, Cosette. No trees required.”

Though I couldn’t see her face, I could feel her glower.

Shaking my head, I handed Célie my blanket before returning to my pew. Lou didn’t let go of my hand. Her thumb traced the veins along my wrist. “We need Célie’s carriage,” I said. “Whether or not she returns home.”

Célie’s head snapped up. “A carriage would speed our travel considerably.”

“Yes.” I considered her for a long moment. Rather, I reconsidered her. A muscle twitched in my jaw at her hopeful expression, at the determined set of her shoulders. This was not the Célie I’d always known. “It would.”

Throwing his hands in the air, Achille stalked to the scullery to be rid of us. “Fools, all of you,” he said over his shoulder, voice grim. “A cauchemar is strongest at night. Act at first light before the mob attacks. Whatever you do, don’t let them see you. Fear makes people stupid.” With one last look between Célie and me, he shook his head. “But courage makes ’em stupid too.”

An Insidious Presence

Lou

From the darkness, a voice arises.

Not that voice. Not the terrible one that croons and beckons. This voice is sharper, biting, cutting. Familiar. It does not tempt me. It—it scolds me.

Wake up, it snaps. You aren’t dead yet.

But I do not know this word. I do not understand death.

No one does. That’s not the point—or maybe that’s the entire point. You’re fading.

Fading. The darkness offers oblivion. Sweet relief.

Fuck that. You’ve worked too hard and too long to give up now. Come on. You want more than oblivion. You want to live.

A ghostly chuckle reverberates through the shadows. Through the unending black. It curls around me, caressing the jagged edges of my consciousness, soothing the broken shards at my center. Surrender, little mouse. Let me devour you.

I hurt. With each pulse of the darkness, the pain intensifies until I cannot bear it.

It’s your heart. The sharp voice returns, louder now. Louder than even the rhythmic drumming. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Instinctively, I shy away, but I cannot hide from the sound. From the pain. It echoes everywhere, all around me. It’s still beating.

I try to process this, try to peer through the darkness to where a heart might indeed beat. But still I see nothing.

Don’t hide from it, Lou. Own your pain. Use it.

Lou. The word is familiar, like the exhalation on a laugh. The breath before jumping, the gasp when you fly instead. It’s a sigh of relief, of irritation, of disappointment. It’s a shout of anger and a cry of passion. It’s . . . me. I am not the darkness. I am something else entirely. And this voice—it’s mine.

There you are, it says—I say—in unabashed relief. About time too.

However, on the wings of one realization comes another, and I flex abruptly, pushing against the crushing black. It responds in kind, no longer simple darkness but a sentient presence all its own. An insidious presence. It feels wrong, somehow. Foreign. It shouldn’t be here—wherever here is—because this place . . . it belongs to me too. Like my heartbeat. Like my name. Though I flex again, testing my strength, spreading myself further, pushing and pushing and pushing, I meet only ironclad resistance.

The darkness is unyielding as stone.

A Game of Questions

Reid

Lou’s fingertips skimmed my leg in time with the others’ rhythmic breathing. With each inhale, she walked them upward. With each exhale, she turned her wrist, trailing downward with the back of her hand. Wind whistled through the cracks in the sanctuary, raising gooseflesh on my arms. I sat rigid beneath her touch, heart pounding in my throat at the subtle friction. Tense. Waiting. Sure enough, those fingers gradually crept up, up, up my thigh in slow seduction, but I caught her wrist, slid my hand to cover hers. To pin it in place.

A foreign emotion congealed in my blood as I stared at her hand beneath mine. I should’ve ached, should’ve tightened with that familiar hunger, that heat, that left me almost fevered when we touched. But this knot in my stomach . . . it wasn’t need. It was something else. Something wrong. While the others had prepared for bed a half hour ago, a general sense of dread had enveloped me. That dread had only intensified when Beau, the last awake, had finally drifted to sleep, leaving Lou and me alone.

Clearing my throat, I squeezed her fingers. Forced a smile. Brushed a kiss against her palm. “We have an early morning. We’ll need to leave Fée Tombe after we free the cauchemar. It’ll be another long few days on the road.”

It sounded like an excuse.

It was one.

A low noise reverberated from her throat. She hadn’t worn her ribbon since we left Cesarine. My gaze dropped to her scar, healing yet still puckered, angry. She stroked it with her free hand. “How does one free a cauchemar?”

“Maybe we can reason with it. Convince it to return to the forest.”

“And if we can’t?”

I sighed. “We can only warn it about the mob. We can’t force it to do anything.”

“And if it decides to eat the mob? If our warning allows it the chance to do so?”

“It won’t,” I said firmly.

She considered me with a half smile. “You’ve developed quite an affinity for us, haven’t you?” Her grin spread. “Monsters.”