Cesarine embodied gray. Dingy gray houses sat stacked atop one another like sardines in a tin, and crumbling streets wound past dirty gray markets and even dirtier gray harbors. An ever-present cloud of chimney smoke encompassed everything.

It was suffocating, the gray. Lifeless. Dull.

Still, there were worse things in life than dull. And there were worse kinds of smoke than chimney.

The cheers reached a climax as the Lyon family passed beneath my building.

King Auguste waved from his gilt carriage, golden curls blowing in the late-autumn wind. His son, Beauregard, sat beside him. The two couldn’t have looked more different. Where the former was light of eyes and complexion, the latter’s hooded eyes, tawny skin, and black hair favored his mother. But their smiles—both were nearly identical in charm.

Too charming, in my opinion. Arrogance exuded from their very pores.

Auguste’s wife scowled behind them. I didn’t blame her. I would’ve scowled too if my husband had more lovers than fingers and toes—not that I ever planned to have a husband. I’d be damned before chaining myself to anyone in marriage.

I’d just turned away, already bored, when something shifted in the street below. It was a subtle thing, almost as if the wind had changed direction mid-course. A nearly imperceptible hum reverberated from the cobblestones, and every sound of the crowd—every smell and taste and touch—faded into the ether. The world stilled. I scrambled backward, away from the roof’s edge, as the hair on my neck stood up. I knew what came next. I recognized the faint brush of energy against my skin, the familiar thrumming in my ears.

Magic.

Then came the screams.

Wicked Are the Ways of Women

Reid

The smell always followed the witches. Sweet and herbal, yet sharp—too sharp. Like the incense the Archbishop burned during Mass, but more acrid. Though years had passed since I’d taken my holy orders, I’d never acclimated to it. Even now—with just a hint of it on the breeze—it burned all the way down my throat. Choking me. Taunting me.

I loathed the smell of magic.

Sliding the Balisarda knife from its place by my heart, I scanned the revelers around us. Jean Luc shot me a wary glance. “Trouble?”

“Can’t you smell it?” I murmured back. “It’s faint, but it’s there. They’ve already started.”

He pulled his own Balisarda from the bandolier across his chest. His nostrils flared. “I’ll alert the others.”

He slipped through the crowd without another word. Though he also wore no uniform, the crowd still parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses. Probably the sapphire on his knife. Whispers followed him as he went, and some of the more astute revelers looked back at me. Their eyes widened. Realization sparked.

Chasseurs.

We’d suspected this attack. With each passing day, the witches grew more restless—which was why half my brethren lined the street in uniform, and the other half—the half dressed like me—hid in plain sight within the crowd. Waiting. Watching.

Hunting.

A middle-aged man stepped toward me. He held a little girl’s hand. Same eye color. Similar bone structure. Daughter.

“Are we in danger here, sir?” More turned at his question. Brows furrowed. Eyes darted. The man’s daughter winced, wrinkling her nose and dropping her flag. It hung in midair a second too long before fluttering to the ground.

“My head hurts, Papa,” she whispered.

“Hush, child.” He glanced down at the knife in my hand, and the tight muscles around his eyes relaxed. “This man is a Chasseur. He’ll keep us safe. Isn’t that right, sir?”

Unlike his daughter, he hadn’t yet smelled the magic. But he would. Soon.

“You need to vacate the area immediately.” My voice came out sharper than I’d intended. The little girl winced again, and her father wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The Archbishop’s words reared in my head. Soothe them, Reid. You must instill calm and confidence as well as protect. I shook my head and tried again. “Please, monsieur, return home. Salt your doors and windows. Don’t step out again until—”

A piercing scream cut through the rest of my words.

Everyone froze.

“GO!” I thrust the man and his daughter into the patisserie behind us. He’d barely stumbled through the door before others raced to follow, heedless of anyone standing in their way. Bodies collided in every direction. The screams around us multiplied, and unnatural laughter echoed from everywhere at once. I tucked my knife close to my side and barreled through the panicked revelers, tripping over an elderly woman.

“Careful.” I gritted my teeth, catching her frail shoulders before she fell to her death. Milky eyes blinked up at me, and a slow, peculiar smile touched her withered lips.

“God bless you, young man,” she croaked. Then she turned with unnatural grace and disappeared into the horde of people rushing past. It took several seconds for me to register the cloying, charred odor she left in her wake. My heart dropped like a stone.

“Reid!” Jean Luc stood in the royal family’s carriage. Dozens of my brethren surrounded it, sapphires flashing as they drove frenzied citizens back. I started forward—but the throng before me shifted, and I finally saw them.

Witches.

They glided up the street with serene smiles, hair billowing in a nonexistent wind. Three of them. Laughing as bodies fell around them with the simplest flicks of their fingers.

Though I prayed their victims weren’t dead, I often wondered whether death was the kinder fate. The less fortunate woke without memories of their second child, or perhaps with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. Last month, a child had been found without its eyes. Another man had lost his ability to sleep. Yet another spent the rest of his days pining after a woman no one else could see.

Each case different. Each more disturbing than the last.

“REID!” Jean Luc waved his arms, but I ignored him. Unease rapped just beyond conscious thought as I watched the witches advance on the royal family. Slowly, leisurely, despite the battalion of Chasseurs sprinting toward them. Bodies rose like marionettes, forming a human shield around the witches. I watched in horror as a man lunged forward and impaled himself on the Balisarda of one of my brothers. The witches cackled and continued contorting their fingers in unnatural ways. With each twitch, a helpless body rose. Puppeteers.

It didn’t make sense. The witches operated in secrecy. They attacked from the shadows. Such conspicuousness on their part—such showmanship—was surely foolish. Unless . . .

Unless we’d lost sight of the bigger picture.

I charged toward the sandstone buildings to my right for a perch to see over the crowd. Gripping the wall with shaking fingers, I forced my limbs to climb. Each pitted stone loomed higher and higher than the last—blurry now. Spinning. My chest tightened. Blood pounded in my ears. Don’t look down. Keep looking up—

A familiar mustachioed face appeared over the roof’s edge. Blue-green eyes. Freckled nose. The girl from the patisserie.

“Shit,” she said. Then she ducked out of sight.

I concentrated on the spot where she’d disappeared. My body moved with renewed purpose. Within seconds, I hauled myself over the ledge, but she was already leaping to the next rooftop. She clutched her hat with one hand and raised her middle finger with the other. I scowled. The little heathen wasn’t my concern, despite her blatant disrespect.

I turned to peer below, clutching the ledge for support when the world tilted and spun.

People poured into the shops lining the streets. Too many. Far too many. The shopkeepers struggled to maintain order as those nearest the doors were trampled. The patisserie owner had succeeded in barricading his own door. Those left outside shrieked and pounded on the windows as the witches moved closer.

I scanned the crowd for anything we’d missed. More than twenty bodies circled the air around the witches now—some unconscious, heads lolling, and others painfully awake. One man hung spread-eagled, as if shackled to an imaginary cross. Smoke billowed from his mouth, which opened and closed in silent screams. Another woman’s clothes and hair floated around her as if she were underwater, and she clawed helplessly at the air. Face turning blue. Drowning.

With each new horror, more Chasseurs rushed forward.

I could see the fierce urge to protect on their faces even from a distance. But in their haste to aid the helpless, they’d forgotten our true mission: the royal family. Only four men now surrounded the carriage. Two Chasseurs. Two royal guards. Jean Luc held the queen’s hand as the king bellowed orders—to us, to his guard, to anyone who would listen—but the tumultuous noise swallowed every word.

At their back, insignificant in every way, crept the hag.