Holding my breath, I waited for his validation, but it never came. Madame Labelle spoke instead. “I believe a similar approach will work on the others. Uniting them against a common enemy—forcing them to work together—might change each side’s perceptions. It could be the push we all need.”

“And you called me a fool.” I kicked harder to emphasize my skepticism, and my boot—still unlaced in my haste to leave the pool—slipped from my foot. A scrap of paper fluttered from it. Frowning, I leapt to the ground to retrieve it. Unlike the cheap, blood-spattered parchment Coco had stolen from the village, this note had been written on crisp, clean linen that smelled like—like eucalyptus. My blood ran cold.

Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, with hair as black as night,

She cries alone within her pall, her tears so green and bright.

Coco strode to my side, leaning closer to read the words. “This isn’t from my aunt.”

The linen slipped through numb fingers.

Ansel stooped to pick it up, and he too skimmed the contents. “I didn’t know you liked poetry.” When his eyes met mine, his smile faltered. “It’s beautiful. In a sad sort of way, I guess.”

He tried to hand the linen back to me, but my fingers still refused to work. Reid took it instead. “You didn’t write this, did you?” he asked, except it wasn’t a question.

Mutely, I shook my head anyway.

He studied me for a moment before returning his attention to the note. “It was in your shoe. Whoever wrote it must’ve been there at the pool.” His frown deepened, and he passed it to Madame Labelle, who’d extended an impatient hand. “Do you think a Chasseur—?”

“No.” The disbelief that’d held me frozen finally ruptured in a hot wave of panic. I snatched the note from Madame Labelle—heedless of her protest—and stuffed it back into my shoe. “It was Morgane.”

..................................................................

The Wisest Course of Action

Reid

An ominous silence settled over camp. Everyone stared at Lou as she took a deep breath to collect herself. Finally, she gave our silence a voice. “How did she find us?”

It was a good question. It wasn’t the right one.

I stared at the crackling fire, envisioning Morgane’s pale hand—her writing curved and elegant—as she spelled out destruction and doom.

I had a decision to make.

“You left camp, remember?” Madame Labelle snapped. “To take a bath, of all things.”

“Chateau le Blanc is miles from here,” Lou said. I could tell she was struggling to keep her voice reasonable. “Even if the water washed away Coco’s protection, even if the trees whispered our whereabouts, she couldn’t have gotten here so quickly. She can’t fly.”

“Of course she could. If properly motivated, you could too. It’s simply a matter of finding the right pattern.”

“Or maybe she was already here, watching us. Maybe she’s been watching us all this time.”

“Impossible.” I glanced up to see Madame Labelle’s eyes darken. “I enchanted this hollow myself.”

“Either way,” Coco said, planting her hands on her hips, “why didn’t she just snatch you from the pool?”

I returned my attention to the fire. That was a better question. Still not the right one.

Morgane’s words floated back through my mind. She cries alone within her pall, her tears so green and bright. The answer was right in front of us. I swallowed hard around the word. Pall. Of course this was Morgane’s plan. Grief thundered against the door of my fortress, but I kept it at bay, ignored the shard of longing that threatened to cut me open.

Slowly, methodically, I marshaled my thoughts—my emotions—back into order.

“I don’t know.” Lou answered Coco’s question with a sound of frustration and started to pace. “This is so—so her. And until we know how she found me—or what she wants—we aren’t safe here.” She pivoted abruptly to face Madame Labelle. “You’re right. We need to leave immediately. Today.”

She wasn’t wrong.

“But she knows we’re here,” Coco said. “Won’t she just follow us?”

Lou resumed pacing, didn’t look up from the path she wore in the ground. “She’ll try to follow. Of course she will. But her game isn’t ready yet, or she would’ve already taken me. We have until then to lose her.”

“Marvelous.” Beau rolled his eyes skyward, flopping gracelessly to his bedroll. “We have an invisible axe hanging over our heads.”

I took a deep breath.

“It’s not invisible.”

Every eye in the clearing turned to stare at me. I hesitated. I still hadn’t decided what to do. If I was right—and I knew I was—many lives would be lost if we didn’t act. And if we did act . . . well, we’d be walking into a trap. Which meant Lou . . .

I glanced at her, my heart twisting.

Lou would be in danger.

“Good God, man,” Beau exclaimed, “now is not the time to play brooding hero. Out with it!”

“It was all in the note.” Gesturing to the embers of the fire, I shrugged. The movement felt brittle. “Crying, tears, pall. It’s a funeral.” When I shot Lou a meaningful look, she gasped.

“The Archbishop’s funeral.”

I nodded. “She’s baiting us.”

Her brows dipped, and she tilted her head. “But—”

“That’s only one line,” Ansel finished. “What about the rest of it?”

I forced myself to remain calm. Collected. Empty of the emotion thrashing outside my mental fortress. “I don’t know. But whatever she’s planning, it’s for his funeral. I’m sure of it.”

If I was right, could I endanger Lou to save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent people? Did risking her life to save the others make me any different than Morgane? One for the sake of many. It was a wise sentiment, but wrong, somehow. Even if it hadn’t been Lou. The ends didn’t justify the means.

And yet . . . I knew Morgane better than anyone here. Better than Madame Labelle. Better than even Lou. They knew La Dame des Sorcières as the woman. The mother. The friend. I knew her as the enemy. It had been my duty to study her strategy, to predict her attacks. I’d spent the last several years of my life growing intimately acquainted with her movements. Whatever she had planned for the Archbishop’s funeral, it reeked of death.

But I couldn’t risk Lou. I couldn’t. If those few, terrible moments on Modraniht had taught me anything—when her throat had gaped open, when her blood had filled the basin—it was that I wasn’t interested in a life without her. Not that it mattered. If she died, I would too. Literally. Along with dozens of others, like Beau and—and the rest of them.

My family.

The thought shook me to the core.

No longer faceless strangers, Morgane’s targets were now the brothers and sisters I hadn’t yet met. The brothers and sisters I hadn’t yet allowed myself to dream about, to even think about. They were out there, somewhere. And they were in danger. I couldn’t just abandon them. Morgane had as good as told us where she would be. If I could be there too—if I could somehow stop her, if I could cut off the viper’s head to save my family, to save Lou, if I could prevent her from defiling my patriarch’s last rites—