All desire to shield him from Coco disappeared. Erratic? It took a great deal of effort to keep my breathing slow and steady. Indignation seared away the last of my fatigue, and my heart pounded at the small betrayal. Here I was—lying injured beside him—and he had the gall to insult me? All I’d done at the pool and pub was keep his ungrateful ass alive.

Eviscerate him, Coco.

“Give me specific examples.”

I frowned into my bedroll. That wasn’t quite the response I’d expected. And was that—was that concern I detected? Surely Coco didn’t agree with this nonsense.

“She dyed her hair with little to no forethought. She tried to strangle Beau when it went wrong.” Reid sounded as if he were ticking items from a carefully constructed list. “She wept afterward—genuinely wept—”

“She dyed her hair like that for you.” Coco’s voice dripped with disdain and dislike, and I peeked an eye open, slightly mollified. She glared at him. “And she’s allowed to cry. We don’t all suffer from your emotional constipation.”

He waved a curt hand. “It’s more than that. At the pub, she snapped on Claud Deveraux. She laughed when she hurt the bounty hunter—even though she hurt herself in the process. You saw the bruise on her ribs. She was coughing up blood.” He raked a hand through his hair in agitation, shaking his head. “And that was before she killed his friend and nearly herself in the process. I’m worried about her. After she killed him, there was a moment when she looked—she looked almost exactly like—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Stop.” Blood still beaded Coco’s hand, which clutched an empty vial of honey. Her fingers shook. “I don’t have any comforting words for you. There is nothing comfortable about our situation. This sort of magic—the sort that balances life and death on a knife point—requires sacrifice. Nature demands balance.”

“There’s nothing natural about it.” Reid’s cheeks flushed as he spoke, and his voice grew harder and harder with each word. “It’s aberrant. It’s—it’s like a sickness. A poison.”

“It’s our cross to bear. I would tell you there’s more to magic than death, but you wouldn’t hear it. You have your own poison running through your blood—which, incidentally, I’ll boil if you ever speak like this in front of Lou. She has enough steaming shit to sort through without adding yours to the pile.” Exhaling deeply, Coco’s shoulders slumped. “But you’re right. There’s nothing natural about a mother killing her child. Lou is going to get worse before she gets better. Much, much worse.”

Reid’s fingers tightened around mine, and they both peered down at me. I slammed my eye shut. “I know,” he said.

I took a deep breath to collect myself. Then another. But I couldn’t ignore the sharp burst of anger their words had evoked, nor the hurt underlying it. This was not a flattering conversation. These were not the words one hoped to overhear from loved ones.

She’s going to get worse before she gets better. Much, much worse.

My mother’s face tugged at my memory. When I was fourteen, she’d procured a consort for me, insistent that I live a full life in only a handful of years. His name had been Alec, and his face had been so beautiful I’d wanted to weep. When I’d suspected Alec had favored another witch, I’d followed him to the banks of L’Eau Mélancolique one night . . . and watched as he’d laid with his lover. Afterward, my mother had cradled me to sleep, murmuring, “If you are unafraid to look, darling, you are unafraid to find.”

Perhaps I wasn’t as unafraid as I thought.

But they were wrong. I felt fine. My emotions weren’t erratic. To prove it, I cleared my throat, opened my eyes, and—stared straight into the face of a cat. “Ack, Absalon—!” I lurched backward, startled and coughing anew at the sudden movement. My shirt—cut from my back in ribbons—fluttered at my sides.

“You’re awake.” Relief lit Reid’s face as he sat forward, tentatively touching my face, sweeping a thumb across my cheek. “How do you feel?”

“Like garbage.”

Coco knelt next to me as well. “I hope you nicked more clothing from that peddler. Your others quite literally melted into your back tonight. They were fun to remove.”

“If by fun, you mean grotesque,” Beau said, sidling up beside us. “I wouldn’t look over there”—he waved a hand over his shoulder—“unless you’d like to see your love child of flesh and fabric. And Ansel’s dinner. He parted with it shortly after seeing your injuries.”

I glanced across the Hollow to where Ansel sat, looking miserable, while Madame Labelle fussed over him.

“You should change,” Coco said. “It’s near midnight. My aunt will be here soon.”

Reid glared at her, shifting to block me from view. “I told you. Lou comes with me.”

Coco fired up at once. “And I told you—”

“Shut up, both of you.” The words leapt from me before I could stop them, and I cringed at their shocked expressions. They shared a quick glance, communicating without a word. But I still heard it. Erratic. I forced a smile and stepped around Reid. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Yes, you should’ve.” Beau arched a brow, studying the three of us with unabashed interest. When he tilted his head, frowning as if he could see the tension in the air, I scowled. Maybe Reid had been right. Maybe I wasn’t myself. Never before had I felt the need to apologize for telling him to shut the hell up. “They’re incredibly annoying.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Coco snapped.

“For the last time, I go wherever I want,” I said. “Tonight was a disaster, but at least now we know the Archbishop’s funeral is in a fortnight. It takes ten days of hard travel to reach Cesarine. That gives us only a couple of days with the blood witches and werewolves.” I skewered Reid with a glare when he tried to interrupt. “We have to proceed with the plan as discussed. We go to the blood camp. You go to La Ventre. We’ll meet back in Cesarine on the eve of the funeral. You’ll send Absalon along with the time and place—”

“I don’t trust the matagot,” Reid said darkly.

Absalon flicked his tail at him in response.

“He certainly likes you.” I bent down to scratch his ears. “And he saved us on Modraniht by delivering Madame Labelle’s message to the Chasseurs. If I remember correctly, you didn’t like that plan either.”

Reid said nothing, jaw clenched.

“La Ventre?” Beau asked, puzzled.

“It’s packland,” I said shortly. Of course he’d never journeyed into that murky corner of his kingdom. Most avoided it if possible. Including me. “La Rivière des Dents empties into a cold-water swamp in the southernmost part of Belterra. The loup garou have claimed it as their territory.”

“And why is it called the stomach?”

“The teeth lead to the stomach—plus the loup garou eat anyone who trespasses.”

“Not everyone,” Reid muttered.