My hands curled into fists.

I hadn’t imagined anything. I’d drunk from the damn thing myself.

Around me, the trees’ branches rustled in the wind, whispering together. Laughing. Watching. Another howl pierced the night—this one closer than the last—and the hair on my neck rose.

The forest is dangerous. My pulse quickened at my mother’s words. The trees have eyes.

I shook my head—unwilling to acknowledge them—and peered up at the sky to recalculate my bearings. South. Due south. I just had to reach Gévaudan’s gate, and the mud on my skin ensured that the werewolves couldn’t track me by scent. I could still do this. I could make it.

But when I stepped backward—my boot sinking in a particularly wet pocket of earth—I realized the glaring flaw in my plan. Stopping abruptly, I turned to look behind me. My panic deepened to dread. The werewolves didn’t need their noses to track me. I’d left them a path of footprints to follow instead. I hadn’t calculated the soft terrain into my plan, nor the rising tide. There was no way I could flee for Gévaudan—or the river, or anywhere—without the werewolves seeing exactly where I’d gone.

Come on. My heartbeat beat a frantic rhythm now, thundering inside my head. I forced myself to think around it. Could I magic my way out? I instantly rejected the impulse, unwilling to risk it. The last time I’d used magic, I’d nearly killed myself, freezing to death on the bank of a pool. More than likely, I’d do more harm than good, and I had no room for error now. Lou wasn’t here to save me. Think think think. I wracked my brain for another plan, another means of hiding my trail. As shitty as Lou was at strategizing, she would’ve known exactly what to do. She always escaped. Always. But I wasn’t her, and I didn’t know.

Still . . . I’d chased her long enough to guess what she’d do in this situation. What she did in every situation.

Swallowing hard, I looked up.

Breathe. Just breathe.

Wading back into the cypresses, I heaved myself onto the lowest branch.

Another.

The trees grew close together in this part of the forest. If I could navigate the canopy far enough, I’d break my trail. I climbed faster, forcing my gaze skyward. Not down. Never down.

Another.

When the branches began thinning, I stopped climbing, crawling slowly—too slowly—to the end of the limb. I stood on shaky legs. Counting to three, I leapt onto the next branch as far as I could. It bowed precariously under my weight, and I crumpled, wrapping my arms around it with deep, gasping breaths. My vision swam. I forced myself to crawl forward once more. I couldn’t stop. I had to move faster. I’d never reach Gévaudan at this pace, and the wolves grew louder with each howl.

After the third tree, however, my breathing came easier. My muscles relaxed infinitesimally. I moved faster. Faster still. Confident now. The trees still grew thick, and hope swelled in my chest. Again and again I leapt, until—

A splintering crack.

No.

Spine seizing, mind reeling, I swiped desperately at the nearest branch, hurtling toward the ground at alarming speed. The wood snapped under my momentum, and sharp pain lanced up arm. The next branch smashed into my head. Stars burst behind my eyes, and I landed—hard—on my back. The impact knocked the breath from my throat. Water flooded my ears. I wheezed, blinking rapidly, clutching my bloody palm, and tried to stand.

Blaise stepped over me.

Teeth gleaming, he snarled when I squelched backward—eyes too intelligent, too eager, too human for my liking. Slowly, cautiously, I lifted my hands and rose to my feet. His nostrils flared at the scent of my blood. Instinct screamed for me to reach for my knives. To assume the offensive. But if I drew first blood—if I killed the alpha—the werewolves would never join us. Never. And those eyes—

Things had been much simpler when I’d been a Chasseur. When the wolves had been only beasts. Demons.

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Head throbbing, I whispered, “Please.”

His lips rose over his teeth, and he lunged.

I dodged his strike, circled him as he pivoted. My hands remained outstretched. Conciliatory. “You have a choice. The Chasseurs will kill you, yes, but so will Morgane. After you’ve served her purpose. After you’ve helped her murder innocent children.”

Mid-charge, Blaise stopped abruptly. He cocked his head, ears twitching.

So Morgane hadn’t told him the intricacies of her plan.

“When Lou dies, all of the king’s children will die with her.” I didn’t mention my own death. That would only fortify the werewolves’ resolve to join Morgane. “Dozens of them, most of whom don’t even know their father. Should they pay for his sins?”

Shifting his weight, he glanced behind as if uneasy.

“No one else has to die.” I hardly dared breathe as I stepped toward him. “Join us. Help us. Together, we can defeat Morgane and restore order—”

Hackles rising, ears flattening, he snapped a warning to stay back. Revulsion twisted my stomach as his bones began to crack. As his joints popped and shifted just enough for him to stand on two legs. Smoky fur still covered his misshapen body. His hands and feet remained elongated, his back hunched. Grotesque. His face contracted in on itself until his mouth could form words.

“Restore order?” he snarled, the words guttural. “You said the Chasseurs will”—he struggled to move his jaw, grimacing in pain—“kill us. How will you defeat them?” Neck straining, he rescinded his teeth farther. “Can you kill—your own brothers? Your own”—another grimace—“father?”

“I’ll convince him. I’ll convince them all. We can show them another way.”

“Too much—hate in their hearts. They’ll refuse. What—then?”

I stared at him, thinking quickly.

“As I thought.” His teeth snapped again. He started to shift back. “You would watch us—bleed—either way. A huntsman—through and through.”

Then he lunged.

Though I dove aside, his teeth still caught my arm and buried deep. Tearing muscle. Shredding tendon. I wrenched away with a cry, dizzy with pain, with anger. Gold flickered wildly in my mind’s eye. It blinded me, disorienting, as voices hissed, seek us seek us seek us.

I almost reached for them.

Instinct raged at me to attack, to protect, to tear this wolf’s head off by any means necessary. Even magic.

But—no. I couldn’t.

When everything is life and death, the stakes are higher, Lou said, chiding me in my memories. The more we gain, the more we lose.

I wouldn’t.

Blaise readied to spring once more. Gritting my teeth, I leapt straight into the air and caught the branch overhead. My arm screamed in pain, as did my hand. I ignored both, swinging back as he rose to snap at my heels—and kicked him hard in the chest. He yelped and fell to the ground. I dropped beside him, drawing a dagger from my bandolier and stabbing it through his paw into the ground below. His yelps turned to shrieks. The other wolves’ answering howls were murderous.

Arm dangling uselessly, I tore at my coat with my good hand. I needed to bind the wound. To stem the bleeding. The mud on my skin wouldn’t mask the scent of fresh blood. The others would soon smell my injuries. They’d find me within moments. But my hand refused to cooperate, shaking with pain and fear and adrenaline.