He knocked my hand away. Bared his teeth. “You are no brother of mine. My brother died with my father. My brother would not defend one witch to condemn another—he would kill them both. And you’re a fool to believe the king will ever join your cause.”

“I’m still the same person, Jean. I’m still me. Help us. We can be as we were once more. We can avenge our father together.”

He stared at me a beat.

Then he punched me in the face.

I staggered backward, eyes and nose streaming, as Lou snarled and tried to leap forward, caught beneath Coco. Ansel and Beau stepped to my side instead. The former attempted to subdue Jean, who lunged for another attack, while the latter bent to check my nose. “It’s not broken,” he muttered.

“I will avenge our father”—Jean Luc struggled to free himself from Ansel, who held him with surprising strength—“when I lash you to the stake for conspiracy. As God is my witness, you will burn for what you’ve done. I will light your pyre myself.”

Blood poured down my mouth, my chin. “Jean—”

He finally shoved Ansel away. “How disappointed he would be to see how far you’ve fallen, Reid. His golden son.”

“Oh, get over it, Jean Luc,” Lou snapped. “You can’t win a dead man’s affection. Even alive, the Archbishop saw you for the sniveling little rat you are—”

He launched himself at her now, completely out of control, but Blaise rose up to meet him, his expression hard as flint. Liana, Terrance, and a handful of others closed in behind him. Some bared their teeth, incisors sharp and gleaming. Others shifted their eyes yellow. “I have offered Reid Diggory and his companions sanctuary,” Blaise said, voice steady. Calm. “Leave now in peace, or do not leave at all.”

Lou shook her head vehemently, eyes wide. “Blaise, no. They can’t—”

Jean Luc swiped at her. “Give me my Balisarda—”

The wolves around us growled in agitation. In anticipation.

“Captain . . .” A Chasseur I didn’t recognize touched Jean Luc’s elbow. “Perhaps we should go.”

“I will not leave without—”

“Yes,” Blaise said, lifting a hand to his wolves. They pressed closer. Too close now. Close enough to bite. To kill. Their snarls multiplied to a din. “You will.”

The Chasseurs needed no further encouragement. Eyes darting, they seized Jean Luc before he could damn them all. Though he roared his protests, they pulled him backward. They kept pulling. His shouts echoed through the trees even after they’d disappeared.

Lou whirled to face Blaise. “What have you done?”

“I have saved you.”

“No.” Lou stared at him in horror. “You let them go. You let them go after we told them our plan. They know now we’re traveling to Cesarine. They know we’re planning to visit the king. If Jean Luc tips him off, Auguste will arrest us the moment we step foot in the castle.”

Grimacing, Coco readjusted her arm on Lou’s shoulders. “She’s right. Auguste won’t want to listen. We’ve just lost the element of surprise.”

“Maybe”—Lou’s eyes swept the pack—“maybe if we show up in numbers, we can make him listen.”

But Blaise shook his head. “Your fight is not our fight. Reid Diggory saved my second son after taking the life of my first. He has fulfilled his debt. My kin will no longer hunt him, and you will leave our homeland in peace. I do not owe him an alliance. I do not owe him anything.”

Lou stabbed the air with her finger. “That’s horseshit, and you know it—”

His eyes narrowed. “After what you’ve done, be grateful I do not demand your blood, Louise le Blanc.”

“He’s right.” I took her hand in mine, squeezing gently when she opened her mouth to argue. “And we need to leave now if we have any hope of beating Jean Luc to Cesarine.”

“What? But—”

“Wait.” To my surprise, Liana stepped forward. She’d set her chin in a determined expression. “You may owe him nothing, Père, but he saved my brother’s life. I owe him everything.”

“As do I.” Terrance joined her. Though young, his flinty countenance reflected his father’s as he nodded in my direction. He didn’t make eye contact. “We will join you.”

“No.” With the curt shake of his head, Blaise lowered his voice to a whisper. “Children, I have already told you, our debt is fulfilled—”

Liana clasped his hands together, holding them between her own. “Our debt is not yours. Adrien was your son, Père, but we didn’t know him. He’s a stranger to Terrance and to me. We must honor this debt—especially now, beneath the face of our mother.” She glanced up at the full moon. “Would you have us spurn this obligation? Would you disavow Terrance’s life so quickly after she restored him to us?”

Blaise stared down at them both for several seconds. Finally, his facade cracked, and beneath it, his resolve crumbled. He kissed both their foreheads with tears in his eyes. “Yours are the brightest of souls. Of course you must go, and I—I will join you. Though my debt as a man is fulfilled, my duties as a father are not.” His eyes cut to mine. “My pack will remain here. You will never step foot in our lands again.”

I nodded curtly. “Understood.”

We turned and raced toward Cesarine.

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

A Promise

Reid

Blaise, Liana, and Terrance outdistanced us by the next morning, promising to return with reconnaissance of the city landscape. When they found us again—a mere mile outside of Cesarine, hidden within the trees near Les Dents—they delivered our worst fear: the Chasseurs had formed a blockade to enter the city. They checked each wagon, each cart, without bothering to hide their intentions.

“They’re searching for you.” Liana emerged from behind a juniper in fresh clothes. She joined her father and brother with a grim expression. “I recognized some of them, but I didn’t see Jean Luc. He isn’t here.”

“I assume he went straight to my father.” Beau readjusted the hood of his cloak, eyeing the thick congestion of the road. Though his expression remained cool and unaffected, his hands shook. “Hence the blockade.”

Lou kicked the juniper’s branches in frustration. When snow fell into her boots, she cursed viciously. “That sniveling little shit. Of course he isn’t here. He wouldn’t want an audience to watch him piss down his leg when he sees me. An appropriate response, mind you.”

Despite her brazen words, this crowd made me uncomfortable. It’d grown worse the nearer we’d drawn to the city, as Les Dents was the only road into Cesarine. Part of me rejoiced so many had come to honor the Archbishop. The rest didn’t know how to feel. Here—with every face and every voice a reminder—I couldn’t properly dissociate. The doors to my fortress rattled. The walls shook. But I couldn’t focus on that now. Couldn’t focus on anything but Lou. “Are you all right?” she’d whispered earlier when we’d hidden amongst these trees.