I’d killed him.

The crowd’s cheers drown out Jean Luc’s roar of pain. I do not stop. I do not hesitate. Despite my too-small coat, the bile on my tongue, I strike swift and sure, knocking his sword from his hand. Disabling him. “Yield,” I say, lifting my boot to his chest. Adrenaline makes me dizzy. Clouds my thoughts.

I have won.

Jean Luc bares his teeth, clutching his wounded leg. “I yield.”

Captain Aurand steps between us. Lifts my arm. “The winner!”

The crowd goes wild, and Célie cheers loudest of all.

I think I love her.

“Congratulations,” the Archbishop says, striding into the arena. He draws me into a tight embrace. “I am so proud of you, my son.”

My son.

The pride in his eyes makes my own prick and sting. My heart threatens to burst. I am no longer trash boy. I am the Archbishop’s son—Chasseur Diggory—and I belong. I hug him so tightly that he gasps, laughing.

“Thank you, Father.”

Behind us, Jean Luc spits blood.

“I killed my father,” I whispered.

Lou stroked my back. “I know.”

Heat washes over me as her lips touch mine. Slowly, at first, and tentative. As if fearful of my reaction. But she has nothing to fear from me. “Célie,” I breathe, looking at her in wonder.

She smiles, and the entire world lurches to a halt at her beauty. “I love you, Reid.”

When her lips descend once more, I forget the bench in this dark confessional. I forget the empty sanctuary beyond. There is only Célie. Célie, standing between my legs. Célie, twining her fingers in my hair. Célie—

The door bursts open, and we break apart.

“What is going on here?” the Archbishop asks, appalled.

With a horrified squeak, Célie covers her mouth and ducks beneath his arm, fleeing into the sanctuary and out of sight. The Archbishop watches her go incredulously. Finally, he turns back to me. Scrutinizes my rumpled hair. My flushed cheeks. My swollen lips.

Sighing, he extends a hand to help me up. “Come, Reid. It seems we have much to discuss.”

He was the only man who’d ever cared for me. The tears fell faster now, soaking my shirt. My hands. My tarnished, ugly hands. Gently, Lou wrapped her arms around me.

The loup garou’s blood coats the grass in the clearing. It stains the wildflower petals, the riverbank. My Balisarda. My hands. I rub them on my pants as inconspicuously as possible, but he still sees. He approaches warily. My brothers part for him, bowing low.

“To mourn them would be a waste of your compassion, son.”

I stare at the corpse at my feet. The body, once lupine, reverted back to humanoid after death. His dark eyes stare at the summer sky without seeing. “He’s my age.”

“It,” the Archbishop corrects me, voice gentle. “It was your age. These creatures are not as you and me.”

The next morning, he presses a medal into my palm. Though the red is gone, the blood remains. “You have done the kingdom a great service,” he says. “Captain Diggory.”

“I’m sorry, Reid.” Despite my shaking shoulders, Lou held me tightly. Tears streamed down her own cheeks. I crushed her against me, breath shuddering—each gasp painful, burning—as I buried my face in the crook of her neck. As I finally, finally allowed the grief to win. To consume me. In great, heaving sobs, it burst forth—a torrent of hurt and bitterness, of shame and regret—and I choked on it, helpless to stop its wrath. Helpless to do anything but cling to Lou. My friend. My shelter. My home. “I’m so sorry.”

I don’t hesitate. I don’t think. Moving quickly, I sweep a second knife from my bandolier and charge past Morgane. She lifts her hands—fire lashing from her fingertips—but I don’t feel the flames. The gold light wraps around my skin, protecting me. But my thoughts scatter. Whatever strength my body claimed, my mind now forfeits. I stumble, but the gold cord marks my path. I vault over the altar after it.

The Archbishop’s eyes fly open as he realizes my intent. A small, pleading noise escapes him, but he can do little else before I fall upon him.

Before I drive my knife home in his heart.

The Archbishop’s eyes are still wide—confused—as he slumps forward in my arms.

“I did it all for you too, Lou.”

And with that—as his casket faded from view in the cemetery beyond, as the crowd swallowed up my last memory of him—I let the Archbishop go.

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

Something New

Lou

I didn’t know how much time passed as Reid and I held each other on that bed. Though my limbs ached from sitting still for so long—from the cold creeping into the room—I didn’t dare let go. He needed this. He needed someone to love him. To comfort him. To honor and keep him. I would’ve laughed at the irony of the situation if it hadn’t been so heartbreaking.

How many people in this world had truly loved Reid? A lost little boy in a trash can grown into a hardened young man in a uniform. Two? Maybe three? I knew I loved him. I knew Ansel did too. Madame Labelle was his mother, and Jean Luc had cared once. But our love was fleeting, all things considered. Ansel had only grown to love him in the last few months. Madame Labelle had abandoned him. Jean Luc had grown to resent him. And I . . . I’d given up on him at the first opportunity. No, for all his hypocrisy and hatred, the Archbishop had loved him most and loved him longest. And I would always be grateful to him for it—that he’d been a father to Reid when he hadn’t been one to me.

But now he was dead.

Reid’s shoulders stopped shaking as the sun dipped below the windowsill—his sobs gradually quieting—but still he didn’t loosen his grip. “He would’ve hated me,” he finally said. More tears leaked onto my shoulder. “If he’d known, he would’ve hated me.”

I stroked his back. “It wouldn’t have been possible for him to hate you, Reid. He adored you.”

A beat of silence passed.

“He hated himself.”

“Yes,” I said grimly. “I think he did.”

“I’m not like him, Lou.” He leaned back to look at me, though his arms didn’t leave my waist. His poor face was splotched with color, and his eyes were nearly swollen shut. Tears clung to his lashes. But there—resolving behind the sorrow—was a hope so keen and sharp I might’ve cut my finger on it. “I don’t hate myself. I don’t hate you either.”

I gave him a wary smile but said nothing.

Releasing my waist, he lifted a hand to cup my jaw, brushing a tentative thumb across my lips. “You still don’t believe me.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but the words died in my throat when he lifted his hand to the open window. The temperature had fallen with the sun, and the raindrops had solidified to snowflakes. They drifted into the room on a gentle breeze. At the coaxing of his fingers, they transformed into fireflies.

I exhaled in delight as they floated toward me, as they landed on my hair. “How are you . . . ?”

“You said it yourself.” Their glow reflected in his eyes. “Magic isn’t good or evil. It heeds those who summon it. When life is a choice between fighting or fleeing—every moment life or death—everything becomes a weapon. It doesn’t matter who holds them. Weapons harm. I’ve seen it. I’ve experienced it firsthand.”