Reid spun to face him, but a knock sounded on Léviathan’s door. Frowning, I crossed the room to pull it open, but Reid stopped me with a hand on my arm. Straightening his coat, Claud opened the door instead. A small, unfamiliar girl stood on the threshold. “For you, mademoiselle,” she said, stuffing a third scrap of paper in my palm before scurrying away. I unfolded it cautiously, dread seeping into my stomach.

Pretty porcelain, pretty doll, your pretty clock doth start

Come rescue her by midnight, or I shall eat her heart.

All my love,

Maman

With shaking fingers, I showed the note to Reid. He skimmed it quickly, face paling, before hurtling after the girl. Blaise followed with a snarl.

“Oh dear,” Claud said again, taking the note from me. He shook his head, reading through it once, twice, three times. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Who is this poor soul? This—this porcelain doll?”

I stared at him in dawning horror.

Yes. We’d misinterpreted the notes.

Mistaking my silence, he patted my shoulder consolingly. “Not to worry, dear. We shall solve this mystery. Now, it seems to me the greatest clues to learning her identity lie in this first note . . .”

“What’s going on?” Coco joined us now, Ansel following on her heels. She plucked the note from Claud, skimming the words before passing it to Liana, who in turn handed it to Terrance. La Voisin stood behind them, watching with an inscrutable expression. Nicholina, as always, smiled.

“Perhaps her skin could be described as porcelain?” Claud mused, stroking his beard. “Her features doll-like? The black hair is quite clear, but the—”

“Green tears?” Terrance scoffed. “No one has green tears.”

“It’s symbolic,” Ismay said, rolling her eyes. “Green is a metaphor for envy.”

Oh no.

I took the note from her, rereading the lines and thinking hard—praying, praying I was wrong. But no. It was all here. Porcelain skin. Black hair. Envious tears. Forgotten, alone . . . even the goddamn pall fit. How could we have missed it? How could we have been so stupid?

But that last line . . . eating her heart . . .

Feeling sick, I glanced at La Voisin and Nicholina, but Reid soon emerged beside me—red-faced and panting—and scattered my train of thought. “She’s gone. She just—vanished.”

“Of course she did,” Coco muttered bitterly. “Morgane wouldn’t have wanted her to stick around and play.”

“Who was taken?” Blaise asked, voice deep and insistent. “Who is the girl?”

A commotion sounded at the door, and Jean Luc plowed inside, holding Beau by the collar. The former’s eyes were wild, crazed, as they found mine. Found Reid’s. He pushed toward us with single-minded determination, heedless of the patrons’ indignant cries. “Reid! Where is she? Where?”

When she heard what he’d done, it nearly killed her. She’s been in seclusion for weeks—weeks—and all because of some misplaced emotion for him.

Lips numb, I crumpled the note in my fist, taking a deep breath and steeling myself for the pain to come—for the emotions I’d see in Reid’s uncharacteristically open expression, in those newly vulnerable eyes. I could’ve kicked myself. I’d encouraged him to stop hiding, to feel. And now he would. And now I didn’t want to see.

And my mother had known exactly how to play with us.

I turned toward him anyway.

“It’s Célie, Reid. She’s taken Célie.”

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

Coco’s Vision

Lou

Until the day I died, I’d never forget the look on Reid’s face.

The disbelief.

The horror.

The rage.

And in that moment, I knew—deep down in my bones—that I would save Célie’s life or die trying.

Our motley crew glanced back and forth between where I paced at the window and Reid stood at the door. Heedless of the chairs, Claud had plunked down on the floor by the bar, crossing his legs as if he intended to stay awhile. But we didn’t have awhile. Already our clock had started. Come rescue her by midnight, or I shall eat her heart.

Reid stared at his hands, transfixed and unmoving.

“She’s trying to lure you out,” Beau insisted. “Don’t let her.”

“She’ll kill Célie,” Jean Luc snarled, still clutching the notes I’d handed him. When Monsieur Tremblay had finally revealed Célie’s weeks of seclusion hadn’t been seclusion at all, but abduction, Jean Luc had combed through every inch of East End to find us after the funeral. It’d been a happy coincidence indeed that Beau had stepped out tonight, or Jean Luc never might’ve found us. What a tragedy that would’ve been. “We have to rescue her.”

“You do not speak.” La Voisin’s eyes held vicious promise. “Make no mistake, huntsman. Your holy stick will not prevent me from cutting out your tongue.”

“How does he taste, he taste, he taste?” Nicholina edged forward, licking her lips. “Let’s tear off his face, his face, his face.”

Blaise growled low in agreement.

Claud persuading the innkeeper to let his rooms to witches and werewolves had been nothing. Claud persuading the blood witches and werewolves not to tear a huntsman limb from limb, however, was proving more difficult. Jean Luc didn’t seem to realize the precariousness of his situation—especially as his holy stick remained tucked out of sight in Reid’s bandolier. To Reid’s credit, he didn’t reveal his old friend’s secret. If the blood witches suspected Jean Luc defenseless, they wouldn’t hesitate to attack.

Terrance knew, however. His lip curled in anticipation as he looked between Reid and Jean Luc.

“And where is she, exactly?” Coco had gravitated back to her kin, standing between La Voisin and Nicholina. “Have you managed to divine her location from Morgane’s riddles?”

Jean Luc gestured to the rumpled papers. “She’s—she’s in the tunnels. In this Skull Masquerade.”

“The tunnels are vast, Captain.” Claud turned a tarot card over in his fingers again and again. At my repeated glances, he extended it to me. It wasn’t a tarot card at all. Upon closer inspection, this card was crimson, not black, and painted with a leering skull. Gold letters that read Nous Tombons Tous curled into the shape of its mouth and teeth. At the top, Claud Deveraux and his Troupe de Fortune had been inked in meticulous calligraphy. An invitation. I handed it back with an ominous feeling. “They traverse the entire city,” Claud continued. “Our search will continue long after midnight without proper direction.”

“She’s given us direction,” Zenna pointed out. “She cries alone within her pall and trapped within a mirrored grave couldn’t be more obvious. She’s in the catacombs.”

The catacombs. Shit.

“She has given us nothing,” Claud said sharply. When Zenna’s eyes flashed, his voice softened. “Alas, we must cancel our performance, mes chers. The world below is not safe tonight. I fear you must return to your rooms, where you might escape Morgane’s notice. Toulouse and Thierry will join you there.”