A pattern shimmered into existence.

At first look, it appeared gold, winding from my chest to the wreckage of the platform. To where wood and smoke and fire had engulfed Lou. When I lifted a trembling hand, however, I realized I’d been wrong. The cord glimmered with dimension.

The blue of my coat. The white of snowflakes. The red of blood in a blacksmith’s shop.

A hundred more colors—memories—all twining together, pressed into a single strand.

I pulled it.

Energy pulsed outward in a wave, and I collapsed beneath its weight, ears ringing with silence. Bleeding with it.

A high-pitched, primal scream shattered the street.

Not from Lou. Not from Coco. Struggling to lift my head—to see through the hysterical crowd, the pouring rain—I recognized the pale features and moonbeam hair of Morgane le Blanc. She too had crumpled. Those nearest her bolted when they saw her, slipping in the melted snow. The mud. Weeping and crying out for loved ones. Their faces smeared with soot.

Josephine crouched beside Morgane, her brow furrowed in confusion.

Behind them, Nicholina smiled.

I hurtled toward the platform without a backward glance. My voice broke on Lou’s name. I remembered her. I remembered. The Doleur, the attic, the rooftop—the entire story she’d woven in the wooden cage. It’d all been true. It’d all been real.

I’ll find you again, I’d told her.

She’d taken the promise to heart. She hadn’t given up on me. Not when I’d insulted her, threatened her, envisioned a thousand different ways to kill her. I’d think of a thousand others to atone. I’d never leave her again. My voice gained strength. It gained hope. “Lou! LOU!”

She still didn’t answer. With the fire at last extinguished by Coco’s rain, the wreckage smoked gently. Diving into it, I tore through the charred boards, the ash, the remnants of the stake. Beau and Coco followed hot on my heels. “Where are you?” I asked under my breath, wresting aside plank after plank. “Come on. Where are you?”

Pale hands joined mine as I searched. Célie. Darker ones. Jean Luc. They met my gaze with determined expressions and terse nods. They didn’t falter, even as my own body shook. Please, please, please—

When a board to my right shifted, untouched, I wrenched it free. She had to be here. She had to be—

Lou exploded upward in a shower of light.

The Final Battle

Lou

Power flooded my limbs and lungs, and I burned not with fire, but light. It shone through my bloody chemise, through the wounds across my body, bursting outward in blinding rays of magic. Though Coco’s rain still fell thick and heavy around us, the drops didn’t soak me as the others—no, my skin and hair absorbed each one, and they healed me, strengthened me, soothed my aching heart. They tasted of hope. Of love.

I found her tearstained face amidst the wreckage, grinning and descending gently beside her.

She’d done it. Though the city still smoked around us, undulating softly—though she would always grieve for Ansel—the black fire had gone. She’d conquered it. She’d conquered herself.

Returning my grin, she clasped Beau’s hand and nodded.

“Lou.” Still crouched with a board in his hand, Reid looked up at me, his eyes brimming with tears. With love and relief and—and recognition. Awareness. It sparked between us like a living thing, as shining and bright as a pattern. He rose slowly to his feet. We stared at each other for a long moment.

“You found me,” I whispered.

“I promised.”

We moved at the same time, each staggering toward the other, our limbs tangling until I couldn’t tell where his ended and mine began. Breathless, laughing, he swept me into the air, and we whirled round and round again. I couldn’t stop kissing his smile. His cheeks. His nose. He didn’t protest, instead laughing louder, tipping his face toward the sky. The smoke cleared as Coco watched us—the rain clouds too—until only a crystal winter night remained. For the first time in weeks, the stars glittered overhead. The waning moon reigned supreme.

The beginning of the end.

When at last Reid placed me on my feet, I punched his shoulder. “You absolute ass. How could you?” I seized his face between my hands, near feverish with laughter. “Why didn’t you give me that sticky bun?”

His own cheeks remained flushed, his smile wide. “Because it wasn’t yours.”

A fresh wave of screams sounded behind us, and we turned simultaneously, our giddiness puncturing slightly. The scene returned in degrees. Chasseurs and loup garou still battled in the street—soaked to the skin, bleeding—while pedestrians fled or fought. Some sobbed and clung to fallen loved ones in the mud. Others pounded relentlessly on shop doors, seeking shelter for the injured. For themselves.

On either side of the street, witches had risen, barring all exits.

I recognized some of them from the Chateau, others from the blood camp. More of them than I’d ever believed existed. They must’ve crawled forth from every inch of the kingdom—perhaps the world. My skin dimmed as gooseflesh rose.

Worse still—across the street, Morgane climbed to her feet.

“Here.” Célie slung her bag from her shoulder and upended it. Reid’s bandolier spilled across the ground. His knives and seeds. Her own injection. Coco and Beau swooped to retrieve their daggers, and I followed suit, my magic pulsing with eagerness. It sensed the danger here. It yearned to attack, to protect, as Morgane squared her shoulders. As she lifted her chin and met my gaze.

Though the sounds of clanging steel and snapping teeth should’ve muted her voice, I still heard it crystal clear. Like she stood right beside me. “Hello, Daughter.”

My own words rose calmly. “Hello, Mother.”

I glanced at Reid’s bare feet. His sodden chest. My own pitiful chemise. Even the others wore only woolen garments—and Célie a gown, at that—leaving them woefully vulnerable to attack. Perhaps not from magic, but steel could cut just as deep. I took a deep breath. We couldn’t fight like this. Not yet.

Waving my hand, I scanned the white web of patterns for something more suitable, something defensive, something like—something like a web. I grinned anew as the idea took hold. Nicholina had spoken of a spider deep within La Fôret des Yeux. L’Enchanteresse, a cannibalistic creature with silk among the lightest and strongest materials in the natural world.