I searched for the spiders now, spreading my awareness north, east, toward the ancient trees around the city. Their homes. The patterns didn’t follow, however, instead plunging directly into the street. I hesitated. Trees didn’t live below. Perhaps—perhaps the spiders had burrowed underground for winter. I didn’t have time to speculate, however. Not with Morgane across the street, flanked on either side by Josephine and Nicholina. Not with witches closing in.

With another deep breath, I pulled six identical cords. The patterns stretched width-wise until myriad fibers appeared—as thin as webs—and knit themselves tightly into armor.

Dark and fitted, light and flexible, it replaced our clothing in a burst of glittering dust.

Somewhere below, six spiders withered.

Morgane clapped her hands in applause. “How clever you are, darling. How prettily you wear my magic. At last, you suit the company you keep—thieves, all.”

“I’ve stolen nothing from you, maman.”

“You have stolen everything.” Her emerald eyes glittered like broken glass. Jagged and sharp. The emotion within them transcended malice into raw, unadulterated hatred. “But do not question—I am here to reclaim what is mine, and I will butcher every last man, woman, and child who attempts to keep it from me.” She jerked her chin, and the witches advanced in earnest. “Kill them all.”

A mighty roar shook the city in response, and a dark wing shadowed the moon.

Zenna landed beside me a second later. The cobblestones cracked beneath the sheer weight of her. When she snorted derisively, flame spewed forth. Witch, werewolf, and huntsman alike leapt from its path. From atop Zenna’s back—dressed in armor of her own—Seraphine drew an ancient longsword.

I couldn’t help it. I laughed in delight.

Coco had told me of Toulouse’s and Thierry’s torture. She’d told me of Zenna’s promise to eat my mother. Leaning around Zenna’s haunch now, I asked her, “What about dragons?”

Zenna punctuated the challenge with a fresh bout of flame.

Snarling with rage, Morgane scrambled backward as Chasseurs and witches charged. Balisardas flashed. Magic erupted. Zenna snorted again, launching into the air, plucking them from the street one by one and—

And eating them.

“Oh, that is disgusting,” Beau said, grimacing. “The indigestion alone—”

Before he could finish, Morgane brought her palms together one last time. The sharp scent of magic flared.

The ground trembled in answer.

All across the fray, people fought to keep their footing. Even Philippe paused, staggering slightly, with his Balisarda an inch from Terrance’s lupine throat. Reid tensed. His eyes narrowed. Then—

“Get down!” He tackled me from the platform, and we landed hard, whirling as branches shot forth from the very earth, splintering the church steps. They didn’t stop there. Dozens more surfaced rapidly, larger than life, growing trunks and roots, shattering the beautiful stained-glass windows. Growing through them. Stone rained down on our heads, forcing us to scatter into the crowd. I immediately lost sight of Coco and Beau, Célie and Jean Luc. Too short, too slight, I couldn’t navigate the tide of people. I couldn’t tell friend from foe.

Only Reid’s hand in mine kept a loup garou from knocking me back to the ground.

The trees kept growing. They crushed spires and mangled arches until Cathédral Saint-Cécile d’Cesarine crumbled in ruin. Until the forest reclaimed it.

That explained the spiders.

But it didn’t make sense. The forest belonged to Claud, not Morgane. How had she—?

The trees have mobilized, and we shall follow, striking hard and true.

The trees around the Chateau. My stomach twisted. She’d brought her own soldiers.

They didn’t stop there, however, fracturing the street now, their branches catching hair and cloaks as they stretched toward the sky. The woman next to me screamed as one hooked her skirt. As it lifted her higher and higher until the fabric tore. The branch snapped.

She plummeted toward the street.

My magic darted wildly. Panicked, I fought to calm it, to concentrate, but the woman fell too quickly—

Scant seconds before she hit the ground, the tree seemed to shudder. I stared incredulously as Claud Deveraux strolled into view. As he whistled a merry tune. As the tree itself bent—creaking and groaning—and its branches curled to catch the woman midair. To cradle her in a macabre embrace.

Claud winked at me. “Fancy meeting you here, poppet. How did you like my sister?”

I choked on a laugh while the woman shrieked, contorting her limbs to escape the tree. It had ceased moving. “I thought—I thought you couldn’t intervene?” And if not— “Where have you been all this time?”

He clicked his tongue playfully. His mere presence seemed to act as a shield; the crush of bodies waned around us, parted, as if all instinctively knew to change direction. “Tut, tut, Louise,” he said, “or I shall think you self-absorbed. Though it pains me to admit, you and your friends manage quite well without me, and I have an entire realm of the natural world to govern.”

“Like hell we can.” Bemused, I helped Reid untangle the woman from the tree. Self-absorbed. Pfft. “But again, I thought you couldn’t—”

“Oh, you thought correctly, peach.” Though Claud still smiled, the air around us thickened with the scent of rot. Of decay. Poisonous toadstools split open at his feet. The loup garou nearest us swelled with rage, snarling as if possessed, and attacked with newfound savagery. “I am not intervening. Indeed, I am governing said realm as we speak.” His smile darkened at the last, and he turned to search the street. His eyes flashed catlike. “And defending it from trespass.”

I knew without asking for whom he searched.

And Morgane had called me a thief.

“How does she control them?” Reid yielded a step as the woman shoved him and fled up the street, still screaming hysterically. “The trees?”

“They loved her once too.”

With those forbidding words, Claud’s frame nearly doubled in size, and he transformed in full: enormous stag antlers burst from his head. Cloven hooves shredded his shoes. And the trees—they bowed to him as he advanced up the street as the Woodwose.

Their king.

Their god.

“Wait!”