I nearly stabbed Manon straight in the eye.

“She isn’t here, Louise.” Voice quiet, she didn’t meet my gaze, hers darting all around us. Twin gashes slashed each cheek. Though one bled freely—fresh—the other looked older. It’d started to scab. She backed away, pulling her clammy hand from mine and melting into the shadows. “You must turn back.”

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with our sisters?”

She hesitated at the bitter note in my voice. Quieter still, she said, “You speak as if we have a choice.”

“Where is she? Tell me, Manon.”

“She’ll kill us.” When she brushed the healing wound with her fingertips, I understood. Though Manon hadn’t revealed our identities to Morgane, she had let thieves escape. Backing away once more, Manon touched her other cheek now. The one with fresh blood. “Or your huntsmen will.”

My stomach sank. Conscious of every step, every sound, I followed after her, extending a hand. A lifeline. “Come with me. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

She only shook her head. “The dragon will fall, but still we’re outmatched. Morgane knows this. Don’t allow her to manipulate the—”

A branch snapped behind us. I jumped, slashing my knife backward, but Coco’s voice rose in a shout. She lifted her hands wildly. “It’s me! It’s only me! What’s going on? I saw you tearing past earlier. Is it Reid? Is it Beau? I lost track of him, and—”

“They’re both fine.” I clutched my chest with insidious relief. “It’s Manon. She said—she said that—”

But when I turned to face her once more, she wasn’t there. She’d vanished.

In her place stood Josephine and Nicholina.

When a God Intervenes

Lou

It happened too quickly to stop. Snarling, Coco pulled me behind a tree, slashing open her arm in the same movement. The instant my back touched the trunk, I registered two things: first, a warm, wet substance coated the bark—mixed with stinging nettles—and second, it melted my armor instantly.

Then came pain. Violent pain.

It ripped through my limbs as serrated branches pierced my hands and my feet, lifting me in the air like Jesus to the cross. Though I tried to scream for Claud, for Zenna, for anyone, thorns shot forth across my mouth. They lacerated my lips, my cheeks, gagging me with poisoned tips. Helplessly, I thrashed, but the spikes and thorns bit deeper.

Though Coco reached for me in horror, Nicholina pounced, giggling when Coco sprayed blood across her face—then punching her fist into Coco’s rib cage. No. Through it. Straight toward her heart. Choking on a gasp, Coco clawed at Nicholina’s wrist, her eyes wide and unseeing.

When Nicholina squeezed, she fell frighteningly still.

“Nicholina.” Josephine’s deep voice cut through the night. “Enough.”

Nicholina glanced back at her mistress, laughter fading. They held gazes for a second too long before—reluctantly—Nicholina withdrew her hand from Coco’s chest cavity. The latter’s eyes rolled, and she collapsed, unconscious, to the ground. “Nasty,” Nicholina muttered.

Josephine didn’t react. She only stared at me. No longer impassive, she lifted her chin with the chilling words, “Bring me her heart.”

If Nicholina hesitated—if a shadow crossed her expression—the movement was near indiscernible. I could do nothing but watch, delirious with pain, as she took a single step in my direction. Two. Three. My heart pounded savagely, pumping more of Josephine’s blood through my veins. More poison. I wouldn’t close my eyes. She would see her reflection in their depths. She would see this monster she’d become, this perversion of the person she’d once been: her own features, her son’s features, twisted into something sick and wrong. Four steps now. Coco’s blood still dripped from her hand. It scorched the skin there.

She ignored it.

On the fifth step, however, her eyes flicked to the Doleur. It wound behind us though the city, the river where the Archbishop had almost drowned me, where Reid and I had spoken our vows. Josephine followed her gaze, snarling at something I couldn’t see. I strained to hear, but the dull roar of the water revealed nothing. “Do it,” Josephine said quickly. “Do it now.”

Though Nicholina moved with renewed urgency, her entire body shuddered with the next step. Her foot lurched. Slipping, she crashed to her knees in a graceless movement. Confusion warped her ghastly face. Confusion and—and panic. Gritting her teeth, she struggled to stand as her muscles spasmed. As they rioted against her.

I stared at her now, hardly daring to hope.

“Naughty, nasty.” Each word burst from her in a sharp exhale, as if she suffered terrible pain. Her entire body bowed. Still she crawled forward, her nails tearing through earth. “Tricky—little—mice—”

“Useless.” Lip curling with disgust, Josephine strode toward me, kicking Nicholina’s ribs as she went. Hard. “I will do it myself.”

Nicholina’s head lifted with a frighteningly blank expression.

On my first day in Cesarine, a stray dog had meandered into the garbage where I’d hidden. Shivering and alone, his only possession had been a bone. I’d watched as a cruel child had stolen it from him, as she’d beaten him with it until the dog had snapped, lunging forward to bite her hand. Later that day—after the girl had scampered away, crying and bleeding—a man had patted the dog’s head as he passed, feeding him a bit of calisson. The dog had followed him home.

Like a stray dog in the garbage, Nicholina snapped, plunging her nails into her mistress’s calf.

Josephine jerked as if startled, her eyes narrowing with incredulity—then widening with rage. With a feral snarl, she swooped to seize Nicholina’s hair, wrenching her attendant upward and sinking her teeth deep into her throat. Bile rose in my own as those teeth crunched and snapped—feasting hungrily—while Nicholina kicked helplessly. Her screams ended in a gurgle.

Josephine had torn out her vocal cords.

Even then, she didn’t stop. She drank and drank until Nicholina’s hands slackened and her feet fell limp. She drank until splashes sounded behind us, accompanied by piercing undulations. Battle cries. When the first naked woman sprinted past—silver hair rippling and trident flashing—I never thought I’d be so grateful to see Elvire’s backside.