Claud—still shaped as the Woodwose—thundered around the corner at the far end of the street. When he saw us, he moved faster, raising his voice to shout, “What is it? What happened? I heard your call—”

Something moved too quickly behind us.

A flash of white. Of moonbeam hair.

“LOOK OUT!” Célie’s unexpected shriek nearly rent the sky, but it was too late. We couldn’t stop it. Paralyzed with fear, we stood rooted as Morgane rose up to meet us. As she lifted her hand to thrust a dagger in my heart. As Claud blasted us backward, and her lips curled into a macabre smile.

“Oh no.” Her ghostly laughter reverberated through the grove. “Oh no, no, no.”

The ground beneath us began to quake.

“It seems you’ve broken the rules, darling.” Tutting, she shook her head. “Old ones.”

Sickening realization dawned. “He’s intervened,” I repeated on a whisper.

As one, Coco and I turned to Claud, who stood alone in the street, his face a mask of calm. The cobblestones cracked and fissured around him. The earth trembled. He looked us squarely in the eyes. “Run.”

The Chasm

Reid

“Would you run?” Incredulous, I glanced over my shoulder at Beau, who lagged behind. He clutched his ribs with one hand. With each stride, he nearly impaled himself with his Balisarda.

He’d stolen it from Philippe.

We hadn’t bothered to free him.

“You run.” Panting, he gestured around the empty street with his other hand. It held another knife. “I can’t fucking breathe, and if you haven’t noticed—there’s no one here!”

I scowled and pushed onward.

He had a point.

This street—that street, every street we’d passed for the last quarter hour—had been virtually empty. We’d succeeded in sequestering most pedestrians inside their homes, inside shops. Inside any buildings we could fortify. Father Achille and Johannes Pan had converted the boucherie next door into an infirmary. They treated the injured there. They gathered the dead.

The witches had . . . withdrawn.

It’d happened slowly. Almost imperceptibly. One moment, we’d fought scores of them. Too many to count. Werewolves and huntsmen, men and women—even melusines, rising up from the Doleur like sea serpents—had fought tooth and nail to contain them. As the hour had passed, however, each had slipped from the fray one by one. Slipped through our fingers. As if answering some unspoken call.

My own breath quickened with each step. They couldn’t have simply vanished.

My voice hardened with resolution. “We need to find them.”

“We need to find our wretched little sisters.” Waving his knife for me to stop, Beau clutched his knees. I scowled, doubling back, and pulled him onward. We would find them. If not, we’d regroup with Lou and Coco, with Father Achille and Jean Luc and Célie, and we’d determine another strategy.

When we rounded the corner, however, all plans of planning fled.

At the end of the street, a horde of witches collected in the shadows.

Beau hissed as I shoved him behind a garbage can, but it mattered not—dozens of heads snapped in our direction. I exhaled a heavy breath. A resigned one. Slowly, I rose to my feet. Beau followed with a curse, muttering, “Have you ever heard of manifestation?”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.” He lifted his Balisarda and knife with white knuckles as three witches broke apart from the rest. The others refocused their attention on something at the center of the group. Something that . . . rattled. Eyes narrowing, I stepped closer. “Actually, don’t. I’d love to hear the next step in your let’s find the bloodthirsty witches plan—”

The clink of metal. Thick rings.

A chain.

My brow furrowed as the three witches moved shoulder to shoulder, blocking my view. It was a chain. An ancient, crusted chain. From the glimpse I’d gotten, it’d looked long enough to encircle half of Cesarine. Wide enough too. A memory harried my subconscious, half-realized. I’d seen this chain in Chateau le Blanc’s treasury. “Hello, princelings,” the middle witch crooned.

With a jolt of shock, I recognized her amber face from Modraniht. It felt like years ago. “Elaina.”

“No.” Beau winced as they drew to a halt before us. Identical black hair and narrow noses. Full lips. They twisted with identical menace. “That one is Elinor. I’d recognize her aura of disdain anywhere.” He pointed a finger to his teeth, flashing a charming smile. “Do you remember me now, sweetheart? Do you see the opportunity you missed?”

“Oh, I remember you, Burke. You made me look a fool in front of the entire coven.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” her sister said, either Elaina or Elodie.

“We’ve been looking for you both all night,” the other finished. “Thank you for making this easy.”

Though all three crooked their fingers at once, nothing happened. No patterns reared to strike. Beau waggled his Balisarda at them, grinning anew. “Something wrong?”

Elinor bared her teeth. “Ask your sister.”

“What does that—”

They attacked before he could finish, slipping knives from their sleeves and launching toward us. Elaina and Elodie at me. Elinor at him. Though quick—though furious—the sisters clearly hadn’t trained for physical combat sans magic. With a sense of dread at those chilling last words, I dispatched the first of them swiftly while Beau battled Elinor strike for strike. Her sister’s blood still dripped from my blade when I turned to face Elodie.

The earth beneath us rolled.

I staggered at the movement, glancing down incredulously. Cobblestones broke to pieces. All around, foundations cracked. Tiles littered the street. And Zenna—from somewhere above, she let out a mighty roar. The witches ahead tensed, renewing their efforts with haste. Half had climbed the drainpipes, stringing the chain taut between rooftops, like a wire. Magic coated everything.

I couldn’t make sense of it. Couldn’t think. The ground kept shaking. Sensing my distraction, the sister slashed her blade down in a mighty strike. Though I recoiled, though I lifted my own blade to parry, another knife whizzed past my face—close enough to feel its heat on my cheek—and lodged in the sister’s chest.