They will die, Nicholina croons. All of them. My mistress will come. She will cut out their hearts.

They will not. She will not.

“We don’t have a choice.” Reid’s words brook no argument. “The Wistful Waters are our only hope.”

“And after? What then, Reid?” They both stare at me for a long moment. “Chateau le Blanc is near. With Lou as herself again—if Zenna doesn’t raze the castle to the ground—maybe we could slip inside and . . . finish this.”

The two walking in front slow their footsteps at the last. Both black-haired. Both unfamiliar.

“It was Nicholina who wanted to storm the Chateau,” Reid says adamantly, “not Lou. Which means it’s the last thing we should do. Morgane and Josephine might be expecting . . .”

But his voice begins to fade as the scene shifts around me.

Say goodbye, Louise. The shadows thicken and solidify into darkness once more. It crushes me beneath its weight, and I’m swept away—away from Reid, away from Coco, away from light. You will not see them again.

Yes, I will.

The words are quiet and small, so insignificant that Nicholina doesn’t hear them. But others do. Though Etienne is gone, Legion wraps their presence around me, folding me into their depths. Their intent is not to harm, however, not to claim. Instead they hold me apart. They keep me together. Hope isn’t the sickness. They hum their own litany now. Their own prayer. It’s the cure.

Another Grave

Reid

Célie emerged from the trees clad in fitted pants and knee-high leather boots. She’d tucked a billowing shirt into them. Jean Luc’s shirt. I recognized the stitching on the collar, the sleeves. Deep blue—Chasseur blue—and gold. On her head, she wore a feathered cavalier hat. On her face, she wore a neatly trimmed beard.

Beau burst into laughter.

“What?” Hastily, she looked down at herself, smoothing her shirt. Checking her hair, tucking an errant strand into her hat. “Is it not convincing?”

“Oh, it’s convincing,” he assured her. “You look like an idiot.”

Beside me, Nicholina giggled from her spot on the ground. We’d bound her wrists again, coating her entire hands in Coco’s blood. Now she couldn’t move a finger if she tried.

Startled, perhaps even scandalized by Beau’s bald honesty, Célie’s brows shot up. “Cosette often wears trousers—”

“But not a beard,” Beau said. “You don’t need a disguise, Célie. Your face isn’t on those wanted posters.”

“Well, I—I just thought I might—” Her face flamed. “Perhaps I’m not wanted by the Crown, but my father will eventually search for me. Jean Luc has spies throughout the kingdom. Should I not take precautions?” At our impassive stares, she lifted her chin defiantly and repeated, “Cosette and Louise wear trousers.”

Beau spread his hands with a smirk. “And there it is.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Your Majesty, please take no offense, but you are a good deal less pleasant than I would have liked to believe.”

Still chuckling, he slung an arm over Coco’s shoulder. “None taken, I assure you.”

Coco pushed him away. “He gets that a lot.”

Crooking his finger at Célie, Beau led her into the first village.

We’d decided the two of them would search for black pearls. Though not ideal, Coco and I needed to remain with Nicholina. We couldn’t easily drag her through the streets with bound and bloody hands. I shuddered to think of her actually speaking if we did find someone who sold them.

By the third village, I’d heard enough of her to last a lifetime.

She reclined atop a rock on the edge of the forest now, moaning and tugging against her rope. Her hands hung limp and useless from her wrists. Like bloody carcasses. “We’re hungry. Shall we venture into just one hamlet? Just one? Just one, just one, to have some fun?” She cast me a wicked glance. “Just one to find a sticky bun?”

I looked away from her blistered hands. Couldn’t bear the sight of them. “Shut your mouth, Nicholina.”

Coco lazed within the roots of a knotted tree while we waited. She picked at the fresh cut on her palm. “She won’t stop until you do.”

“Oooh, clever mouse.” Nicholina sat up abruptly, leering at me. “We don’t just live beneath her skin, no no no. We live beneath yours. It’s warm and it’s wet and filled with short—angry—breaths—”

“I swear to God, if you don’t stop talking—”

“You’ll do what?” With a cackle, she pulled at her ropes again. I pulled back. She nearly toppled from the rock. “Will you harm this pretty skin? Will you strike this freckled flesh? Will you punish us, oh husband, with a good, hard thrash?”

“Ignore her,” Coco said.

Heat suffused my face. My neck. My hands clenched the rope. I could ignore her. I could do it. She wanted a reaction. I would give her none.

Another handful of minutes passed in silence. Then—

“We need to relieve ourselves,” Nicholina pronounced.

I scowled and shook my head. “No.”

“Perhaps in the trees?” She continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Perhaps they deserve it. Naughty, naughty trees. Perhaps they’ll observe it.” Rising to her feet, she cackled at her own perverse joke. I tugged her rope irritably.

“I said no.”

“No?” Disbelief—still feigned, still disingenuous, as if she’d somehow expected my response—laced her voice. Lou’s voice. The sound of it made me ache and rage in equal measure. “You’d have us piss down our leg? Your own wife?”

“You aren’t my wife.”

A sick wave of regret washed through me at the familiar words. At the memory. The ring I’d once given Lou, golden band and mother-of-pearl stone, weighed heavy in my pocket. Like a brick. I’d kept it with me since Léviathan, anxious to return it to her. To slide it back on her finger where it belonged. I would do just that at L’Eau Mélancolique. I would marry her right there on the beach. Just like last time, except proper now. Real.

Nicholina gave a feline grin. “No, we aren’t your wife, are we? Which makes us your . . . what, exactly?” A pause. She leaned closer, brushing her nose against mine. I jerked back. “She fought, you know,” she breathed, still grinning. My entire body went still. My entire being. “She screamed your name. You should have heard her in those last moments. Absolutely terrified. Absolutely delicious. We savored her death.”