Just as I chose it now.

My fingers wrapped around the cold metal of my chalice, and I knelt to fill it. No ripples emanated when I broke the waters’ still surface. Instead, it seemed to absorb the movement. Frowning, I tried to slip my hand beneath as well, to splash, to create movement, but I met with an invisible wall. I pushed harder. My hand stopped a hair’s breadth over the surface—so close I could feel the wintry cold emanating from the waters. I still couldn’t touch them. Expelling a harsh breath, I abandoned the attempt. Constantin had said as much.

I eyed the iron chalice warily. This wouldn’t be pleasant.

“Wait.” Coco clasped my forearm when I moved the cup to my mouth. “Lou first. I don’t know what’ll happen when we drink, but I doubt we’ll be able to help her.”

“I don’t think we can help her.” Still, I lowered my hand. “We don’t know what the waters will show her. How can we fight an invisible foe?”

“I’m not saying she’s incapable of fighting her own battle.” Coco rolled her eyes and bent to fill the other chalices. “I’m saying she’s unconscious. She’ll need help with the actual drinking.”

“Oh.” Despite the seriousness of our circumstances, heat crept up my throat. I hurried to help her lift Lou, gently pulling her onto my lap. “Right.”

“Tilt her head back.”

I obliged, fighting the instinct to knock the chalice aside as Coco brought it to Lou’s lips. Because Coco was right—if anyone could do this, Lou could. I held her secure, and slowly, carefully, Coco opened her mouth and tipped the water in. “Easy,” I warned her. “Easy.”

Coco didn’t take her eyes from the task at hand. “Shut up, Reid.”

Nothing happened when the cold water touched Lou’s tongue. Coco poured a little more. It trickled from one corner of her mouth. Still nothing. “She isn’t swallowing,” I said.

“Yes, thank you—” But Coco stopped abruptly when Lou’s eyes snapped open. We both stared down at her. Coco placed a tentative hand on her cheek. “Lou? How do you feel?”

Her eyes rolled to the back of her head in response, and her mouth opened on a violent scream—except no sound came out. Silence still reigned. The waters, however, rippled in an eerie sort of acknowledgment. Gripping her shoulders, I watched helplessly as she scratched at her face, her hair. Like she would tear Nicholina out by force. Her head thrashed. “Shit.” I struggled to hold her, but Coco pushed me backward, downing her chalice in a single swallow.

“Hurry!” She tossed her cup aside, bracing her hands against the shore. “Drink now. The sooner we spill our truths, the sooner we can dip Lou in the—” But her eyes too rolled backward, and though her body didn’t seize as Lou’s had, she fell sideways, comatose, her cheek hitting the sand. Eyes still rolling.

She’d looked like this once before. Seeing nothing. Seeing everything.

A man close to your heart will die.

Cursing bitterly—casting one last look at Lou, who’d gone limp on my lap—I tossed back the contents of my own chalice. If possible, the water tasted even colder than it’d felt. Unnaturally cold. Cruelly cold. It burned my throat all the way down, solidifying to ice in my stomach. In my limbs. In my veins. Within seconds, movement became difficult. Coughing, gagging, I slid Lou from my lap as the first tremor rocked my frame. When I collapsed forward on hands and knees, the edges of my vision paled to white. Strange. It should’ve gone dark, not light, and—

The burn in my lungs vanished abruptly, and my vision cleared. I blinked in surprise. Blinked again. This couldn’t be right. Had I not drunk enough? Straightening, I glanced first to my empty cup, then to Lou and Coco. Surprise withered to confusion. To fear. They’d disappeared in the mist as completely as the others. I shot to my feet. “Lou? Coco?”

“I’m here!” Lou called from down the shoreline. Surprised, relieved, I hurried after her voice, peering through the mist and darkness. Though the moon still suffused the scene in soft silver light, it illuminated little now. Shafts of it shone through the mist intermittently. Blinding me one moment. Disorienting me the next.

“Where are you? I can’t—”

Her hand caught mine, and she stepped into sight, grinning and whole. I stared at her in disbelief. Where her skin had been wan and sickly, it now shone gold, dusted with freckles. Where her hair had been shorn and white, it now spilled long and lustrous down her back, chestnut and sable once more. I caught a strand of it between my fingers. Even her scars had healed. Except . . . except one.

I traced a finger over the thorns and roses at her throat. At my touch, her eyes fluttered shut. Mist undulated around her face, casting her in an ethereal haze. “Do you like it? Coco could make a killing doing this—transforming the macabre into the macabrely beautiful.”

“You’re always beautiful.” Throat tight, I could barely speak the words. She wrapped her arms around my waist, resting her ear against my heart. “Are you . . . better?” I asked.

“Almost.” Grinning anew at my wary expression, she stood on her tiptoes to kiss me. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

I followed blindly, my heart in my throat. A voice at the back of my mind warned it couldn’t be this easy—warned I shouldn’t trust it—but when Lou laced her fingers through mine, pulling me farther into the mist, I let her. Her hand felt warmer than it’d been in ages. And that scent in the air—like magic and vanilla and cinnamon—I inhaled it deeply. An innate sense of peace spread outward from my chest. Of course I didn’t hesitate. This was Lou. She wasn’t a Balisarda, and I wasn’t walking down the aisle. I wasn’t pledging my fate. I’d already done that.

“How did you exorcise Nicholina?” I asked dreamily. “What did the waters show you?”

She smiled at me over her shoulder, lit from within. “I don’t remember you being so chatty, husband.”

Husband. The rightness of the word felt warm. Heady. I grinned and draped my free arm across her shoulders, tucking her firmly against my side. Craving her warmth. Her smile. “And I don’t remember you—”

—spilling her truth, my mind chastised. You haven’t either. This isn’t real.

My smile slipped. Of course it was real. I could feel her against me. Slowing to a stop, I gripped her tighter, spun her around. When she looked up, arching a familiar brow, my breath caught in my throat. Truly, she seemed to be glowing with happiness. I felt like I could fly. “Tell me,” I said softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Tell me what you saw.”