Squaring my shoulders as Reid had done, I turned back to face Nicholina. Her eyes burned with silver light, and her chest rose and fell rapidly. Like me, she struggled to catch her breath, yet this strength in my limbs was hers as well. The waters had healed us both. And suddenly, I understood.

The Wistful Waters healed.

They didn’t exorcise malevolent presences.

I’d have to do that myself.

Gritting my teeth, I launched myself at her.

What It Is to Drown

Lou

As soon as I touched her skin, she rolled, and the waters swept us up again. Nicholina snapped at my throat. Prying her mouth open—keeping it open—I swam with the current this time instead of against. But so many currents swirled around us now, some warm and some cold, some familiar and some foreign. Hundreds upon thousands of them. And I still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, as images rushed past in the water: fragments of faces, bits of skyline, sights and scents and sensations. Each beckoned and threatened simultaneously, like crooked fingers in the dark. They pulled me in every direction, clawing at my hair and tearing at my chemise. My panic became a living thing as I struggled to swim, to fend off Nicholina’s gnashing teeth. How could I exorcise her without drowning myself in the process?

On the heels of that thought came another, swift and sudden and sure.

I could drown her instead—if not in water, then in emotion. Perhaps both.

Instinctively, I kicked down an unfamiliar current, and we spiraled into the temple by Chateau le Blanc.

Blood still coated the mountainside, and there, in the center, Nicholina stood with her maw dripping like a wild animal’s—Nicholina, not Nicola, because in her hand, she held a human heart.

Triumph flared through us both, hot and heady. Triumph and hideous shame.

I encouraged the latter, fanning it higher as we grappled. Hotter. It became a weapon in my hands, and I wielded it like a knife, cutting through the quick of her. Piercing her very heart. This shame—it might kill her, if I let it.

“What did you do, Nicholina?”

“What was necessary.” Her teeth finally sank into my fingers, and I cried out, tearing skin as I pulled them away. She spat blood. “We killed our sisters, yes, and we feel no shame,” she lied, continuing on a single breath. “We would’ve killed her too. We would’ve killed for our mistress.”

“Who—?”

But Nicholina attacked me with new fervor as we watched La Voisin drag an unconscious woman from the temple steps. I sidestepped, craning my neck with a powerful, inexplicable urge to see the woman’s face. La Voisin obliged by tossing her to the ground, but past-Nicholina sprang toward them, obstructing my view. The present one wheeled and charged at me once more. I thanked any god listening—the very waters themselves—for rescinding our powers in this place. When she lashed out, I caught her wrist and twisted. I had skill enough without magic, but it would’ve been impossible to fight a wraith.

Will I become a wraith too, maman?

The thought made me hesitate, made me sick, and Nicholina spun, her elbow connecting sharply with my chest. When I doubled over, unable to breathe, she seized my throat once more. This time, she didn’t let go.

She knew the rules of our game had changed.

Kill me, I whispered to her mind, unable to utter the words aloud. Goading her further, even as agony crescendoed in my lungs, pressure built behind my eyes. The capillaries there ruptured in little bursts of pain before healing once more. It didn’t matter. I gripped her wrists and pressed closer with lethal purpose, staring into those sinister eyes. Kill me, or I’ll kill you.

She snarled, squeezing harder, her own murderous impulse warring against her loyalty to La Voisin, who had told her not to kill me. Who had told her I was for Morgane.

She’ll kill you if you do, I hiss. I’ll kill you if you don’t. Either way, you die.

Choking against her rage, she bared her teeth and forced me to the blood-soaked ground. I fed that rage. I fed it and stoked it and watched it consume her.

“She’ll forgive us, yes,” she breathed, wholly crazed. “Our mistress will understand—”

You stink with fear, Nicholina. Perhaps you were right—perhaps we are alike. Perhaps you fear death too. I forced a grin despite the blinding pressure in my head. Cords hung between us like the strings of a marionette—because Nicholina was a marionette. If I cut her free, she would fall. She would drown. The words raked up my battered throat like shards of glass. Like knives. I forced them past my swollen tongue, gasping, “You’ll soon . . . join Mathieu . . . in the Summerland.”

At his name on my lips, Nicholina made a guttural sound, forgetting her mistress, forgetting everything except her own bloodlust. Pressing her knee into my stomach, she leveraged her entire body, all her strength, against my throat. Her elbows locked.

And I had won.

Bridging upward with all my strength, I punched her arms at the elbow, breaking her grip, and hooked a foot outside hers. Air returned in a dizzying wave as I rolled atop her. I struck her face once, twice, before shoving off her chest to my feet. When I stumbled backward, heaving, La Voisin dropped to one knee beside the unconscious woman. She gripped the woman’s chin hard and lifted her face.

I nearly lost my footing.

Coco stared back at me.

I shook my head incredulously, still reeling from lack of oxygen. It couldn’t be Coco. It had to be someone else—someone nearly identical—

Nicholina tackled me from behind without warning, and we plummeted back into the icy churn of waters. With a high, maniacal laugh, she forced us down an even colder current. I tensed instinctively, fighting the pull, but it was too late.

We landed in a battered bedroom of Chasseur Tower. Bits of broken furniture littered the ground around us. I seized a shard of bedpost as we rolled. When I thrust it at her chest, she lurched sideways, and it lodged in her arm instead. Relentless, I twisted it, relishing her shrieks. “Give up.” I lunged for another piece of wood. “You’re alone. Your lover, your son—they’re gone. They’re dead. Josephine is going to kill you too, and if she doesn’t, Morgane will. You’re in over your head—”

She wrenched the wood from her arm and used it to block my strike. “We are not alone, little mouse. We are never alone.” Giggling softly, she flicked her eyes behind me. “Not like you.”