Cutting my own strings mercilessly, she repeated the words I’d told him.

“You wreck everything you touch, Ansel. It’s tragic how helpless you are.” Snip. Snip. “You say you’re not a child, Ansel, but you are.” Snip. “You’re a little boy playing pretend, dressing up with our coats and boots. We’ve let you tag along for laughs, but now the time for games is done. A woman’s life is in danger—my life is in danger. We can’t afford for you to mess this up.”

Snip, snip, snip.

As if my life had been worth more than his.

As if his life hadn’t been worth all of ours together.

I’d known it, even then. I’d known how much better he was than us. I stared down at his profile now, his eyes wide and unseeing. Blood matted his hair. It slicked down his graceful neck, stained the back of his coat. “Did you love him, Louise?” Nicholina echoed my mother’s jeer. “Did you watch as the light left those pretty brown eyes?”

Why hadn’t I told him? Why hadn’t I hugged him one last time?

Closing my own eyes, I crumpled to my knees, pressing my forehead against his cheek. I couldn’t feel him, of course. Couldn’t feel anything. Was this what it was to drown? How strange. I couldn’t even bring myself to cry—not when Coco wrenched the knife from his skull, not when Reid pried his lips apart. Not when Nicholina loomed over me, the discarded knife in hand.

She wouldn’t be changing the past by killing me.

Part of me had died here already.

What It Is to Swim

Reid

I didn’t pause to unlace my boots, unfasten my coat. When she hit the water, I moved to follow, already ankle-deep.

A low growl rumbled from behind.

Stiffening, I turned. Amber eyes reflected back at me. White fur gleamed in the moonlight.

I swore softly.

The fucking dog.

It paced along the path, hackles raised and teeth bared. Snorting, it shook its head before whining once. Twice. Its eyes bored into mine as if trying to . . . to communicate something. When it inched closer, I drew a knife. Unsettled. “Not another step,” I said darkly. Flattening its ears, it snarled again, louder now, vicious, and did just that. To Coco, I asked, “How did it get here? Where is Constantin?”

“Leave it.” She watched our standoff while hastily shucking off her own boots. “It isn’t harming anything.”

“Every time something catastrophic happens to us, that dog is there. It’s an ill omen—”

“Lou is probably drowning.” Her fingers moved to the laces of her bodice next. I looked away hastily. “Get your ass in there before—”

We both froze, scenting it at the same time: sharp yet sweet, barely there on the breeze. My nose still burned with its familiar scent.

Magic.

Not mine and not hers. Someone else’s. Which meant—

Célie’s scream split the night. The dog’s ears pricked forward in response, but instead of turning toward it, he stared fixedly at a point within the waters. My blood ran cold. Torn with indecision—rooted in fear—I didn’t move fast enough. I couldn’t block it.

With preternatural speed, the dog careened past me, straight into the heart of the Wistful Waters.

The decision came easily then.

I dove in after it.

The Final Verse

Lou

Nicholina didn’t strike right away. Though I kept my eyes closed, the scene still burned through our shared consciousness. Leisurely, she lifted the knife through the smoke, admiring Ansel’s blood along the blade, while I remained bowed over his corpse, my hands clenched desperately around his shoulders. Through her eyes, I saw how pitiful I’d become. And she relished it. She relished this hideous pain inside me, this dark and noxious poison. It was exactly like hers.

I should’ve forced myself to my feet then—to fight, to flee, to something. And if I couldn’t have stood, I should’ve crawled. I should’ve lifted my fists and raged through the ringing in my ears, should’ve spat in her face before she drove her knife into my back.

But I couldn’t do any of it. I couldn’t even lift my head.

“It isn’t my birthday until next month,” he said sheepishly, but he clutched the bottle to his chest anyway. The fire cast flickering light on his quiet joy. “No one’s ever—” He cleared his throat and swallowed hard. “I’ve never received a present before.”

He’d never received a birthday present.

“I’m sick and tired of everyone needing to protect me. I’d like to protect myself for a change, or even—” When my frown deepened, he sighed and dropped his face into his hands, grinding his palms into his eyes. “I just want to contribute to the group. I don’t want to be the bumbling idiot anymore. Is that so much to ask? I just . . . I don’t want to be a liability.”

A liability.

“She keeps looking at you.” Ansel tripped over a stray limb, nearly landing face-first in the snow. Absalon leapt sleekly from his path.

“Of course she does. I’m objectively beautiful. A masterpiece made flesh.”

Ansel snorted.

“Excuse me?” Offended, I kicked snow in his direction, and he nearly tumbled again. “I don’t think I heard you correctly. The proper response was, ‘Goddess Divine, of course thy beauty is a sacred gift from Heaven, and we mortals are blessed to even gaze upon thy face.’”

“Goddess Divine.” He laughed harder now, brushing the snow from his coat. “Right.”

Gasping now, half laughing and half sobbing, I rocked back and forth, unable to stand it for a single second longer—this great, gaping hole in my chest where Ansel had been. Where Estelle and my mother and Manon and my father and Coco and Beau and even Reid had been. I had once been there too. Happy and whole and safe and sound. What had happened? What had led us here? Surely we’d done nothing to deserve this life. If someone like Ansel had received only neglect, loneliness, and pain for his efforts, for his goodness, what hope could the rest of us have? I’d lied, killed, and cheated—I’d shredded the very fibers of my soul—yet here I was, still standing. He deserved better. He deserved more, so much more than he’d ever been given. In another time, I would’ve screamed and raged at the injustice of it all, at the senselessness, but no amount of anger would change anything now. This was life.