“I’m fine.” Beau desperately strove to comfort her as he countered her strikes, teeth gritted. Breath shallow. “We’re going to be fine—”

Célie stabbed again, this time in his thigh.

Blood poured.

With a wild cry, Coco surged forward as Lou twisted in my arms. Morgane waved a hand, however, and when Coco cleared the water, a glass cage descended around her. She pounded against its walls, furious, and strings wrapped themselves around her wrists and ankles.

Baring her teeth, La Voisin darted forward to intervene.

“The ends, Josephine.” Morgane waved another hand, and the strings tightened, stretching Coco’s limbs taut to the point of pain. A doll in a box. “They justify the means. Is that not what you said?”

La Voisin stopped dead in her tracks. Her body quivered with fury. “My niece remains unharmed.”

“She is unharmed.” Those glittering emerald eyes found Lou. Beau and Célie continued battling behind her, their blood splattering the sand. “For now.”

“You have to let me go, Reid,” Lou pleaded. “She won’t stop—”

“No.” I kept my voice low, shook my head fervently. Tried to ignore my own mounting panic. There had to be another way. My eyes swept over the witches again, assessing. Thirteen in all—six Dames Rouges, judging from the scars on their skin, and seven Dames Blanches. The former would need physical contact to harm, but the latter could attack at any moment. My mind searched wildly for an advantage. Any advantage. Could L’Eau Mélancolique affect our magic? Repress it? If we could somehow lure Morgane into the waters . . . I tested my own patterns. The golden cords rose instantaneously. Shit.

Worse still, one cord continued to shine brighter than the rest, pulsing with insistence. The same cord that had answered at the lighthouse. The same cord I couldn’t pull. I wouldn’t pull.

Save her, the magic whispered. Save them all.

I continued to ignore it.

Coco cried out as her strings tightened, and Lou took advantage of my distraction, finally twisting free. “Look, maman, look.” She waved her hands in a placating gesture. “I’ll play with you now. I’ll even trade toys: me in exchange for Beau and Célie.” Though I still shook my head, reaching for her, she kicked away and continued determinedly. “But you can’t harm them again. I mean it, maman. Any of them. Beau, Célie, Reid, Coco—they’re all safe from this point onward. No one touches them.”

The pattern pulsed. My head continued to shake.

Morgane didn’t seem particularly surprised by Lou’s request, nor did she laugh or dance or goad as she once would have. “You can see how that might present a problem, daughter. With your death, the prince and huntsman will also perish.”

“You assume I’ll die.”

“I know you’ll die, darling.”

Lou smirked then, and the sight of it struck me like a physical blow. Only days ago, I’d feared I would never see that smirk again. My body tensed with barely controlled restraint. “I guess we’ll have to play to find out,” she said.

She started for shore once more.

“No.” I caught her arm. She hadn’t suffered this long—she hadn’t sacrificed everything, walked through literal fire, exorcised a fucking demon—to give up so easily now. Coco had said one life wasn’t worth more than another, but she’d been wrong. Her life meant more. Beau’s and Célie’s lives meant more. And Lou—her life meant most of all. I would ensure she lived it. I would ensure they all lived. “You can’t do this.”

She kicked upward to kiss me in one last desperate plea. “I can’t kill her if I keep hiding, Reid,” she breathed against my cheek. “Remember what your mother said—closing my eyes won’t make it so the monsters can’t see me. I have to play. I have to win.”

“No.” My jaw locked. I couldn’t stop shaking my head. “Not like this.”

“Either I kill my mother, or my mother kills me. It’s the only way.”

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t the only way. She didn’t know that, of course. I’d refused to speak the alternative aloud, refused to acknowledge it even in my own thoughts. The golden cord quivered in anticipation.

Lou had already given so much. She’d journeyed to Hell and back to save us, shattering herself in the process. She couldn’t die now. And if she didn’t die—she spoke of killing her mother lightly, as if matricide wasn’t an unspeakably heinous act. As if it wasn’t unnatural. As if it wouldn’t break her all over again.

“No.”

My purpose resolved as I clutched her face. As I brushed the water droplets from her lashes.

So beautiful.

“You test my patience, children.” Morgane flicked her hand, and Beau, Célie, and Coco all crumpled in identical movements—like toys crushed underfoot. Beau and Célie lost consciousness completely, and Coco bit her lip around a scream. Morgane’s emerald eyes filled with spite. “Perhaps you’re right, little blood witch. Perhaps I’ll kill all of you instead.”

“Do not be foolish,” La Voisin snapped. “Accept the terms. The prince and girl mean nothing. They will die soon enough.”

Morgane whirled to face her. “You dare command me—?”

Faintly, I heard their voices escalate, but my entire world had narrowed to Lou’s face. To the golden pattern. It vied for my attention, nearly blinding now, pointing straight and true at its target. Connecting us. Demanding to be seen. Hope and despair warred deep in my chest. Neither existed without the other.

I would find my way back to her. I’d done it once. I could do it again.

And she’d finally be safe.

“I’ll find you again, Lou,” I whispered, and her brows puckered in confusion. I kissed them smooth. “I promise.”

Before she could answer, I clenched my fist in her hair.

The pattern burst in a shower of gold.

I saw no more.

Part III

C’est l’exception qui confirme la règle.

It’s the exception that proves the rule.

—French proverb

Doubt Creeps in

Nicholina

The pain fades without a body, as does all sense of touch, of smell, of taste. There is no blood as we spiral from sea to sky. There is no magic. No death. Here we are . . . free. We are a gust of wind. We are the winter cold. We are a flurry of snow on the mountainside—swirling, twirling, whirling—nipping the noses of witches below. Our mistress walks among them. She calls them by name.