Her pale eyes rose to mine. “He did.”

Coco didn’t look up. Tension radiated from her clenched jaw, her taut shoulders. She snatched my dagger to reopen the cut on her palm. Like me, however, she couldn’t seem to help herself. “And you still loved him?”

“You needn’t do that, darling.” Angelica’s gaze flicked to the wall of water on our right. In response, a thin stream twisted toward us like a serpent. It reached first for Beau, touching the deep puncture in his leg and flowing into his very skin. The wound closed almost instantly, followed by the one on his shoulder. A second tendril unfurled toward Célie, and a third stretched to Angelica. All of their injuries vanished.

“You see?” Angelica smiled, and my breath might’ve caught in my throat a little. I forced a scowl to compensate. “Do not fatigue yourself.” She looked again at Constantin’s lifeless body, her gaze lingering at the hole in his chest, before swallowing hard. The movement made her seem almost human. “But yes, Cosette. I loved him the way we all love things we shouldn’t—to excess. He hurt me in the way those things always do.” That palpable sadness crept back into her voice. “I am sorry he is dead.”

I am sorry he is dead. Just like that, she became something strange and foreign once more.

Coco’s hands clenched around Beau’s collar as his eyes fluttered open. She didn’t thank her mother for healing him. I didn’t blame her. Instead, I scooted closer, pulling Reid with me, and braced my shoulder against hers in silent support. She leaned into the touch, dropping Beau’s shirt as he sat upright. “What happened? Where’s Mor—” His eyes widened when he caught sight of Angelica. To his credit, he only blinked stupidly for about three seconds before turning to Coco. Then he blinked a few times more. “Is this . . . ?”

Coco nodded curtly. When her hand rose to clench her locket in a death grip, Angelica’s eyes followed, widening in disbelief. “You . . . wear my locket,” she said. It sounded like a question.

“I—” Coco stared at the ground with ferocious intent. “Yes.”

A fierce sort of protectiveness pricked my chest at her obvious discomfort. Perhaps I should’ve been angry with her for never telling me about her mother. How many times had we talked about Angelica together? How many times had she chosen not to tell me? A lie of omission was still a lie. Hadn’t I learned that the hard way?

Nicholina had called it a betrayal. Perhaps I should’ve been upset, but I wasn’t. We all had our secrets. I’d certainly kept my fair share. Though I didn’t know why she hadn’t confided in me, I did know Coco had been six years old the last time she’d seen her mother. I knew she didn’t need an audience for this reunion. What she needed was time to process, time to decide what she wanted her relationship with Angelica to look like. To decide if she even wanted that relationship at all.

Resolute, I settled on a pattern to wake Reid, flicking his nose to wield it, eager to distract the others from this painfully awkward situation. One night of my own sleep in exchange for his consciousness now. Simple, yet effective. Nothing too harmful. With Reid awake, we could move on. We could gather our allies to march on Chateau le Blanc or return to Cesarine or—well, I didn’t know exactly, but we could do something other than gawk.

I flicked Reid’s nose once more, waiting for the pattern I’d enacted to dissipate. It didn’t budge. I tried again, clenching my fist this time. It actually recoiled, twisting into a different pattern altogether. And the other patterns in my web—they did too. They grew hopelessly knotted in a way I couldn’t trace or understand, as if the magic itself had grown confused.

I frowned down at him.

What the hell had he done?

Distracted by my nonsensical patterns, I didn’t see or hear Angelica move behind me. Her hand landed on my shoulder. “He will not wake,” she said gently. “Not until he is ready.”

I shot her an irritated look, shrugging away from her touch. “What does that mean?”

“His mind needs time to heal.” She dropped her hand without insult, lacing her fingers together in a maddeningly calm pose. “He is lucky to be alive, Louise. This spell could have done irreparable damage to more than his mind.”

“What spell?” When she didn’t answer, my frown deepened to an outright glower. I pushed to my feet, my cheeks hotter than usual. Claud, Constantin, Angelica—what was the point of omniscience, of omnipotence, if one didn’t use it? I shook my head. “If his mind has been harmed, why can’t you heal him? You healed everyone else!”

She only smiled again, a horrible, pitying smile. “Only he can heal himself.”

“That’s horsesh—”

“Do not worry, Louise.” A hint of that unnatural glow reentered her eyes, and I stepped back despite myself. “His injuries are not fatal. He will wake—of that, I am certain. His path forward, however, cannot yet be seen.”

The waters see things we cannot see, know things we cannot know. Constantin’s warning repeated in my mind. Angelica was a seer, and her magic shaped them.

“Your path, on the other hand, is clear.” She gestured down the narrow split in the waters. It led straight into the heart of L’Eau Mélancolique. In the silver light of the moon, the mist from its flowing walls sparkled like flecks of diamond. She looked almost apologetically to Coco. “I am sorry, fille, that our reunion is fraught with such complication. When you summoned me—”

“I didn’t know I was summoning you,” Coco interjected.

Angelica nodded, though something like pain flashed through her eyes. “Of course. When you called upon the waters, I heard it. I felt your need, and I—well, I needed to answer it.” Her voice gentled as she continued, though she spoke with no less certainty. “There is much you don’t understand, Cosette. I know you are angry with me—as you well should be—but we do not have the luxury of time for lengthy explanations and apologies.”

Coco stiffened at the straightforward words, and I squeezed her arm. Angelica was right, however; this wasn’t the time or place for this conversation. Not with Morgane and Josephine roaming near, not with a corpse at our feet, trapped between colossal walls of water. I eyed them nervously as a long silver fin flicked past.

“To do so,” Angelica continued, recapturing my attention, “you must understand three things. First, I am no longer safe outside these waters. Isla’s benevolence protects me, and she risked much in allowing me to come here. My sister lives in fear of my magic—in fear of Isla herself—but if Josephine had tried to enter these waters, I would not have been able to stop her. For as much as this magic is yours through birth, it is also hers because of our blood bond.”