“We can’t defeat an entire castle of witches by ourselves,” Jean Luc said, treacherous and cowardly in equal measure. Judas incarnate. “This is our best option. Get up the stairs, or I’ll help him drag you.”

Footsteps pounded louder now. Biting back a curse—because they were right—I seized Manon and sprinted past them. The scent of magic burst behind me as Lou relocked the door. Upstairs, she swung her arms in frantic movements. The treasure complied, settees and wardrobes shifting, stacking, to form a precarious ladder. “It’s fine.” Beau bent double, hands braced against his knees. “They can’t get through the door. We have time—”

I flung Manon into an empty chair. “We don’t.”

Still rigid, she slid sideways to the floor. “They’ll surround the castle soon.” To Lou, she whispered, “I told you that you won’t escape again.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Lou stomped over as Jean Luc boosted Célie on top of the wardrobe. Beau and Coco scrambled up behind her. Crouching beside the witch’s prostrate body, Lou flipped her over with another wave. Manon relaxed instantly, and Lou—I stared incredulously—she helped the witch sit up with gentle hands. “Morgane ordered you to kill your lover, Manon. Gilles is dead because of her. How can you still serve such a woman? How can you stand idly by as she tortures and kills children?”

Her words acted as a spark to kindling. Manon lurched forward with a feral snarl, snatching Lou’s shoulders. “My sister is one of those dead children, and Morgane did not kill her. I did. Gilles died at no other’s hands but my own. I made a choice in that ally—a choice I cannot undo. I have gone too far now to turn back.” Tears spilled freely down her cheeks at the confession. When she spoke again, her voice broke. “Even if I wanted to.”

I watched, stricken, as Lou hastily wiped her tears. “Listen to me, Manon. No, listen. Look around you”—she motioned to the others, to herself and to me—“and tell me what you see.”

“I see traitors—”

“Exactly.” Lou reached up to clutch Manon’s wrists, eyes wide and imploring. “I betrayed my coven. Reid and Jean Luc have betrayed their Church, and Beau and Célie have betrayed their Crown. All of us—we’re fighting for a better world, just like you are. We want the same thing, Manon. We want peace.”

Manon’s entire body trembled with emotion as her tears continued to fall. They stained Lou’s lap. Stained the dirty floor between them, glittering bright in the firelight. At last, Manon dropped her hands. “You’ll never have it.”

Lou studied Manon’s face wistfully for a moment—regretfully—before rising to her feet. “You’re wrong. There are very few choices in life that can’t be unmade, and the time has come for you to make another one. I won’t restrain or otherwise harm you. Go. Tell Morgane you saw me if you must, but don’t try to stop us. We’re leaving.”

Manon didn’t move.

Lou stalked to the furniture without another word—then hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder. Instead of Manon, however, her eyes found mine, and she spoke in a murmur. “You’ve stalled long enough, Reid. Climb up. I promise you won’t fall.”

I swallowed hard. Somehow, she knew my chest had tightened and my vision had narrowed. She knew my palms had started to sweat. She knew I’d hesitated beside Manon not to protect the group from her wrath, but to prolong the inevitable. To think of some way—any way—out of this room except the window. And that meant she knew my weakness, my vulnerability. Anger blazed through the thick paralysis of my thoughts, spurring me toward the furniture.

“Why did you get to keep yours?” Manon whispered behind us.

Sadness clouded Lou’s face as she gazed back at me. “I didn’t.”

One by one, we squeezed through the window onto the roof. My head pounded. My heart raced. Twice on the furniture, my foot had slipped, and I’d nearly crashed to the floor. Though Lou had maintained a steady stream of encouragement, I longed to wring her neck. This rooftop could’ve been a steeple, a needle, so pitched was its slope.

“I will kill you for this,” I promised her.

Crouching low, she peered over the eave to where the others scaled rock with their knives. Their limbs trembled with effort. With strain. “I look forward to it, believe me.” She slipped her own knives from her boots. “Until then, do you think you can reach that turret?”

I followed the direction of her knife. Directly below us, at the base of the tower, a spire jutted from the side of the castle. It looked likely to collapse at any moment. “This is madness.”

“You go first. I’ll follow.”

Peeling each finger from the shingles—they’d become my lifelines—I scooted down the slope. Lou crab walked beside me. “That’s it.” She nodded with excessive cheer, her eyes too bright. Her smile too wide. She either worried more than she said, or she enjoyed this more than she should. Both were unacceptable.

When I inched over the eave, my foot slipped a third time.

A rush of wind.

A sickening, weightless sensation.

And a hand.

Her hand.

It caught mine as it slipped from the edge, and her second followed, wrapping around my wrist. My vision swam with black spots as I dangled midair. As the wind roared past my ears. My heart thrashed wildly. I couldn’t see her properly, couldn’t hear her panicked instructions. There was only the ground looming beneath me, my body suspended midair. Helplessly, I clawed at her. Her arms shook beneath my weight.

“Lift me up!” My shouts sounded delirious to even my ears. “Lift me up now!”

A shadow shifted in her eyes at the command. She flashed a feline grin. “Tell me I’m pretty.”

“I—what?”

“Tell me,” she repeated in a hard voice, “that I’m pretty.”

I stared at her for one heart-stopping moment. She couldn’t be serious, yet she was. From her weak arms to her spiteful eyes to her sharp smile, she was serious. She could drop me—she would drop me—if I didn’t appease her soon. She couldn’t support my weight indefinitely. But what was she asking? For me to lie? To flatter her? No. She wanted something else. Something I couldn’t give her. Through gritted teeth, I spat, “You said you wouldn’t let me fall.”