To my shock, Bas laughed. “Take her head. I’d like to see everything else, though.”

“What did you just say?” Coco spluttered, indignant. “Did you just—Bas. It’s me. It’s Coco.”

Grin slipping, he tilted his head to study her. He gripped her chin between his thumb and finger. “How do you know my name, belle fille?”

“Unhand her,” Beau commanded in a valiant attempt at gallantry. “By order of your crown prince.”

Bone White’s eyes lit up. “What’s this, then? The crown prince?” He crowed with delight. “I didn’t recognize yeh, Yer Highness. Yer an awful long way from home.”

Beau glared down at him. “My father will hear about this, I assure you. You will be punished.”

“Will I, now?” Bone White circled him with a leer. “By my reckonin’, I’d wager yer the one who’ll be punished, Yer Highness. Been gone weeks now, haven’ yeh? The city’s all in an uproar. Yer dad is tryin’ to keep it quiet-like, but rumors spread. His precious boy has taken up with witches. Can yeh imagine? No, I don’ think I’ll be punished for returnin’ yeh home to him. I think I’ll be rewarded.” To Reid, he added, “The knife. Hand it over. Now.”

Reid didn’t move.

Baldy’s blade left a thin line of blood at Coco’s throat. “Bas—” she said sharply.

“How do you know my name?” he repeated.

“Because I know you.” Coco struggled harder, and the blade bit deeper. Bas’s frown deepened inexplicably, as did my own. What was he doing? Why was he pretending not to know her? “We’re friends. Now let me go.”

“D’yeh smell that, then?” Distracted, Bone White stepped toward her, staring at her blood with a peculiar, hungry expression. “Smells like somethin’s burnin’.” He nodded to himself. A pleased smile stretched across his face. “Y’know I’ve heard rumors o’ a witch o’ the blood. They don’ cast wit’ their hands like the others. Swore I saw one meself once. Smelled it, more like. Nearly singed my nostrils off.”

Bas’s voice hardened with conviction. “I’ve never heard of such a thing, and I’ve never seen this woman before in my life.”

Coco’s eyes widened. “You asshole. We practically lived together for a year—”

Baldy clubbed her in the head. Seizing his opportunity, Reid lunged—at the exact same second Coco twisted, trying to coat Baldy’s wrist with her blood. Skin sizzling, he shrieked, and the three collided in a mass of tangled limbs. More men sprang forward amidst the tussle, wrenching away Reid’s Balisarda and pinning them both to the ground. Coco’s blood hissed where it touched the snow. Smoke curled around her face.

Madame Labelle looked on with an anxious expression, but still she didn’t move.

“Well,” Bone White said pleasantly, still grinning, “that solves that, then, dinnit? She’ll fetch a right nice price wit’ the Chasseurs. We passed some o’ them just up the road. Smarmy bastards. They’ve been scourin’ the forest for weeks, makin’ a right mess for us, haven’t they? O’course, I might just keep ’er blood for meself. Near priceless it is, to the right buyer.” Bone White scratched his chin thoughtfully before gesturing to Reid. “And this one? How abouts do you be knowin’ Reid Diggory, son?”

Bas’s grip on his knife tightened. “He arrested me in Cesarine.” Trembling with rage, he knelt beside Reid, sticking his knife in his face. “It’s because of you that my cousin disinherited me. It’s because of you that he left me for dead in the streets.”

Reid stared at him impassively. “I didn’t murder those guards.”

“It was an accident. I only did it because—” Bas spasmed abruptly. Blinking rapidly, he shook his head to clear it. “Because—” He glanced at Coco in confusion. She frowned back at him. “I—why—?”

“Stop yer blatherin’, boy, and get to the point!”

“I—I don’t . . . remember,” Bas finished, brow furrowed. He shook his head once more. “I don’t remember.”

Baldy regarded Coco warily. “Witchcraft, it is. Eerie stuff.”

Bone White snorted in disgust. “I don’t give a damn about witchcraft. All I care about is my couronnes. Now, Bas, tell me—is the other one here? The one they’re all after?” He rubbed his hands together greedily. “Just think what we can do wit’ a hundred thousand couronnes.”

“There are stilts in the wagon, if you’re thinking prosthetics.” Coco bared her teeth in a smile, jerking her chin toward his diminutive legs. The men tried and failed to force her face into the ground. “I’m sure with the right pants, no one would ever know.”

“Shut yer face,” Bone White snarled, his cheeks flushing crimson. “A’fore I shut it for you.”

Coco’s grin vanished. “Please do.”

But it seemed Bone White—despite claiming he didn’t care about witches—had a healthy respect for them. Or perhaps fear. He merely grunted and turned back to Bas. “Well? Is she here?”

I held my breath.

“I don’t—” Bas’s eyes flicked over the troupe members. “I don’t know.”

“What d’ya mean, you don’t know? She’s supposed to be travelin’ wit this one, innit she?” He pointed his knife at Reid.

Bas shrugged weakly. “I’ve never seen her before.”

Relief surged through me, and I closed my eyes, expelling a sigh. Beneath his rather unfortunate new exterior, perhaps Bas was still in there. My old friend. My confidant. I had saved his skin in the Tower, after all. It would’ve been poor repayment for him to watch as his friends chopped off my head. This—this thing with Coco—it was merely an act. He was trying to help us, to save us.

Bone White growled in frustration. “Search the area.”

At the command, my eyes snapped open—just in time to see Reid glance in my direction. When Bone White followed his gaze, I suppressed a groan. “Is she hidin’ behind that tree, then?” he asked eagerly, pointing his knife straight at us. “Over there, boys! She’s over there! Find her!”

“Quiet.” Claud’s whisper sent a tingle down my spine. The air around us felt heavy, thick with spring rains and storm clouds, pine sap and lichen. “Do not move.”

I obeyed his command—hardly daring to breathe—as Bas and one other bandit stalked toward us. The rest remained poised in a circle around the troupe, watching as Baldy began to tie Coco’s hands and feet. She eyed his knife as if contemplating whether to impale herself on it. With a bit more blood, these idiots would rue the day they’d been born.

“I don’t see nothin’,” Bas’s companion muttered, circling us with a frown.

Bas peered into the holly branches, his eyes skipping past us as if we weren’t there at all. “Me either.”

Claud’s hand tightened on my shoulder, silently warning me not to move.

“Anythin’?” Bone White called.

“Nothin’!”