Her twin raced to join them. Though she glared, her chin quivered. “You don’t need to beg, Violette. Of course he’ll tell him. The witches tried to kill us.”

Beau’s voice turned strangled. “Victoire—”

Auguste’s eyes narrowed. “You would protect a witch over your own sisters?”

“We should go.” Madame Labelle tugged fruitlessly on my arm, her breathing shallow. Panicked. “This was a mistake. Clearly Auguste won’t help us.”

“We can’t just leave him—”

Beau lifted his hands, gesturing to the aristocrats. “It doesn’t have to be this way. They aren’t all evil. If you’d just help us, we can eliminate Morgane. She’s in the city—here, now—and she’s planning something terrible for the Archbishop’s funeral—”

Madame Labelle pulled more insistently. “Reid—”

“You truly are a fool.” Auguste wrapped a possessive arm around each of his daughters, dragging them backward. “I must confess, however, I am not surprised. Though you loathe me, I know you, son. I know your habits. I know your haunts. For fear of losing your newfound friends, I knew you would visit me on this foolish errand.”

Vaguely, I recognized the sound of footsteps behind me. Of voices. Madame Labelle clawed at my arm now, shouting my name, but my mind followed too slow, sluggish. The realization came too late. I turned just as Auguste said, “And I knew you would use the tunnels to do it.”

“Flibbertigibbet!” Beau’s shouts filled the chamber as he whirled toward us with wild eyes. “Bumfuzzle!”

The hilt of a Balisarda smashed into my temple, and I saw no more.

HarperCollins Publishers

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Pride Goeth Before the Fall

Lou

He’d left without me. I stared into my whiskey, tipping it sideways, pouring it slowly onto the wooden bar. Coco took the tumbler from me without missing a beat in her conversation with Liana. Across the tavern, Ansel sat between Toulouse and Thierry. They all laughed at a joke I couldn’t hear.

One big, happy family.

Except they all stared at me, whispering, like I was a cannon about to explode.

And that bastard had left without a word.

I don’t know what I’d expected—I’d practically doused him in whiskey and lit the match. But I hadn’t lied. I hadn’t said anything untrue. That’s what he’d wanted, right? He’d wanted the truth.

Don’t lie to me, he’d said.

I shoved away from the bar, stalking to the filthy window up front and staring through its dirt-streaked panes. He should’ve been back by now. If he’d left when Deveraux said he’d left—when I’d been sulking upstairs in misery—he should’ve climbed back through the tunnel a half hour ago. Something must’ve happened. Perhaps he’d found trouble—

Do you understand now? Does that make me a monster?

No. It makes you your mother.

A fresh wave of anger washed over me. Perhaps he had found trouble. And—this time—perhaps he could sort it out without me. Without magic.

Breath tickled my neck, and I whirled, coming face-to-face with Nicholina. When she grinned at me, I scowled. Blood had stained her teeth yellow. Indeed, her paper-thin skin was now her palest feature, brighter and whiter than the moon. I shouldered past her to an empty table in the corner. “I want to be alone, Nicholina.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard, souris.” She drifted around me, whispering, gesturing to Coco and Ansel, to Blaise and Liana, to Toulouse and Thierry. “They certainly don’t want our company.” She leaned closer. Her lips brushed my ear. “We make them uncomfortable.”

I swatted her away. “Don’t touch me.”

When I plunked down, turning my back to her, she floated to the chair opposite. She didn’t sit, however. I supposed wraiths didn’t sit. One couldn’t look sinister and uncanny with one’s ass on a barstool. “We aren’t so very different,” she breathed. “People don’t like us either.”

“People like me just fine,” I snapped.

“Do they?” Her colorless eyes flicked to Blaise, where he watched me from the bar. “We can sense his thoughts, oh yes, and he hasn’t forgotten how you crushed his son’s bones. He longs to feast on your flesh, make you whimper and groan.”

My own gaze cut to his. His lip curled over sharp incisors. Fuck.

“But you won’t whimper, will you?” Nicholina canted her face closer to mine. “You’ll fight, and you’ll bite with teeth of your own.” She laughed then—the sound skittered down my spine—and repeated, “We aren’t so very different. For years, our people have been persecuted, and we have been persecuted among even them.”

For some reason, I doubted she referred to we as in her and me, the two of us. No. It seemed Nicholina wasn’t the only one living inside her head these days. Perhaps there were . . . others. I told you she’s weird, Gabrielle had confided. Too many hearts. My own heart twisted at the memory. Poor Gaby. I hoped she hadn’t suffered.

Ismay sat at a table with La Voisin, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. A handful of their sisters joined them. Babette had remained in the blood camp to care for those too young, too old, too weak, or too sick to fight.

They hadn’t recovered Gaby’s body.

“We’ll tell you a secret, little mouse,” Nicholina whispered, drawing my attention back to her. “It isn’t on us to make them comfortable. No, no, no it’s not. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not. It’s on them.”

I stared at her. “How did you become like this, Nicholina?”

She grinned again—a too-wide grin that nearly split her face in half. “How did you become like this, Louise? We all make choices. We all suffer consequences.”

“I’m done with this conversation.” Expelling a harsh breath, I returned Blaise’s glare with one of my own. If he didn’t blink soon, he’d lose an eye. Nicholina—though clearly demented—was right about one thing: I would bite back. When Terrance murmured in his ear, he finally shifted his gaze away from me toward the storeroom door. I tensed immediately. Had they heard something I hadn’t? Had Reid returned?

Without hesitating, I curled a finger, and my eyesight clouded. My hearing, however, heightened, and Terrance’s low voice echoed as if he stood beside me. “Do you think he’s dead? The huntsman?”

Blaise shook his head. “Perhaps. There is no peace in the human king’s heart. Reid was foolish to approach him.”

“If he is dead . . . when can we leave this place?” Terrance cast a sidelong look at La Voisin and Ismay, at the blood witches around them. “We owe these demons no loyalty.”

A twitch started in my cheek. Before I realized my feet had moved, I was standing, pressing my fists against the table. The pattern dissolved. “It seems you owe Reid no loyalty either.” They both looked up, startled—angry—but theirs was a flicker to my rage. Nicholina clapped her hands together in delight. Coco, Ansel, and Claud all rose tentatively. “If you suspect he’s in danger, why are you still here?” My voice rose, grew into something beyond me. Though I heard myself speaking, I did not form these words. “You owe him a life debt, you mangy dogs. Or would you like me to reclaim Terrance’s?” I lifted my hands.