“But today—today we bring you a different story.” She paused, another naughty smile touching her lips. “Lesser known and darker in nature, but still the tale of a holy man. We shall call him an archbishop.”

The Archbishop stiffened beside me as a woman strode out of the wagon wearing choral robes uncannily similar to his own. Even the shades of crimson and gold matched. She trained her face into a severe expression. Brows furrowed, mouth tight.

“Once upon a time in a faraway place,” the young narrator began, her voice turning musical, “or not so far, as is truly the case, lived an orphan boy, bitter and ignored, who found his call in the work of the Lord.”

With each word, the woman portraying the Archbishop stepped closer, lifting her chin to glare down her nose at us. The real Archbishop remained still as stone. I risked a glance at him. His gaze was locked on the young narrator, his face noticeably paler than a few moments ago. I frowned.

The pretend Archbishop lit a match and held it before his eyes, watching it smoke and burn with unsettling fervency. The narrator dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. “With faith and fire in his heart, he hunted the wicked and set them apart to burn at the stake for evil committed . . . for the Lord’s word no magic permitted.”

My sense of foreboding returned tenfold. Something was wrong here.

A commotion down the street distracted the audience, and the Chasseurs appeared. Reid rode in front, with Jean Luc following closely behind. Their identical expressions of alarm became clear as they drew closer, but the troupe’s wagons—and the audience—blocked the street. They hurried to dismount. I started toward them, but the Archbishop caught my arm. “Stay.”

“Excuse me?”

He shook his head, eyes still fixed on the narrator’s face. “Stay close to me.” The urgency in his voice stilled my feet, and my unease deepened. He didn’t release my arm, his skin clammy and cold on mine. “Whatever happens, do not leave my side. Do you understand?”

Something was very wrong here.

The pretend Archbishop raised a fist. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”

The narrator leaned forward with a wicked gleam in her eyes and brought a hand to her mouth, as if revealing a secret. “But he failed to remember God’s plea to forgive. So Fate, a cruel, cunning mistress, did plan another end for this bloodthirsty man.”

A tall, elegant woman with deep brown skin swept from the wagon next. Her black robes billowed as she circled the pretend Archbishop, but he didn’t see her. The real Archbishop’s grip on me tightened.

“A beautiful witch, cloaked in guise of damsel, soon lured the man down the path to Hell.” A third woman fell from the wagon, clothed in dazzling white robes. She cried out, and the pretend Archbishop raced forward.

“What is going on?” I hissed, but he ignored me.

The pretend Archbishop and the woman in white moved in a sensual circle around one another. She trailed her hand down his cheek, and he drew her into his arms. Fate looked on with a sinister smile. The crowd muttered, gazes shifting between the actors and the Archbishop. Reid stopped trying to push through the crowd. He stood rooted to the spot, watching the performance through narrowed eyes. A ringing started in my ears.

“To bed did he take her, forsaking his oath, revering her body—the curve of her throat.” At this, the narrator glanced up at the Archbishop and winked. The blood left my face, and my vision narrowed to her ivory skin, to the youthful radiance emanating from her. To her eerily familiar green eyes. Like emeralds.

The ringing grew louder, and my mind emptied of coherent thought. My knees buckled.

The pretend Archbishop and the woman in white embraced, and the crowd gasped, scandalized. The narrator cackled. “She waited until the height of his sin to reveal herself and the magic within. Then she leapt from his bed and into the night. How he cursed her moonbeam hair and skin white!”

The woman in white cackled and twisted out of the pretend Archbishop’s hold. He fell to his knees, fists raised, as she fled back to the wagon.

Moonbeam hair. Skin white.

I turned slowly, my heart beating a violent rhythm in my ears, to stare at the Archbishop. His grip on my hand turned painful. “Listen to me, Louise—”

I jerked away with a snarl. “Don’t touch me.”

The narrator’s voice rose. “From that night forward, he strove to forget, but alas! Fate had not tired of him yet.”

The woman in white reappeared, her stomach swollen with child. She pirouetted gracefully, her gown fanning out around her, and from the folds of her skirt, she pulled forth a baby. No more than a year old, the child cooed and giggled, her blue eyes crinkling with delight. Already, a constellation of freckles sprinkled her nose. The pretend Archbishop fell to his knees when he saw her, tearing at his face and robes. His body heaved with silent shrieks. The crowd waited with bated breath.

The narrator bent beside him and stroked his back, crooning softly in his ear. “A visit soon came from the witch he reviled with the worst news of all”—she paused and looked up at the crowd, grinning salaciously—“she’d borne his child.”

Reid broke through the crowd as their muttering grew louder, as they turned to stare at the Archbishop, the disbelief in their eyes shifting into suspicion. The Chasseurs followed, hands tight on their Balisardas. Someone shouted something, but the words were lost in the tumult.

The narrator rose slowly—young face serene amidst the descending chaos—and turned toward us. Toward me.

The face of my nightmares.

The face of death.

“And with not just any a child did he share.” She smiled and extended her hands to me, face aging, hair lightening to brilliant silver. Screams erupted behind her. Reid was sprinting now, shouting something indiscernible. “But with the Witch, the Queen . . . La Dame des Sorcières.”

Part III

C’est cela l’amour, tout donner, tout sacrifier sans espoir de retour.

That is love, to give away everything, to sacrifice everything, without the slightest desire to get anything in return.

—Albert Camus

Secrets Revealed

Lou

Screams rent the air, and the crowd scattered in panic and confusion. I lost sight of Reid. I lost sight of everyone but my mother. She stood still in the swarming crowd—a beacon of white in the impending shadows. Smiling. Hands extended in supplication.

The Archbishop pulled me behind him as the witches converged. I cringed away, unable to process the emotions pounding through me—the wild disbelief, the debilitating fear, the violent rage. The witch in black, Fate, reached us first, but the Archbishop tore his Balisarda from his robes and sliced it deep across her breast. She staggered down the steps into her sister’s arms. Another shrieked and charged forward.

Blue flashed, and a knife split her chest from behind. She gasped, clutching helplessly at the wound, before a hand pushed her forward. She slid off the blade slowly and crumpled.

There stood Reid.

His Balisarda dripped with her blood, and his eyes burned with primal hatred. Jean Luc and Ansel fought behind him. With a quick jerk of his head, he motioned me forward. I didn’t hesitate, abandoning the Archbishop and rushing into his outstretched arms.