I’d been buffed and polished to perfection, every mark and memory of the past two years erased from my body. A perfect corpse. My nursemaids arrived each morning at dawn to help Manon bathe and dress me, but with each sunrise, they spoke less.
“She’s dying right before our eyes,” one had finally muttered, unable to ignore the increasing hollowness of my eyes, the sickly pallor of my skin. Manon had shooed her from the room.
I supposed it was true. I felt more connected with Estelle and Fleur than I did with Manon and my nursemaids. Already, I had one foot in the afterlife. Even the pain in my head and stomach had dulled—still there, still inhibiting, but somehow . . . removed. As if I existed apart from it.
“It’s time to get dressed, Lou.” Manon stroked my hair, her dark eyes deeply troubled. I didn’t attempt to move away from her touch. I didn’t even blink. I only continued my unending stare at the ceiling. “Tonight is the night.”
She lifted my nightgown over my head and bathed me quickly, but she avoided truly looking at me. A fortnight of inadequate eating on the road had forced my bones to protrude. I was gaunt. A living skeleton.
The silence stretched on as she stuffed my limbs into the white ceremonial gown of Morgane’s choosing. An identical match to the gown I’d worn on my sixteenth birthday.
“I’ve always wondered”—Manon swallowed hard, glancing at my throat—“how you managed to escape last time.”
“I gave up my life.”
There was a pause. “But . . . you didn’t. You lived.”
“I gave up my life,” I repeated, voice slow and lethargic. “I had no intention of returning to this place.” I blinked at her before returning my gaze to the moondust on the sill. “Of seeing you or my mother or anyone here ever again.”
“You found a loophole.” She exhaled softly on a chuckle. “Brilliant. Your symbolic life for your physical one.”
“Don’t worry.” I forced the words from my lips with extreme effort. They rolled—thick and heavy and poisonous—off my tongue, leaving me exhausted. She laid me back against my pillow, and I closed my eyes. “It won’t work again.”
“Why not?”
I peeked an eye open. “I can’t give him up.”
Her gaze dropped to my mother-of-pearl ring in an unspoken question, but I said nothing, closing my eyes once more. I was vaguely aware of someone knocking, but the sound was far away.
Footsteps. A door opening. Shutting.
“Louise?” Manon asked tentatively. My eyes fluttered open . . . whether seconds or hours later, I did not know. “Our Lady has requested your presence in her chambers.”
When I didn’t respond, she lifted my arm over her shoulder and hoisted me from the bed.
“I can only escort you to her antechamber,” she whispered. My sisters drew back—surprised—as we walked through the corridors. The younger ones craned their necks to get a good look at me. “You have a visitor, apparently.”
A visitor? My mind immediately conjured up hazy images of Reid bound and gagged. The horror in my chest felt deadened, however. Not nearly as painful as it would’ve once been. I was too far gone.
Or so I’d thought.
For as Manon left me slumped in Morgane’s antechamber—as the door to the inner rooms swung open—my heart started beating again at what I saw there.
At who I saw there.
It wasn’t Reid bound and gagged on my mother’s settee.
It was the Archbishop.
The door slammed shut behind me.
“Hello, darling.” Morgane sat next to him, trailing a finger down his cheek. “How are you feeling this afternoon?”
I stared at him, unable to hear anything beyond my wildly pounding heart. His eyes—blue like mine, but darker—were wide and frantic. Blood from a cut on his cheek dripped sickeningly onto his gag and soaked the fabric.
I looked closer. The gag had been torn from the sleeve of his choral robes. Morgane had literally silenced him with his holy vestment.
In another time, in another life, I might’ve laughed at the unfortunate situation the Archbishop had landed himself in. I might’ve laughed and laughed until my chest ached and my head spun. But that was before. Now, my head spun for a different reason. There was nothing funny here. I doubted anything would ever be funny again.
“Come, Louise.” Morgane stood and gathered me in her arms, carrying me farther into the room. “You look dead on your feet. Sit and warm yourself by the fire.”
She deposited me next to the Archbishop on the faded settee, wedging herself on my other side. The seat wasn’t big enough for all three of us, however, and our legs pressed together with horrible intimacy. Heedless of my discomfort, she wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled my face to the crook of her neck. Eucalyptus choked my senses. “Manon tells me you won’t eat. That’s very naughty.”
I couldn’t force my head back up. “I won’t starve before nightfall.”
“No, I suppose you’re right. I do hate to see you so uncomfortable though, darling. We all do.”
I said nothing. Though I frantically tried retreating back into that welcome darkness, the Archbishop’s leg was too heavy against mine. Too real. An anchor holding me here.
“We discovered this despicable man early this morning.” Morgane eyed him with unabashed glee. “He was wandering around La Forêt des Yeux. He’s lucky he didn’t drown in L’Eau Mélancolique. I must admit I’m a bit disappointed.”
“I . . . don’t understand.”
“Really? I should’ve thought it obvious. He was searching for you, of course. But he wandered a bit too far from his motley band of huntsmen.” Though I hardly dared to hope, my heart leapt at the revelation. She smiled cruelly. “Yours wasn’t among them, Louise. It seems he’s washed his hands of you.”
It hurt less than I anticipated—perhaps because I had anticipated it. Of course Reid hadn’t accompanied them. He, Coco, and Ansel were hopefully safe at sea—somewhere far, far away from the death that loomed here.
Morgane watched my reaction closely. Unsatisfied with my blank expression, she gestured to the Archbishop. “Should I kill him? Would that make you happy?”
The Archbishop’s eyes swiveled to meet mine, but otherwise, his body remained still. Waiting.
I stared at him. I’d once wished this man every version of a fiery and painful death. For all the witches he’d burned, he deserved it. For Fleur. For Vivienne. For Rosemund and Sacha and Viera and Genevieve.
Now, Morgane handed it to me, but . . .
“No.”
The Archbishop’s eyes widened, and a slow, malevolent smile broke across Morgane’s face. As if she’d expected my answer. As if she were a cat examining a particularly juicy mouse. “How interesting. You spoke of tolerance earlier, Louise. Please . . . show me.” With a flourish, she removed the gag from his mouth, and he gasped. She looked between us with fervent eyes. “Ask him anything.”
Ask him anything.
When I said nothing, she patted my knee in encouragement. “Go on. You have questions, don’t you? You’d be a fool if you didn’t. Now is your chance. You won’t get another. Though I’ll honor your request not to kill him, others won’t. He’ll be the first to burn when we reclaim Belterra.”