There, on a throne of saplings, sat Morgane le Blanc.
And beside her—eyes closed and limbs dangling—floated Lou.
My breath left in a painful whoosh as I stared at her. Only a fortnight had passed, yet she appeared skeletal and sickly. Her wild hair had been trimmed and neatly braided, and her freckles had disappeared. Her skin—once golden—now appeared white. Ashen.
Morgane had suspended her in midair on her back, with her body bowed nearly in two. Her toes and fingertips just brushed the dais floor. Her head lolled back, forcing her long, slender throat to extend for the entire room to see. Displaying her scar prominently.
Rage unlike anything I’d ever felt exploded through me.
They were making a mockery of her.
Of my wife.
Two sets of hands gripped the back of my coat, but they weren’t necessary. I stood with preternatural stillness, eyes locked on Lou’s inert form.
Elinor stood on tiptoes to get a better look. She giggled behind her hand. “She’s not as pretty as I remember.”
Elaina sighed. “But look how slender she is.”
I turned to look at them. Slowly. The hands at my back tightened.
“Easy,” Beau breathed at my shoulder. “Not yet.”
I forced a deep breath. Not yet, I repeated to myself.
Not yet not yet not yet.
“What’s the matter with you three?” Elaina’s voice rang unnaturally loud in the hush of the room. Shrill and unpleasant.
Before we could answer, Morgane rose from her seat. The murmured conversation in the room died instantly. She smiled down at us with the air of a mother beholding her favorite child.
“Sisters!” She lifted her hands in supplication. “Blessed be!”
“Blessed be!” the witches hailed back in unison. A rapturous joy lit their faces. Alarm tempered my rage. Where was Madame Labelle?
Morgane took a step down the dais. I watched helplessly as Lou floated along behind her. “Blessed be thy feet,” Morgane cried, “which have brought thee in these ways!”
“Blessed be!” The witches clapped their hands and stomped their feet in wild abandon. Dread snaked down my spine as I watched them.
Morgane took another step. “Blessed be thy knees, that shall kneel at the sacred altar!”
“Blessed be!” Tears ran down the plump witch’s face. Beau watched her in fascination, but she didn’t notice. No one did.
Another step. “Blessed be thy womb, without which we would not be!”
“Blessed be!”
Morgane had fully descended now. “Blessed be thy breasts, formed in beauty!”
“Blessed be!”
She stretched her arms wide and threw her head back, chest heaving. “And blessed be thy lips, that shalt utter the Sacred Names of the gods!”
The witches’ cries rose to a tumult. “Blessed be!”
Morgane lowered her arms, still breathing heavily, and the witches gradually quieted.
“Welcome, sisters, and merry Modraniht!” Her indulgent smile returned as she stepped to the head of the middle table. “Draw near to me, please, and eat and drink your fill! For tonight we celebrate!”
The witches cheered once more, and they scrambled for the chairs nearest her.
“Consorts can’t sit at the tables,” Elaina called hastily over her shoulder. She rushed after her sister. “Va-t’en! Go stand by the wall with the others!”
Relief surged through me. We quickly joined the other consorts at the back wall.
Beau directed us toward one of the windows. “Here. I’m getting a headache from all the incense.”
The position offered an unimpeded view of Morgane. With a lazy wave of her hand, she called forth the food. Soon sounds of clinking cutlery joined the laughter echoing through the hall. A consort beside us turned and said in awe, “She is almost too beautiful to look upon, La Dame des Sorcières.”
“So don’t look at her,” I snapped.
The girl blinked, startled, before shuffling away.
I turned my attention back to Morgane. She looked nothing like the drawings in Chasseur Tower. The woman was beautiful, yes, but also cold and cruel—like ice. She had none of Lou’s warmth in her. She had none of Lou in her at all. The two were night and day—winter and summer—and yet . . . there was something similar in their expression. In the set of their jaw. Something determined. Both confident in their ability to bend the world to their will.
But that was how Lou used to look. Now, she floated near Morgane as if sleeping. A witch stood by her side. Tall and ebony-skinned. Sprigs of holly braided through her black hair.
“A poor witch’s Cosette,” a voice murmured beside me. Coco. She watched Lou and the ebony witch with an unfathomable expression.
A small hand touched my arm through the window. I spun swiftly.
“Don’t turn around!”
I stopped moving abruptly, but not before glimpsing strawberry blond hair and Madame Labelle’s alarmingly familiar blue eyes.
“You look the same.” I attempted to move my lips as little as possible. Coco and I inched back until we were pressed against the windowsill. Ansel and Beau fell in on either side of us, completely blocking Madame Labelle from view. “Why aren’t you disguised? Where have you been?”
She huffed irritably. “Even my power has its limits. Between casting the protective enchantment on our camp and transforming all your faces—as well as maintaining those transformations—I’m spent. I could barely manage lightening my hair, which means I can’t come inside. I’m too recognizable.”
“What are you talking about?” Coco hissed. “Lou never had to maintain patterns in the infirmary. She just—I don’t know—did them.”
“Did you want me to alter your face permanently, then?” Madame Labelle skewered her with a glare. “By all means, it would be much easier for me to be done with it and have you all remain lecherous little cretins forever—”
Heat crept up my throat. “Lou practiced magic in the church?”
“So what’s the plan?” Ansel whispered hastily.
I forced myself to refocus on the tables. The meal was quickly coming to an end. Music drifted in from somewhere outside. Already some had risen from their chairs to retrieve their consorts. Elaina and Elinor would soon be upon me.
“The plan is to wait for my signal,” Madame Labelle said tersely. “I’ve made arrangements.”
“What?” I resisted the urge to turn around and throttle her. Now was not the time or place for vague and unhelpful instructions. Now was the time for conciseness. For action. “What arrangements? What signal?”
“There’s no time to explain, but you’ll know when you see it. They’re waiting outside—”
“Who?”
I stopped talking abruptly as Elinor bounded up to us.
“Ha!” she cried, triumphant. Her breath smelled sweet with wine. Her cheeks flushed pink. “I beat her here! That means I get first dance!”
I dug in my feet as she pulled me away, but when I glanced back over my shoulder, Madame Labelle had gone.
I spun Elinor around the clearing without seeing her. It’d taken a quarter of an hour to trek to this unnatural place, hidden deep within the shadow of the mountain. The same thick mist from La Forêt des Yeux clung to the ground here. It swirled around our legs as we danced, matching the lilting melody. I could almost see the spirits of witches long dead dancing within it.