Nicholina took advantage of my terror, seizing my hair and wrenching my face upward. “Look at yourself, mouse. Smell your fear even now, so thick and delicious. So lovely.” She inhaled deeply against the scars on my throat. “And you fear so much, don’t you? You fear your own mother, your own father. You fear your own husband.” When she licked down the column of my neck, I twisted from her grip, smashing my crown into her face and staggering forward. She wiped a hand across her bloody nose before bringing it to her lips. Her tongue flicked out like a snake’s. “But you should feel lucky you tricked him, oh yes, because if you hadn’t tricked him—such a tricky little mouse—he never would’ve loved you. If he had known what you are, he never would’ve held you beneath the stars.”

I glanced over my shoulder to where Reid and I still stared at each other, frozen. From the wings of the theater, Estelle moved to help me. Nicholina laughed. “You burned her, Louise. Your fear burned her.”

When Reid flung me away, I winced, watching as my battered body hit the stage once more.

But there—in his gaze—

He was frightened too.

He was frightened, yet he rose with the stagehands when they came. Though his hands shook, he didn’t fight them, didn’t cower or plead or flee. And I wouldn’t either. Fear was inevitable. We all made our choices, and we all suffered our consequences. We all felt fear. The trick was learning to live with that fear, to continue forward in spite of it. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” I murmured, longing to reach out and touch his face. To smooth the furrow between his brows. To tell him everything would be all right. “But I’m glad it did.”

Squaring my shoulders as Reid had done, I turned back to face Nicholina. Her eyes burned with silver light, and her chest rose and fell rapidly. Like me, she struggled to catch her breath, yet this strength in my limbs was hers as well. The waters had healed us both. And suddenly, I understood.

The Wistful Waters healed.

They didn’t exorcise malevolent presences.

I’d have to do that myself.

Gritting my teeth, I launched myself at her.

What It Is to Drown

Lou