As soon as I touched her skin, she rolled, and the waters swept us up again. Nicholina snapped at my throat. Prying her mouth open—keeping it open—I swam with the current this time instead of against. But so many currents swirled around us now, some warm and some cold, some familiar and some foreign. Hundreds upon thousands of them. And I still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, as images rushed past in the water: fragments of faces, bits of skyline, sights and scents and sensations. Each beckoned and threatened simultaneously, like crooked fingers in the dark. They pulled me in every direction, clawing at my hair and tearing at my chemise. My panic became a living thing as I struggled to swim, to fend off Nicholina’s gnashing teeth. How could I exorcise her without drowning myself in the process?

On the heels of that thought came another, swift and sudden and sure.

I could drown her instead—if not in water, then in emotion. Perhaps both.

Instinctively, I kicked down an unfamiliar current, and we spiraled into the temple by Chateau le Blanc.

Blood still coated the mountainside, and there, in the center, Nicholina stood with her maw dripping like a wild animal’s—Nicholina, not Nicola, because in her hand, she held a human heart.

Triumph flared through us both, hot and heady. Triumph and hideous shame.

I encouraged the latter, fanning it higher as we grappled. Hotter. It became a weapon in my hands, and I wielded it like a knife, cutting through the quick of her. Piercing her very heart. This shame—it might kill her, if I let it.

“What did you do, Nicholina?”

“What was necessary.” Her teeth finally sank into my fingers, and I cried out, tearing skin as I pulled them away. She spat blood. “We killed our sisters, yes, and we feel no shame,” she lied, continuing on a single breath. “We would’ve killed her too. We would’ve killed for our mistress.”

“Who—?”

But Nicholina attacked me with new fervor as we watched La Voisin drag an unconscious woman from the temple steps. I sidestepped, craning my neck with a powerful, inexplicable urge to see the woman’s face. La Voisin obliged by tossing her to the ground, but past-Nicholina sprang toward them, obstructing my view. The present one wheeled and charged at me once more. I thanked any god listening—the very waters themselves—for rescinding our powers in this place. When she lashed out, I caught her wrist and twisted. I had skill enough without magic, but it would’ve been impossible to fight a wraith.

Will I become a wraith too, maman?

The thought made me hesitate, made me sick, and Nicholina spun, her elbow connecting sharply with my chest. When I doubled over, unable to breathe, she seized my throat once more. This time, she didn’t let go.

She knew the rules of our game had changed.