Whatever magic he’d done, it’d affected her too, and absolute chaos reigned. The Dames Blanches nearest her shrieked and rushed forward, pulling her away from Josephine, from Coco, from us. “Do not be foolish!” Josephine’s vehement shouts cut through the mist, which had descended with a vengeance once more. “This is our chance! Get the girl!”

But even the blood witches wouldn’t step foot in the waters again—not when they continued to ripple.

Not when Coco rose, her binds having vanished after Morgane’s collapse.

Not when she stepped back into the waters, nor when she lifted her hands. Her dark eyes fell first to Constantin, then to Beau and Célie—still blood-soaked and unconscious—and they burned with retribution. “You should’ve known better than to follow us here, tante. I was born in these waters. Their magic is my own.”

I foundered beneath the waves, surging up in time to see Josephine clench her fists.

“Their magic is hers,” she spat. “Not yours. Never yours.”

“I am part of her.”

“You are mine.” The last shred of Josephine’s control seemed to snap, and she swept a long, crooked dagger from her cloak. Her hands shook. “She abandoned you. She abandoned me. She—”

“—is on her way,” Coco finished grimly, eyes flicking to her own uplifted hand. A fresh wound I hadn’t noticed sliced her palm. Blood dripped from it into the waters, and with a start, I realized Coco’s steps hadn’t woken L’Eau Mélancolique at all.

Her blood had.

And the waters weren’t merely rippling now.

They were moving, parting down the center as if the heavens had drawn a line from Coco to the horizon. They swelled on either side of that line, growing and growing and growing—like twin tidal waves—until a footpath along the rocky seafloor appeared. Small enough for a single person to walk unhindered. I clung to Reid as the waves battered us, the currents dragging us under before thrusting us upward once more. When I shouted Coco’s name, coughing and spluttering and desperately kicking for shore, she turned to look at us. Her eyes widened with panic before we went under again.

When we reemerged, another current swept us up between one breath and the next. This one, however, seemed determined not to drown us, but to deliver us to Coco. I didn’t fight or question it, focusing all my attention on keeping Reid’s head above water. My arms shook with the effort. My legs seized. “Come on, Chass.” I pressed the back of his head into the crook of my neck once more. “We’re almost there. Stay with me. Come on, come on—”