She shrugged stiffly. “Now it looks like they’re blood bound.”

“Blood bound?”

“It’s a dangerous spell between Dames Rouges. It binds their lives together. Their magic.”

I looked again at their twin wounds. “Oh shit.”

She nodded. “That about sums it up.”

On the heels of that unpleasant realization, however, came another. “Does that mean we can’t—we can’t kill your aunt without killing your mom?”

“Apparently.”

My stomach plunged as Josephine readjusted her grip on Célie, pressing the dagger to the back of her head. “Your threat is empty as always, sœur,” she said, “while you clutch at others’ skirts and hide where I cannot reach you.” She laughed harshly. The only time I’d heard her laugh at all. “No. You will not inflict real harm on yourself to hurt me, or you would have done so centuries ago.”

Right. I couldn’t kill her, then. Testing my patterns swiftly, I followed each one to their sacrifice. I just needed to knock the knife from her hand—something simple. A gust of wind, perhaps. A spasm of her fingers. “Wait,” I whispered to Coco as I searched. “If you thought your mother was dead, why were you trying to summon her?”

“I wasn’t trying to summon her. I just—the waters spoke to me. I listened.”

“You gave them your blood”—I cut an incredulous glance at her over my shoulder—“because they asked nicely? Did they at least say please?”

“I was born of them,” she muttered defensively.

“Surrender Louise,” Josephine insisted, ignoring our low, fervent conversation. Angelica kept her blade loose at her side. Her blood dripped from its tip to the seafloor, and black pearls formed from each drop. I glanced again at Constantin. “Surrender Cosette”—Josephine’s fingers tightened around her own dagger—“or I will dispose of this pathetic child. I will dispose of the mortal prince.”

Like hell.

Gritting my teeth in a sharp burst of hatred, I clenched my fist, and my anger sparked along a pattern. I watched as it sizzled between us, feeling the heat of it leave me. The cord disintegrated to golden ash as Josephine yelped, dropping her dagger and clutching her burned hand. I grinned in satisfaction and wiggled my fingers. “It’s time for you to go, Josie.”

Angelica lifted her own hand in emphasis, and the waters responded, surging past the shoreline to reclaim Célie and Beau, depositing each of them at our feet. But they didn’t stop there. They continued to flood the sand, to reclaim the beach, sweeping away the silver chalices. They chased Josephine’s hem with sentient determination, and she had no choice but to back away quickly. Just as Nicholina had feared the dark, it seemed Josephine feared the strange magic fortifying these waters.

She still refused to cede.