A virtual battalion of Chasseurs thundered toward us on horseback, eliciting shrieks from pedestrians in their path. More and more people—sailors, fishermen, peddlers—collected around our boat now. All craned their necks from the dock to see what the fuss was about, some clapping hands over their mouths when they spotted us, others hissing through their teeth. One woman even threw a fish with unerring aim. It struck Reid’s cheek before falling, dead, to the floor. Beau pretended to struggle in his binds. “That’s enough,” he snarled.

The harbormaster clicked his tongue. “Well, well, well, Your Highness.” He squatted before him, examining Beau’s face from every angle. “The last time I saw you, you were in nappies—” Before he could finish the rest of his humiliating diatribe, however, the first of the huntsmen reached us. I recognized him from La Mascarade des Crânes.

“Philippe.” Jean Luc scowled as the man in question—a rather large, frightening man, though not nearly so large and frightening as Reid—shouldered past him with a pointed lack of respect. Indeed, he knocked into Jean Luc like he was a piece of furniture, sending him back two steps. “Have you lost your mind?”

“Secure the area.” Philippe snapped and pointed as his brethren fell into place around the boat, around us. He ignored Jean Luc completely. To the harbormaster, he said, “His Majesty arrives posthaste.”

“He’s coming here?” Jean Luc lifted his voice above the tumult, determined to be heard. Boots jostled as the King’s Guard arrived—the constabulary too—heedless of my fingers. When Philippe stepped on Reid’s intentionally, I heard the cruel crack of bone. Reid didn’t so much as flinch. “Why?”

“To secure the prisoners, of course,” the harbormaster said.

“No.” Jean Luc shook his head wildly. “No, he shouldn’t travel out in the open like this. Morgane is here. She’s in the city—”

Philippe’s smile chilled my very bones. “It isn’t up to you, Jean. Not anymore.”

The king arrived the next moment—at precisely the same time as Monsieur and Madame Tremblay. Absolute pandemonium ensued. The Tremblays’ carriage screeched to a halt beyond the dock, and Madame Tremblay barreled straight into the barricade of soldiers, shouting for her daughter without decorum. “Célie! Célie!” She hardly noticed the guards chasing after her. Jean Luc stepped in front of them, blocking their advance, as she enveloped her daughter in her arms. “Oh, thank God—”

“Control yourself, woman!” Monsieur Tremblay snarled as he too bolted on deck, skirting around Reid, me, and the barricade of Chasseurs encircling us. “Have you no shame? You will apologize this instant—” I would’ve laughed at the spectacle they’d created if the king hadn’t followed. If his eyes hadn’t locked on Reid’s. If he hadn’t reached into his velvet pocket to extract two metal syringes.

Oh, shit.