“I met your mother once, Louise,” Auguste said, still tap, tap, tapping the syringe. “Now she—she is exquisite. A diamond of the first water. It’s too bad, really, that she’s a soul-sucking demoness. Just like your mother,” he added to Reid, tilting his head to examine the quill. A bead of hemlock trickled from its tip. My magic reared its head at the sight, white patterns unfurling all around me. They hummed with the need to protect Reid. To protect all of them. I nearly trembled with restraint. Oblivious, Auguste stroked my hair and pulled my limp body to his lap. “You look nothing like her, of course, poor thing. All your father, aren’t you?” He leaned so close that I could smell the mint on his breath. “I loathed that man. Makes this easier, I suppose—a bit too easy. When I announced Helene’s execution, I knew you’d come, but I never expected this sort of weakness.”

He pressed the syringe to my throat.

“Your Majesty.” Though Jean Luc didn’t dare step closer, his voice rose urgently. “I re-injected the prisoners only moments before docking. If you dose them again so quickly, I fear they’ll die before the stake.”

Auguste lifted a golden brow. “You fear their death?”

“A poor choice of words.” Jean Luc ducked his head. “Please forgive me.”

But Auguste’s gaze had already sharpened with suspicion. “There is only one way to kill a witch, huntsman, and it is not poison. You have nothing to fear. Still, however, I am benevolent. I will not dose the prisoners again.”

I breathed a long, slow sigh of relief.

Perhaps Auguste felt the movement. Perhaps he didn’t. Either way, he gestured Jean Luc toward us, pressing the injection into his palm before rising to his feet. He brought me with him, cradling me within his arms. My limbs dangled helplessly. “You will.”

Shit, shit, shit.

Jean Luc blinked, his expression flattening. “Me, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, huntsman. You. A great honor, is it not? To apprehend and incapacitate two of the most notorious witches in the kingdom?”

The implication rang clear in the ensuing silence. Even the wind had fallen silent to listen. As if hoping to prove his suspicions, Auguste pinched the flesh of my thigh and twisted—hard. I clenched my teeth against the pain. He would not break us with a pinch, nor a bruised chin or broken finger. The white patterns still writhed in fury, however. They demanded retribution. I wouldn’t use them. Not yet. If I did, all would know Jean Luc had been lying. They would know he’d betrayed them, and he really would lose everything—his coat, his Balisarda, his life. Célie would be implicated too.

All seven of us.

No, our plan could still work. Jean Luc could fake the injection somehow, and we—

“I am waiting,” Auguste said darkly.