Though Jean Luc fought to keep his face impassive, panic flickered within his eyes’ pale depths—panic and remorse. They met mine for only a second before dropping to the syringe. In that second, I knew. He would fake nothing. He could fake nothing—not with so many eyes on us now. Not under the king’s very nose.

Which left me with two options.

I could attack the king now, and we could likely fight our way out, condemning Jean Luc, Célie, and Madame Labelle in the process. Or I could allow the injection and trust the others to rescue us. Neither option was foolproof. Neither option guaranteed escape. With the latter, at least, we’d be in a centralized location with Madame Labelle. If they rescued one, they could rescue us all. And though Claud claimed he couldn’t intervene, he wouldn’t truly leave us to die, would he?

I had a split second to decide before Jean plunged the quill into my throat.

Sharp pain flared on impact, and the hemlock—as cold and viscous as I remembered it—spread like mire through my veins. I could just feel the warm trickle of blood before numbness crept in, before my vision faded, before Coco slipped unnoticed from the water to the Tremblays’ carriage.

The white patterns resisted the darkness, blazing brighter and hotter as I dimmed.

Auguste held one of my eyes open, even as it rolled back into my head. “Do not fret, fille. This pain shall pass. At sunset, you shall burn with my son and his mother in a lake of black fire.” When he stroked my cheek—almost tenderly—the white patterns finally softened, finally succumbed, finally dissolved into nothing.

We’d gone from the belly of the beast straight into the shitter.

Our Story

Lou

My body awoke in increments. First a twitch of my hand, a tingle in my feet, before lights danced on my eyelids and cotton grew on my tongue. Both felt thick and heavy as my stomach pitched and rolled. My consciousness followed shortly after that—or perhaps not shortly at all—and I felt cold stones beneath my back, hard ridges, dull pain blossoming across my ribs, my temple. Sharper pain at my throat.

Realization trickled in slowly.

Jean Luc had poisoned us. We’d been thrown in prison. We would burn at sunset.

My eyes snapped open at the last.

What time was it?

Staring at the ceiling overhead, I tried to move my fingers, to breathe around the suffocating nausea. I needed to find Reid and Beau. I needed to make sure they were all right—