“No.” The older shook his head and backed from the room. “No, I think we’re inflicting just the right amount of torment, don’t you?”

The two closed the door behind them with a resounding click.

Now Reid pulled me away from the bars. “The others will come,” he said.

Some time later, a scuffle broke out in the corridor to prove his words. Voices rose to shouts, and the sound of steel against steel rang out in the sweetest harmony. We both launched to our feet, staring at the door and waiting. “This is it.” My fingers wrapped around the bars in anticipation. “They’re here.”

Reid frowned at the high-pitched, feminine voices. Unfamiliar, they didn’t belong to Coco or Célie or Zenna or even Seraphine. They sounded like the voices of . . . children. “Leave us alone!” one cried, indignant. “Let us go!”

“I don’t think so,” a Chasseur snarled. “Not this time.”

“Your father won’t be pleased, Victoire.”

“My father can swallow an egg!”

“This isn’t right,” another child cried. “Remove your hands at once. That’s our brother in there, and he hasn’t done anything wrong—”

Their voices faded as the Chasseurs dragged them away.

“Violette and Victoire.” Reid stared at the door as if sheer will alone might open it. At the intensity of his gaze, I might’ve believed it too. “They sprang us from the dungeon before La Mascarade les Crânes.”

“Follow the memory,” I said desperately. If even the king’s daughters couldn’t enter Chasseur Tower unimpeded, the chances of others doing so had just vanished in a puff of smoke.

“What?”

“You want to remember. This is how.” Unable to escape this hideous prison, ignorant of the time, of our friends, of our very lives, this suddenly became the most important thing in the world. The most urgent one. He had to remember. If we were going to die at sunset, he had to remember me. The wager, the seduction, the plan—it all fell away in light of this one critical moment. “Follow it forward or backward until you hit a wall. Then push.”

His mouth twisted grimly. “I—I’ve tried. These past few days—I’ve done nothing but try to piece it back together.”

“Try again. Try harder.”

“Lou—”

I crushed his hands in my own. “What if they don’t come?”

He clutched mine with equal fervor, his voice low and ferocious as he pulled me closer. “They will.”

“What if they can’t? What if they fail to sneak inside undetected? What if they have to fight? What if Claud can’t intervene, or they were captured at the castle, or—” My eyes widened in alarm. “What if they’re already dead?”

“Stop, stop.” He seized my face, bending low to look me directly in the eye. “Breathe. Tell me what to do.”