The village of Fée Tombe had been named for its sea stacks of hematite. Black, sparkling, the rocks rose from the sea for miles on end in the disjointed shapes of faerie wings—some tall and thin with spiderlike webs of silver, others short and stout with veins of red. Even the smallest stacks towered over the sea like great, immortal beings. Waves crashed around the wreckage of ships below. From our path along the bluff, the broken masts and booms looked like teeth.

Célie shivered in the icy breeze, wincing as her foot caught and twisted between two rocks. Beau cast her a sympathetic look. “It isn’t too late to turn back, you know.”

“No.” She lifted her chin stubbornly before wrenching her foot free. More rocks skittered from the path and tumbled into the sea below. “We need my carriage.”

“Your father’s carriage,” Coco muttered. She kept one hand on the sheer cliff face to her left—the other clenched tightly around La Petite Larme—and edged past. Beau followed carefully, picking his way through the uneven terrain as the path narrowed and spiraled upward. At the back of the group, I kept my own hand fisted in the fabric of Lou’s cloak.

I needn’t have bothered. She moved with the grace of a cat, never slipping, never stumbling. Each step light and nimble.

Color rose high on Célie’s cheeks as she tried to maintain our pace. Her breathing grew labored. When she stumbled again, I leaned around Lou and murmured, “Beau was right, Célie. You can wait in the chapel while we deal with the cauchemar. We’ll return for you before we leave.”

“I am not,” she seethed, skirt and hair whipping wildly in the wind, “waiting in the chapel.”

Sweeping past Célie, Lou patted her on the head. “Of course you aren’t, kitten.” Then she cast a sidelong look down her right shoulder, to where the sea crashed below. “You needn’t be worried, anyway. Kittens have nine lives.” Her teeth flashed. “Don’t they?”

My hand tightened on her cloak, and I tugged her backward, bending low to her ear. “Stop it.”

“Stop what, darling?” She craned her neck to look at me. Eyes wide. Innocent. Her lashes fluttered. “I’m encouraging her.”

“You’re terrifying her.”

She reached back to trace my lips with her pointer finger. “Perhaps you don’t give her enough credit.”

With that, she twisted from my grip and strode past Célie without another look. We watched her go with varying degrees of alarm. When she vanished around the bend after Coco and Beau, Célie’s shoulders relaxed infinitesimally. She took a deep breath. “She still doesn’t like me. I thought she might after . . .”

“Do you like her?”

A second too late, she wrinkled her nose. “Of course not.”

I jerked my chin to indicate we should continue. “Then there isn’t a problem.”