Angry caws muffled Célie’s panicked shrieks, Beau’s vicious curses, Nicholina’s outraged cries. I craned my neck to see her writhe as Coco recoated her ropes with blood. The crows didn’t stop, however. My own blood streaked down my forearms, my neck, but I kept my head bowed, searching. Gold rose in a tangled web.

There.

I yanked the pattern with all my might, and a powerful gust of wind blasted the birds backward. I braced as it blasted me too. A necessary sacrifice. I needed space to breathe. To think.

I secured neither. More birds darted to replace the others, shrieking indignantly.

It was no good. There were too many of them. Too many patterns. Seizing Nicholina, I charged toward the cliffs with talons on my neck. Coco sprinted behind with Beau, and Thierry swooped Célie up in his arms to follow.

“Reid!” I didn’t slow at my brother’s incredulous shout. “What are we doing?”

No. I maintained my focus, searched blindly for the right cord. If we hoped to survive with our eyes and tongues, we’d have to jump. My vision pitched at the thought. Madame Labelle had once said a witch could fly with the right pattern. Deveraux had said a cardinal couldn’t if it didn’t believe.

Well. We were about to test their theories.

If you’re listening, Deveraux, please, please, help us—

I didn’t get the chance to finish the prayer.

A deafening roar shook the cliffside, the trees, and an amethyst wing parted the clouds of smoke overhead. An enormous amethyst wing. Membranous. Razor-tipped. Fire sprayed in a wide arch, silhouetting the great, hulking shape of a serpentine body. A scaled leg appeared. A barbed tail.

An entire dragon followed.

The Dragon and Her Maiden

Reid

I could only stare as it dove toward us.

It roared again, and from its great mouth, more fire spilled forth. The heat of it nearly blistered my skin. Finally regaining my senses, I dropped to the ground, covering Lou’s body as the crows overhead shrieked in agony. Their burning corpses fell around us like macabre rain—those that fell at all. The dragon incinerated most midair. It snapped vicious jaws around others, devouring them whole.

The others had tumbled with me, covering their heads as if their arms might shield them from the dragon’s flames. Except Thierry. He too had fallen, but he didn’t cower, instead gazing at the dragon with an unfathomable expression. I could’ve sworn it looked like—like relief. But that couldn’t be right. We’d leapt from the pot into the fire. Literally.