Coco’s dark eyes—so dark they’re almost black—lift to the sky before landing on me. No. Not on me. On Nicholina. “Even with the pearls, you know we’re walking into a trap, right?”

Nicholina giggles.

Shaking his head, Reid pulls us along faster. My vision pitches with each step. “Not necessarily.”

They will die, Nicholina croons. All of them. My mistress will come. She will cut out their hearts.

They will not. She will not.

“We don’t have a choice.” Reid’s words brook no argument. “The Wistful Waters are our only hope.”

“And after? What then, Reid?” They both stare at me for a long moment. “Chateau le Blanc is near. With Lou as herself again—if Zenna doesn’t raze the castle to the ground—maybe we could slip inside and . . . finish this.”

The two walking in front slow their footsteps at the last. Both black-haired. Both unfamiliar.

“It was Nicholina who wanted to storm the Chateau,” Reid says adamantly, “not Lou. Which means it’s the last thing we should do. Morgane and Josephine might be expecting . . .”

But his voice begins to fade as the scene shifts around me.

Say goodbye, Louise. The shadows thicken and solidify into darkness once more. It crushes me beneath its weight, and I’m swept away—away from Reid, away from Coco, away from light. You will not see them again.

Yes, I will.

The words are quiet and small, so insignificant that Nicholina doesn’t hear them. But others do. Though Etienne is gone, Legion wraps their presence around me, folding me into their depths. Their intent is not to harm, however, not to claim. Instead they hold me apart. They keep me together. Hope isn’t the sickness. They hum their own litany now. Their own prayer. It’s the cure.

Another Grave

Reid

Célie emerged from the trees clad in fitted pants and knee-high leather boots. She’d tucked a billowing shirt into them. Jean Luc’s shirt. I recognized the stitching on the collar, the sleeves. Deep blue—Chasseur blue—and gold. On her head, she wore a feathered cavalier hat. On her face, she wore a neatly trimmed beard.

Beau burst into laughter.

“What?” Hastily, she looked down at herself, smoothing her shirt. Checking her hair, tucking an errant strand into her hat. “Is it not convincing?”

“Oh, it’s convincing,” he assured her. “You look like an idiot.”

Beside me, Nicholina giggled from her spot on the ground. We’d bound her wrists again, coating her entire hands in Coco’s blood. Now she couldn’t move a finger if she tried.

Startled, perhaps even scandalized by Beau’s bald honesty, Célie’s brows shot up. “Cosette often wears trousers—”

“But not a beard,” Beau said. “You don’t need a disguise, Célie. Your face isn’t on those wanted posters.”