He still didn’t acknowledge us, however. He stared at Coco instead. She stared at him. Neither spoke for several seconds. At last, with infinite gentleness, he brushed his lips against her forehead and stepped away, tugging her skirt back into place. “We’ll finish this later.”

Her awareness seemed to return then. Her sense. She leapt from the shelf hastily, knocking aside a bin of glass eyes. They scattered across the floor of the cart. When she tripped on one, pinwheeling into Nicholina, Beau caught her arm. She tried to tug it away. “Don’t touch me. I’m fine.” She slipped on another eye, kicking it viciously in response. “I said I’m fine.”

His face fell at her outburst, and he scowled, releasing her. “Say it one more time.” When she stumbled away, nearly upsetting another basket, he shook his head. “Maybe I’ll believe you.”

She watched him stalk from the cart with overbright eyes, her arms wrapped tight around her middle. Her shoulders hunched. As if their kiss had inflicted a physical wound. I looked away quickly when her gaze caught mine. “Don’t say a word,” she snapped, storming past me into the street. She didn’t follow Beau.

“Ah, l’amour.” Madame Sauvage stared after them with a wistful expression. “I told you the truth would out.” When she clapped her hands together once more, turning the full force of her gaze onto me, I recoiled. “Now. It is your turn, young man. Hold out your hand, please.”

“I would . . . rather not,” I said dubiously.

“Nonsense. You want your pearl, don’t you?”

I glanced after Beau and Coco. “That depends.”

But it didn’t, not really, and we both knew it. Swallowing hard, I extended a hand toward her. To my surprise, she withdrew a small pouch from her sleeve and upended its contents in my palm. Célie inched closer, tilting her head. “Seeds?” she asked in confusion.

And so they were.

Madame Sauvage closed my fingers around them with a pleasant smile. “Just so. Your task is simple, dear boy: plant them.”

I frowned down at the mundane things. “Plant them?”

Madame Sauvage turned to bustle around her cart, returning items to their proper places. “What else does one do with seeds?”

“I—” Shaking my head, I stuffed them back in their pouch. “What are they?” Stupid question. I tried again. “Where—where do you want me to plant them? When?”

“Those decisions are up to you.”

When I cast Célie an incredulous glance, she shrugged, gesturing first to the pearls, then to the street. I swept the black gems into the pouch with the seeds. Madame Sauvage didn’t stop me, instead plucking a live mouse from her sleeve and dropping it into the snake’s reservoir. She cooed at the snake as it uncoiled. Like a mother with her babe. Célie gestured to the street again. Wilder this time. Emphatic.