But it didn’t feel right to just leave. And Nicholina—she still stood silent and rooted. Clearly Madame Sauvage wasn’t a simple peddler. “Why are you here, Madame Sauvage? How did you—how did you find us?”

The woman looked up as if surprised to find us still standing there. “Why are you here, young man? You’ve collected your pearls. Now be on your way.”

She waved her hand once more, and Nicholina gasped. Stumbled. Next second, she lunged at Madame Sauvage with a snarl, but I pulled my wrist sharply, forcing her to a halt. The hood slipped from her face, and she glared between the two of us in silent fury.

“It doesn’t feel very nice, does it? To lose bodily autonomy?” Madame Sauvage shooed us from the cart without further ceremony. “A lesson well remembered, Nicola. Now, go. You all have rather more pressing matters of which to attend, don’t you?”

Célie clutched my arm when I didn’t move, pulling me down the steps.

Yes. Yes, we should go, but—

My gaze caught on a glass display of pastries near the snake. They definitely hadn’t been there before. Torn between trepidation and interest, between fear and inexplicable ease, I nodded to them. “How . . . how much for the sticky bun?”

“Ah.” Madame Sauvage brightened abruptly, plucking the pastry from its case and wrapping it in brown paper. She followed us down the steps before extending it to me. “For you? Free of charge.”

I regarded her warily.

“Never fear.” She tugged her sign from the mud. An oddly mundane gesture amidst the uncanny circumstances. “We shall meet again soon, Reid Labelle. Plant those seeds.”

With a cheery wink, she vanished before our eyes, taking her sign and her strange little cart with her.

Le Cœur Brisé

Reid

“We’re here,” Coco said softly.

A quarter hour ago, she’d forced us to stop, to bear Nicholina to the ground and tip a sleeping tincture down her throat. It hadn’t been pretty. It hadn’t been fun. I still had bite marks on my hand to prove it.

We stood beneath the shadow of a lone cypress tree—at least, I thought it was a cypress. Below the smoke and clouds, true darkness had fallen once more. The forest at our backs stood eerily still. Even the wind had ceased here, yet a hint of brine still tinged the air. No waves, however. I heard no waves. No gulls, either. No signs of life at all. Shifting my feet uneasily, I took in the path ahead. Narrow and rocky, it disappeared into fog so thick I could’ve cut it with a knife. A chill skittered down my spine at what could be lurking within it. Despite no signs of Morgane and Josephine, the hair at my neck lifted. “What now?”

Coco came to stand beside me. “We keep going. Straight down.”