I followed blindly, my heart in my throat. A voice at the back of my mind warned it couldn’t be this easy—warned I shouldn’t trust it—but when Lou laced her fingers through mine, pulling me farther into the mist, I let her. Her hand felt warmer than it’d been in ages. And that scent in the air—like magic and vanilla and cinnamon—I inhaled it deeply. An innate sense of peace spread outward from my chest. Of course I didn’t hesitate. This was Lou. She wasn’t a Balisarda, and I wasn’t walking down the aisle. I wasn’t pledging my fate. I’d already done that.

“How did you exorcise Nicholina?” I asked dreamily. “What did the waters show you?”

She smiled at me over her shoulder, lit from within. “I don’t remember you being so chatty, husband.”

Husband. The rightness of the word felt warm. Heady. I grinned and draped my free arm across her shoulders, tucking her firmly against my side. Craving her warmth. Her smile. “And I don’t remember you—”

—spilling her truth, my mind chastised. You haven’t either. This isn’t real.

My smile slipped. Of course it was real. I could feel her against me. Slowing to a stop, I gripped her tighter, spun her around. When she looked up, arching a familiar brow, my breath caught in my throat. Truly, she seemed to be glowing with happiness. I felt like I could fly. “Tell me,” I said softly, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Let me show you instead.”

I frowned now. Was her skin—was it actually glowing? She waved her hands, and the mist around us thinned, revealing a stone altar behind her. On it, a young woman lay prone, bound, and gagged. She struggled to support her head, which protruded past the altar. Her hair—white as the snow and the moon, white as her gown—had been braided. The plait fell from her nape to the stone bowl beneath her throat. I stepped closer in alarm. The girl looked . . . no, felt . . . familiar. With her turquoise eyes, she could’ve been a sixteen-year-old Lou, but that wasn’t right. She was too tall. Too strong. Her skin pale and unfreckled.

“Look at her, darling,” Lou crooned with a dagger in her hand. I stared at it, unable to understand where it’d come from. Unable to grasp why she had it. “Isn’t she lovely?”

“What are you doing?”

She tossed the dagger into the air, watching it rotate up, down, catching it by the handle. “I have to kill her.”

“What? No.” I tried to stand between them, but my feet wouldn’t move. The mist had crept forward while I’d studied the girl, solidifying around us. My breathing quickened. “Why? Why would you do that?”

She cast me a pitiful look. “It’s for the greater good, of course.”