“What are you talking about?”

“I need it!” I screamed the words in his face, my desperation to retrieve the grimoire twisting me into a mindless frenzy.

Tristan swore, and I could hear him talking with Chris over my head, but the words were meaningless. Nothing mattered more than finding the witch. No sacrifice was too great.

Then Tristan was pushing me at Chris and walking toward the fire. “What’s he doing?”

Exactly what you asked him to. The realization that I’d just put a book ahead of Tristan’s safety slapped me in the face, and I scrabbled forward to catch his coat, but Chris jerked me backwards.

“Cécile, calm down,” he shouted into my ear. “He knows how to take care of himself.”

The flames crept higher, catching at the buildings to either side, the efforts of the bucket brigade futile against the inferno. Nothing could survive in that heat, and I could hear the splintering and cracks of timbers that told me the roof was on the verge of collapse. Logic told me that Tristan’s magic would keep him safe, but instinct made me scream warnings for him to get out.

Then, through the smoke, I saw him walking toward us, a limp form floating ahead of him.

Chris let go of me, and I started to run toward them, but an invisible rope of power caught me, lifting me up into the air and setting me in the corner of the yard. “What are you doing?” I coughed, clawing at the magic. “I can help her.”

“She’s beyond help.” Tristan set her on the grass, but I couldn’t make anything out through the haze. “You don’t need to see this.”

“Let me go!”

Tristan only shook his head, ignoring Chris, who had taken one look and was now retching against the wall. “She’s dead, Cécile. Someone slit her throat, and then the fire did its work. It isn’t something I want you to see.”

I didn’t deserve to be protected, I deserved to see what had befallen Catherine because I’d involved her in a plot far bigger than she knew. “What about the grimoire?”

“Not on her. And if it’s inside, there’s nothing left but ash.”

Our only hope was gone. Slumping into the dirt, I rested my cheek against the mossy stone of the wall and watched the shop burn. Then a motion at my arm caught my attention, a soft tongue licking at my hand.

Looking down, I saw the bedraggled form of a dog. “Souris!” I clutched him to my chest, petting his fur, and whispering comforts to him that I wished I could feel. As I held him, part of the roof collapsed with a whoosh of hot air, and the rear door of the building slammed, making me look up.

My hands turned cold, making me long for the returned heat of the fire as I stared, my comprehension coming quick and my reaction slow. “Tristan,” I called, my voice ragged. “Chris!”