Serpent & Dove

I grabbed Lou and ducked behind the altar. Ansel and Beau scrambled after me, holding a barely conscious Coco between them. Arrows rained down on our heads. Morgane blasted most of them into ash with a wave of her hand, but one sank deep into her leg. She screamed in fury.

“Through there.” Voice faint, Coco pointed into the depths of the temple. “There’s . . . another exit.”

I hesitated for only a second. Another volley of arrows distracted Morgane—it was now or never.

“Get them out.” I slid Lou into Beau’s arms. “I’ll catch up.”

Before he could protest, I dove out from behind the altar toward Madame Labelle’s body. No arrows had yet pierced her, but our luck wouldn’t hold. As the Chasseurs closed in, their range turned deadly. An arrow whizzed by my ear. Grabbing Madame Labelle’s wrist, I hauled her into my arms. Tried to shield as much of her body as possible with my own.

Fire and arrow pursued me as I sprinted back into the temple. Sharp pain lanced through my shoulder, but I didn’t dare stop.

The sound of the battle died as I entered the uncanny quiet of the inner temple. Ahead of me, Ansel, Coco, and Beau raced toward the exit. I sprinted after them, trying to ignore the warm, wet substance spreading across my arm. The small moans of pain escaping Madame Labelle’s throat.

She’s alive. Alive.

I didn’t look behind to see if Morgane or Jean Luc followed. I focused only on the small rectangle of moonlight at the end of the temple, on Coco’s hair bobbing as she cleared it.

Coco.

Coco could heal her.

I caught up to them as they entered the shadows of the forest. They didn’t slow. Lurching forward, I grabbed Coco’s arm. Her eyes were dim, glazed, as she turned back to me. I extended Madame Labelle’s broken body to her. “Help her. Please.” My voice shook—my eyes burned—but I didn’t care. I pressed my mother into her arms. “Please.”

Ansel glanced behind us, breathing heavily. “Reid, there’s no time—”

“Please.” My eyes never wavered from her face. “She’s dying.”

Coco blinked slowly. “I’ll try.”

“Coco, you’re too weak!” Beau shifted Lou in his arms, red-faced and panting. “You can barely stand!”

She answered by lifting her wrist to her mouth and tearing the thin skin there. The same acrid scent singed the air as she drew back. Blood coated her lips. “This will only buy us time until we reach camp.” She lifted her wrist to Madame Labelle’s chest. We watched, transfixed, as her blood dripped down, sizzling when it touched Madame Labelle’s skin.

Beau watched incredulously as the wound knit itself back together. “How—?”

“Not now.” Coco flexed her wrist and shook her head, eyes sharpening, as a man’s scream sounded beyond the temple. The witches must’ve marshaled their forces, recovering from their initial panic. Though I could no longer see the clearing, I could imagine them using the only weapons they had at their disposal: their consorts. Human shields against my brethren’s Balisardas.

Coco glanced back at Madame Labelle’s pale body. “We need to find our camp quickly, or she’ll die.”

She didn’t need to tell us twice. Ducking our heads, we raced through the forest and into the night.

Shadows still cloaked the pines when we found our abandoned camp. Though Madame Labelle had grown steadily paler, her chest still rose and fell. Her heart still beat.

Coco rifled through her pack and pulled out a jar of thick, amber liquid. “Honey,” she explained at my anxious look. “Blood and honey.”

Lowering Madame Labelle to the forest floor, I watched in morbid fascination as Coco reopened her wrist and mixed her blood with the honey. She applied it carefully to the puckered welt on Madame Labelle’s chest. Almost instantly, Madame Labelle’s breathing deepened. Color returned to her cheeks. I sank to my knees, unwilling to look away. Not even for a second. “How?”

Coco sat back, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. “I told you. My magic comes from within. Not—not like Lou’s.”

Lou.

I lurched to my feet.

“She’s fine.” Ansel cradled her head in his lap across the camp. I hurried over to them, examining her pale face. Her gashed throat. Her gaunt cheeks. “She’s still breathing. Her heartbeat is strong.”

I turned to Coco despite Ansel’s reassurance. “Can you heal her too?”

“No.” She vaulted to her feet as if realizing something, pulling a bundle of herbs and a mortar and pestle from her pack. She set to grinding the herbs into powder. “You’ve healed her already.”

“Then why isn’t she awake?” I snapped.

“Give her time. She’ll wake when she’s ready.” Breathing labored—ragged, uneven—she let the blood from her wrist drip onto the powder before coating her fingers with the mixture. Then she crawled to Lou’s side. “Move. She needs protection. We all do.”

I eyed the mixture with revulsion, angling myself between them. It smelled terrible. “No.”

With a noise of impatience, she knocked me aside and swept a bloody thumb across Lou’s forehead. Then Madame Labelle’s. Then Beau’s. Then Ansel’s. I glared at all of them, pushing her hand away when she lifted it to my face.

“Don’t be an idiot, Reid. It’s sage,” she said impatiently. “It’s the best I can do against Morgane.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll be the first Morgane targets when she can’t find Lou . . . if she can’t find Lou.” Her eyes flicked to Lou’s inert form, and she seemed to crumple. Beau and Ansel both extended hands to steady her. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to ward against her.”

“Anything will help,” Beau murmured.

An empty platitude. He didn’t know any more about magic than I did. I’d just opened my mouth to tell him so when Ansel sighed heavily, touching my shoulder. Pleading. “Do it for Lou, Reid.”

I didn’t move as Coco wiped her blood across my forehead.

We all agreed to leave the camp as soon as possible, but the mountainside proved just as dangerous as the Chateau. Witches and Chasseurs alike roamed the forest with predatory intent. More than once, we’d been forced to scramble up trees to avoid detection, unsure whether Coco’s protection would hold. Palms sweating. Limbs shaking.

“If you drop her, I’ll kill you,” she’d hissed, eyeing Lou’s unconscious form in my arms. As if I could’ve relinquished my grip on her. As if I’d ever let her go again.

Through it all, Morgane did not reveal herself.

We felt her presence hovering over us, but no one dared mention it—as if giving voice to our fear would bring her swooping down upon us. Neither did we mention what I’d done at the temple. But the memory continued to plague me. The sickening feel of my knife sinking into the Archbishop’s flesh. The extra push it’d taken to force the blade between bones to the heart beneath.

The Archbishop’s eyes—wide and confused—as his would-be son betrayed him.

I would burn in Hell for what I had done. If there even was such a place.

Madame Labelle woke first.

“Water,” she croaked. Ansel fumbled for his canteen as I hurried over.

I didn’t speak as she drank her fill. I simply watched her. Inspected her. Tried to calm my racing heart. Like Lou, she remained pallid and sickly, and faint bruises shadowed her familiar blue eyes.

When she finally let the canteen fall, those eyes sought mine. “What happened?”

I unloosed a breath. “We got out.”

“Yes, obviously,” she said with surprising bite. “I mean how?”

“We—” I glanced to the others. How much had they guessed? How much had they seen? They knew I’d killed the Archbishop, and they knew Lou had lived—but had they connected the two?

One look at Coco gave me my answer. She sighed heavily and stepped forward, holding her arms out for Lou. “Let me have her.” I hesitated, and her eyes hardened. “Take your mother, Reid. Go for a walk. Tell her everything . . . or I will.”

I looked from face to face, but no one seemed surprised at her words. Ansel wouldn’t look at me. When Beau jerked his head, mouthing get it over with, my heart sank.

“Fine.” I deposited Lou into her outstretched arms. “We won’t go far.”

Carrying Madame Labelle just out of earshot, I set her down on the softest bit of ground I could find and lowered myself opposite.

“Well?” She smoothed her skirt, impatient. I scowled. Apparently, near-death experiences made my mother irritable. I didn’t mind, really. Her irritation gave me something to focus on other than my own growing discomfort. Many unspoken things had passed between us in that moment she lay dying.

Guilt. Anger. Yearning. Regret.

No, irritation was much easier to face than all that.

I recounted all that had happened at the temple in clipped, disgruntled tones, leaving my own role in our escape vague. But Madame Labelle was an inconveniently sharp woman. She sniffed me out like a fox.

“You’re not telling me something.” She leaned forward to examine me, lips pursed. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Didn’t you?” She arched a brow and leaned back on her hands. “So, according to you, you killed your forefather—a man you loved—for no apparent reason?”

Loved. A lump formed in my throat at the past tense. I cleared it away with a cough. “He betrayed us—”

“And then your wife came back to life—also for no apparent reason?”

“She was never dead.”

“And you know this how?”

“Because—” I stopped short, realizing too late I couldn’t explain the thread of life connecting Lou and the Archbishop. Not without revealing myself. Her eyes narrowed at my hesitation, and I sighed. “I . . . saw it, somehow.”

“How?”

I stared at my boots. My shoulders ached with tension. “There was a cord. It—it connected them. It pulsed in time with her heart.”

She sat up suddenly, wincing at the movement. “You saw a pattern.”

I said nothing.

“You saw a pattern,” she repeated, almost as if to herself, “and you recognized it. You—you acted on it. How?” She leaned forward again, clutched my arm with surprising strength despite her trembling hands. “Where did it come from? You must tell me everything you remember.”

Alarmed, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You need to rest. We can talk about this later.”

“Tell me.” Her nails dug into my forearm.

I glared at her. She glared back. Finally, realizing she wouldn’t budge, I blew out an exasperated breath. “I don’t remember. It all happened too quickly. Morgane slit Lou’s throat, and I thought she was dead, and—and then there was just darkness. It swallowed me up, and I couldn’t think clearly. I just—reacted.” I paused, swallowing hard. “That’s where the cord came from . . . darkness.”

I stared down at my hands and remembered that dismal place. I’d been alone there—truly, absolutely alone. The emptiness reminded me of what I’d imagined Hell to feel like. My hands curled into fists. Though I’d washed away the Archbishop’s blood, some stains went below the surface.

“Amazing.” Madame Labelle released my arm and slumped backward. “I didn’t believe it possible, but . . . there’s no other explanation. The cord . . . the balance it struck—it all fits. And not only did you see the pattern, you were also able to manipulate it. Unprecedented . . . this is—it’s amazing—” She looked up at me in awe. “Reid, you have magic.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but closed it again almost immediately. It shouldn’t have been possible. Lou had told me it wasn’t possible. Yet here I was. Tainted. Stained by magic and the death that invariably followed.

We stared at each other for a few tense seconds.

“How?” My voice sounded more desperate than I would’ve liked, but I needed this answer more than I needed my pride. “How could this happen?”

The awe in her eyes flickered out. “I don’t know. It would seem Lou’s imminent death triggered you somehow.” She clasped my hand. “I know this is difficult for you, but this will change everything, Reid. You’re the first, but what if there are others? What if we were wrong about our sons?”

“But there’s no such thing as a male witch.” The words fell flat, unconvincing, even to my own ears.

A sad smile touched her lips. “Yet here you are.”

I looked away, unable to stand the pity in her gaze. I felt sick. More than sick—I felt wronged. My entire life I’d abhorred witches. Hunted them. Killed them. And now—by some cruel twist of fate—I suddenly was one.

The first male witch.

If there was a God, he or she had a shit sense of humor.

“Did she realize?” Madame Labelle’s voice grew quiet. “Morgane?”

“No idea.” I closed my eyes but immediately regretted it. Too many faces rose up to meet me. One in particular. Eyes wide. Frightened. Confused. “The Chasseurs saw me slay the Archbishop.”

“Yes, that is potentially problematic.”

My eyes snapped open, and fresh pain lanced through me. Jagged and sharp. Raw. “Potentially problematic? Jean Luc tried to kill me.”

“And will continue to do so, I’m sure, as will the witches. Many died tonight in their foolish quest for vengeance. None will forget your part in it—especially Morgane.” She sighed and squeezed my hand. “There is also the matter of your father.”

If possible, my heart sank even lower. “What about him?”

“Word will reach him about what happened at the temple. He will soon learn your name . . . and Lou’s.”

“None of this is Lou’s fault—”

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Your wife’s blood has the power to wipe out his entire line. Do you really think any person—let alone a king—would allow such a liability to walk free?”

“But she’s innocent.” My pulse ratcheted upward, pounding in my ears. “He can’t imprison her for Morgane’s crimes—”

“Who said anything about imprisoning her?” She raised her brows and patted my cheek again. This time, I didn’t flinch away. “He’ll want her dead, Reid. Burned, specifically, so not a drop of her blood can be used for Morgane’s foul purpose.”

I stared at her for a long second. Convinced I hadn’t heard her. Convinced she might start laughing, or a feu follet would flare and transport me back to reality. But—no. This was my new reality. Anger erupted inside me, burning away the last of my scruples. “Why the fuck is everyone in this kingdom trying to murder my wife?”

A bubble of laughter escaped Madame Labelle’s lips, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. “What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?”

“You’ll come with me, of course.” Coco stepped out from behind a large pine, grinning in unabashed delight. “Sorry, I was eavesdropping, but I thought you wouldn’t mind, considering . . .” She nodded down to Lou in her arms.

Lou.

Every trace of anger—every doubt, every question, every thought—emptied from my head as blue-green eyes met my own.

She was awake. Awake and staring at me as if she’d never quite seen me before. I stepped forward, panicking, praying that her mind hadn’t been affected. That she remembered me. That God hadn’t played yet another cruel, sick joke—

“Reid,” she said slowly, incredulously, “did you just curse?”

Then she leaned over Coco’s arm and heaved bile all over the forest floor.