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A lovely wife.

She would’ve been

lovely

if she’d been his wife.

“I thought you were going to shove that silver stick up his ass,” the first man grunts after a moment, “boy.” The second curses in response, followed by the dull thud of his fist hitting the other. They chuckle companionably for another moment before trudging after Frederic.

Leaving us alone.

“Célie?” Michal murmurs.

But I can’t seem to speak. Each time I open my mouth, I see Frederic’s face, his blue coat, and my throat constricts. On the third attempt, I manage to whisper, “I hate them.” Dragging my hands from my mouth, I scrub my eyes and cheeks viciously until my face burns. Anything to subdue the poison coursing through my veins. Through mystomach. “I hate all of them, and Ihatethat I hate them. They just—they’re so—”

Michal’s fingers resume kneading my neck, distracting me.They feel like ice against my overheated skin. “Breathe through the nausea, Célie. In through your nose. Out through your mouth.” Then— “Who is Frederic?”

“AChasseur.” I spit the word with venom, then cringe, remembering the similar way Frederic spatwitch. I take a deep breath. In through my nose and out through my mouth, just like Michal said. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t help because I’mnotlike Frederic, and I can’t—Iwon’t—condemn all the huntsmen with him. Jean Luc is kind and good and brave, as are many of the men who reside in Chasseur Tower. And yet...

I force back another surge of bile. Unless we reach land soon, there’s a very real possibility that I’m going to vomit all over Michal.

I can only pray it’ll be his shoes.

“I gathered as much.” His hand moves from my nape to my hair. A small part of my mind wonders at the gesture, wonders why Michal is trying to—tosootheme, but the other, larger part refuses to complain. “Who is Frederic to you?”

Though I cannot close my eyes in defeat—not while the world spins—the fight collapses in my chest without warning, and my shoulders slump against him. WhoisFrederic to me? It’s a valid question, one that immediately prompts another: Why should I let him affect me anymore? My voice grows small at the truth. “He’s no one. Truly. He liked to provoke me in Chasseur Tower, but that hardly matters now. I’m never going back.”

Michal’s hand stills in my hair. “You aren’t?”

“No.” The word falls freely, without hesitation, as if it’s always been there waiting for permission. Perhaps it has. And now—hidden in a coffin with a half-sadistic vampire—I finally give it.“No one ever tells you how hard it’ll be to blaze a trail, how lonely it is.” I rest my cheek against his leather-clad chest and concentrate on my breathing. And the words keep coming, more destructive than the liquor in my stomach. “I just wanted to do something good after Filippa. It’s why I told Reid to focus on the Chasseurs at her funeral; it’s why he left me to fall in love with Lou instead. It’s why I followed them to that lighthouse in January, and it’s why I fought against Morgane in the Battle of Cesarine.” Sighing, I trace the collar of his coat for something to do with my hands. Because I can’t look at him. Because I shouldn’t be admitting any of this, especially not to him, yet I can’t seem to stop. “I told myself it’s why I joined the Chasseurs afterward—I wanted to help rebuild the kingdom. Really, though, I think I just wanted to rebuild my life.”

After a brief hesitation, he resumes stroking my hair. It should feel strange. No one has really touched my hair like this since Filippa—not even Jean Luc—but somehow, it doesn’t. “I met Morgane le Blanc once many years ago at a night circus.” As before, he seems reluctant to continue, but this is our game. A question for a question. A truth for a truth. “She’d just turned eighteen, and her mother, Camille le Blanc, had passed the title and powers of La Dame des Sorcières to her freely. She loved her daughter. Morgane had no idea what I was, of course, but even then, her blood smelled... wrong. I watched as she stole a trinket from an elderly peddler. When the woman confronted her, she lit the woman’s cart on fire.”

I swallow hard. It takes little imagination to envision the scene in my mind.

She trapped me with fire, too, when she took me—a ring ofit around my bed in the nursery. The smell of that smoke still suffocates me at night. The heat of those flames sears my skin. Clearing my throat, I whisper hoarsely, “She—she crept into my room while I was sleeping, and she took me like she took Filippa, except she didn’t really want me. She wanted Lou and Reid.” The words grow thicker in my throat, lodging there and refusing to move, but I need to say them. Iwantto say them. Michal doesn’t try to fill the silence; he simply waits, the stroke of his hand steady and calm. “She used me as bait, and she locked me in a casket with my dead sister. I stayed there in the dark with her for over t-two weeks before Lou found me.”

The words land heavy and brittle between us.

For several seconds, I don’t think Michal is going to reply. Howdoesone reply to something so horrific, something so wholly and completely evil? Jean Luc, my friends, even my parents—no one ever knows what to say. No one knows how to comfort me. On most days, I don’t even know how to comfort myself, so on most days, I say nothing too.

Pressure burns behind my eyes as the silence grows, and I really do think I’m going to be sick now.

Then Michal slips a finger beneath my chin, tilting my face up to look at him. His eyes no longer appear cool and impassive; they burn with black fire, and the sheer violence in his gaze should send me running. And why wouldn’t I? Frederic and his search party have probably disembarked by now, which means there’s no longer a reason to keep...embracinglike this. I pull away halfheartedly at the realization, but Michal refuses to release my chin. “You said you fought against Morgane in the Battle of Cesarine. How did she die?”

I stare at his shoulder. “You know how she died. Everyone knows how she died. Lou slit her throat.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I repeat weakly, glancing at him. I once made the mistake of... overstating my involvement to Jean Luc, and it isn’t one I intend to repeat with Michal. The thought ofhimsneering, shaking his head—or worse, feelingpity—brings fresh pressure to my eyes. “Lou confronted Morgane, and they fought. It was awful,” I say, quieter still. “I’ve never seen a person so intent on killing another, let alone a mother and her daughter. The magic Morgane used was lethal, and Lou—she—she had no choice but to defend herself.”

“And?”

“And”—I resist the urge to weep, or perhaps hit him—“and nothing. Lou slit her mother’s throat, just like Morgane slit hers on her sixteenth birthday.”

Michal’s eyes narrow, as if he senses the half-truth. “How?”

“Howwhat?”