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“You know,” she says, “I’m not usually one to believe in ghosts, but—” She cuts herself off abruptly. Her eyes widen, fixing on something over my shoulder. “There’s someone else here,” she whispers, just as footsteps rustle upon the grass.

I allow a devilish grin to slide over my features. I know who is approaching behind us—I know him from those featherlight skulking footsteps, the magic-scent clinging to his clothes, and from the sheer theatrics that heralded his appearance.

Regnault never can resist a dramatic entrance.

“My, my, Mademoiselle d’Auvigny, you are even more beautiful than the legends say,” my father murmurs. His voice is quiet, but it washes over the gardens with liquid menace. “In fact, I believe you are… perfect .”

He rests his hand briefly on my shoulder before lifting it and pointing at Marie. Golden rings gleam on his fingers, dozens of bracelets jingling from his wrists. Each one is made of goddess-gold, bearing a scrap of magic left over from a faded spell. Each one was stolen by me.

Accumulating this much power has taken me over a decade.

A decade of missions, of carefully planned thefts.

Here is a fat ring I squirreled away from a man too drunk to notice.

Here is the pendant of a noblewoman I bumped into on the city streets.

Here is a simple chain I won at a gambling table.

Here it all is, a regalia of stolen magic. And my father wears it all proudly.

Marie stares at Regnault, her composure faltering before she schools her features into cautious politeness. “And—and who are you, monsieur?”

A devious thrill sings through my veins, and I can’t help but answer first. “Mademoiselle d’Auvigny, meet my father, Regnault.”

The scent of magic is suddenly overwhelming.

Marie gags when it hits her, her brow furrowing in confusion as she attempts to find the source of the smell.

She is too far away to see it, but I can—a liquid like molten gold, seeping out of every piece of jewelry Regnault wears.

It leaks down his arms, his wrists, gathering slick upon his nailbeds before dripping from his fingers.

Only then, when the moonlight strikes Regnault’s hands and the glistening liquid upon them, does Marie truly realize what is happening.

“Sorcier,” she gasps, her eyes widening in horror. She stumbles a step back, but it’s too late—Regnault traces a series of lines in quick succession, leaving spider silk–like threads of gold hovering in the air before him, forming a web.

The web shoots forward and wraps itself around Marie.

Each thread flares with golden light, expanding quickly, sealing Marie’s lips before she can scream.

It eats away at her cheeks, her collarbones, spreading, spreading.

She thrashes once, turning toward me, her agonized gaze filled with deep, drowning betrayal.

Then Marie d’Odette d’Auvigny’s eyes roll back, and she is gone, her body dissolved into globules of faintly shimmering magic. Regnault extends his hands, and the globules drip into his palms one by one, until he is cupping a pool of molten gold, as sticky as honey and oozing between his fingers.

He separates his hands, each holding a glistening puddle of magic. One he raises to the owl-face pendant at his neck—the other he extends before him.

When he touches the necklace, the magic detaches itself from his palms and slips into the pendant as if it were never there.

The other hand he tips toward the earth, letting the glowing liquid pour onto the soil between his feet.

Before it can hit the ground, it expands once more, another blossom of light, until there is a shape curled at my father’s feet.

I stifle a gasp. It’s a white swan, soft-feathered and moonlit. It rests in Regnault’s shadow like a pearl in the maw of an oyster, its body limp, its eyes squeezed shut. He nudges it with the toe of his boot, but the bird doesn’t stir. A mocking smile tightens his lips.

I stare, realization hitting me. “Is that…”

“Marie d’Odette,” Regnault confirms.

My heart gives a little shudder. “She’s not dead, is she?”

Regnault rubs his palms together, the shimmering remnants of magic flaking from his fingers.

“This spell would not work if she were,” he replies.

“Death is not our Good Mothers’ domain. Their magic cannot create or destroy, only transform.

” He turns on his heels. “Come, Mademoiselle d’Auvigny should wake soon enough.

We do not want to be here when she does. ”

I nod and fall in step behind my father, my pulse pounding with anticipation. I feel devious, eager, like a cat on the hunt. This small taste of success has left me salivating for more, for the next victory, for the next step closer to vengeance.

And if there is a tightness in my gut, a discomfort curled somewhere in the depths of me, I don’t allow myself to inspect it. Not even when it drives me to glance over my shoulder—back at the unconscious swan we have left lying at the lake’s edge, as pale as bone against the cold bleak earth.