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Aimé snatches his hand away, but it’s too late. Metallic blood leaks down his wrist, smears across the lace of his cuffs.

“Sorcier!” someone cries.

Chaos erupts—the noblesse start to their feet, shouting and pointing.

Marie takes a wobbling step back. Someone calls for guards—whether to protect Aimé or capture him, I can’t tell.

One of the priestesses tries to pull Marie away, but she resists.

In an instant, I’m barreling back down to the main floor of the chapel, but before I can get near the altar, a cold hand grabs my forearm.

I whirl on my assailant, only to come face-to-face with Regnault.

He shakes his head at me, seeming to almost gorge himself on the chaos, a smug smile stretching across his face.

He’s waiting for something. As I look into the crowd, I see the Regent glance toward Regnault. The men lock eyes knowingly.

The Regent nods. Then he turns to the guards. “Get the Dauphin!”

That’s when the severity of the situation truly hits Aimé.

His face whitens, his pupils wide and moving erratically as he searches the room in vain for an escape.

He shrinks in on himself, curling over his bleeding hand.

He looks helplessly toward Marie, but Marie is staring at him in openmouthed shock, clearly reeling.

I can sympathize with that—this is the second time she has been betrayed in two days. It never hurts any less.

Aimé’s guards start toward him. My brother is at their head, desperately shoving through the crowd, clearly trying to get to his beloved Dauphin before anyone else.

But even Damien looks conflicted. I can see doubt.

I know what he is wondering—the same thing everyone in the chapel most likely is.

Did Aimé know? Has he been lying all this time?

From the gut-wrenching, undiluted fear in the Dauphin’s eyes, the answer is clear.

There is a second where Aimé is swarmed from all sides. A mass of hands reaches out for him all at once, some aiming to seize him, others to pull him from harm’s way. He vanishes behind a throng of people.

Then a growl fills the room.

The world goes still.

Another growl. The sound scrapes along my bones, rattles my teeth.

For my nerves, Aimé had said.

But it was never about the nerves.

With a snarl, Aimé shoves back the throng of guards.

The blow is impossibly powerful, so powerful that it sends several men flying off their feet and crashing into the white marble.

Seeing the carnage, the prince whimpers, turning away.

He tugs at his collar agitatedly, pulls the Couronne off his head as though it is constricting him.

His chest rises and falls in panting breaths as he struggles against something, something within himself.

Suddenly his spine stiffens.

The Regent whips around, facing the crowd. “Out,” he roars. “Everyone out !”

Then Aimé transforms.

It happens in the blink of an eye, but that does not make it any less brutal.

His body jerks and spasms, sending him crashing onto all fours.

His spine arches, vertebrae expanding until they seem about to pop through his thinning skin.

His rib cage balloons, his limbs bending at unnatural angles.

An agonized scream pulls his mouth open, exposing a wolf’s set of canines, his gums dripping golden blood.

The muscles of his face tremble as his features stretch, yanking his lips into a rictus grin.

Last come the boar tusks, slicing their way from between his lips in a gush of saliva and torn flesh.

Aimé-Victor Augier is gone. In his place stands the beast.

And between its feet lies the Couronne du Roi.

Beast-Aimé roars. Any noblesse that weren’t already running turn on their heels and scramble for the door, pushing one another heedlessly.

Regnault grabs me and pulls me against himself.

He brings us both against the chapel wall, out of the way of the human stampede.

In front of us, women trip over the hems of their dresses and men lose their shoes.

A few guards attempt to get control over the crowd, to no avail.

I think I hear Marie’s cry of alarm over it all, but I can’t see her.

Somewhere to my left, a musket goes off. Golden blood gushes from the beast’s shoulder as the shot meets its flesh. The creature roars and charges, only to be stopped by a row of bristling bayonets from the regrouping guardsmen.

“Aimé!” Marie cries, trying to push her way between two guards to get to the beast. “Don’t hurt him!”

“The Couronne,” Regnault says into my ear, a simple order.

I nod curtly. Then I’m moving, dodging my way through the ebbing tide of noblesse.

The snarling beast has backed up, momentarily cornered, against the feet of Morgane, though I doubt it will last. The Couronne lies between the monster and the guards.

I need to get their attention away from it.

But that means taking their attention off the bloodthirsty beast they’re trying to contain.

It’s a risk I have to take.

I skid to a stop in the middle of the aisle, put my fingers to my mouth, and wolf-whistle.

The sound is loud and sudden enough to turn the attention of at least half the guards toward me.

They realize their mistake too late—the momentary distraction allows the beast to bat away their muskets, sending the weapons skittering across the floor.

Then it plows through the guards, grabbing one of them in its jaws as it goes, tossing him aside like a rag doll.

The man’s strangled cry cuts off in a gurgle when he hits the ground. Blood splatters the white marble.

Then the beast is charging directly toward me.

I pull out Buttons and stand my ground. Fueled by a moment of ridiculous sentiment, I try to meet its eyes to see if I can trigger even a flicker of recognition.

There is nothing. Its pupils are slitted with hatred.

The beast snarls, saliva dripping from its torn lips—it reeks of sour magic and fresh viscera.

I wait until the last moment to roll aside.

The movement dislodges the mask on my face, sending it clattering to the ground as I come back up on my feet.

As I expected, the beast doesn’t seem particularly intent on killing me specifically—once I am out of the way, it simply continues its rampage, reaching the chapel’s double doors.

It slams its way through, crushing an elderly nobleman as it goes.

“After it!” the Regent commands, but most of the guards are already in pursuit.

I spot Damien among them, his jaw set in determination.

Only a handful of guards remains—I recognize Armand, pushing Marie behind himself.

They remain by the altar, both panting, both flecked in blood, though none of it appears to be theirs.

A disembodied arm lies admist the diamond flowers, dripping gore, as though it is meant to be part of the arrangement.

The Regent stares down at it with his lip curled.

Familiar footsteps behind me alert me to Regnault’s approach.

But none of that matters to me. Because at my feet, kicked there by the beast’s claws during its rampage, gleams the Couronne du Roi.

I bend to pick it up, half expecting it to vanish before my eyes: a figment of my imagination, a deluded mirage.

But no. My touch meets smooth, cool gold.

I pause—I’d expected some great burst of breathtaking magic to fill me, but I feel nothing at all.

Then, as I run the crown through my hands, as I feel the facets of each jewel placed along its circumference, a gentle thrum passes through my limbs.

It feels less like a blaze of power and more like the breaths of a slumbering bird. Flighty. Mesmerizing.

“Odile.” My father’s voice reaches me as if through a haze. “Give it here.”

I turn to look at him, not moving from my position. He looms over me, his arm extended toward the Couronne, his hand open and expectant. He is silhouetted against the window—I can’t make out his features beyond the dark hollows of his eyes. His cloak seems to swallow light.

I don’t know why, but I flinch away from him, bringing the Couronne to my chest protectively.

“Odile.” The tenderness in Marie’s voice reaches for my heart like a lover’s hand. I move my attention away from my father to watch Marie make her careful way down the altar steps, the blood smearing over her hem. Her mantle is torn, shedding feathers with every step. “Don’t do it, please.”

“Little owl,” Regnault says, an odd strain entering his voice. He flexes his hand demandingly. “The crown.”

“Odile,” Marie says again. She stretches out her palm, fingers opening like blossom petals.

My awareness fades to three things. Two hands: one spindly, talon-like, and familiar; the other elegant and softly golden.

One I have known since I was five years old; the other I think about holding more often than I care to admit.

And between them the Couronne. Its faint, rolling purrs sink into my skin, flowing through my flesh like the sluicing of water.

I wonder how it would feel to lay it upon my brow.

I wonder if I could wrench free whatever unnatural magics were trapped in it by the Spider King and summon Morgane here and now.

I wonder if I ever really needed anyone at all.

“Remember yourself,” my father murmurs. The sound slithers from between his teeth, twining around me.

“Don’t do this,” Marie whispers. “Give me the crown. We’ll solve this together—we’ll save Aimé, we’ll explain everything to him, we will find a way to bring magic back.”

Regnault chuckles. “Lies, lies, lies .” He steps closer to me.

“You know her words mean nothing. She stood by while you were put in a cage. She used you and then discarded you. If you give her the crown, she will merely put it back on that blond brat’s head—assuming he ever comes out of that bestial form. Nothing will change.”

He’s right, that volatile little voice in my mind whispers. Why would Marie choose the side of the girl who ruined her life? Who cursed her and lied to her? Why, unless she has something to gain?

Yes, I think. I can’t believe a word she says—I can’t afford to believe a word she says.

But Regnault—Regnault is safe. He came back for me.

He may have questionable methods, but they’re effective.

He has promised to teach me magic—he has promised me greatness.

And he, at least, has always kept his promises.

I remember Aimé’s words from earlier.

A snake holds some affection for its prey, I believe, as it sinks its fangs in slowly and waits for the venom to spread. That doesn’t make it any less vile.

Why should I fight to save someone who never even gave me a chance?

Vile, vindictive, villain.

The words that have become my anthem, my obituary. But did I not want to be the villain of this tale? Had I not been proud of that, once upon a time?

Villains are pitiless. Villains are unfeeling. Villains can’t be hurt.

And I am so tired of being hurt.

I straighten. My breath rattles out of me in a jagged, wearied sound. I tighten my grip on the Couronne; its thrumming seems to intensify, pricking at my fingertips.

I turn. Slow, but certain.

And I place the Couronne du Roi in my father’s hands.