The narrator bent beside him and stroked his back, crooning softly in his ear. “A visit soon came from the witch he reviled with the worst news of all”—she paused and looked up at the crowd, grinning salaciously—“she’d borne his child.”
Reid broke through the crowd as their muttering grew louder, as they turned to stare at the Archbishop, the disbelief in their eyes shifting into suspicion. The Chasseurs followed, hands tight on their Balisardas. Someone shouted something, but the words were lost in the tumult.
The narrator rose slowly—young face serene amidst the descending chaos—and turned toward us. Toward me.
The face of my nightmares.
The face of death.
“And with not just any a child did he share.” She smiled and extended her hands to me, face aging, hair lightening to brilliant silver. Screams erupted behind her. Reid was sprinting now, shouting something indiscernible. “But with the Witch, the Queen . . . La Dame des Sorcières.”
Part III
C’est cela l’amour, tout donner, tout sacrifier sans espoir de retour.
That is love, to give away everything, to sacrifice everything, without the slightest desire to get anything in return.
—Albert Camus
Secrets Revealed
Lou
Screams rent the air, and the crowd scattered in panic and confusion. I lost sight of Reid. I lost sight of everyone but my mother. She stood still in the swarming crowd—a beacon of white in the impending shadows. Smiling. Hands extended in supplication.
The Archbishop pulled me behind him as the witches converged. I cringed away, unable to process the emotions pounding through me—the wild disbelief, the debilitating fear, the violent rage. The witch in black, Fate, reached us first, but the Archbishop tore his Balisarda from his robes and sliced it deep across her breast. She staggered down the steps into her sister’s arms. Another shrieked and charged forward.
Blue flashed, and a knife split her chest from behind. She gasped, clutching helplessly at the wound, before a hand pushed her forward. She slid off the blade slowly and crumpled.
There stood Reid.
His Balisarda dripped with her blood, and his eyes burned with primal hatred. Jean Luc and Ansel fought behind him. With a quick jerk of his head, he motioned me forward. I didn’t hesitate, abandoning the Archbishop and rushing into his outstretched arms.
But the witches kept coming. More and more seemed to appear from thin air. Worse—I’d lost sight of my mother.
An enchanted man with vacant eyes lumbered forward to meet the Archbishop. A witch stood closely behind, wringing her fingers with a ferocious snarl. Magic exploded in the air. “Get her inside!” the Archbishop cried. “Barricade yourselves in the Tower!”
“No!” I shoved away from Reid. “Give me a weapon! I can fight!”
Three sets of hands seized me, all dragging me back into the church. Other Chasseurs broke through the crowd now. I watched in horror as they drew silver syringes from their coats.
Reid shoved the church doors closed as fresh screams started.
Moving quickly, he began to lift the enormous wooden beam across the doors. Jean Luc hurried to help, while Ansel hovered by my side, face white. “Was it all true—what the witches said? D-Does the Archbishop have—does he have a child with Morgane le Blanc?”
“Perhaps.” Jean Luc’s shoulders strained under the weight of the beam. “But perhaps it was—all a—diversion.” With one last heave, they set the beam into place. He looked me up and down, breathing heavily. “Like the witches at the castle. They’d almost breached its walls when we arrived. Then they vanished.”
Glass shattered, and we looked up to see a witch scuttling through the rose window hundreds of feet above us. “Oh my God,” Ansel breathed, face twisting in horror.
Jean Luc shoved me forward. “Take her upstairs! I’ll handle the witch!”
Reid grabbed my hand, and together we sprinted for the staircase. Ansel pounded along behind.
When we reached our bedroom, Reid slammed the door shut and thrust his Balisarda through the handle. In the next moment, he strode across the room to peer out the window, hand darting into his coat to retrieve a small pouch. Salt. He dumped the white crystals along the window ledge frantically.
“That won’t help.” My voice came out low and fervent—guilty.
Reid’s hands stilled, and he turned slowly to face me. “Why are the witches after you, Lou?”
I opened my mouth, searching desperately for a reasonable explanation, but found none. He grabbed my hand and leaned down, lowering his voice. “The truth now. I can’t protect you without it.”