I flinched again and stepped back until my legs pressed against the bed frame. “You—Reid, you also made an oath to me. You’re my husband, and I’m your wife.”
His hands dropped to his sides. Defeated. A spark of hope flared in my chest. But then he closed his eyes—seeming to collapse in on himself—and when he opened them again, they were void of all emotion. Empty. Dead.
“You are not my wife.”
What was left of my heart shattered completely.
I pressed a hand to my mouth in an effort to stem my sobs. Tears blurred my vision. Reid didn’t move as I fled past him, didn’t reach out to catch me as I tripped over the threshold. I crashed to my hands and knees outside the door.
Ansel’s arms wrapped around me. “Are you hurt?”
I pushed away from him wildly, scrambling to my feet. “I’m sorry, Ansel. I’m so sorry.”
Then I was running—running as hard and fast as my broken body would allow. Ansel called after me, but I ignored him, hurtling down the stairs. Desperate to put as much distance between myself and Reid as possible.
Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you. His words stabbed through me with each step. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.
I won’t let her hurt you again, Lou. I’ll protect you. Everything will be all right.
I love you, Lou.
You are not my wife.
I turned into the foyer, chest heaving. Past the shattered rose window. Past the witches’ corpses. Past the milling Chasseurs.
God—if he was there, if he was watching—took pity on me when none moved to block my path. The Archbishop was nowhere in sight.
You are not my wife.
You are not my wife.
You are not my wife.
Fleeing through the open doors, I lurched blindly into the street. The sunset shone too bright on my stinging eyes. I stumbled down the church steps, peering around blearily, before starting down the street for Soleil et Lune.
I could make it. I could seek shelter there one last time.
A pale hand snaked out from behind me and wrapped around my neck. I tried to turn, but a third quill stabbed my throat. I struggled weakly—pathetically—against my captor, but the familiar cold was already creeping down my spine. Darkness fell swiftly. My eyelids fluttered as I collapsed forward, but pale, slender arms held me upright.
“Hello, darling,” a familiar voice crooned in my ear. White, moonbeam hair fell across my shoulder. Gold shimmered in my vision, and the scar at my throat puckered in a burst of pain. The beginning of the end. The life pattern reversing.
Never again never again never again.
“It’s time to come home.”
This time, I welcomed oblivion.
Beating a Dead Witch
Reid
“What have you done?”
Ansel’s voice echoed too loudly in the silence of the room—or what was left of it. Holes riddled the walls, and the stench of magic lingered on my furniture. My sheets. My skin. A pool of blood spread from the witch’s throat. I stared at the corpse, hating it. Longing for a match to set it aflame. To burn it—and this room, and this moment—from my memory forever.
I turned away, unwilling to look in its dull eyes. Its lifeless eyes. It looked nothing like the graceful actresses we would burn in the furnace tonight. Nothing like the beautiful, white-haired Morgane le Blanc.
Nothing like her daughter.
I stopped the thought before it took a dangerous direction.
Lou was a witch. A viper. And I was a fool.
“What have you done?” Ansel repeated, voice louder.
“I let her leave.” Legs wooden, uncooperative, I shoved my Balisarda in my bandolier and knelt beside the corpse. Though my body still ached from Lou’s attack, the witch needed to be burned, lest it reanimate. I paused at the edge of blood. Reluctant to touch it. Reluctant to draw near to this thing that had tried to kill Lou.
For as much as I hated to admit it—as much as I cursed her name—a world without Lou was wrong, somehow. Empty.
When I lifted the corpse, its head lolled back grotesquely, throat gaping where Lou had slit it. Blood soaked through the blue wool of my coat.
I’d never hated the color more.
“Why?” Ansel demanded. I ignored him, focusing on the dead weight in my arms. Again, my traitorous mind wandered to Lou. To last night when I’d held her briefly under the stars. She’d been so light. And vulnerable. And funny and beautiful and warm—
Stop.
“She was drugged and obviously injured,” he insisted. I hoisted the corpse higher, ignoring him, and kicked open the splintered door. Exhaustion crashed through me in waves. But he refused to give up. “Why did you let her go?”