Tears burned behind my eyes. I wanted to cry—to cry and rage and burn the Chateau and all its inhabitants to the ground. They’d claimed to love me, once. But then . . . so had Reid.
Love.
I cursed the word.
Manon reached for the wagon and pulled herself up. A garland of holly rested atop her head; the red berries looked like drops of blood against her black hair and skin. “Louise! You’ve finally returned!” She threw her arms around my neck, and my limp body fell against hers. “I feared I’d never see you again.”
“Manon has volunteered to accompany you at the Chateau,” Morgane said. “Isn’t that lovely? You’ll have such fun together.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” I muttered.
Manon’s ebony face fell. “Did you not miss me? We were sisters once.”
“Do you often try to murder your sisters?” I snapped.
Manon had the decency to flinch, but Morgane only pinched my cheek. “Louise, stop being naughty. It’s dreadfully dull.” She lifted her hand to Manon, who hesitated, glancing at me, before hurrying to kiss it. “Now run along, child, and prepare a bath in Louise’s room. We must rid her of this blood and stench.”
“Of course, my Lady.” Manon kissed my limp hands, transferred me back to Morgane’s lap, and leapt from the wagon. I waited until she’d melted into the night before speaking.
“Drop the pretense. I don’t want company—her or anyone else. Just post guards at my door, and be done with it.”
Morgane picked the jasmine blooms from the wagon floor and wove them through my hair. “How incredibly rude. She’s your sister, Louise, and desires to spend time with you. What a poor way to repay her love.”
There was that word again.
“So, according to you, love made her watch as I was chained to an altar?”
“You resent her. How interesting.” Her fingers raked through my tangled hair, braiding it away from my face. “Perhaps if it had instead been the stake, you would’ve married her.”
My stomach twisted. “Reid never hurt me.”
For all his faults, for all his prejudice, he hadn’t lifted a finger against me after the witch attacked. He could’ve, but he hadn’t. I wondered now what might’ve happened if I’d stayed. Would he have tied me to the stake? Perhaps he would’ve been kinder and driven a blade through my heart instead.
But he’d already done that.
“Love makes fools of us all, darling.”
Though I knew she was goading me, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “What do you know about love? Have you ever loved anyone but yourself?”
“Careful,” she said silkily, fingers stilling in my hair. “Do not forget to whom you are speaking.”
But I wasn’t feeling careful. No, as the great white silhouette of the Chateau took shape above me—and Angelica’s Ring glinted on her finger—I was feeling precisely the opposite of careful.
“I’m your daughter,” I said angrily, recklessly. “And you would sacrifice me like some prized cow—”
She wrenched my head back. “A very loud, disrespectful cow.”
“I know you think this is the only way.” My voice grew desperate now, choked with emotions I didn’t care to examine. Emotions I’d locked away tight when I’d grown old enough to realize my mother’s plan for me. “But it’s not. I’ve lived with the Chasseurs. They’re capable of change—of tolerance. I’ve seen it. We can show them another way. We can show them we aren’t what they believe us to be—”
“You have been corrupted, daughter.” She enunciated the last word with a sharp tug to my hair. Pain radiated across my scalp, but I didn’t care. Morgane had to see. She had to understand. “I feared this would happen. They’ve poisoned your mind as they’ve poisoned our homeland.” She jerked my chin up. “Look at them, Louise—look at your people.”
I had no choice but to gaze at the witches still dancing around us. Some faces I recognized. Others I didn’t. All regarded me with unadulterated joy. Morgane pointed to a set of sisters with brown skin and braided hair. “Rosemund and Sacha—their mother burned after delivering an aristocrat’s breech baby. They were six and four.”
She pointed to a small, olive-skinned woman with silver marks disfiguring half her face. “Viera Beauchêne escaped after they tried to burn her and her wife—acid this time instead of flame. An experiment.” She gestured to another. “Genevieve left our homeland with her three daughters to marry a clergyman, severing their connection to our ancestors. Her middle daughter soon sickened. When she begged her husband to return here to heal her, he refused. Her daughter died. Her eldest and youngest despise her now.”