Blood & Honey

“Not from Morgane. She could already be here now, watching us.” I flipped my middle finger over my head just in case. “But ribbon and hair dye might hide me from anyone who sees those wretched wanted posters—might even hide me from the Chasseurs.”

Finished with the bow, Coco tapped my arm, and I let my hair fall, thick and heavy, down my back. I could hear the smirk in her voice. “Those posters are an uncanny likeness. The care with which the artist drew your scar—”

I snorted despite myself, turning to face her. “It looked like another appendage.”

“A rather large one.”

“A rather phallic one.”

When we burst into a fit of cackles, Madame Labelle huffed impatiently. Muttering something about children, she stalked off to join Reid. Good riddance. Coco and I laughed anew. Though Ansel tried to play along with us, his smile seemed somewhat pained—a suspicion confirmed when he said, “Do you think we’ll be safe in La Voisin’s camp?”

Coco’s response came instantly. “Yes.”

“What about the others?”

Laughter fading, she glanced at Beau, who’d surreptitiously started digging through her pack once more. She knocked his hand away but said nothing.

“I don’t like it,” Ansel continued, bouncing his foot, growing more and more agitated. “If Madame Labelle’s magic couldn’t hide us here, it won’t hide them on the road.” He turned his pleading gaze to me. “You said Morgane threatened to cut out Reid’s heart. After we separate, she could take him, force you back to the Chateau.”

Reid had said as much an hour ago—or rather, shouted it.

As it turned out, he was much less keen on his gather allies to confront Morgane at the Archbishop’s funeral plan when it meant we’d have to separate. But we needed the blood witches for this insane plan to work, and La Voisin had made it clear Reid wasn’t welcome in her camp. Though small in number, their reputations were formidable. Fearsome enough that Morgane had denied their annual petitions to rejoin us in the Chateau.

I hoped it’d be enough for them to consider moving against her.

La Voisin was willing to listen, at least. Absalon had returned almost instantaneously with her consent. If we came without Reid, she’d allow us to enter her camp. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. At midnight, Coco, Ansel, and I would meet her outside Saint-Loire, and she would escort us to the blood camp. In her presence, we’d be relatively safe, but the others—

“I don’t know.” When I shrugged helplessly, Coco’s lips pressed tight. “We can only hope Helene’s magic is enough. They’ll have Coco’s blood as well. And if worse comes to worst . . . Reid has his Balisarda. He can defend himself.”

“It’s not enough,” Coco murmured.

“I know.”

There was nothing else to say. If Reid, Madame Labelle, and Beau managed to survive the Chasseurs, Dames Blanches, cutthroats, and bandits of La Rivière des Dents—the only road through the forest, named as such for the teeth of the dead it collected—the danger would increase tenfold when they reached packland.

It was hard to say who the werewolves loathed more—huntsmen, witches, or princes.

Still, Reid knew those lands better than anyone in our company. He knew Blaise better than anyone in our company. I could only hope Madame Labelle’s and Beau’s diplomacy would serve them well. From what I’d heard of Blaise—which admittedly wasn’t much—he ruled with a fair hand. Perhaps he’d surprise us all.

Either way, we didn’t have time to visit both peoples together.

Tonight, we’d reconnoiter at a local pub to learn the exact date of the Archbishop’s funeral. With luck, we’d be able to reunite in Cesarine before the services to approach King Auguste together. Madame Labelle maintained he could be swayed into a third alliance. We’d find out—for better or for worse—when we visited his castle.

Like Ansel, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of it. There was still too much to do, too much of the puzzle missing. Too little time. We’d piece together the rest at the pub tonight, but before we could do that . . .

“Aha!” Triumphant, Beau pulled two bottles from Coco’s bag. She’d packed a motley assortment of ingredients to aid in her blood magic: some recognizable, such as herbs and spices, and some not, such as the gray powder and clear liquid Beau currently held aloft. “Wood ash and vinegar,” he explained. When we stared at him blankly, he heaved an impatient sigh. “For your hair. You still want to dye it the old-fashioned way, correct?”

“Oh.” Of their own volition, my hands shot up, covering my hair as if it protect it. “Yes—yes, of course.”

Coco clutched my shoulder for moral support, shooting daggers at Beau with her eyes. “You’re sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I’ve helped many a paramour dye their hair, Cosette. Indeed, before you, there was a buxom blonde by the name of Evonne.” He leaned closer, winking. “She wasn’t naturally blond, of course, but her other natural assets more than made up for it.” When Coco’s gaze flattened—and her fingers tightened painfully on my shoulder—Beau smirked. “Whatever is wrong, ma chatte? You aren’t . . . jealous?”

“You—”

I patted her hand, wincing. “I’ll dismember him for you after we’ve finished.”

“Slowly?”

“Piece by piece.”

With a satisfied nod, she strode after Madame Labelle, leaving me alone with Ansel and Beau. Awkwardness loomed between us, but I cut through it—literally—with an anxious swipe of my hand. “You do actually know what you’re doing, right?”

Beau ran his fingers through the length of my hair. Without Coco to goad him, he seemed to wilt, eyeing the bottles of wood ash and vinegar warily. “Never once did I claim to know what I’m doing.”

My stomach rose. “But you said—”

“What I said is that I helped a paramour dye her hair, but that was only to piss off Cosette. What I actually did was watch a paramour dye her hair, while feeding her strawberries. Naked.”

“If you fuck this up, I will skin you alive and wear your hide as a cape.”

He arched a brow, lifting the bottles to examine their labels. “Noted.”

Honestly, if a naked paramour didn’t start feeding me strawberries soon, I’d burn the world down.

After pouring equal parts of ash and vinegar into Coco’s mortar, he poked at it hopefully for several seconds, and an ominous gray sludge formed. Ansel eyed it in alarm. “How would you do it, though? If you magicked it a different color instead?”

Sweat broke out along my palms as Beau parted my hair into sections.

“That depends.” I cast about for a pattern, and sure enough, several tendrils of gold rose to meet me. Touching one, I watched it curl up my arm like a snake. “I’d be changing something about myself on the outside. I could change something on the inside to match. Or—depending on the end color—I could take the hue, depth, or tone of my current shade and manipulate it somehow. Maybe transfer the brown to my eyes instead.”

Ansel’s gaze shifted to Reid. “Don’t do that. I think Reid likes your eyes.” As if afraid he’d offended me somehow, he hastily added, “And I do too. They’re pretty.”

I chuckled, and the tension knotting my stomach eased a bit. “Thanks, Ansel.”

Beau leaned over my shoulder to look at me. “Are you ready?”

Nodding, I closed my eyes as he painted the first strand and kept my focus on Ansel. “Why are you so interested?”

“No reason,” he said quickly.

“Ansel.” I peeked an eye open to glare at him. “Out with it.”

He wouldn’t look at me, instead nudging a pine cone with his toe. Several seconds passed. Then several seconds more. I’d just opened my mouth to prod him along when he said, “I don’t remember much of my mother.”

My mouth closed with a snap.

Behind me, Beau’s hand stilled on my hair.

“She and my father died in a fire when I was three. Sometimes I think—” His eyes darted to Beau, who quickly resumed smearing the gray paste on my hair. Relieved, Ansel continued his dance with the pine cone. “Sometimes I think I can remember her laugh, or—or maybe his smile. I know it’s stupid.” He laughed in a self-deprecating way that I loathed. “I don’t even know their names. I was too frightened of Father Thomas to ask. He did once tell me Maman was an obedient, God-fearing woman, but for all I know, she could’ve been a witch.” He hesitated, swallowing hard, and finally met my eyes. “Just like—just like Reid’s mother. Just like you.”

My chest tightened at the hopefulness in his expression. Somehow, I knew what he was implying. I knew where this conversation was headed, and I knew what he wanted me to say—what he wanted, no, needed, to hear.

I hated disappointing him.

When I said nothing, his expression fell, but he continued determinedly. “If that’s the case, maybe . . . maybe I have magic too. It’s possible.”