Blood & Honey

The woman was a menace.

She moved with unexpected speed, feinting and striking with both hands. When her knife missed its mark, her fingers flexed and her opponent toppled. Or stiffened. Or smashed into the bar, shattering tumblers and dousing the room with whiskey. Glass rained down on our heads, but she didn’t slow. Again and again she struck.

Even so, Roy and his friends sobered quickly, and they outnumbered four to her one. Five when the barkeep joined the fray. Coco ran to meet him, but I caught her, pushing her toward the door. “Take the others and go. They don’t know your faces yet, but they will if you stay and fight.”

“I’m not leaving L—”

“Yes”—I seized the back of her dress and hurled her out the door—“you are.”

Eyes huge, Beau raced after her. Both Ansel and Madame Labelle looked likely to argue, but I cut them off, throwing a knife to pin Roy’s sleeve to the wall. He’d swiped his tankard at Lou while her back was turned. “We’ll meet you at camp. Go.”

They hastened after Coco and Beau.

Lou called something to me—parrying three men at once—but I couldn’t hear her over the villagers’ shrieks. They trampled each other in their haste to flee the witch with magic, but the men with makeshift swords proved equally frightening. Laughing, yelling, the three strode through the crowd toward the exit. One tore down Lou’s wanted poster and pocketed it. He seized mine next. Grinning at me over his shoulder, he tapped his hair.

My hand shot to my fallen hood.

“Take your time.” His voice reverberated through the panic, and he swiped a tankard from the nearest table, drinking deeply. His companions had successfully barricaded the door, trapping the remaining villagers. Trapping us. “We can wait.”

Bounty hunters.

“Husband!” Lou thrust her palm out, and Gilles’s and his friends’ skulls cracked together. Moaning, they crumpled to the floor. “I try not to be needy, really, but a little help over here would be grand—”

Roy freed himself and tackled her. I sliced through the barkeep’s leg, vaulting over him as he staggered, and sprinted toward them.

“Ugh, Roy, mon ami.” Lou wrinkled her nose beneath him. “I hate to be indelicate, but when did you last bathe? You smell a bit ripe under here.” With a retching sound, she bit the underside of his bicep. He reared backward, and I clubbed him in the head, hooking Lou’s elbow and flipping her over my back before he could collapse on her. She kicked Gilles—who’d been trying to rise—neatly on her way down.

“You can’t imagine how toothsome you look right now, Reid.” Grinning wickedly, elbow still linked with mine, she spun into my arms and kissed me full on the mouth. I must’ve been insane because I kissed her back, until—

“Toothsome?” I pulled away, frowning. Adrenaline pounded in my chest. “Not sure I like that—”

“Why not? It means I want to eat you alive.” She slashed at the last of Roy’s friends as we dashed for the door. “Have you tried any patterns yet?”

The mountainous barkeep rose to block our path, roaring loudly enough to shake the rafters. Blood painted his leg crimson. “Witch,” he seethed, swinging a club the size of Lou’s body.

I blocked the blow with my Balisarda, gritting my teeth against the impact. “This is hardly the time—”

“But have you?”

“No.”

With an impatient sigh, Lou ducked beneath us to stab at Roy, who refused to stay down.

“I suspected as much.” This time when Roy charged her, she rolled over his back and kicked him in the rear. He toppled over his friends’ bodies, and Lou knocked away his sword. “Magic in combat can be tricky, but it doesn’t have to end like this morning. The trick is to get creative—”

She broke off abruptly as Gilles seized her ankle. Winking at me, she stomped on his face. He crumpled against his friends and moved no more. Smashing my head into the barkeep’s nose, I caught his club when he collapsed. The very foundation trembled on impact.

Breathing hard, I looked behind us. Five down. Three to go.

“Try to see beyond this disgusting little room to what lies beneath.” Lou gestured wildly with her knife. Screaming anew, the trapped villagers scattered to hide behind overturned tables and chairs. “Go ahead. Look. Tell me what you see.”

I returned my attention to the men at the door instead. True to their word, they’d waited. Pushing languidly from the wall, they drew their swords as we approached. “I suppose this means you aren’t willing to simply step aside,” Lou said with a sigh. “Are you sure that’s wise? I am a witch, you know.”

The one with the tankard finished his beer. “Did you know your head is worth one hundred thousand couronnes?”

She sniffed and came to a stop. “Frankly, I’m insulted. It’s worth at least twice that. Have you spoken with La Dame des Sorcières? I’m sure she’d pay triple. For me, though. Not my head. I’d have to be alive, of course, which could present a problem for you—”

“Shut up.” The man dropped the tankard, and it shattered at his feet. “Or I’ll cut it off while you’re still breathing.”

“The king wants my actual head? How . . . barbaric. Are you sure you won’t consider taking me to La Dame des Sorcières instead? I’m suddenly feeling quite sympathetic to her cause.”

“If you surrender, we’ll kill you quick,” his companion promised. “Save the nasty business for after.”

Lou grimaced. “How magnanimous of you.” To me, she whispered, “They don’t have Balisardas. Focus on the outcome, and the patterns will appear. Choose the one with the least collateral damage, but make sure you choose. Otherwise nature will choose for you. That’s what happened this morning, isn’t it?”

I gripped my own Balisarda tighter. “I won’t need it.”

“I’m trying to be patient, Chass, but we don’t exactly have the luxury of time here—”

The first man’s smile slipped, and he lifted his sword. “I said shut up. We have you outnumbered. Now, do you surrender or not?”

“Not.” Lou lifted her own knife. It looked pathetically small in comparison. She looked pathetically small in comparison. Despite my deep, steadying breaths, the tension in my body built—built and built until I radiated with it, trembling with anticipation. “Wait, no, let me think.” She tapped her chin. “Definitely not.”

The man launched himself at her. I exploded, smashing my Balisarda into his gut, spinning as his companion attempted to maneuver past. My foot connected with his knee, and he buckled, driving his blade into my foot. Black spotted my vision as I wrenched the sword free.

With a feral cry, Lou darted toward the third, but he caught her wrist and twisted. Her knife clattered to the floor. She flicked a finger in response, and he crashed into the bar with enough force to splinter the wood. Coughing, she bent double. “Teachable moment,” she choked. “I should’ve just killed the miserable bastard, but”—another cough—“I used the air around us to knock him backward instead, tried to—stick him on the wood. It knocked me pretty good in—in return. Make sense? I could’ve taken the air straight from my lungs instead, but he—he’s too big. It would’ve taken too much air to move him. Probably would’ve killed me.” She grinned to herself then, wider and wider until she was cackling. Blood trickled down her chin from her mouth. “And then how could I have claimed your father’s hundred thousand couronnes—”

A knife flew at her from the wreckage of the bar.

She didn’t have time to duck.

With a man on each arm, I watched in slow motion as she flinched, lifting a hand to stop the blade from piercing her heart. But the strength of the throw—the man’s close proximity, his uncanny aim—was insurmountable. The blade would find its mark. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing I could do.

Her fingers twitched.

And with that twitch, her eyes grew less focused, less—human. Between one blink and the next, the knife reversed direction and impaled its owner’s throat.

Lou stared down at him, still smiling, her eyes shining with unfamiliar malice.

Except it wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d seen it many times.

Just never on her.

“Lou?”

When I touched her, that terrible smile finally broke, and she gasped, clutching her chest. I pulled her behind me as the two men charged. She couldn’t breathe, I realized in alarm. Despite her own warning, she’d given the air from her lungs to throw that knife—not as much as it would’ve taken to throw the man. Enough that red splotches had appeared in her eyes, enough that her chest worked furiously to replenish what it’d lost. “I’m fine,” she said, struggling to rejoin me. Her voice was raw. Weak. I stepped in front of her. “I said I’m fine.”