Blood & Honey

Ansel stopped walking abruptly, like I’d clubbed him in the back of the head. “You’ll become the Maiden, Mother, and Crone.”

“Goddess Divine.” I smirked, stooping to pick up a handful of snow, but he didn’t share my humor any longer. A furrow appeared between his brows. “What’s with the face?” I asked, packing the snow between my palms. “That’s how it works. La Dame des Sorcières possesses divine power as a blessing from the Triple Goddess.”

“Do you want to become La Dame des Sorcières?”

I hurled the snowball at a tree, watching as it exploded on the limbs. What an unexpected question. Certainly no one had ever asked it before. “I . . . I don’t know. I never thought I’d live past my sixteenth birthday, let alone plot a revolt against my mother. Inheriting her divine power seemed far-fetched, even as a child.”

He resumed walking, albeit slower than before. I fell into step beside him. But after several instances of him glancing at me, looking away, opening his mouth, and shutting it again, I’d had enough. I made another snowball and chucked it at his head. “Out with it.”

With a disgruntled look, he knocked the snow from his curls. “Do you think you’ll be able to kill your own mother?”

My stomach twisted unpleasantly. As if answering some unspoken call, Absalon dropped from a pine overhead to saunter along behind me. I didn’t look at him—didn’t look at anyone or anything but my own boots in the snow. My toes had gone numb. “She hasn’t given me a choice.”

It wasn’t an answer, and Ansel knew it. We lapsed into silence.

The moon peeked out overhead as we continued our search, dappling the forest floor in light. The wind gradually ceased. If not for Nicholina floating along like a specter beside Ismay and Gabrielle, it would’ve been peaceful. As it was, however, a bone-deep chill settled within me.

There’d been no sign of Etienne.

If I am to consider this alliance, you will find Etienne before the first light of day. Do we have a deal?

As if I’d had a choice.

When I’d called for a pattern to find Etienne—standing at the edge of camp with everyone’s eyes on my back—the golden threads had tangled, coiling and shifting like snakes in a nest. I hadn’t been able to follow them. At La Voisin’s expectant look, however, I’d lied my ass off—which was why I now wandered through a random copse of spruces, trying and failing not to watch the sky. Sunrise couldn’t be too far away.

I took a deep breath and examined the patterns again. They remained hopelessly knotted, spiraling out of control in every direction. There was no give. No take. Just . . . confusion. It was like my third eye—that sixth sense enabling me to see and manipulate the threads of the universe—had . . . blurred, somehow. I’d never known such a thing was possible.

La Voisin had said someone was shielding Etienne’s location from us. Someone powerful. I had a sick suspicion who that might be.

After another quarter hour, Ansel sighed. “Should we maybe . . . call out for him?”

“You should.” Nicholina cackled in front of us. “Call him, call him, let the trees maul him, boil and butter and split and saw him—”

“Nicholina,” I said brusquely, still keeping one eye on the patterns. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say to shut up.”

But she only drifted backward, clutching the inky hair on either side of her face. “No, no, no. We’re going to be the best of friends, the three of us. The very best of friends.” When I arched an incredulous brow at Ansel, she cackled louder. “Not him, silly mouse. Not him.”

A branch snapped ahead, and if possible, she laughed all the louder. “The trees in this forest have eyes, little mouse. She spies, she spies, she spies, little mouse—”

“Or it could be a wounded Etienne.” I unsheathed my knife in a single, fluid movement—unnerved despite myself—and whirled toward the noise. “You should go investigate.”

Still leering, Nicholina vanished between one blink and the next. Ismay stared ahead, visibly torn between investigating the source of the noise and protecting her daughter. She clutched Gabrielle’s hand tightly.

“Go.” I approached them with caution, but I didn’t sheathe my weapon. The hair on my neck still prickled with unease. She spies, she spies, she spies, little mouse. “We’ll take care of your daughter.”

Though Ismay pressed her lips together, she nodded once and slipped into the trees. Gabrielle waited until she’d gone before sticking her hand out to me, wriggling with excitement.

Then she opened her mouth.

“My name is Gabrielle Gilly, and you are even shorter than they said. Practically elfin! Tell me, how do you kiss my brother? I heard he’s as tall as this evergreen!” I tried to answer—or perhaps laugh—but she continued without breath. “I suppose I should call him my half brother, though, shouldn’t I? Maman doesn’t like you being here. She doesn’t like me knowing about him, but she’s gone for the moment and I don’t really care what she thinks, anyway. What’s he like? Does he have red hair? Nicholina told me he has red hair, but I don’t like Nicholina very much. She thinks she’s so clever, but really, she’s just weird. Too many hearts, you know—”

“Hearts?” Ansel shot me a bewildered look. As if realizing his poor manners, he hastened to add, “I’m Ansel, by the way. Ansel Diggory.”

“The hearts keep her young.” Gabrielle continued like he hadn’t spoken, nodding in a matter-of-fact way. “Maman says I shouldn’t speak of such things, but I know what I saw, and Bellamy’s chest was stitched shut on his pyre—”

“Wait.” I felt a bit out of breath myself listening to her. “Slow down. Who’s Bellamy?”

“Bellamy was my best friend, but he died last winter. He lost his maman a few years before that. His sister was born a white witch, see, so his maman sent her to live at the Chateau to have a better life. But then his maman went and died of a broken heart because Bellamy wasn’t enough for her. He was enough for me, though, until he died too. Now he’s not enough at all.”

“I’m sor—” Ansel started, but Gabrielle shook her head, sending her auburn hair rippling around her shoulders in an agitated wave.

“Strangers always says that. They always say they’re sorry, like they’re the ones who killed him, but they didn’t kill him. The snow did, and then Nicholina ate his heart.” Finally—finally—she paused to draw breath, blinking once, twice, three times, as her eyes focused on Ansel at last. “Oh. Hello, Ansel Diggory. Are you related to my brother too?”

Ansel gaped at her. A laugh built in my throat at his gobsmacked expression, at her inquisitive one, and when it finally burst free—brilliant and clear and bright as the moon—Absalon darted into the boughs for cover. Birds in their nests took flight. Even the trees seemed to rustle in agitation.

As for me, however, I felt lighter than I had in weeks.

Still chuckling, I knelt before her. Her brown eyes met mine with familiar intensity. “I cannot wait for your brother to meet you, Gabrielle.”

She beamed. “You can call me Gaby.”

When Nicholina and Ismay returned a moment later—Nicholina trilling about naughty trees—Gaby scoffed and whispered, “I told you she’s weird. Too many hearts.”

Ansel swallowed hard, casting a dubious look at Nicholina’s back as she drifted farther and farther ahead, leaving the rest of us behind. Ismay walked much closer than before. Her rigid spine radiated disapproval.

“You really think she—eats hearts?” he asked.

“Why would she do that?” I asked. “And how would they keep her young?”

“Your magic lives outside your body, right?” Gaby asked. “You get it from your ancestors’ ashes in the land?” She plowed ahead with her explanation before I could answer. “Our magic is different. It lives within us—right inside our hearts. The heart is the physical and emotional center of a blood witch, after all. Everyone knows that.”

Ansel nodded, but he didn’t seem to know at all. “Because your magic is only accessible through blood?”

“Gabrielle,” Ismay said sharply, lurching to a stop. She didn’t turn. “Enough. Speak no more of this.”

Gaby ignored her. “Technically, our magic is in every part of us—our bones, our sweat, our tears—but blood is the easiest way.”

“Why?” Ansel asked. “Why blood over the others?”

In a burst of clarity, I remembered the tour he’d given me of Cathédral Saint-Cécile d’Cesarine. He’d known every detail of that unholy place. And what’s more—he’d spent much of our time in the Tower poring over leather-bound books and illuminated manuscripts from the library.

If Gaby’s curious nature served, he’d found himself a like-minded friend.

“I said enough, Gabrielle.” Ismay finally turned, planting her fists on her hips to block our path. She took care not to look at me. “No more. This conversation is inappropriate. If Josephine knew—”