Coco’s eyes widened. “You asshole. We practically lived together for a year—”

Baldy clubbed her in the head. Seizing his opportunity, Reid lunged—at the exact same second Coco twisted, trying to coat Baldy’s wrist with her blood. Skin sizzling, the man shrieked, and all three collided in a mass of tangled limbs. More men sprang forward amidst the tussle, wrenching away Reid’s Balisarda and pinning them both to the ground. Coco’s blood hissed where it touched the snow. Smoke curled around her face.

Madame Labelle looked on with an anxious expression, but still she didn’t move.

“Well,” Bone White said pleasantly, still grinning, “that solves that, then, dinnit? She’ll fetch a right nice price wit’ the Chasseurs. We passed some o’ them just up the road. Smarmy bastards. They’ve been scourin’ the forest for weeks, makin’ a right mess for us, haven’t they? O’course, I might just keep ’er blood for meself. Near priceless it is, to the right buyer.” Bone White scratched his chin thoughtfully before gesturing to Reid. “And this one? How abouts do you be knowin’ Reid Diggory, son?”

Bas’s grip on his knife tightened. “He arrested me in Cesarine.” Trembling with rage, he knelt beside Reid, sticking his knife in his face. “It’s because of you that my cousin disinherited me. It’s because of you that he left me for dead in the streets.”

Reid stared at him impassively. “I didn’t murder those guards.”

“It was an accident. I only did it because—” Bas spasmed abruptly. Blinking rapidly, he shook his head to clear it. “Because—” He glanced at Coco in confusion. She frowned back at him. “I—why—?”

“Stop yer blatherin’, boy, and get to the point!”

“I—I don’t . . . remember,” Bas finished, brow furrowed. He shook his head once more. “I don’t remember.”

Baldy regarded Coco warily. “Witchcraft, it is. Eerie stuff.”

Bone White snorted in disgust. “I don’t give a damn about witchcraft. All I care about is my couronnes. Now, Bas, tell me—is the other one here? The one they’re all after?” He rubbed his hands together greedily. “Just think what we can do wit’ a hundred thousand couronnes.”

“There are stilts in the wagon, if you’re thinking prosthetics.” Coco bared her teeth in a smile, jerking her chin toward his diminutive legs. The men tried and failed to force her face into the ground. “I’m sure with the right pants, no one would ever know.”

“Shut yer face,” Bone White snarled, his cheeks flushing crimson. “A’fore I shut it for you.”

Coco’s grin vanished. “Please do.”

But it seemed Bone White—despite claiming he didn’t care about witches—had a healthy respect for them. Or perhaps fear. He merely grunted and turned back to Bas. “Well? Is she here?”

I held my breath.

“I don’t—” Bas’s eyes flicked over the troupe members. “I don’t know.”

“What d’ya mean, you don’t know? She’s supposed to be travelin’ wit this one, innit she?” He pointed his knife at Reid.

Bas shrugged weakly. “I’ve never seen her before.”

Relief surged through me, and I closed my eyes, expelling a sigh. Beneath his rather unfortunate new exterior, perhaps Bas was still in there. My old friend. My confidant. I had saved his skin in the Tower, after all. It would’ve been poor repayment for him to watch as his friends chopped off my head. This—this thing with Coco—it was merely an act. He was trying to help us, to save us.

Bone White growled in frustration. “Search the area.”

At the command, my eyes snapped open—just in time to see Reid glance in my direction. When Bone White followed his gaze, I suppressed a groan. “Is she hidin’ behind that tree, then?” he asked eagerly, pointing his knife straight at us. “Over there, boys! She’s over there! Find her!”

“Quiet.” Claud’s whisper sent a tingle down my spine. The air around us felt heavy, thick with spring rains and storm clouds, pine sap and lichen. “Do not move.”

I obeyed his command—hardly daring to breathe—as Bas and one other bandit stalked toward us. The rest remained poised in a circle around the troupe, watching as Baldy began to tie Coco’s hands and feet. She eyed his knife as if contemplating whether to impale herself on it. With a bit more blood, these idiots would rue the day they’d been born.

“I don’t see nothin’,” Bas’s companion muttered, circling us with a frown.

Bas peered into the holly branches, his eyes skipping past us as if we weren’t there at all. “Me either.”

Claud’s hand tightened on my shoulder, silently warning me not to move.

“Anythin’?” Bone White called.

“Nothin’!”

“Well, go on and check down the creek then, Knotty! We’ll find her.”

Bas’s companion grunted and hobbled away. Without a backward glance in our direction, Bas rejoined Bone White.

“What was that?” I whispered, confusion heightening to panic. None of this made sense. Even Bas wasn’t this good of an actor. He’d stared at me—through me—without giving a single indication he saw me. Not a wink or brush of his hand. Not even eye contact, for shit’s sake. And why hadn’t Madame Labelle yet trounced these idiots? “What just happened?”

The pressure at my back relented slightly, though Claud still didn’t release me. “Illusion.”

“What? They—they think we’re part of the tree?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

He fixed me with his gaze, uncharacteristically serious. “Shall I explain now, or shall we wait until the imminent danger has passed?”

I scowled at him, returning my attention to the others. Bas had started helping Baldy with the ropes. When Baldy moved to bind Reid, Bas stopped him with a nasty smile. “I’ll take that one.”

Reid returned the smile. In the next second, he thrust his head backward—breaking his first captor’s nose—and rolled to his back, kicking the second in the knees. I almost cheered. With uncanny speed, he snatched his Balisarda from the howling man and exploded to his feet. Bas reacted with equal swiftness—as if he’d expected the attack—and used Reid’s momentum against him.

Though I cried out a warning—though Reid tried to correct—it was too late.

Bas plunged his knife into Reid’s belly.

“No,” I breathed.

Stunned, Reid staggered sideways, his blood spattering the snow. Bas grinned triumphantly, twisting the knife deeper, slicing upward through skin and muscle and sinew until white glinted through crimson. Bone. Bas had gutted him to the bone.

I moved without thinking.

“Louise!” Claud hissed, but I ignored him, throwing off his arm and scrambling to my feet, racing to where Reid fell to his knees. “Louise, no!”

The thieves gawked as I sprinted toward them—probably stupefied at seeing a tree transform into a human—but I couldn’t think past the blood roaring in my ears.

If Reid didn’t—if Coco couldn’t heal—

I would kill Bas. I would kill him.

Throwing my dagger at Coco’s feet—praying she could reach it—I dropped to my knees in front of Reid. Mayhem erupted around us. Finally, finally, Madame Labelle burst free of her ropes. With each flick of her hand, bodies flew. A small part of my brain realized Toulouse and Thierry had joined her, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t hear anything but the thieves’ panicked cries, couldn’t see anything but Reid. Reid.

Even injured, he still tried to push me behind him. The movement was weak, however. Too much of his blood had been lost. Decidedly too many of his innards were on display. “Don’t be stupid,” I said, trying to hold pieces of his flesh together. Bile rose in my throat as more blood spilled from his mouth. “Keep still. Just—just—”

But the words wouldn’t come. I glanced to Coco helplessly, trying to summon a pattern. Any pattern. But this wound was mortal. Only another’s death would heal it, and I couldn’t—I couldn’t trade Coco. It’d be like ripping out my own heart. And Ansel—

Ansel. Could I—?

Lou is different when she uses magic. Her emotions, her judgment—she’s been erratic.

No. I shook my head vehemently against the thought, but it lodged there like a growth, a tumor, poisoning my mind. Reid’s blood soaked my front, and he slumped forward in my arms, pressing his Balisarda into my hand. His eyes closed.

No no no—

“Well, looky ’ere.” Bone White’s snarl sounded behind me. Too close. His hand fisted in my hair, ripping my head back, and his other tugged aside the ribbon at my throat. He traced my scar. “My little witch has finally come out o’ hidin’. Yeh might’ve changed yer hair, but yeh can’ change yer scar. Yer comin’ wit’ me.”

“I don’t think so.” Coco descended on him like a bat out of Hell, my knife flashing, slashing his wrist.