“Not at all, child, not at all. I’m just a bit overwrought this morning. We had a strange night. Our patients are unusually . . . agitated.” He waved a hand, revealing a metal syringe, and joined me at Bernie’s bedside. My smile froze in place. “I see you too are concerned for our Monsieur Bernard. Last night one of my healers found him attempting to jump out a window!”

“What?” I locked eyes with Bernie, frowning, but his mutilated face gave nothing away. Not even a flicker. He remained . . . blank. I shook my head. His pain must’ve been terrible.

Father Orville patted my shoulder. “Not to worry, child. It won’t happen again.” He lifted a feeble hand to show me the syringe. “We’ve perfected the dosage this time. I’m sure of it. This injection will soothe his agitation until he joins the Lord.”

He pulled a thin dagger from his robes and cut a small incision on Bernie’s arm. Coco stepped forward, eyes narrowed, as black blood oozed out. “He’s gotten worse.”

Father Orville fumbled with the syringe. I doubted he could even see Bernie’s arm, but he finally managed to plunge the quill deep into the black cut. I cringed when he pushed the trigger, injecting the poison, but Bernie didn’t move. He just kept staring at me.

“There now.” Father Orville eased the quill out of his arm. “He should drift off to sleep momentarily. Might I suggest we leave him in peace?”

“Yes, Father,” Coco said, bowing her head. She shot me a meaningful look. “C’mon, Lou. Let’s go read some Proverbs.”

La Vie éphémère

Lou

A crowd lined the street outside Soleil et Lune. Aristocrats chatted outside the box office while their wives greeted each other with saccharine smiles. Fashionable carriages came and went. Ushers tried to shepherd the attendees to their seats, but this was the real entertainment of the evening. This was why the rich and affluent came to the theater . . . to preen and politicize in a complex social dance.

I’d always likened it to a peacock’s mating ritual.

My husband and I certainly looked the part. Gone were my bloodstained dress and trousers. When he’d returned to our room earlier with a new evening gown—nearly bursting with pride and anticipation—I hadn’t been able to refuse him. Burnished gold, it had a fitted bodice and tapered sleeves that had been embroidered with tiny, metallic blooms. They glimmered in the dying sunlight, transitioning smoothly into a train of champagne silk. I’d even magicked away a few of my bruises in the infirmary. Powder had covered the rest.

My husband wore his best coat. Though still Chasseur blue, gold filigree decorated the collar and cuffs. I resisted the urge to smile, envisioning the picture we made striding up the theater steps. He’d matched our outfits. I should’ve been appalled, but with his hand wrapped firmly around mine, I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything but excitement.

I had insisted on wearing the hood of my cloak up, however. And a pretty lace ribbon to hide my scar. If my husband had noticed, he’d known better than to comment on either.

Perhaps he wasn’t so bad.

The crowd drew away as we entered the foyer. I doubted anyone remembered us, but people tended to be uneasy—though others would call it reverent—around Chasseurs. No one wrecked a good party like a Chasseur. Especially if that Chasseur was as priggish as my husband.

He guided me to my seat. For once, I didn’t resent his hand on my back. It actually felt . . . nice. Warm. Strong. Until he attempted to remove my cloak. When I tugged it out of his grasp, refusing to part with it, he frowned, clearing his throat in the ensuing awkwardness. “I never asked . . . did you enjoy the book?”

The gentleman in the seat beside me caught my hand before I could answer.

“Enchanté, mademoiselle,” he crooned, kissing my fingers.

I couldn’t help the giggle that escaped my lips. He was handsome in an oily way, with dark, slick hair and a thin mustache.

My husband flushed scarlet. “I’ll thank you to take your hand from my wife, monsieur.”

The man’s eyes boggled, and he looked to my empty ring finger. I laughed harder. I’d taken to wearing Angelica’s Ring on my right hand, just to annoy my husband. “Your wife?” He dropped my hand as if it were a poisonous spider. “I didn’t think Chasseurs were in the practice of marriage.”

“This one is.” He rose and jerked his head toward me. “Switch seats with me.”

“I meant no offense, monsieur, of course.” The oily man shot me a regretful glance as I sidled away from him. “Though you are a lucky man indeed.”

My husband glowered, effectively silencing the man for the rest of the evening.

The lights dimmed, and I finally pushed back my hood. “You’re a bit territorial, aren’t you?” I whispered, grinning again. He was such a brute. A somewhat adorable, pompous-assed brute.

He wouldn’t look at me. “Performance is starting.”

The symphony began playing, and men and women flitted onto the stage. I recognized Hook-Nose immediately, chuckling at the memory of how she’d humiliated the Archbishop in front of his doting admirers. Ingenious. And to cast such an enchantment right under the noses of my husband and the Archbishop . . .

Hook-Nose was a fearless Dame Blanche.

Though she played only a minor role in the chorus, I eagerly watched her dance along with the actors playing Emilie and Alexandre.

My enthusiasm quickly dimmed, however, as the song progressed. There was something familiar about the way she held herself—something I hadn’t noticed upon first meeting her. Unease gradually settled in my stomach as she twirled and danced, disappearing behind the curtain.

When the second song started, my husband leaned closer. His breath tickled the skin of my neck. “Jean Luc said you were looking for me this morning.”

“It’s rude to talk during a performance.”

He narrowed his eyes, undeterred. “What did you want?”

I turned my attention back toward the stage. Hook-Nose had just swept back into view, her corn-silk hair rippling across her shoulders. The movement stirred a memory, but when I tried to grasp it fully, it slipped away again, like water between my fingers.

“Lou?” He tentatively touched my hand. His was warm, large, and calloused, and I couldn’t bring myself to pull away.

“A knife,” I admitted, eyes never leaving the stage.

He sucked in a breath. “What?”

“I wanted a knife.”

“You can’t be serious.”

I glanced at him. “I’m deadly serious. You saw Madame Labelle yesterday. I need protection.”

He gripped my hand tighter. “She won’t touch you.” The oily man beside us coughed pointedly, but we ignored him. “She won’t be allowed inside Chasseur Tower again. The Archbishop gave his word.”

I scowled. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

His expression hardened, and his jaw clenched tight. “It should. The Archbishop is a powerful man, and he’s vowed to protect you.”

“His word means nothing to me.”

“What of my word, then? I vowed to protect you as well.”

It was laughable, really, his dedication to protecting a witch. He would’ve had kittens if he knew the truth.

I arched a wry brow. “Just as I promised to obey you?”

He skewered me with a black look, but the oily man wasn’t the only one openly glaring now. I settled back in my seat with a smug toss of my hair. He was far too prim to argue in front of an audience.

“This conversation isn’t over,” he muttered, but he too sat back, staring moodily at the performers. To my surprise—and grudging delight—he kept my hand fixed beneath his. After several long moments, he casually brushed his thumb along my fingers. I wriggled in my seat. He ignored me, gazing steadily at the stage as the performance wore on. But his thumb continued moving, drawing small patterns on the back of my hand, circling my knuckles, tracing the tips of my nails.

I struggled to concentrate on the performance. Delicious tingles spread across my skin with each sweep of his thumb . . . until slowly, gradually, his touch trailed upward, and his fingers grazed the veins of my wrist, the inside my elbow. He stroked my scar there, and I shivered, pressing back in my seat and trying to focus on the performance. My cloak slipped down my shoulders.

The first act ended too soon, and intermission began. We both remained seated, silently touching—hardly breathing—as the audience milled around us. When the candles dimmed again, I turned to look at him, heat rising from my belly to my cheeks.

“Reid,” I breathed.

He stared back at me, his own flushed, panicked expression mirroring my own. I leaned closer, gaze falling to his parted lips. His tongue flicked out to moisten them, and my belly contracted.

“Yes?”

“I—”

In my periphery, Hook-Nose spun in a pirouette, her hair flying wild. Something clicked in my memory at the movement. A solstice celebration. Corn-silk hair braided with flowers. The maypole.

Shit.

Estelle. Her name was Estelle, and I’d known her once—in my childhood at Chateau le Blanc. She obviously hadn’t recognized me before with my freshly smashed face, but if she saw me again, if she somehow remembered . . .

The heat in my belly froze to ice.

I had to get out of here.