Gods & Monsters (Serpent & Dove #3) by Shelby Mahurin

“Philippe won’t let Jean Luc within fifty feet of this room.”

“It’s fortunate, then, that Jean Luc isn’t our only ally. Coco will know where we are. She’ll bring Claud or Zenna or Blaise, and they’ll break us out.”

He leveled me with a frank stare. “I don’t think you grasp the number of huntsmen living in this tower, Lou.”

Leaning forward, I rested my elbows on my knees. “I don’t think you grasp that I lived here too.”

“You did?” Surprise colored his tone. “How?”

“I was your wife. The Archbishop couldn’t have separated us, even if he wanted to—which he didn’t. He arranged the whole marriage.”

“Why?” Now he leaned forward too, his eyes trained on mine. Hungry for information. His earlier words echoed back to me: Tell me how to remember. If we were going to die at sunset, Coco’s argument hardly applied anymore, did it? Another mad idea formed on the heels of that realization. If Reid remembered, Morgane would too. If the others didn’t come for me, she would. She’d tear this tower apart brick by brick if she learned the Chasseurs intended to burn me.

Of course, Reid still had a point. She’d never been able to tear it apart before. Stripped of her title, she’d hardly be able to do it now.

“You know why.” I shrugged, the thoughts tangling into a helpless knot of confusion. My foot tapped restlessly. “I’m his daughter. He wanted you to protect me.”

He scoffed again, an angry sound, and gestured around us. “I’ve done an excellent job.”

“Our friends will come for us, Reid. We have to trust them.”

“Where are they, then? Why aren’t they here?”

“Hopefully they’re out rescuing your mother and brother. That was the whole point of the endeavor, if you remember.”

His face flushed, and he looked away. “Of course I remember.”

The guards flung the door open unexpectedly this time. In the split second it took for the knob to unlatch, a third idea formed, and impulsively, I transformed into the Maiden as two Chasseurs stepped through. Their eyes flew wide when they saw me. “Oh, please, messieurs!” I wrung my hands with a cry, pacing before the bars without touching them. “The witch—she tricked me. I’m a scullery maid upstairs, but while I was washing the linens, I heard a voice singing the most beautiful song.” I spoke quicker now, disliking the calculated gleam in the older one’s eyes. “I just had to follow it, messieurs—like some outside force compelled me to do it, like I was in a trance—and I didn’t wake until I’d unlocked the door and let her go. Please, please, let me out while the other still sleeps.” Gesturing to Reid on the floor, I allowed my lip to quiver and tears to spill down my cheeks. It was easier to feign distress than I’d anticipated. “I’m so sorry. You can dock my pay, you can relieve me of service, you can lash me, but please don’t let him hurt me.”

Though the younger looked likely to leap to my rescue, the older stilled him with a smile. It wasn’t a compassionate one. “Are you finished?”

I sniffed loudly. “Will you not help me?”

In two strides, he crossed the room to the circular table, rifling through the papers there. He pulled one from beneath a crucifix paperweight and held it to the light. Though sketched with rudimentary lines, the drawing portrayed my face—the Maiden’s face—well enough. My distraught expression fell flat as I leaned against the bars. My form reverted once more. “Good for you.”

“Yes,” he mused, examining me curiously. “It rather is. It seems you’ve inherited your mother’s gifts. His Majesty will be pleased to know it.”

“That—that’s La Dame des Sorcières’s daughter?”

“It appears she is La Dame des Sorcières now.”

The younger’s concern vanished instantly, replaced by what looked like awe. Perhaps a touch of fear. Of hunger. “We caught her?”

“You didn’t catch anyone.” My own fear sharpened my voice. I pushed it down. The others would come. They would. “May I inquire as to the time?”

The older replaced the picture before approaching the cage. Though he kept his posture casual, sweat had collected along his upper lip. I made him nervous. Good. “You can ask. I won’t answer, though. Better to watch you squirm.” When I thrust my face at the bars, swift and sudden, he stumbled backward. To his credit, he didn’t curse, instead clutching his chest with a low chuckle.

“Shall we inject it?” The younger drew fresh syringes from his coat. “Teach it a lesson?”

“No.” The older shook his head and backed from the room. “No, I think we’re inflicting just the right amount of torment, don’t you?”

The two closed the door behind them with a resounding click.

Now Reid pulled me away from the bars. “The others will come,” he said.

Some time later, a scuffle broke out in the corridor to prove his words. Voices rose to shouts, and the sound of steel against steel rang out in the sweetest harmony. We both launched to our feet, staring at the door and waiting. “This is it.” My fingers wrapped around the bars in anticipation. “They’re here.”

Reid frowned at the high-pitched, feminine voices. Unfamiliar, they didn’t belong to Coco or Célie or Zenna or even Seraphine. They sounded like the voices of . . . children. “Leave us alone!” one cried, indignant. “Let us go!”