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

“You said something was clearly wrong with her.” Coco retrieved her locket from where it’d fallen to the ground. Lou twitched in response. “You said it went beyond grief.”

“That doesn’t mean we poison her,” Beau said incredulously. “She’s still Lou. She’s still my sister.”

“No.” Coco shook her head with vehemence. “She isn’t.”

Lifting the mirror in the locket to Lou, she revealed the stark truth at last: I held long black hair in my hand, not white. The waist I clasped wasn’t right either. Though I couldn’t feel her bones beneath my fingers, I could see each rib in her reflection. Her skin appeared sickly. Alabaster pale. Not the smooth and freckled gold I loved. And scarred—so very scarred.

My pulse slowed to a dull, steady rhythm as I took in the truth. A poison all its own. I felt its cold touch in my chest, felt it crystallize around my heart. When it crept down my spine, my legs—debilitating me—my knees gave out, and I crumpled, dragging Lou’s body down with me. I stared at her slack face in my lap. Those dark circles beneath her eyes had deepened since yesterday. Her cheeks had grown sharper. She’d been fighting an altogether different poison. A disease.

Nicholina le Clair.

Fire burst through the ice like lava, melting everything in its path. My hands shook. My chest heaved. “Get her out,” I snarled.





No Rose Without a Thorn


Reid

Coco crossed to the door swiftly in answer, throwing it open, allowing sun to stream into the dilapidated room. But the sun—it did little to banish the shadows now. Instead, it refracted rainbows of light across broken mirrors, and those broken mirrors . . . they didn’t work right either. They reflected Lou back to me.

This wasn’t Lou.

“Get her out,” I repeated, engulfing the would-be Lou in my arms. My shoulders—my back—rounded to shield her from her own reflection. She didn’t stir at the contact. Beneath my fingers, her pulse felt thready and weak. Her skin even colder than usual. “Get her out now.”

“We need to move.” Coco hurried back to my side, looping an arm under mine. She tried to hoist me to my feet as angry voices echoed toward us from the cliffs beyond. The villagers. The mob. “They’ll be here any moment.” To Thierry, she added, “Is there a back entrance?”

He nodded with supreme effort. He still couldn’t speak, however, instead pointing to the bed. Beau rushed to shift it. Below, a heap of ropes and rusted pots hid a trapdoor. Kicking them aside, he struggled to lift the iron handle. “Thank God you have a carriage, Célie.”

“I don’t—well, actually, I”—she wrung her hands frantically before finishing in a rush—“the wheel shaft snapped on the rocks.”

Beau whipped around to stare at her. “It what?”

“The whole mechanism is completely busted. We can’t use it.”

“You said you had a carriage!” Beau heaved at the door with renewed purpose. “That implies a functional one.”

Célie stamped her foot, her eyes wide on the door. “Yes, well, no one would have let me come along otherwise!”

“Explain.” Ignoring them both, I spoke through numb lips. My voice shook as I looked up at Coco. “Please.”

She knelt beside us, face softening infinitesimally as she reached out to brush Lou’s forehead. “La Petite Larme reflects the truth. It cannot lie.”

“How?”

“I told you. Its mirror came from a drop of L’Eau Mélancolique. The waters have magical properties. Sometimes they heal, sometimes they harm.” She glanced back at the open door, craning her neck to see beyond it. The sun had fully risen now. We’d run out of time. “But they always tell the truth.”

I shook my head in a slow, disoriented movement, even as the villagers’ voices grew louder. They’d round the bend at any second. “No. I mean how is she—how is she inside of—” But I couldn’t finish the question. My throat closed up around the words. I dropped my gaze back to Lou. To the blisters on her lips. Self-loathing churned in my stomach. I hadn’t noticed. How could I not have noticed?

“There’s a spell in my aunt’s grimoire,” Coco explained quickly. Individual voices could be heard now. Individual words. She renewed her efforts to pull me to my feet. “A spell of possession. Old magic.” Possession. I closed my eyes as Coco’s voice darkened. “My aunt betrayed us.”

“But why? We promised her the Chateau—”

“Perhaps Morgane did too.”

“A little help here?” Beau panted. My eyes snapped open as Célie darted to join him.

“But it makes no sense,” I insisted, voice hardening. “Why would she ally with the witch who’s abused your coven at every turn?”

Hinges shrieked as Beau and Célie finally managed to open the trapdoor. The voices outside grew louder in response. Purposeful. Agitated. When neither Coco nor I moved, Beau waved animatedly toward the earthen tunnel. “Shall we?”

Coco hesitated only a second more before nodding. Célie hesitated longer.

“Are we sure this is safe?” She peered into the dark hole with palpable panic. Twin circles of white surrounded her irises. “The last time—”