I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and nodded. “But I shouldn’t.”

“Cécile.” Chris reached across the table and tried to hold my mug down, but I jerked it out of his grasp and finished the contents. He grimaced. “You know that he doesn’t want you miserable every waking breath for his sake.”

“How would you know?” I asked, digging money out of my pocket to pay for another drink.

“We’ve tried everything,” he said, going with a different tactic. “For two months you’ve run in the circles you’d thought she’d occupy and not seen hide nor hair of her. You have lists and lists of women whose backgrounds you and Sabine have checked, which yielded nothing but gossip. I’ve lost count of how many witches, real or otherwise, that we’ve talked to. None of them would help us.”

“Most of them can’t.” During my recovery, I’d pressed my Gran into teaching me all she knew about magic. She’d taught me how to balance the elements, why certain plants had the effects they did, and how to time a spell casting at a moment of transition: sunrise and sunset, a full moon, and the solstices in order to maximize the amount of power drawn from the earth. She didn’t know a great deal – and nearly all of it was relating to healing injuries and curing sickness, but I’d gained enough knowledge to know magic when I saw it.

“My point is,” Chris continued, “that maybe you’ve done enough. Maybe it’s time for you to move on with your life.”

I set my empty mug down with a clatter, not bothering to keep the anger off my face. I expected this from Sabine, but not from Chris. For her, it was still half a fairytale, but he’d been to Trollus. He knew the stakes. “Are you actually suggesting I give up?”

“I don’t know.” He looked away. “He doesn’t even want you to break the curse. Maybe it would be better for everyone if you stopped hunting.”

“Better for humans, you mean,” I snapped, my words slurring together. “How can you be so selfish?”

Chris turned bright red. Hands gripping the edge of the table, he leaned toward me. “If you want to see selfish, go look in the mirror. I’m not the one willing to sell the whole world into slavery for the sake of a love affair!” He stormed away through the crowd of patrons and out of sight.

I stared blindly at my empty mug, ignoring the dampness of spilled beer and wine soaking into the sleeves of my dress. Was Chris right? Was I being selfish? Two months ago, I set out to Trianon to hunt down and kill Anushka so that the curse would be broken. There had been no doubt in my mind that I was doing the right thing, and that certainty had been unwavering.

Or had it?

I wanted Tristan freed, that I knew. And my friends. Marc, the twins, Pierre, and the Duchesse Sylvie. Zoé and Élise. All the half-bloods, really. I wanted them free of the curse. But the others? I thought about Angoulême, King Thibault, and especially about Tristan’s demon of a little brother, and a cold sweat broke across my brow. Them I would be well and truly content to keep locked up for eternity.

But that was the problem. If I released one, I released all, and the consequences would be on me. But so would the consequences of doing nothing.

Pain twisted in my chest, and I shoved my mug across the table. I missed him. Not only for reasons of the heart, but as an ally. Missed watching his formidable and tenacious intelligence at work – that mind of his that I so greatly admired. What I would not give for his ability to see to the heart of a puzzle.

The room spun as I looked around, making my stomach churn. I sucked in a deep breath to try to calm my senses and instantly regretted it. The stench of stale beer and sweat assaulted my nostrils and I gagged. “Bloody stones and sky.” Clambering to my feet, I pushed my way through the revelers, eyes fixed on the front door and fresh air.

I wasn’t going to make it.

I pushed harder, ignoring the complaints of those in my path. Reaching the door, I flung it open and staggered out into the cool air. Then I fell to my knees and retched up three flagons of beer into the gutter.

“I must confess,” a voice said from behind me. “This wasn’t precisely the posture I expected to find you in.”

Wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I looked over my shoulder. A cloaked man stood a few paces behind me, face shadowed by his hood. “What do you want?”

“Only to deliver a message.” His mouth widened into a smile. “To her Royal Highness, Princess Cécile de Montigny.”

Two

Cécile

I rose unsteadily to my feet, the lace of my gloves catching on the brick wall as I grasped it for support. “Who are you?”

“A messenger.”

“From who?” I asked, though I already knew.

“From his Majesty, King Thibault.” The man inclined his head. “He sends his warmest and most heartfelt greetings to his absent daughter-in-law. Trollus hasn’t been the same since your hasty departure.”

“Are you here to kill me?” Was this the moment of reckoning?

The messenger laughed. “Kill you? Certainly not. If I’d been here to kill you, you would already be dead. I’m not one to delay the inevitable.”

“Then why?” I asked, feeling not at all reassured. “And how is it that you can speak of them at all?”

“His Majesty would like…” he started to say, then Chris burst out the front door of the bar. “Cécile” he called, looking around wildly. His eyes fixed on me and the messenger. “Hey!” he shouted. “Leave her alone!”