“No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.” Then I started to run, pulling my skirts up in one hand as I sprinted toward the street Catherine’s shop was on. As I rounded the corner, I saw the crowd of people, buckets passing from hand to hand in a fruitless attempt to extinguish the inferno engulfing the shop. A shriek filled my ears, and it took me a moment to realize it came from my lips. Clapping a hand over my mouth, I stared for a second, then started running.

I sprinted up to the next road, then down it until I reached the building with the adjoining yard. Tearing open the front door, I ignored the shouts of those inside as I ran through the clutter of cots and out the back. In the yard, I jumped, catching hold of the top of the stone fence and hauling myself over.

“Cécile, what are you doing?” I heard Tristan yell, but I ignored him, dropping into the dirt on the far side. The fire was intense, the heat radiating from it making me flinch away, my eyes stinging and watering. It didn’t matter that Catherine had betrayed me. She was involved in this because I’d asked her to be, so if she was in there, I had to help her.

I started to walk toward the flames, the smoke making me cough and choke, then magic locked around my waist, pulling me back.

“Have you lost your mind?” Tristan shouted into my ear, dragging me toward the fence.

“Catherine might be in there.” I struggled against his grip, trying to go back to the fire. “I have to help her.”

Fingers of magic caught hold of my chin, forcing me to look at him through the haze. “If she’s in there, she’s dead. There’s nothing you can do.”

Logically, I knew what he was saying was true, but the idea of leaving Catherine in there to burn was more than I could bear. Tears trickled down my cheeks, cool against my overheated skin. “She has Anushka’s grimoire. I need it to find her. I need it to keep my mother safe.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I need it!” I screamed the words in his face, my desperation to retrieve the grimoire twisting me into a mindless frenzy.

Tristan swore, and I could hear him talking with Chris over my head, but the words were meaningless. Nothing mattered more than finding the witch. No sacrifice was too great.

Then Tristan was pushing me at Chris and walking toward the fire. “What’s he doing?”

Exactly what you asked him to. The realization that I’d just put a book ahead of Tristan’s safety slapped me in the face, and I scrabbled forward to catch his coat, but Chris jerked me backwards.

“Cécile, calm down,” he shouted into my ear. “He knows how to take care of himself.”

The flames crept higher, catching at the buildings to either side, the efforts of the bucket brigade futile against the inferno. Nothing could survive in that heat, and I could hear the splintering and cracks of timbers that told me the roof was on the verge of collapse. Logic told me that Tristan’s magic would keep him safe, but instinct made me scream warnings for him to get out.

Then, through the smoke, I saw him walking toward us, a limp form floating ahead of him.

Chris let go of me, and I started to run toward them, but an invisible rope of power caught me, lifting me up into the air and setting me in the corner of the yard. “What are you doing?” I coughed, clawing at the magic. “I can help her.”

“She’s beyond help.” Tristan set her on the grass, but I couldn’t make anything out through the haze. “You don’t need to see this.”

“Let me go!”

Tristan only shook his head, ignoring Chris, who had taken one look and was now retching against the wall. “She’s dead, Cécile. Someone slit her throat, and then the fire did its work. It isn’t something I want you to see.”

I didn’t deserve to be protected, I deserved to see what had befallen Catherine because I’d involved her in a plot far bigger than she knew. “What about the grimoire?”

“Not on her. And if it’s inside, there’s nothing left but ash.”

Our only hope was gone. Slumping into the dirt, I rested my cheek against the mossy stone of the wall and watched the shop burn. Then a motion at my arm caught my attention, a soft tongue licking at my hand.

Looking down, I saw the bedraggled form of a dog. “Souris!” I clutched him to my chest, petting his fur, and whispering comforts to him that I wished I could feel. As I held him, part of the roof collapsed with a whoosh of hot air, and the rear door of the building slammed, making me look up.

My hands turned cold, making me long for the returned heat of the fire as I stared, my comprehension coming quick and my reaction slow. “Tristan,” I called, my voice ragged. “Chris!”

The tone of my voice made them look over, and with one shaking finger, I pointed to the closed door of the burning house. Any doubt I had about who had killed Catherine was gone.

Painted in thick red across the wood was the letter A. Anushka had killed Catherine, and she had left a message.

And the worst part about it was, I was certain it was for us.

Thirty-Five

Cécile

We stayed at the fire until it was under control, Tristan creating a sort of magical chimney to keep the flames from spreading any further. Bystanders whispered that it was a miracle the whole quarter hadn’t gone up, but it did not appear to cross the mind of any of them that the tall young man watching from the street had anything to do with it.

Chris helped with the bucket brigade, while Sabine and I circulated through the crowd, listening for any hints as to how the fire might have started. No one knew anything. No one had seen anything. But there were plenty who believed the flames that had been chasing the infamous La Voisin these past four years had finally caught up with her. Only the four of us knew how right they were.