As I crash to the boards, I can hear Desgrez groaning with mortification from beyond the grave.
Punches rain down on my face and ribs. The edge of a knife grazes my side. Clumsily, I kick out, but the guards strike faster and harder. The best I can do is curl into a ball and pray it ends quickly.
It does. And, shockingly, not because I’m dead.
At first I think someone has set loose a pack of wild dogs, with the high-pitched yips and growls and the way the guards are screaming. But when I open my eyes, Gavril’s filthy face hovers over mine. “Not your best fight, Highness,” he says with a cheeky wink. He pulls a dagger from his waistband and hands it to me. “Try not to lose this one too.” Then spins and buries a sword in the chest of an advancing guard.
I fist the dagger and scramble to join them, but an earsplitting cry stops us all where we stand. Needles flash down my spine, and I slowly turn.
The first thing I see is blood. Everywhere. A deep crimson stain oozes across the boards. It’s impossible to tell where it’s coming from. Both Mirabelle and La Voisin are sprawled across the platform along with a third hulking body that I realize—with a pulse of shock—is Gris.
The smoke beasts roar overhead, blades crash, and shouts rise from the square below, but on the scaffold, there’s a single second of absolute silence.
Then La Voisin begins to shake. She tosses and twists, her arms flying and her back arching. It goes on and on and on, and we watch in stunned horror until she falls still. Even then, none of us move. The remaining handful of Shadow Society guards glance nervously at each other, then us, unsure whether to leap back into the fray with both of their leaders dead.
My eyes keep darting back to Mirabelle. Her face is blank and haunted as she looks at her mother’s body. Marguerite barrels across the platform and drapes herself across La Voisin, which causes Mirabelle to retreat even farther.
The unnatural pause finally shatters when a smoke beast the color of sunrise—pink and gold and dusty gray—careens across the scaffold and nearly burns us all to cinders. I hit the ground so fast, my breath rushes out in a sharp punch. Once the creature’s wingbeats recede, I allow myself to look up. Which is a horrendous mistake. The beast and its oily-black brother circle back and dive at Louis and the other rebels who have finally reached the platform. They pluck up fishmongers and stationers like birds pecking worms and devour them in messy, shredding bites.
I press my fist to my forehead and scream. No matter how much we accomplish, there’s always another disaster.
“Hurry, Josse!” Gavril shouts in my ear. Instead of runningawayfrom the beasts with the remaining Shadow Society guards, Gavril and his gang sprint toward the danger. “The nets! Ready the nets!” they yell at the orphans in Louis’s company.
By the time we reach the group, the lengths of rope are unfurled and Gavril barks orders at everyone, including Louis, telling us where to stand and how to position the nets. Mirabelle hurries to join us, dragging her squalling sister behind her, and Ameline douses us all with fire powder.
Then we wait, eyes fixed skyward.
The black beast dives first. It ripples through the smoke like a shadow and we hurl the net into the air, but without the height of the rooftops and the narrow streets to hem it in, the creature has plenty of room to rear back. The net slides from its wings and crashes to the platform, nearly crushing several of our allies.
As we scramble to regroup, the rose-gold smoke beast attacks. It catches the net in its claws and hurls it across the stage—along with everyone still clutching the rope. I make a sound like a screaming teakettle as I watch Mirabelle tumble across the platform. She lands like a rag doll near Lesage’s body and doesn’t rise.
No.I sprint toward her, my vision darkening around the edges until she is all I see. My body howls with each step. Lesage’s handprint pulses against my chest, burning hot and tight. But the sight of Mirabelle lying motionless on the boards relegates my pain to a dull ache.
It’s not until I’m halfway across the scaffold that I realize her eyes are open and she’s staring down at her blood-soaked palms, opening and closing her fingers. All at once, she pushes up to her knees and glances over her shoulder. I think she’s looking at me, and I call her name, but before I drop down beside her, she knocks past me and crawls to Lesage’s body.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“His blood,” she sputters frantically. “That’s what I’ve been missing. When I rolled across the stage …” Her voice trails off, and with shaking hands, she removes the dagger from Lesage’s baldric, draws it across her palm, and presses her hand into the gaping stab wound in his back. She twists deeper and deeper until she’s up to her wrist in gore. I wince at the horrid squelching noises—like boots sticking in mud—but Mirabelle grits her teeth and tightens her fingers.
The black smoke beast screeches above us, bending as if Mirabelle’s fingers are clamped around its neck rather than Lesage’s innards. She changes her grip and it plummets to the platform. The boards crack beneath the creature’s weight and splinters spray into the air, some as long and jagged as spears. The pearl-pink dragon roars with fury and dives to protect its companion, but Mirabelle wrings her hand again, sending the second beast rolling sideways across the sky. It crashes into the façade of Notre-Dame, and every panel of stained glass shatters. The beast hits the ground with a shudder so violent, I bump into Mirabelle.
Across the platform, the black beast moans and flaps. Louis advances from one side, Gavril charges from the other, and together they bury a sword and dagger into the creature’s long neck.
“The other one!” Mirabelle yells at me, sweat streaking down her face. “Finish this.”
With the last of my strength, I heft a fallen Society guard’s sword off the ground and drag myself to where the creature lies. It hisses at my approach, its ears pinned back and its yellow eyes wild. One shimmering wing is shredded, and its front leg is twisted—the scales torn away to reveal pale, pitted flesh. I edge closer and it rears back, like a snake coiled to strike, but when it attempts to lunge forward, it shrieks in pain. Its head wrenches to the side, and I take the opening Mirabelle made for me.
I thrust the sword deep into the creature’s side. A geyser of hot black blood sprays my face, and I reel back. Just out of reach of the smoke beast’s claws.
It keens and groans. Or maybe that’s me. My entire body is screaming with pain. The world flickers in and out, growing darker and darker until I can’t see the beast or the cathedral or even the smoke. I am alone, floating through the blackness. Cradled by the glorious sound of silence.
I don’t know if this is the end. Or if it’s the beginning. But either way, it feels like victory.
When I wake, I’m in a bed. An enormous bed with fresh ticking and a silk coverlet. Since I’ve never in my life slept in a bed so fine, I figure I must still be dreaming, and I close my eyes to bask in the slippery warmth a while longer. But then my limbs begin to prickle and the horrific scenes from Notre-Dame replace the hazy gray nothingness: the blood, the beasts, the bodies strewn across the courtyard.
How did it end?
I push up to my elbows, but pain explodes across my chest, forcing me back to the mattress. Carefully, I reach up to touch the outline of Lesage’s awful handprint on my chest, but I find a knife wound instead, along with a thick crusting of herbs.
