“We can’t stay here,” I say, stating the obvious. “But we shouldn’t leave Jacquard either.”

  “Assuming he’s alive.”

  “We have to find clothes. We can’t be seen in what we’re wearing. If the Brûlén find us—”

  “They probably will.”

  “—we have to pretend that we’re nobody. Yes, we live in Loire, but not in the castle. I work in a dress shop and you work in a bar.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t care. Pick your favorite.”

  He shakes his head. “I could never choose. I love them all equally.”

  “The Halflight then. It doesn’t matter.”

  “What shop do you work in?”

  “Chastain’s.”

  “You work somewhere high end and I’m filling pints at a dive bar?” he asks indignantly.

  “It. Doesn’t. Matter.”

  “You work at Lady LeBlanc.”

  “Like hell I do!” I laugh.

  “What’s wrong with LeBlanc?”

  “Nothing, if you’re that kind of girl.”

  He grins. “What kind of girl?”

  “You know what kind. You know intimately what kind. I’m not arguing about this because it’s stupid. I work at Chastain’s and you’re at The Riverbank. Happy?”

  He shrugs. “I don’t really care.”

  I consciously resist the urge to leap across the room and strangle him.

  “Once we have different clothes,” I continue, “we’ll follow the river. If we’re caught, we lie. Hopefully we can walk straight into France. That’s my plan.”

  “It’s flawless,” he says dryly.

  “Thanks.”

  “One problem.”

  “Just one?”

  “You can’t walk that far.”

  “Once I have shoes and I’m out of this dress, I can,” I argue.

  He’s not buying it. He points to the wall behind him. “Walk from here to the bedroom and back again. No help.”

  I stand, rising to the challenge.

  It’s hard. I almost fall over. My head pounds so hard my vision vibrates. I take small steps until I’m standing next to him, my back to the window. With a slow, deep breath I move forward. I make it halfway across the room before my world tips sharply. I’m in the bedroom touching the back wall when the urge to vomit hits. I’m almost to the hall again. I’m just crossing the threshold.

  I’m on my knees on the floor, gasping for breath. Begging the world to stop spinning.

  I hear Bastian’s feet on the floor. Even his footsteps are smug. He crouches in front of me, touching my arm to help me stand.

  “You can’t walk that far,” he repeats firmly but not without pity.

  He’s not being cruel. He’s being honest.

  “I don’t want to stay here,” I complain.

  “Neither do I but we aren’t leaving today.”

  “You could.”

  “Not without you.”

  My eyes sting sharply. “Don’t be noble. You need to get out of here.”

  “I will,” he agrees. “When you’re ready.”

  Bastian helps me back to the living room where I collapse on the ground under my drape.

  “Stay here,” he tells me, moving toward the door. “Sleep.”

  “Where are you going?” I demand, terror rising in my throat like a balloon.

  “To look for clothes and anything else we can use.”

  “How long are you going to be gone?”

  “I don’t know but don’t get up to look for me,” he says severely. “I mean it. If I find you out there wandering the streets, I’ll throw you in the river and walk back by myself.”

  “You’d have to catch me first.”

  “I’m serious, Ria. I will do it.”

  “I know you will.”

  You’ve done worse.

  When he leaves, I feel afraid. I expected it. I deal with it. I don’t let myself sink down into it the way I did last night because he honestly will leave me here if I follow him right now. And even though I told him he should go ahead without me, I’m relieved that he didn’t.

  I sleep while he’s gone. It doesn’t take any effort. It’s staying awake that’s hard. With no one to talk to, I go down hard. I have no idea for how long, but when I hear the door open again, the fog outside has cleared. The sky is bright and glaring through the window. Bastian is coming through the doorway, his arms full of clothing. There’s a gray backpack on his shoulder.

  He pauses when he catches me watching him. “Did you sleep at all?”

  “The whole time,” I croak, sitting up slowly. “I just woke up when I heard the door.”

  “Good.”

  “What’d you find?”

  “Some clothes and shoes. It’s slim pickings out there, but hopefully something will fit you.”

  Bastian has changed into black athletic pants a size too big for him and a red T-shirt that says Coca-Cola in white across the front. He brings over the other clothes, dropping them unceremoniously on the floor next to me. A cloud of stink blows up in my face. They’ve grown musky after so many years in a house that probably had all the windows broken out, water pouring in every time it rained.

  My upper lip curls away from my teeth. “That smell.”

  “You get used to it.”

  “Do your clothes smell like this?”

  “The whole town smells like that.”

  I pull a pink shirt off the top of the pile. It’s a child’s. Way too small for me to wear. I reach for the next one. And the next one. It looks like all of these are little girl’s clothes.

  “How small do you think I am?” I ask incredulously.

  “If you don’t like it, don’t wear it.”

  At the bottom of the pile is a pair of shorts that look like they’ll fit. They’re black, elastic at the waist, made of a shiny, smooth fabric I’ve never seen before. Under them are a pair of bright pink sandals and a gray sweatshirt that says Nike across the front in faded blue writing. It’s the only thing that looks like it might actually be too big for me.

  I stand slowly with my new outfit in my arms. “I’ll go in the other room to change.”

  “Fine.”

  I don’t move to leave.

  I’m barely breathing.

  I may vomit again.

  Bastian frowns at me. “Do you need me to walk you down there?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  We stare at each silently.

  My cheeks grow hot.

  “What, Villette?” he snaps.

  “I need your help getting undressed” I admit reluctantly. “I can’t do any of it by myself.”

  Bastian smiles salaciously.

  “Don’t be disgusting,” I moan. “Try, just for once, to be a gentleman.”

  “You’re asking a lot.”

  “Forget it. I’ll do it myself.”

  He chuckles, gesturing for me to turn around. “Let me see if I can figure it out.”

  “Like you haven’t undressed a million girls in your life.”

  “Not a million,” he says, still smiling. “But close.”

  I turn my back to him, my arms pressed tightly to the front of the dress to keep it pinned against me. I don’t want the whole thing to fall down the second he gets the buttons undone. He’s going to see plenty of my body once the back is opened up. He’s not getting a free pass to view everything.

  “It’s all ruined, right?” he asks.

  “Even if it wasn’t, I’m not lugging it halfway across the planet to get it home.”

  Bastian grips the back of the dress on either side of the small, jeweled buttons, his fingers sliding inside against my skin. They’re warm and calloused.

  I raise my eyes to the ceiling, willing myself not to shiver.

  He rips forcefully at the material, popping the buttons that pelt the floor like raindrops. “Corset too?”

  I nod stiffly, breath held.

  Bastian takes hold of the top of the corset. “I hate these things,” he mutters. “They leave marks on your skin.”

  “It’s not exactly my favorite either.”

  Bastian is quick. He unhooks the length of the torture device, letting me breathe freely for the first time in hours.

  I sag with relief even as I feel a rush of cold air on my back. On my naked skin bared to him in a way it never should be.

  He touches my spine where the corset came together. My heart stops beating, my breath trapped in my chest like a bird in a cage.

  “Does it hurt?” he asks quietly.

  I nod, unable to speak evenly.

  “Why do you do it?”

  “Mother.”

  “Tell her ‘no’ next time.” He tugs at the dress, loosely closing it behind me. “You don’t need it. Your body is perfect.”

  I hurry across the cold floor to a room at the end of the hall. The one with a rocking chair and a weird feeling like I’m being watched. I put distance between my body and the feel of his fingers. The deep tenor of his voice. The memory of him and the reality I have to face.

  I shut the door and I remind myself not to be an idiot.

  chapitre vingt-quatre

  Two years ago, there was a girl at court named Susanne. She was quiet. Bookish. Shy and subtle. Butterflies seemed aggressive by comparison.

  Bastian took a liking to her. I’m not really sure why. She wasn’t very pretty or interesting. She was nice, but nice isn’t exactly his type. As soon as they started seeing each other, Susanne withdrew from the rest of us. She spent all of her time with him whispering in dark corners. Darting behind closed doors. I never saw them touch but we all knew what was happening.

  Eventually, Bastian got tired of her. He always does. One day they were inseparable and the next he refused to be in the same room with her.

  She cried every time she saw him.

  He acted like he couldn’t hear her. As though she didn’t even exist.

  Three days later she was gone. Poof. Vanished like magic. There wasn’t a trace of her anywhere and if you said her name in front of Bastian, he would act like he’d never met her. Rumors went around, people said terrible things – he killed her, he had her killed, he killed her and their unborn baby in the woods – but I think the simplest answer is the most likely; he got bored with her so he sent her away.

  Anytime I get even the slightest bit soft about Bastian, I think of Susanne.

  chapitre vingt-cinq

  We spend another night in the house.

  In the morning we’re met with a somber surprise – we’re still alone.

  But we won’t stay that way. Eventually someone will find us here and it won’t be Jacquard.

  We finally admit that we can’t stay. We’re hungry and thirsty, so thirsty I’d drink my blood if I could, and the longer we stay in one place, the more likely we are to be caught by the Brûlén. I’m steady enough to walk, at least for a little while. We agree to go to the next village and see what we find. If I can’t keep going, we’ll stop again, but we have to make some kind of progress. Neither of us is very good at sitting still.

  As we’re leaving the village, we search the fog for signs of life. We hope to find Jacquard but I think we both know it’s more likely at this point that we’ll find the Brûlén.

  “What happened to him?” I ask, mystified.

  Bastian’s frown is deeply chiseled across his brow. “I don’t know.”

  “He couldn’t have gotten lost, could he?”

  “Jacquard is one of the best soldiers France has ever seen. He didn’t get lost.”

  “Then where is he?”

  He doesn’t have an answer for that. I worry that he ever will.

  When we get to the next town, the fog has started to clear but dark clouds are rolling in. Rain is coming and neither of us is dressed for it. On top of that, I’m in agony. I feel weak and I hate it but I admit to Bastian that I need to stop. Just for a minute.

  I’m amazed that he doesn’t give me a hard time.

  “We’ll go in there,” he says, pointing to an old inn facing the river. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a bed.”

  I snicker. “If my mother heard you say that to me…”

  “She’d die of excitement.”

  “That is not what she’d die of.”

  “As long as I got you pregnant, she wouldn’t mind. Whatever it takes to get that Bouchard baby in the lineage.”

  My face flushes hot with embarrassment. And not a small amount of indignation. “That’s not something anyone wants.”

  “Not even from you and Gable?”

  “Where is that coming from?”

  He jerks open the door to the inn, holding it for me impatiently. “Forget it. Go inside.”

  Bastian is angry. It’s come out of nowhere, but that’s him and his father – pure mercury. I don’t know exactly what he’s mad about right now, but I have an idea.

  “You think we want to take over the country,” I guess.

  “I know you want to take control.”

  “You’re wrong. We just want what’s right for France.”

  “And you Villettes always think you’re right,” he says.

  “So do the Bouchards.”

  “Because we’re running the country. We have to be right.”

  “That makes no sense. Arden can’t even admit when he makes a mistake. That’s not leadership. It’s delusional.”

  Bastian’s eyes flash dangerously. “I’ve let you get away with being informal with me because of our history, but you’ll watch the way you talk about the King. I don’t care what side of the border we’re on.”

  I hold my tongue. It’s angry and wild, thrashing in my mouth, but I keep it locked up because it could very easily get me killed. Not today. Probably not tomorrow, but someday I’ll pay for the things I say without thinking and Bastian is definitely the kind of person to gladly present me with the bill.

  “Go inside,” he tells me again. It sounds like it will be the last time. “Lay down.”

  My pride won’t let me. I can’t cross the threshold. I can’t move away from this place where the air is too bitter to breathe. I stand there staring him in the eye, silently asking him what he’s going to do about it, and even though I know it’s wrong, I can’t stop. I can’t bow to him.

  “Villette,” he growls.

  His fingers flex on the doorknob. He’s about to do something ugly. Something we’ll both regret, and while I want to make him do it just to prove how awful he is, I don’t want to deal with the fallout from it.

  I don’t want to have to hate him more than I already do.

  “I’m going,” I yield.

  chapitre vingt-six

  We haven’t talked for hours. Not since we left the inn.

  I laid down for thirty minutes, my eyes on the ceiling counting cracks. I replayed our fight in my head a thousand times until I committed it to memory down to the last detail – to the flecks of green in his brown eyes that burn like fire when he’s angry – and I tucked it away. I stored it with every other memory of Bastian Bouchard, locked up tight where it can’t hurt me again.

  I need another break but I don’t ask for one. I’m too proud. I’ll stop when he stops, but walking all day without water is hard. It only takes a couple of hours before I’m wheezing, my head spinning. An hour after that and I wish I could die. Eventually, my stomach overrides my pride and I step off the road to vomit in the ditch.

  I manage to scare three birds and a little wild rabbit out of hiding with nothing but bile and pain. My stomach is officially empty.

  “You good?” Bastian asks, his voice surprisingly breathless. He’s struggling too and a small, sick part of me delights in that suffering.

  “Iptic,” I gasp, my hands braced on my thighs.

  “I hate that word.”

  “You hate everything.”

  “Not everything. I’d love a cold beer if I could get one.”

  I stand up straight, testing my equilibrium. It’s way off. I immediately feel like I’m going to fall over.

  “You’re getting worse,” Bastian observes.

  “I’m dizzy, that’s all. Give me a minute.”

  We don’t have a minute. We’re standing out in the open, surrounded by fields and filthy water rushing by at a staggering pace, his enemies closing in on us with every ragged breath I take. A minute is a luxury we definitely do not have.

  He gives it to me anyway.

  I stare at the river, mesmerized by its frothing current. I’ve been trying to avoid it all day but when you’re marching next to it, it’s hard to miss. It’s a mess. The banks are muddied and covered in debris. Tree branches, bits of buildings, fences. Animals, distended and drowned. Cows. Pigs. Chickens. The scavenger birds will be coming for them soon. We’ll have to keep moving or they’ll mistake us for a snack.

  It’s getting worse the farther east we hike. Honestly, the reason I haven’t looked at the river too closely is because I’m terrified of what I’ll find. Out here at the edge of civilization the wall of water hit farmland. There weren’t many people. But the closer we get to home, to Loire and her heavy population, the death toll will rise. Sharply.

  “It’s bad, isn’t it?” I ask Bastian.

  He follows my eyes to the river. His face is grim. “Yeah. It’s bad.”

  “Go through it with me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dad and I do this whenever something bad happens. We break it down together so we know all the facts. It makes it easier to deal with stuff when you’ve got it all laid out.” I breathe deep through my nose, out through my mouth. “Power will be out. Farms are flooded.”

  “Crops are destroyed.”

  “The grain stores in Loire are gone.”

  “Washed out,” he agrees, his face surprised like he hadn’t thought of that until now. “They were on low land close to the river.”

  “Floods bring disease.”

  “Typhoid, cholera, malaria, yellow fever. Mosquitos will bring more. Plumbing will be worthless.”

  “No fresh water,” I add.

  “The sewers could back up and flood into the river. If you have an open wound, you’re dead.”