Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1)(90)

Her eyes grew almost desperate as they bored into mine—and held a startlingly familiar intensity. “Is he a good man, Lou? A kind one?”

Reid stiffened at the offensively personal question, but the buzzing in my head began to take shape. I looked between the two of them again, noting the identical shade of their blue eyes.

Holy hell.

My heart sank to somewhere below my ankles. I’d stared into Reid’s eyes long enough now to recognize them in another’s face.

Madame Labelle was Reid’s mother.

“He is.” My whisper was barely audible over the chatter of the market—over my own thumping heart.

She expelled a breath, and her telltale blue eyes fluttered shut in relief. Then they snapped open again, suddenly and alarmingly sharp. “But does he know you, Lou? Truly know you?”

My blood turned to ice. If Madame Labelle wasn’t careful, the two of us would soon be having a very different conversation. I carefully maintained her gaze, articulating an unspoken warning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I see.”

Unable to help it, I glanced at Reid. His face had quickly transformed from puzzled to irritated. Based on the taut line of his jaw, he didn’t appreciate us talking about him as if he wasn’t there. He opened his mouth—probably to ask what the hell was going on—but I cut him off.

“Let’s go, Reid.” I shot Madame Labelle one last, disparaging look before turning away, but her hand snaked out and grabbed my own—the one bearing Angelica’s Ring.

“Wear it always, Lou, but don’t let her see.” I moved to pull away, alarmed, but the woman’s grip was like iron. “She’s here, in the city.”

Reid stepped forward, fists clenched. “Let go, madame.”

She only clutched me tighter. Faster than she could react, Reid pried away her fingers forcibly. She flinched in pain, but continued on, undeterred, as Reid pulled me down the street. “Don’t take it off!” The panic in her eyes shone clear even from afar, even as her voice began to fade. “Whatever you do, don’t let her see!”

“What,” Reid snarled, his grip on my arm tighter than strictly necessary, “the hell was that about?”

I didn’t answer him. Couldn’t. My mind still reeled from Madame Labelle’s onslaught, but a sudden burst of clarity sliced through the haze of my thoughts. Madame Labelle was a witch. She had to be. Her interest in Angelica’s Ring, her knowledge of its powers, of my mother, of me—there was no other explanation.

But the revelation brought more questions than answers. I couldn’t focus on them—couldn’t focus on anything but the raw, debilitating fear that clawed up my throat, the clammy sweat that seeped across my skin. My gaze darted around us, and an involuntary shiver swept through me. Reid was saying something, but I didn’t hear him. A dull roar had started in my ears.

My mother was in the city.

The Saint Nicolas Festival lost its charm on our return to Chasseur Tower. The evergreens stood less beautiful. The bonfire burned less bright. Even the food lost its allure, the overpowering smell of fish returning to choke me.

Reid assaulted me with questions the whole way. When he realized I had no answers to give, he fell silent. I couldn’t bring myself to apologize. It was all I could do to hide my trembling fingers, but I knew he saw them anyway.

She hasn’t found you.

She won’t find you.

I repeated the mantra over and over, but it did little to convince me.

Saint-Cécile soon rose up before us, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The sigh instantly turned to a shriek when something moved unexpectedly in the alley beside us.

Reid jerked me to him, but his face relaxed the next second. He expelled an exasperated breath. “It’s fine. Just a beggar.”

But it wasn’t just a beggar. Numbness crept through my limbs as I looked closer . . . and recognized the face that turned, the milky eyes that stared at me from the shadows.

Monsieur Bernard.

He crouched over a trash bin with bits of what looked like dead animal dangling from his mouth. His skin—once wet with his own blood—had deepened to pitch black, the lines of his body hazy somehow. Blurred. As if he’d become a living, breathing shadow.

“Oh my god,” I breathed.

Reid’s eyes widened. He pushed me behind him, drawing his Balisarda from the bandolier beneath his coat. “Stay back—”

“No!” I ducked under his arm and threw myself in front of his knife. “Leave him alone! He’s not hurting anyone!”

“Look at him, Lou—”

“He’s harmless!” I grappled with his arm. “Don’t touch him!”

“We can’t just leave him here—”

“Let me talk to him,” I pleaded. “Maybe he’ll come back to the Tower with me. I—I always visited him in the infirmary. Maybe he’ll listen to me.”

Reid looked between the two of us anxiously. After a long second, his face hardened. “Stay close. If he moves to harm you, get behind me. Do you understand?”

I would’ve rolled my eyes had I not been so terrified. “I can handle myself, Reid.”

He grabbed my hand and crushed it to his chest. “I have a blade that cuts through magic. Do you understand?”