Scene XII The Lake
Minutes from Dawn
When I wake, there’s a ghost wrapping cold fingers around my throat.
I gasp, my vision fogged, and attempt to push the creature off, only to feel its firm, slender fingers tighten around my trachea in warning. The floor bobs up and down beneath my back. The world smells of rot, of old wood and older waters.
“Easy, sorciere,” says the ghost. Its voice is warm and husky, shaking almost imperceptibly. My palm is burning at my side, sending pangs of pain through my body. I flex my hand, and memories come suddenly flooding back to me.
The pendant. The swan. The spell.
And above me, Marie d’Odette d’Auvigny, not a ghost at all but a girl once more.
She watches me carefully, her eyes glinting like fish scales.
In the darkness, the planes of her face are angular, almost aquiline, but her eyes remain soft, their heavy lashes dipped in moonlight.
One of her hands rests on my throat, squeezing, but her grip is hesitant.
I bare my teeth at her, and she flinches.
“Don’t move,” she says.
I laugh. “Are you really trying to threaten me? I’ve been in far worse predicaments than this.”
I try to raise my head, and Marie allows me enough motion to realize that she is straddling me, her lithe knees pressed into the jut of my hips, her left hand on my throat. The close proximity makes my heart give a funny little flutter, my nerve endings sparking where our bodies make contact.
“In fact,” I say, shimmying a little just to taunt her, “this is rather pleasant.”
She flushes. “Enough.”
“Oh dear, did I make the princess uncomfortable?” I clench my hands, preparing to shove her off, and freeze.
The owl-face pendant is no longer in my grip. It’s gone .
I try to keep the panic from my features and fail.
Marie, unfortunately, notices. “Looking for something?” She holds her hand out of my reach, and I recognize the shine of the owl-face pendant’s chain. My heart skips a beat, but I force myself to remain calm.
“Give it back.”
Marie hides the pendant behind her back. “First I need you to tell me why you cursed me. And—and what you were doing in the palace.”
“Give me a single good reason I should do that,” I reply sweetly.
“If you don’t, I’ll destroy it,” Marie says. “And I’ll return to the Chateau and tell everyone what you’ve done. You’ll be arrested. Hanged for treason.”
“Attempted grand larceny, actually.” As I talk, I slowly inch my hand toward my pocket.
“And I don’t think you’ll do that.” It’s in the uncertainty of her words, the careful way she holds me down, as though she is worried she might hurt me.
It’s in the uneven way her chest swells with every breath, straining against her bodice, too quick and stuttering with adrenaline.
It’s in the fact that she’s still here, when she could have run while I was unconscious.
“If I may, princess, I’d venture a guess that you’re enjoying this. ”
“I’m not,” she snaps. “And stop calling me that.”
I roll my eyes. “Whatever you say, princess .”
I palm Buttons from my pocket and turn it over three times.
Marie notices the metallic flash just as I swing the butt of the pistol at her head.
Her reflexes are surprisingly fast for a spoiled noble.
She dodges aside, but the movement forces her to ease her grip on my throat, and it’s all I need to kick her off and reach for the pendant.
My hand closes around her fist as she recoils. With unexpected strength, she wrenches my arm back and we grapple for a moment, equally matched.
“Give it to me,” I seethe, trying to pull her fingers open.
“That pendant lets me turn into you. Which means that even if you’re not a swan, part of you is still bound to the spell inside it.
I’m not certain what destroying it would do to you, but I doubt it would be pleasant. You must give it back.”
“I can’t do that,” she pants, wispy curls falling in front of her eyes, the silk of her skirts brushing against my legs. “I can’t let you hurt anyone.”
“Who said I’m going to hurt anyone?”
“In case you have already forgotten, you had me turned into a swan !” She pulls her hand from my grip and leaps back, stumbling to her feet as if to run. But I’m faster—I bring Buttons up, pointing the pistol at her and cocking it.
She freezes.
“If you don’t return it to me, I’ll shoot,” I warn.
“You wouldn’t do that,” she says reasonably. “If you were going to kill me, you would have done it by the Théatre.”
“You’re right. I won’t kill you,” I amend. “But no one said anything about maiming.”
Her eyes roam over me with careful intensity.
I grin wider. It’s not a lie—if I have to hurt her to get what I want, I won’t hesitate.
She must see it in my eyes, because she sighs and tosses the pendant back to me.
I catch it, tucking it away swiftly. Fog churns around us restively, the bulrushes clattering and hissing.
I must have been unconscious longer than I thought, because the air has taken on the taut, unsettled quality of dawn about to break.
“You know,” Marie says, cutting through the silence, “I always knew there was something off about you. Different, even when we were girls. It was why I wanted to be friends with you, despite everything. I thought you were like me.”
“You and I are nothing alike,” I sneer.
She blinks, looking genuinely hurt. “I trusted you.”
“Your first mistake.”
I expect her to grow more furious, but she only looks sorrowful, her hands flexing at her sides. She looks over her shoulder toward the Chateau, and I wonder if she’s considering running back to the palace anyway.
“If you try to flee, I’ll turn you back into a swan,” I say.
“Are you certain you know how to do that?” She says it matter-of-factly, without spite, yet the pricking of shame inside me intensifies, reminding me that I couldn’t have done any of this if Marie hadn’t noticed the spell-thread.
I run a cold hand over my face, pushing back my bangs. “Listen, p—Marie. Whatever you may think of me, I did keep my side of the bargain. So at least hear me out.”
She grips her elbows with opposite hands, considering me with an innocent sort of steadiness. Hers are the eyes of a doe encountered in the woods, grappling between intrepid curiosity and the instinct to flee.
I press my tongue against my teeth and reluctantly lower Buttons, shrinking the pistol back into its original form and tucking it into my pocket. Only once it is gone do Marie’s shoulders relax, her body falling out of its defensive tightness.
I beam. “Excellent. Now that we’ve gotten past all”—I wave my hand vaguely—“ that , I need to know what you saw last night.”
Her eyes darken suspiciously. “And what… what will you do with that information?”
“It’s like I told you this morning. I’m trying to protect the Dauphin.”
“Because he’s useful for whatever this plan of yours is.”
“Yes. And because as far as anyone in Verroux is concerned, you, Marie d’Odette, are currently betrothed to him.”
She starts. “What?”
“See?” I grin. “Isn’t that what you wanted?
I promise I’m not going to ruin your life.
Or your reputation. So you can relax, princess.
Enjoy your time by the lake. Meanwhile, I’ll deal with the horrid noblesse and this whole regicide business.
And ideally free my brother from prison. So please. Tell me what you saw.”
“I don’t suppose I have a choice, do I?” Marie says, inclining her head to where I hid the pendant. “You control my fate.”
“I promise—this is all mutually beneficial.”
She smiles sadly. “Oh, Odile. I don’t think you quite understand what it is you are getting yourself into.”
The quiet words, smothered in dread, fall heavily over me. It takes all my willpower to keep my expression even and unaffected. How is it that despite my obvious advantage, I somehow always feel like she has the upper hand?
“Then did you see who did it?” I demand. “Enough of the suspense.”
She is quiet for a moment. Then, heavily, she says, “What happened to King Honoré, it is… beyond horrifying. I hesitate even to remember it at all.”
“Who was it?”
She shakes her head. “You’re asking the wrong questions, sorciere.”
Frustration turns my words into a growl. “What do you mean?”
“Not who ,” says Marie d’Odette, her eyes dark. “But what .”
A shiver runs up my spine. I draw back, assessing Marie’s expression, looking for the flicker of a lie or jest in those earnest silver irises. I find none. “What… what did you see?”
Behind Marie the sky lightens, the first glow of day cowering behind the trees, as though even the sun is frightened by her revelation.
“Some sort of… creature.” She presses her lips together, her eyes far away.
“I hardly saw it, it was so fast. It was so late into the night, and dark, horribly dark. But I know it was a ghoulish thing. Tall as a horse, with gray skin that looked nearly like stone. Mothers, it’s all a blur.
And all I could do was watch .” She shudders.
“One moment I was watching the King and his guards riding through the night; the next they were lying on the ground, blood gushing from their bodies, and that… that creature ripping into them.”
I suck in a breath, my mind spinning as it conjures images of bloodied maws and screaming men, a lakeside slick with blood and offal.
“Is that all?” I prompt.
Marie shakes her head.
“No. I remember…” She frowns. “The guard was dead in an instant. But the King… he fought. And he managed to wound it. But… but its blood, it wasn’t red.” She meets my eyes with fierce intensity. “It was gold.”
My breath hitches. Marie watches me knowingly, her expression grave. I open my mouth, formulating my next question, hoping to prompt her to dig through her memories. Did she see the creature’s eyes? Where was the King going? When did Damien arrive?
But in the same moment, the first ray of dawn stumbles through the trees, ripping itself apart on the sharp needles of pines. It falls on Marie first, a scrap of rusty light bleeding bronze over her silvered curls.
Suddenly, her face twists. Her eyes go wide, her mouth parting in a gasp of surprise. Before I can react, she leaps to her feet. It happens in the blink of an eye, so fast it is almost beautiful, in the way of a comet streaking across the sky.
Glowing white feathers erupt across her body. They burst from her cheeks and brow, spread down her limbs, spring from her hands, and lengthen and lengthen until she spreads magnificent wings. The light flares until it is blinding, forcing me to put up a hand over my eyes.
I hear her voice once more, shaky and resigned.
“You lied to me.”
And then I am standing before a swan with a pale beak and paler feathers, a look of betrayal in her pitch-black eyes.
I stare at Swan-Marie, barely concealing my shock.
This certainly wasn’t supposed to happen.
I must not have picked the right thread after all—or perhaps my jumble of thoughts had affected the spell when I was modifying it.
But I can’t let Marie know that, can’t let her see that I’m just as confused as she is.
So instead, I simply give the Swan Princess a smirk. “Of course I did.”