Chapter 32
“The Mourioche is a malicious demon of bestial nature, able, it would seem, to transform himself into any animal shape he chooses. In general appearance he is like a year-old foal.”
I wake, clutched to her chest like I am her quilt. I slip out of her arms. I must steel my resolve, steel my heart, and then I can do the horrible task before me.
“I need to consult with Queen Morag immediately.” I meet Isabeau’s gaze. “You will be secured in the library at the palace.”
How do I slay the woman I love? How can I not?
We are silent as we walk to the palace. I think idly that I love that my desire to walk is not off-putting to Isabeau.
I do not go in the side entrance today. Instead, we walk through the front gate, where we are both greeted by name.
No one calls me “Hunter,” not in front of Isabeau.
To anyone other than the guards, we look like nothing more than two nobles visiting the queen.
No one sees that Isabeau is a monster or that I am a monster hunter.
I cannot speak around the pain in my heart. We pause at the door of the room where she pretended not to know me. Is she pretending now? worry asks. Does she remember hurting me? Draining men? Killing my father? I gesture at the door. “I will lock you in the room.”
“It unlocks from inside,” Isabeau says in confusion.
“Not if I use Hunter magic.”
Isabeau leans forward, resting her forehead against mine. “I am sorry that I am cursed, love. I forgive you for your duty.”
I startle slightly before admitting, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I can kill you.”
“Once the dark falls, I am not myself. It may be easier if I do it now,” she suggests. She drops a kiss on my head. My heart is speared by how wrong she is.
“Nothing about this is easy. You may not harm yourself,” I demand. “Promise me, Isabeau. Let me find out if there is a solution.”
“Fine, if you vow not to let me hurt you.”
I agree and seal her into the library. There’re only two ways out—the door and the passages, which only the queen can access. My beloved killer locked away, I head toward the queen. My mind is a whir of questions.
Why were there no murders until the duke died?
I pause. That’s not accurate. I saw the duke after the first body, so it was not his death that set her curse to motion.
Was she always cursed?
Again, that is not accurate. She caroused and gambled at night. She entered races, her identity barely hidden. She was not furred or feral.
“The curse. The curse has changed somehow?” I roll the ideas in my mind, confident I am still missing some critical detail, as I walk to see the queen.
Inside the throne room, I barely notice the guards on either side of the door; they dip their heads in greeting. A crowd of maybe a dozen nobles, attendants, and servants stand and murmur in small conversation groups. More than a few send curious glances at me.
Queen Morag’s eyes look shadowed, as though she, too, has barely slept. She no more than glances at me when she lifts her voice to say, “Clear the room.”
A guard gestures for me to walk toward the door, and I scoff. “She doesn’t mean for me to leave.”
The guard looks at the queen, awaiting instruction.
“Lady Gabrielle stays.” The queen doesn’t rise from her throne. Her hand tightens on the arm of the opulent chair, but that is her only motion so far.
Whispers grow louder. Once I hear Isabeau’s name, and my hand is ready to draw a weapon until I realize that this is merely court gossip about the cursed duke—and her presumed latest lover. The gossip is wrong. I am her latest lover, her last lover, in fact.
The door closes, leaving only the pair of guards, Queen Morag, and me in the room.
“The guards need to be on the other side of the door,” I order.
The queen nods and motions for the royal guards to exit.
“You knew.” I stare at her. “You knew Isabeau was . . . not herself.”
“I have always feared that this day would come. I spoke to her father, planned, plotted, and yet she has still transformed.” Queen Morag plucks the crown off her head and drops it on the seat as she stands. “For this moment, I would set aside my crown and my duty.”
I say nothing. Without the physical crown, she is still the queen. Nothing changes that.
“I love her, you realize. Isabeau is my brother’s child.
All I have left of him in the world.” Morag pauses and smiles a watery smile.
“He was my best friend as a child, never treating me as if I was the future queen, never hesitating to tell me his true feelings. I mourn him in ways I cannot show the world. All who love him mourn him.”
“She killed people.” I shove back the temper threatening to rise. I cannot strike the queen; to do so would be treason. “If you told me that her curse meant that—”
“You truly think this is a curse?”
“Turning into some hair-covered beast that slaughters people in the woods isn’t a fate she would choose! It must be the curse.”
“You believe that? Fully? That she—”
“Of course I do! I love her. She’s kind, impulsive, but not a killer.
She’s not . . .” My words fade as I realize that the queen is trying to lead me to a point that she cannot say.
“What are you saying? Do you think she chose to kill those travelers? Girard, the last one, was the anomaly, but she also attacked me. I cannot believe that she would hurt me.”
The queen shudders, her expression drawn in pain. “So you think that she was acting out of character? Not like herself?”
The queen is sweating now, and I can see that she is trying to resist a geas.
“I would rather not be accused of treason if you die of magic, Your Majesty,” I point out coldly. “I cannot face any more catastrophic events today.”
“Did the beast seem like . . . Isabeau?”
“No. I think killing people is out of character for her,” I snap.
“I do, too. At least for my niece.” The queen trembles fiercely as she blurts out this last statement, visibly fighting against the magical taboo that has obviously bound her words.
“You don’t think Isabeau is the beast that killed them,” I whisper.
Yes, Isabeau is a cursed woman.
The beast I met could have easily killed them. Those claws . . .
The beast I met—Isabeau—called me hers. Last night, she curled up and slept. She was not violent with me either time.
“The geas is not insisting I kill her,” I realize with an overwhelming relief. Now that my emotions about killing Isabeau are in control, clarity hits me like an assault. “The geas is to kill the beast. The first murder happened before the last duke’s death, when he was in his final days,” I muse.
“The murders also continued after he died,” the queen adds.
“He is dead? Truly?”
“Yes. My brother is dead. My niece is gentle.” The queen watches me in anticipation. She opens her mouth, makes a gurgled sound that likely started as a word, and then says, “Geas.”
“Is Isabeau’s transformation a curse? Or is it inherited?”
“I cannot say.” Sweat rolls from the queen’s cheeks and neck. Her gown is visibly damp.
“Was your brother cursed? You? The prince?” I fire the questions at her.
“No.”
“Is her mother cursed?” I ask.
“No.” Then the queen looks at me and declares, “Isaac was as human as I am. We shared parents.”
“This is not a curse, is it?” I whisper.
“No.” The word is ripped from her lips, and she clutches her chest.
I stare at her. “She’s a faery half the time . . . which means . . . she has a faery parent. The dowager duchess has lived here as one of us.”
“And others have, too,” the queen mouths. “The public must never know.”
I don’t want to believe the impossible, but I cannot ignore reality. “That’s what you knew. There are faeries here. Spies.”
Morag’s eyes widen, and I know my answer.
Isabeau is a monster, but not the one I seek.
I know the answer, know the only possible remaining answer.
Isabeau is a faery. Her father was human.
And Isabeau is not the killer. The pieces click into place, and I am filled with relief, hope, and horror all at once.
Her mother, the dowager duchess, is a faery spy and the Beast of Brimmond.
“I could never deny my brother,” Queen Morag says softly, voice sounding pained as if her throat is sore from forcing words out. “Whatever he wanted, I made possible. Surely, you must see. He gave me love, and veracity, and loyalty. He never wanted my throne . . .”
“What did he want?”
The queen sighs. “All Isaac ever wanted was a beautiful, loyal wife and a clever child of his own. I had no idea Maébh would become so deadly if she was untethered.”
“Isaac took a wife who was not human,” I clarify, needing to hear it spoken, needing surety that my beloved’s mother is the killer.
Morag nods. “My brother never asked for much, so anything Isaac wanted, I allowed. And if it bought me leverage in other matters, what was the harm? As long as that kind of faery has a human tether, an anchor to bring their better angels forward, they are harmless. She looked human.”
In all my thoughts of Isabeau, on figuring out the Beast of Brimmond, I had not—until this moment—thought about the fact that I left my mother and sister alone with a monster. My father’s killer is with my mother and sister. In trying to keep them out of harm’s way, I left them in the beast’s lair.
“I must leave. Now. Keep Isabeau here and safe.” I run from the room, through the hallways, and through the city. The ride back to Maudite Castle is not long, but every moment means that my family is in peril longer.
Hunters must always put duty before heart, and I have failed. I have failed everyone.
I am glad I hesitated in killing Isabeau, but in thinking it was her, I allowed the true Beast of Brimmond to be left alone with my mother and sister. That is my first priority. The second matter—that my beloved is a monster—is suddenly not the worst part of the day.