Page 58 of A Treachery of Swans

“Odile!” Marie calls again, but I ignore her, adrenaline screaming through me.

Run run run run run.

“Odile, they’re gone!”

They’re gone, but we’renot safe, we’re never safe, we need to run—

Suddenly the Théâtre du Roi is rearing up in front of us, its maw yawning open eagerly, flashing columns white as teeth. The statues of famous playwrights lining the roof seem to jeer down at us.

I pull Marie through the gate, across the courtyard and around the Théâtre, until we’re back at the lake’s edge, the overgrown garden engulfing us.

Only then do I release Marie’s hand, turning on her. “Mothers, what were you thinking?” I say between wheezing breaths. “You could have gotten us killed!”

“He needed help!” She wipes sweat from her eyes. “I—I couldn’t just stand there and let him get hurt!”Like you would have.She doesn’t say the words—she’s too tactful for that—but the accusation is sharp in her eyes.

I grit my teeth. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else, don’t you? You think all you have to do is say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ and the world will bow to your wishes. The Swan Princess,” I sneer. “You’ll learn eventually, as I did. You can’t save everyone.”

Marie recoils, hurt flashing across her face, as surprised by my outburst as I am. But I can’t stop. Frustration, fear, panic—it all pours out of me. “And that boy? He would have been fine on his own, I promise you that. He would have figured out how to get away.”

She shakes her head. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“I do!”

“How?”

“Because I used to be just like him!”

Marie stares at me, her brows curled up in concern. “What?”

“That’s what becomes of us!” I’m still shouting, still fueled by remnants of panic. “Of sorcier children. If you’re lucky, you’re born to a sorcier parent whounderstands, who knows how to protect you, but sometimes magic skips a generation. Sometimes both your parents have red blood, and your older brother has red blood, but then you’re born gold-blooded and your father makes your mother choose: get rid of you and stay with him, or leave along with her newborn sorcier child.” I break off in a gasp—I can’t seem to catch my breath. “And sometimes you’re lucky and your mother chooses you, but the world is hard for a woman on her own, and she works asa maid and barely scrapes together enough to keep a roof over your heads until she catches the pox, and suddenly she’sdying.”

I know I’m being irrational, I’m ranting, but all I can see is the knife pressed against the boy’s cheek, all I can think of is the nobleman throwing me onto the cobblestones and my knees cracking open, all I can hear is my father reminding me thatthey must never see you bleed.

“Sometimes,” I pant, “the doctor comes to treat your mother, but he realizes one of her children is golden-blooded, so he refuses to help because he’s afraid, and the next thing you know, there’s a rumor and the city wants to drive you out, so your mother tells your brother,Take your sister and go.”

“Odile—” Marie tries, but I grip my elbows, unable to look at her.

“So you escape, and you wander the streets for a year, nearly freezing in the winter, nearly starving every moment. Then luck smiles on you: You’re found by the director of the Théâtre du Roi, who has blood just like yours, who names you his daughter. And he tells you that none of this would have happened if the Mothers hadn’t left, if you still had magic. He tells you there’s a way to bring it back, to become so powerful, no one can ever hurt you again. All you need to do is steal the Couronne du Roi.”

I hear Marie’s sharp intake of breath. “That’s what this is about,” she says.

I slump down on the grass, burying my head in my hands. There’s a lump in my throat, but I refuse to cry. “That’s what this is about,” I grit out.

And suddenly I’m telling her everything. About Regnault’s training, about the first time I failed him, about Damien leaving, about how I ended up working at the palace. I even tell her about the journal. I tell her, even though I should hate her. I tell her, even though she was meant to be a means to an end. I bleed myself dryin front of her, rivulets of my history pooling between us, knowing that I am weakening myself with every word, giving her a weapon to turn against me.

And yet, somehow, it feels good. It feels likerelief.

The only thing I omit—because I can’t bring myself to shatter this fragile thing of hoarfrost that has barely begun to gather between us—is the truth about the diamond necklace. That, I leave buried in the depths of me, because I need her trust; I needher.

I break off at last, the sweat soaking through my clothes growing cold, the night’s frost pulling billowing clouds from my lips with every breath.

Marie turns to look at me, her expression open, contemplative.

Then she puts her arm around my shoulders and eases me against herself.

It draws a sound of surprise out of me. “What are you doing?” I demand, but I don’t pull away, because there’s something regrettably comforting about the weight of her arm over my shoulders, no matter how strange it all feels.

“It’s calledaffection,” Marie says with faint amusement. “It’s meant to make you feel better.”

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