Upon a Starlit Tide E-Book

Kell Woods

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 630

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A dark and enchanting fairy tale-inspired historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal. From the Sunday Times bestselling author of After the Forest, for fans of Ava Reid and Naomi Novik. Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758. To Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of a wealthy French shipowner, the high walls of Saint-Malo are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are busy trying to secure advantageous marriages, Luce spends her days secretly being taught to sail by Samuel, her best friend―and an English smuggler. Only he understands how the waves call to her. Then one stormy morning, Luce rescues a drowning man from the sea. Immediately drawn in by the stranger's charm, Luce is plunged into a world of glittering balls and faerie magic, seduction and brutality. Secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface, but as Luce wrestles with warring desires, she finds that her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper. Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Praise for Upon a Starlit Tide

Also by Kell Woods and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Part 1

1Wrecked

2Rough Water, Dark Moon

3Wolf Cub

4Prickling

5Storm-Diving

6All Wild and Beautiful

7Preparations

8A Sliver of Ocean

9Needle and Bough

10Shallows

Part 2

11Sea Slippers

12Of the Sea

13Uncomfortable Conversations

14Launches and Lessons

15Darkness

16Barnacles and Shadows

17Thievery

18Crossing

19Delight or Doom

20Half One and Half the Other

21Those Bastards

22Wedding Present

Part 3

23The Tide’s Way

24The Lion and the Wolf

25Other Things, Besides

26After That, The Stars

27Sharp Teeth

28A Light in the Storm

29A Path of Stars

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also Available from Titan Books

Praise for

UPON A STARLIT TIDE

“A magnificent blend of reimagined fairy tale and epic adventure, anchored by excellent research and buoyed by brilliant writing. This is a must-read!”

JULIET MARILLIER, award-winning author of the Sevenwaters and Blackthorn & Grim series

“Upon a Starlit Tide is an enchanting read, as rich with historical detail as it is with magic, with surprising beings around every corner and a sea-foundling with a grand, dark secret. The novel mines the material of fairy tales in a unique and delightful way that fantasy fans will love.”

LOUISA MORGAN, author of A Secret History of Witches

“A dark and enchanting twist on two fairy tales in one, Upon a Starlit Tide will draw you into its depths from the very first page.”

GENEVIEVE GORNICHEC, author of The Weaver and the Witch Queen

“A tapestry of sea and starlight, romance and heartbreak, a journey to the truth of self. Utterly enchanting.”

A. G. SLATTER, award-winning author of The Briar Book of the Dead

“A dark, glittering blend of history, fairy tale, and romance, steeped in magic and shot through with adventure. Absorbing, beautifully written, and utterly spellbinding.”

H. G. PARRY, author of The Magician’s Daughter

“Readers will spy familiar stories in Upon a Starlit Tide, but Kell Woods makes them her own. This is not your conventional fairy tale. Instead, a lush, historical novel awaits, supported by a beautifully rendered sense of time and place. Often poetic, occasionally dark and humorous, Upon a Starlit Tide is for all those who ever dreamed of escaping over the horizon.”

LUCY HOLLAND, bestselling author of Sistersong

“A gorgeous, atmospheric tale full of glittering fae and wild magic, Upon a Starlit Tide will sweep you away in its waters and bury your heart at the bottom of the sea.”

MARY MCMYNE, author of The Book of Gothel

“To enter a world fashioned by Kell Woods is to be entirely won over by magic and history. Upon a Starlit Tide is enchanting in every sense of the word. Drawing on stories we know well, Kell Woods presents us with something deliciously and thrillingly new, alert to women’s secret desires . . . I could have floated in the lagoon of this story forever.”

HAYLEY SCRIVENOR, USA Today bestselling author of Dirt Creek

“Upon a Starlit Tide shimmers darkly, like polished sea glass, as hauntingly beautiful in the ocean’s depths as in the grandeur of aristocratic courts. With an intoxicating blend of history, magic, and forbidden love, this lyrical fairy tale reimagining sweeps you away on tides of enchantment.”

LYRA SELENE, bestselling author of A Feather So Black

“Upon a Starlit Tide is relentlessly enchanting; I was spellbound from start to finish. Kell Woods’ lyrical prose dances off every page, sweeping the reader into a world of delicate opulence, stormy desire, and knife-sharp betrayals. I cannot recommend Upon a Starlit Tide enough.”

SARAH STREET, author of A Curse of Salt

“Upon a Starlit Tide firmly establishes Kell Woods as a master storyteller, with an ability to manipulate the most appealing archetypes and legends into a fantasy uniquely her own. Upon a Starlit Tide is the perfect cocktail of historical detail, myth-stery and magic, with characters and a setting so wildly romantic you won’t want the heart rush to end.”

JO RICCIONI, bestselling author of The Branded

“Like a master alchemist, Kell Woods has (once again) combined well-worn stories to produce a new, shining thing; as recognisable as it is entirely original. Upon a Starlit Tide is so richly woven, surely it is the true history, from which all other retellings have rippled.”

MICHAEL EARP, author and editor of Everything Under the Moon: Fairy Tales in a Queerer Light

“A beautiful, dark, and magical tale that cleverly weaves together several classic stories and overlays them with a fresh feminist lens. Woods’ writing is rich and her storytelling compelling. The sea and the Saint Malo setting are characters in their own right—enchanting and mercurial—and I was completely swept away.”

VANESSA MCCAUSLAND, author of The Last Illusion of Paige White

Also by Kell Woodsand available from Titan Books

AFTER THE FOREST

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Upon a Starlit Tide

Print edition ISBN: 9781803361376

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361383

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: February 2025

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Kell Woods 2025

Kell Woods asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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For my husband, Luke.A light in the darkness.

Far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petals of the most beautiful cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,“THE LITTLE MERMAID”

PART 1

Their world seemed so much wider than her own, for they could skim over the sea in ships, and mount up into the lofty peaks high over the clouds, and their lands stretched out in woods and fields farther than the eye could see. There was so much she wanted to know.

—HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN,“THE LITTLE MERMAID”

1

WRECKED

CLOS-POULET, BRETAGNE MAY 1758

She thought him dead at first.

A man, draped lifeless upon a wedge of broken hull, cheek pressed against the timber as tenderly as a lover’s as he rose gently up, gently down with the exhausted breath of the sea. The storm had raged all night, howling and hurling itself against the shore, rattling the windows so hard that it had taken all of Luce’s will not to fling them open and feel its cold breath on her face. Only the chintz drapes, her mother’s great pride, had stopped her. Papa had brought the fabric all the way from India, and there was no telling how Gratienne would have reacted had Luce allowed the weather to spoil them. And so, she had kept the windows closed, watching the storm as it battered the gardens and orchard and pried at the roof of the dovecote as though it would rip it free and toss it, rolling and bouncing, down the sweep of rain-soaked fields and into the furious waves.

It was the kind of weather that stilled the world and sent folk hurrying indoors, that closed shutters and covered mirrors for fear of lightning strikes, that caused ships to fly before it into the harbor at Saint-Malo. One ship, at least, had not been fast enough.

Its remains dotted the gray water. Shards of decking, slabs of hull, tangles of rigging. Luce narrowed her eyes against the glare of the early morning sun, skirts held out of the weed and foam. She had seen the sea’s victims before, of course. Many times. Could not avoid it, with the storms that blew in from the northwest, tearing down the Manche, leaving ruined ships and their dead strewn across the beaches of Clos-Poulet like flowers after a wedding feast. Faded petals across the sand. This man’s face, however, lacked the telltale pallor of death. And did he cling to the timber? She had seen men who had lashed themselves to ships as they broke apart, only to wash ashore, drowned, their fingers open and empty. But no rope bound this man to his floating sanctuary.

Not dead, then.

A quick glance down the cove’s curved, rocky shore. There were folk from Saint-Coulomb about; she had seen them as she’d climbed down the steep path from the cliffs. Men in their low boats, and shawled women, heads bowed as, like Luce, they combed the beach for treasure in the storm’s wake. Brandy and waxed packets of silk; coins and tea and candles. The men, however, had pushed out into deeper water, sails cutting the gray horizon, while the women had rounded the rocky point separating the cove from the next beach, where, farther along the shore, the path to the village lay.

But for a scattering of foam and weed, the beach was empty.

Decided, Luce tossed her boots, stockings, and garters to the gold-gray sand and shrugged out of her heavy men’s overcoat. She wore it like a shell, that coat; a briny leather casing that hid the soft, female truth of her. Her long, dark hair had been tucked safely within its collar; it unraveled around her shoulders as she bent to unlace her woolen caraco, then unbuttoned her breeches, sliding them down her bare legs. A final glance along the beach and her battered black tricorn joined the motley mound of clothing upon the sand. Clad in her chemise and stays, Luce picked her way to the water’s edge.

One, two, three steps and she was shin deep. Four, five, six and the fine cotton of her petticoat was dragging at her thighs. Luce’s skin prickled. It was May, and the Manche had not lost its wintery bite. Seven, eight, nine and she was pushing off the sandy bottom with her toes, diving clean and strong into the first rush of sea and salt. She opened her arms and scooped them back, gliding toward the man.

A feeling of dread as she neared him. What if she was wrong? What if he was tangled, not clinging? Dead instead of living? Would he roll languidly to greet her, already bloating, eyes glazed and sightless?

Too late now. She had to know. A few strokes more and she was at his side: a man from the waist up, clinging to the surface while his legs fell into shadow. His eyes—to her relief—were closed, his skin pale against his dark hair, but when Luce touched his wrist she felt the fluttering of his heart. A tattered sail and rigging trailed about him. She grasped the rope and turned for shore, swimming hard, towing the cumbersome load behind her.

The tide was coming in. Papa always said that Saint-Malo’s tides were the most powerful in Europe and that, together with the city’s position, surrounded by the Manche on three sides with a happy proximity to the trade routes between Spain, Portugal, England, and the Netherlands; its treacherous necklace of reefs and islands that caused even the staunchest of navigators to falter; and the legendary, protective storm-stone forming its mighty walls and ballasting the hulls of its ships, was what gave it its enviable strength.

Luce let the water help her, let it push broken man and ship both toward land.

When the hull scraped against sand, she drew away the rigging holding him to the timber. He sank beneath the surface as though he were made of marble and not flesh. Panicked, Luce dived after him, wrapping her arms about him as the Manche dragged him hungrily down. How heavy he was! She opened her eyes—the familiar salty sting—and checked to see if the ropes that had saved him were now conspiring to drag him to his death. They were not. Yet still he sank, arms trailing slowly upward, dark hair wafting like weed. She kicked harder. Felt, through the water around her, a nameless prickling against her skin. Surprised, Luce stilled and heard, clearly, the rumble of distant thunder.

Storm-stone.

Sailors on stricken ships sometimes helped themselves to their storm-stone ballast, hoping the stones’ magic might save their hides. Luce plunged her hands into the pockets of the man’s breeches, scooping the fist-sized ballast stones free. They grumbled as they sank, tiny granite storm clouds heavy with magic. Lightened of his burden, the sailor lifted easily in Luce’s arms. She pulled him to the surface and on toward the shore, his head lolling against her shoulder, his fingertips trailing in her wake.

He was taller than she, and well-knit, but she managed to drag him clumsily onto the beach, her chemise twisting around her thighs, her feet sinking in the wet sand. His own feet—bare, perfect—were hardly clear of the water’s grip when she lowered him onto the beach and sank down beside him, gasping. The Manche hissed regretfully, stroking at the young man’s bare toes, the cuffs of his breeches.

Be still, Luce told it silently. You have had your fill of sailors today. You shall not have this one, too.

The sun slid above the storm clouds tattering the horizon, washing the water in weak spring sunshine. It drifted over the near-drowned man, catching at his face. He groaned a little and frowned, closed eyes scrunching tight as though he feared the day.

Luce could not blame him for that. His ship, his crew were gone, the former heaving and rocking itself into death in the deeps of the night, dragging the latter down with it. It seemed that only he had survived.

The strike of a ship’s bell drifted faintly from the clifftop above. Eight strikes; eight of the morning. Luce pushed herself to her knees.

He lay on his back, eyes closed, dark hair—as dark as Luce’s own—fanning across his brow. Long black lashes were startling against his skin, his eyelids the faint mauve of the palest mussel shell. Beads of water glimmered silver on his skin.

Luce shifted closer, heedless of the cold, her exposed skin, the open beach. Took in his generous lips, the stubble on his jaw, the column of his neck. His forearms, tanned to smoothness. The lean and clinging shape of him beneath his shirt. Luce swallowed, exhaustion forgotten. He was waterlogged, near death—and yet he was as beautiful as the dusk.

Her heart panged hard against her ribs as the young man’s eyes flickered open.

Dark eyes, like a moonless night. He blinked twice, rapidly. Frowned. His gaze settled on Luce’s face. The frown deepened, then smoothed away, replaced by something else. Fear? Wonder? And then, before Luce knew what he was about, he raised himself up on one elbow, reached out with his other hand, and cupped her cheek with his palm.

Strong he was, deceptively so, and Luce knew a flutter of anxiety as he drew her face toward his. Then he was kissing her, the rush and the shock of it, the taste of his mouth, saltwater and the stale, almost-death of him. There was life, too—warmth and wanting, and Luce found herself kissing him back, pushing her body against his, wrapping her cold, bare arms about his neck. She was soaking wet, shivering, water breaking jealously over her hips, yet nothing, nothing mattered but the two of them, his arms locked about her, her legs and hair twined about him.

No, she thought to the sea. No. You shall not have him.

Voices drifted from the path along the cliffs above. More of the villagers from Saint-Coulomb coming down to search for survivors or goods that had washed ashore, whichever they happened upon first.

At the sound, Luce lurched away from the seaman, her breath coming fast, his fingers snarling in her hair. Without her to hold him upright he flopped back onto the sand. His eyes drooped closed.

As the voices continued to carry to her from around the headland, Luce crabbed away, seizing up her clothes and concealing herself in the tangle of weedy granite beneath the cliffs.

“There’s someone lying on the sand, there!”

Luce hunched further against the rocks. It would not do to be seen; whoever approached—a hasty glance revealed a handful of folk from Saint-Coulomb—would recognize her. As though to prove it, the little band of jetins who were wont to patrol the cove marched from between the rocks, brandishing sticks and swords, stones and mutinous expressions.

“What’s afoot?” the first of the fae demanded.

“Something’s afoot . . .” His comrade took in Luce, his wrinkled face suspicious. “’Tis the Lion’s youngest daughter.”

“The Lion’s youngest daughter?”

“Been swimming again, has she?”

They gathered around Luce, a tiny, disreputable crew dressed in pebble-grays and moss-greens, their wild beards woven through with feathers, shells, and bones.

“Save your stones, lads.”

“Off we go.”

It was as polite as the creatures were ever likely to get. Through a narrow sliver in the rocks, Luce watched as they strode across the sand to where the fisherfolk had reached the still-motionless man. She winced as the jetins, ever protective of their territory, began to pelt the rescuers—fishermen, mostly—with pebbles, then she took advantage of the ensuing commotion by scraping herself into her breeches, shrugging her coat straight on over her soaking chemise and stays, and tucking her caraco and boots under one arm. One last peek revealed two familiar forms among the fishermen—there was no mistaking Samuel with that height of his, and Bones, his cousin, almost as tall but lanky as a coatful of shins—as, dodging the korrigans’ stones and insults, they hefted the young man between them, carrying him toward the path cutting into the cliffs.

“. . . take him to the Lion’s house,” one of the men huffed.

“Be well tended, there . . .”

“Better than he’s used to, most like.”

Luce’s heart sank: they were taking the sailor to her father’s house.

It made sense, she supposed, pulling her tricorn low and tucking the ends of her wet hair deep into her collar. Nowhere was closer or more comfortable than Le Bleu Sauvage, while Jean-Baptiste Léon himself—shipowner, erstwhile corsair captain, and gentleman—would know precisely what to do with the rescued man.

What he would do if he discovered Luce’s part in said rescue was another matter entirely.

She hurried between the rocks, away from the fishermen and their catch. She knew this cove better than anyone; knew its paths and its secrets. What appeared to be a thick bank of pink sea thrift, for example, might in fact be a perfectly serviceable path, while a thick carpet of reddish maritime pine needles might hide a forest-trail that ended at the broad stone wall surrounding the Léon estate. It was damp and shady there, thick with waist-high billows of cow parsley, and Luce paused to catch her breath and put on her boots, wincing at the pain that was steadily worsening in her feet. She pressed on, ignoring the pain, determined not to imagine what would happen if her family discovered her absence.

Do not think of it, she told herself firmly. Just keep going.

Just keep going.

The forest soon gave way to bocage. Luce avoided the road—it was used regularly by the workers employed by her father to tend the estate’s crops and orchards, its vegetable plots and livestock, all of which would sustain the household when it returned to the walled city in the autumn—in favor of the tall hedgerows, where oak and chestnut trees lent their generous shadows. A robin tittered as Luce limped by—I see you, I see you.

Luce squared her shoulders and lengthened her strides—enhancing the illusion formed by the tricorn and overcoat—as she emerged from the hedgerow and onto the road. There was no one about. The malouinière’s main gate—a grand arch in the stone wall revealing a wide graveled court and a tantalizing glimpse of the house beyond—was deserted, the road before it meandering peacefully through the bocage to join the highroad that would eventually lead to Cancale in the east and Saint-Malo in the west.

At any moment the fishermen—and the pair of smugglers in their midst—would appear behind her, dangling their catch between them as they approached the gate. Luce must be safe inside the walls when they did.

Keep going, keep going. Every step a fervent wish that she would make it home in time, that her feet, wailing in protest now, would not fail her.

At last, at last, a familiar stretch of wall came into view, its ordered stones broken by the barnacle-like presence of an old chapel.

Luce’s salvation, and her sin.

Laying half within and half without the somber expanse of wall, the tiny stone church—indeed, it was not as large as Maman’s sumptuous dressing room—had two entrances, one at either end. The first, an unassuming door that opened straight onto the road, had been used by long-ago villagers in the days before the newer, larger church had been erected in Saint-Coulomb. The second, which was broad and intricately carved, opened into the private domain of the Léon family, the gardens and pathways and fountains that seemed to be from another world, so different were they to the rolling countryside with its rough stone dwellings and wide Bretagne sky.

The second door was never locked, for indeed any member of the Léon household was free to pray in the chapel whenever they liked. But the first? It opened so rarely that everyone—from Luce’s father to the lowliest kitchen boy—had all but forgotten its existence.

Everyone, that is, but Luce.

By the time the fishermen reached the road, Luce was in the chapel, locking the outer door and brushing the sand and guilt from her overcoat. She undressed once more and bundled the men’s clothes together before hurrying to one of the chapel’s deep, high windows. A beautiful sculpture nestled before it: Saint Sophia and her three daughters, their faces vibrant in the glow of the colored glass. Balancing on the edge of the nearest pew, Luce reached behind the ladies’ carved skirts—pardon me, mademoiselles—and retrieved a second, smaller bundle of clothing stashed there. Dropping it to the floor, she shoved the coat and breeches in its place, then tucked her tricorn in as well, the key to the outer chapel door—a copy made from one she had filched from the femmes de charge, Claudine, two Christmases ago—hidden in one of its triangular folds.

The second set of clothes was entirely different to the first: a soft cotton petticoat and a fine woolen skirt that matched the dark blue of Luce’s damp caraco. She dressed quickly before cracking the chapel’s second, opulently carved door, and then, when she was certain it was safe, slipped back into the confines of her life.

*   *   *

Lions of the sea. That’s what they called the Léons, one of the oldest and most distinguished of Saint-Malo’s ship-owning families. The family coat of arms, a golden lion against a background of Bretagne white and blue, testified to this. For generations they had ruled the seas, as merchants and sea captains, navigators and explorers. Luce’s father, his father, and his father before him had been shipowners and corsairs, amassing an impressive fortune. None of which, unfortunately, had been left to Jean-Baptiste. As the youngest son, he had received anything but the lion’s share. Even so, through cleverness, chance, and no small amount of bravery he had made his own wealth, including a splendid town house in Saint-Malo. It was the malouinière, Le Bleu Sauvage, however, that was his true pride.

Built by some long-ago member of the Fontaine-Roux family, the large and luxurious manor house sat upon a broad estate twelve miles from Saint-Malo—a distance great enough to offer respite from the crowded city in the summertime, yet close enough to be within riding distance should a pressing business matter require attention. Other shipping families had constructed their own malouinières over the decades, so that the countryside was dotted with stately granite homes, their fountains and formal gardens hidden behind high walls.

The scent of roses replaced the tang of salt in Luce’s nose as she hurried along the gravel pathway, past reflecting pools, garden beds bristling with lavender, and boxwood hedges trimmed with maritime precision. The ordered gardens soon gave way to a wide lawn surrounded by stone benches and chestnut trees. Twin lions carved in creamy stone guarded the steps leading to the house, which reared, as stately as one of her father’s ships, over the green lawn: two stories of white-plastered granite from the Storm Islands, its stern façade lined with rows of tall windows with frames painted a fresh white, their edges lined with gray stonework. The roof was steeply pitched, the perfect shape of an upturned ship’s hull in austere, cloud-gray symmetry. Narrow chimneys rose above it like sails, defying the laws of balance. The house, like the walls surrounding the estate and Saint-Malo itself, was made from storm-stone. Luce felt its low, not-unpleasant rumble, the nameless prickling against her skin, as she tucked herself behind a pine tree and surveyed the house.

All was still. Within, the domestiques would be quietly beginning another day. Papa would be sipping coffee while his valet helped him dress, his thoughts already on the letters, account books, and fresh pastries waiting in his study. Luce’s mother and sisters would be abed, or lazily drinking their morning cups of chocolate; joining the morning slowly, reluctantly, as they always did. All of them blissfully unaware that the peace of the morning, as ordered as the watches her father insisted be rung on the old ship’s bell in the vestibule, was about to be shattered.

The house was framed on either end by smaller wings, built, like the main house, of storm-stone: the servants’ kitchen and quarters, and the enormous main kitchen where the family’s meals were prepared. Beyond it, built into the walls on each side of the gate through which the fishermen would at any moment arrive, lay the stables, the carriage house, and—closest to Luce—the laundry. It was there that she limped, skin prickling at the nearness of the storm-stone, the rose bushes growing beneath the laundry window catching accusingly at her skirts as she slipped inside.

Was that voices she could hear on the path beyond the walls? The scrape of rough boots, the low grunt of men heaving and ho-ing a weight between them?

Hurry. Hurry.

The stone room was dim and cool, clinging still to the stormy dark of the night before. Luce crossed the uneven floor and hastily perused the wooden rack fixed to the ceiling, thick with the Léon family’s freshly washed linens. Chemises and shirts, laces and ribbons, stockings and petticoats. And there—thank you—several cotton caps. She chose the plainest—one of Charlotte’s—and rolled her damp hair quickly at the back of her head, tucking the cap over it and tying the white silk ribbons. All the while it was not her hands but the young sailor’s she felt in her hair. His hands, his arms, his lips . . .

The ship’s bell tolled once—one bell, eight thirty. A shout rose from the yard. Through the laundry’s grimy little windows Luce glimpsed the fishermen crossing the smooth gravel of the yard, the sailor dangling between.

Luce slipped out of the laundry, listening as the house was shaken rudely from its rest. The rapid tread of domestiques in the vestibule, the crunch of shoes on the gravel of the yard, the creak as the enormous front doors were thrown open. A confusion of voices: fishermen and laquais, maidservants and stablehands, questions and answers moving between like goods at a busy market. Luce wandered toward them, doing her best to appear calm and slightly curious. Not a moment too soon: Jean-Baptiste Léon strode from the main doors, splendid in his favorite morning coat. Luce’s mother and two sisters poured out of the house behind him, gloriously en dishabille in morning robes frothing with ruffles and ribbons. They clustered around the fishermen, peppering them with questions and exclaiming over the ailing man, until Jean-Baptiste ordered the men to bring their cargo inside. He met Luce’s eyes briefly before he led them in, sparing her one of his smiles; distracted, kindly. Gratienne, Veronique, and Charlotte were on his heels, as well as the laquais and the maids. The stablehands returned reluctantly to their duties.

The courtyard was quiet once more.

Only then did Luce limp to the well, tucked away beside the laundry, and draw a bucket of fresh water. When she was sure the rose garden would block her from the sight of anyone looking out of the house, she pressed her back to the stone wall and sank gratefully down, stretching her long legs out before her.

Finally, finally, she could finally turn her attention to her feet. To the pain that, even now, felt as if a hundred newly sharpened knives had been slicing into her skin, her flesh, her very bones.

2

ROUGH WATER, DARK MOON

Luce’s unfortunate affliction, Gratienne called it. Or Luce’s curse, when she thought her youngest daughter was not close by. Charlotte called it far worse—hurtful things that made Luce want to curl her legs beneath her skirts, or run away, if running had not pained her so.

She removed her boots and stockings, wincing. Unlike her legs, which were long and smooth, her feet were as gnarled and brittle as driftwood. Oddly curved, they turned inward and under, so that her toes were a mess of misshapen, flattened bones, thick with calluses and pain. And pain. And pain.

The surgeons had no name for it. Jean-Baptiste had summoned several over the years, along with barbers and apothecaries. He had even taken Luce to Paris to see the kingdom’s finest healers. On one thing they all agreed: Luce had been born with a rare and terrible affliction, and there was no means of curing it.

“Look here, then,” came a tiny voice from the rose bush. “What’s happened to you?”

Luce sighed. “Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

“I disagree!” A woman no taller than a cat hopped from between the roses. She was dressed all in green, with red stockings and a jaunty red hat. Before Luce could say otherwise, the lutine—for that is what she was—was examining Luce’s feet with an air of scientific curiosity, her hands clasped behind her back.

“What have you been doing?” she asked, tsking as Luce scooped water over her feet. Oh, sweet relief. It was as nothing to the succor that seawater would have brought her, but it would do. “Not being careful, eh?”

Ordinarily Luce was mindful of her feet. She walked slowly, considering the placement of each step, the surface and angle least likely to cause her pain. The rapid climb up the rocky path and back to the house had been just the thing to set them on fire.

“You could say that.” She dipped into the bucket again. The water was blissfully cold, and it was taking all her willpower not to plunge both feet in at once and dabble them like a duck.

In the house, the sound of voices receded and then sharpened as their owners flowed into the grand salon. The doors overlooking the lawn were open, and Luce clearly heard her mother telling the servants, Nanette and Marie-Jeanne, to bring hot water, towels, and blankets.

The little creature tsked again, waggling her fingers, and a piece of clean washing that looked suspiciously like one of the embroidered handkerchiefs Luce had seen drying in the laundry room appeared in her tiny hand. “Voilà!”

“Is that—”

“Be grateful, not nosy, tall one.”

Luce bit back a smile as she thought of Veronique’s face, should her sister discover what her beautiful handkerchief had been used for. “Thank you.”

“Welcome.”

The lutine watched as Luce dabbed at her foot with the kerchief, smoothing away the sand and heat. The little rose-woman was not the only Fae creature living on the malouinière grounds. There were korrigans in the kitchens and water sprites in the well. The scullery maid was always careful to leave a flat stone or three before the oven each night for the little folk to warm themselves upon, as well as bread and other treats. It would not do to lose them, after all. Everyone in Saint-Malo—from the wealthiest shipowner to the lowliest kitchen boy—understood that. The steady hum of the storm-stone rising from the house and the estate walls, the protection and peace it offered, was entirely due to the presence of Fae Folk and the magic they imparted. Stone, sea, earth—they blessed it all.

“Rude not to answer questions,” the rose-lady said. “What has the tall one been doing?”

“I dragged a drowning man out of the sea.”

The lutine blinked. “The tall one lies!”

“Not at all.” Luce told the tale while she washed her other foot. Well, most of the tale. She left out how cold the sailor’s hands had felt through the sodden cotton of her chemise, and the startling warmth of his tongue as it brushed against hers.

Her cheeks flooded with heat. This was not what she had expected of her morning. She had risen early to comb the shore for storm treasure, nothing more. Unusual shells, she had thought, as she slipped through the chapel and out into the freedom of the early morning. Or, if a ship had wrecked out in the Manche, something more substantial. A spy-glass, perhaps, or a sounding line, its cordage knotted, but salvageable. Once, after a storm, she had found a wooden box floating in the cove. It had contained a sextant of gleaming brass, perfectly safe, perfectly dry. It was her greatest treasure, taking pride of place on the rough stone shelves of Luce’s sea-cave—her greatest secret. It was there that she kept all her salvaged treasures, and there that she retreated when the strictures and bustle of her family, her entire life, became too much to bear.

But then this morning, there he was. As strange and unexpected as the rarest shell. Just waiting for her to find him.

The lutine was watching her, eyes bright as jewels in her crinkled face.

“Dangerous path you’re treading,” she said quietly.

“What do you mean?” Luce’s blush deepened. She wondered if the little lady could somehow see the mark of a kiss on her lips, the imprint of hands upon her skin.

“Only a fool steals a soul from the sea once the sea has claimed it.”

“That’s just sailors’ superstition.” She had heard it often enough from Bones, and even Samuel. Most sailors, smugglers, and fishermen hesitated to rescue their stricken brethren from the sea, for fear that their own lives would be forfeit.

“’Tis true enough. Now you owe the sea a soul.”

A prickling of foreboding whispered across Luce’s skin. Beyond the lawn, the house, the sea pines whispered, as though a new wind had woken. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Foolish,” the lutine said, with a solemn shake of her head. “Foolish to risk your soul like that. I will ask the wind to watch over you.”

“And I you.”

Another snap of those tiny fingers, and a set of clean silk stockings and two pink garters appeared in her hands. These, Luce saw with relief, were her own, and she felt no guilt as she slid her clean toes inside the stockings and drew them up to her thighs, securing them with the ribbons. When she looked up, the lutine was gone.

*   *   *

Luce waited until she was sure the fishermen had left the grounds—until the low whickering from the stables and the contented clucking of the chickens wandering near the gates were the only sounds—before she returned to the house. The vestibule, with its imposing ceilings, marble floors, and enormous stone staircase, was empty.

“Those fools didn’t know a thing,” Luce heard her sister Charlotte say from the grand salon. The enormous, ornate double doors were slightly ajar, hiding the activity within. “Who is he, do you think?”

Who, indeed? Luce considered that as she crossed the vestibule. She knew all the great ship-owning families of Saint-Malo: the Gaultiers and the Desailles. The Fontaine-Roux and the de Châtelaines. The Le Fers, the Landais, and the Rivières. Perhaps this man was a foreigner? From Amsterdam or Spain? Perhaps—she hesitated, steps slowing—he was English?

The war with England was in its second year now. “Tussocking over the Americas,” Samuel called it, though Luce’s father would have disagreed. “It is a matter of French pride,” Jean-Baptiste had told her. “We cannot let the English take the Ohio.” The fighting was not limited to the New World. There had been fighting in Saxony, Bohemia, and Moravia, as well as the Mediterranean. It affected everyone in Saint-Malo—merchants, traders, and shipowners alike. With trade interrupted, and the Manche and Atlantique bristling with enemy ships, men like Luce’s father turned, as they had always done, to privateering. Armed with a Letter of Marque from the king, he would swiftly pull together investors, a crew, and a captain. “It is not only our right, but our duty,” Jean-Baptiste would oft proclaim. By disrupting English shipping and destroying or taking its ships, the corsairs of Saint-Malo were assisting the king by distracting the English Navy, as well as adding to the French war coffers by sharing their spoils with the Crown. They were also—Luce glanced at the Italian marble floor, elaborate golden candelabra and matching mirror, still covered by layers of linen after last night’s storm—making a great deal of money. Of course, it was not only France who took to privateering. England, too, had its own raiders. Just like the gentlemen of Saint-Malo, they scoured the Manche, the Atlantique, and beyond, attacking, sinking, and stealing enemy ships, fighting for country and glory. If this man was an English privateer, he was her father’s, Saint-Malo’s, and all of Bretagne’s enemy.

Guilt of an entirely different kind rose within Luce. She hurried toward the grand salon, then whirled as someone hissed her name.

Samuel and Bones were standing in the shadows beneath the stairs, tricorns in hand, grinning.

“Found your clothes, then,” Samuel whispered, with an amiable wink. “Good for you.”

“I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, Samuel,” Bones muttered, turning to his cousin in mock disapproval. “Anyone would think you enjoy glimpsing well-bred young women swimming in their underthings.”

Framed by the intricately carved pair of fish bearing the bronze ship’s bell, their overcoats of oiled leather stark against the pastel paneling on the walls—dove-gray, cream trim, the height of fashion—the two smugglers looked large, rough, and completely incorrigible.

“What are you still doing here?” Luce hissed, hurrying toward them.

“The same as you.” Samuel looked wounded. “Saving that poor soul from certain death.”

Bones was no longer smiling. “Tell me you didn’t pull him from the water, Luce,” he said, his usually good-natured face grave. “That he was already on the beach when you found him.”

Luce sighed. Bones wholeheartedly believed, as all seamen did, in the superstitions that soaked their craft. Customs that could save your life or doom it. Habits that could change the whim of the weather, the will of the waves. “You’re as bad as the lutine, Bones, with your superstitions.”

“You know better than to do something like that, Luce,” he scolded. “The sea must have its number.”

“I—” Luce froze as the voices in the salon drifted closer, as though someone—Nanette, perhaps—was about to step into the vestibule. Bones, swearing softly, bolted through the front doors and across the courtyard, out of sight. Samuel merely stood his ground, grinning in a way he knew Luce found to be most disagreeable.

“Curse you, Samuel.” She placed both hands on his chest and pushed him farther into the shadows. Though he could have stopped her easily—he was a full head taller than she, and strong from years of sea-work—he retreated obediently, ducking his tawny head to avoid bashing it on the stairs. A moment later Veronique’s chambermaid, Anna-Marie, hurried intently by, her neat, capped head bent low.

“You took an age to come inside,” Samuel said, when Anna-Marie had gone. “Bones was worried your mother would catch us loitering and toss us arse-first into her rose bushes.”

“Keep your voice down, or she will toss us both!” Luce’s hands were still on his chest. Carefully, she removed them.

“You’re in a foul mood,” he observed. “Feet hurting?”

“I’m fine. I just . . . I don’t want my family knowing what happened this morning, that’s all.”

Samuel frowned. “That man owes his life to you, Luce. Why should you hide it?”

“Because—as you well know, Samuel—my entire family believes I was at prayer in the chapel this morning, not . . . not running about the shore in my chemise.”

Or kissing strangers, for that matter. She glanced up at him, at the curve of his lips, lifting in a half smile.

“Well, no need to worry about that. No one saw you but Bones and me.”

Those words from any other man might have made Luce shudder and draw away. They implied an intimacy, after all: an unseemly, uninvited, knowledge. In Samuel’s rough French, however—he, like Bones, was English, though decidedly more interested in profits than patriotism—they were a reassurance, nothing more. In all the time they had spent together, on the shore and in his boat, he had never once made her feel uneasy.

She watched him a moment, wondering if he had seen more than just her underthings on the beach: Luce, wrapped in the near-drowned man’s arms, kissing him as though she alone could push the life back into him. No. No, the young man had flopped back onto the sand well before the fishermen, Samuel among them, rounded the headland. And Samuel, for his part, was calm as always. There was no question in his gray eyes, no . . . what was she looking for? Jealousy? Consternation?

She ought to know better.

Samuel and Bones were part of a small operation that smuggled contraband from Bretagne to their village in Dorset. Tea, wine, and brandy. Silks and lace and fine Breton linens. When Luce and Samuel first met, he had been searching for a place to store contraband between Manche crossings—space in the crowded warehouses in Saint-Malo and Saint-Servan was far too expensive for smugglers of his ilk, he later explained. Somewhere close to his lodgings at a Saint-Coulomb farmhouse, where an elderly widow gave both him and Bones a meal a day and rough beds in the loft above her barn. There were several caves that had caught his eye, but all were occupied—tide-women, though rare, were still about, as well as fions and the same crotchety band of jetins Luce had met that morning at the cove. Samuel was stumbling up the beach, suffering the indignation of having curses as well as stones hurled at him by the latter, when he came upon Luce swimming. Later, he had admitted that he had thought her one of the sea-folk, at first, with her long dark hair. It was only when she swam into the shallows and banished the furious jetins with a word that he realized she was not one of the Fae as he had supposed, but the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Léon.

Turning his back while she emerged from the water and dressed, Samuel had expected nothing more from his future than swift punishment for encroaching upon not only Monsieur Léon’s property but the privacy of his youngest daughter. He had not anticipated being the subject of Luce’s keen appraisal. She had known within a moment of hearing his spluttered apologies and curses that he was English—thanks to the many tutors her father had procured for her over the years, she not only spoke fluent English, but Latin and Spanish, too—and wasted no time in asking him what his business was. Stunned into honesty, he explained his predicament: he was in need of a cave. Somewhere large and dry. Somewhere secret.

Luce had known the perfect place. A sea-cave hidden amid the tumbling rocks beneath the cliffs and protected by the presence of the powerful groac’h, or tide-crone, who lived in her own cave nearby. Despite the many stories of the fae woman’s wickedness and savagery, Luce had always found her to leave well enough alone, if the same courtesy was bestowed upon her. Even better, her presence caused the local fishermen to give the cove a wide berth. Luce showed Samuel the cave—he agreed that it was perfect—and offered it to him on two conditions: one, that he avoid the parts that Luce had already claimed for her own use, and two, that he teach her how to sail.

Samuel was unable to pass up such an opportunity—a cave protected by the presence of a malignant sea hag? It was more than he had hoped for. “By all means,” he had said in his still-clumsy French. “I will gladly teach you to sail, mademoiselle.”

“Then we have an agreement,” Luce replied in perfect English, shaking his hand.

Samuel had honored it, too, arriving at the cove at least once a week whenever Luce and her family were residing at Le Bleu Sauvage, in the quiet of the mornings when the rest of her family slept or sipped coffee in their chambers, completely unaware that Luce had slipped through the chapel and gone out on the water with an unscrupulous smuggler from Dorset. Samuel’s presence was an island in an otherwise dreary ocean of tutors and music lessons, embroidery and tiresome social engagements; suppers and lunches, piqueniques and dances. Luce did her best to avoid them. She had little in common with the other young ladies of Saint-Malo, with their talk of marriage and trousseaus and shopping trips to Paris. She had her father, of course, and the many books he brought for her—geography, natural history, and mathematics. But it was only Samuel who gave her what she most wanted: the open water, and its freedom.

Footsteps. Nanette, bearing a pitcher, scurried by, followed by Claudine, her arms loaded with blankets. Neither servant so much as glanced under the stairs before hurrying into the salon.

“Very good,” came Gratienne’s voice from within. “Now, take that blanket and spread it out under him. No, this way. Here, lift him, lift him. That’s right. No point ruining that chintz.”

“I wonder who he is,” Samuel said, tilting his head in an effort to catch a glimpse of the goings-on between the crack in the salon doors. The ends of his brown hair, crisped gold by long days of sun and salt, glimmered as her mother’s candelabra. “Did he say anything to you?”

“No.” Luce’s cheeks flamed. She was glad of the cool shadows beneath the stairs.

“I suppose we’ll find out when he wakes.”

“I suppose we will.” A moment of dread. Would the sailor reveal her part in his rescue? He was, at this very moment, surrounded by her family. It would take only a word or two for him to reveal all.

Samuel was watching her. “I doubt he’ll recall much,” he said, as if perceiving her thoughts. “God alone knows how long he was drifting, cold and exhausted. It will be a miracle if he remembers anything at all.”

“I hope that’s true.” Please, be true. Relief, and something else. Disappointment? She feared that the sailor might remember her, it was true; yet, at the same time, she loathed the notion of him forgetting. The memory of his kiss was warm on her lips; she touched her fingertips to them guiltily.

“One can only hope,” Samuel said with a shrug.

Luce narrowed her eyes. “You’re thinking of the ship.”

He grinned. “I’m thinking of the ship.”

Smuggling was not the only unlawful pastime with which Samuel filled his days. He was also a storm diver, a hunter of the precious storm-stone ballast used by Malouin shipowners and captains to protect their vessels from foul weather, attack, and mutiny alike (“Not all storms are related to the weather, after all,” Papa was fond of saying). Harvesting the stone from wrecks and reefs was illegal—Samuel knew this as well as anyone. But storm-stone was no longer as plentiful or powerful as it had been a century ago, when Bretagne’s population of Fae creatures had been larger, and there were strict laws in place to protect the city’s supply. There had to be. As more and more of the Fae left Bretagne, it became harder and harder to find good quality stone. A thriving black market had developed, which Samuel had no qualms about levering to his advantage. The rarer something was, after all, the higher the price.

“I gave him a discreet little slap or two on the way up,” Samuel admitted. “Hoped he might wake and say what kind of cloud the ship was carrying, and where it went down. He wouldn’t rouse, more’s the pity.”

“You didn’t!” Luce tried, and failed, to keep from laughing. “That man almost died, Samuel—his crew are unaccounted for—and all you care about is whether he might help you line your pockets!”

“We’re not all of us lucky enough to be Léons,” he said, with a meaningful glance at the opulent vestibule. It was the first time, Luce realized, she had ever seen Samuel in her father’s house. Beside the spindly side table with its ridiculously ostentatious decorations—flowers and birds, swirls of leaves and sea shells—he looked supremely out of place.

. . . And no less attractive for it, said a small, rather irritating part of Luce.

“If we’re going to talk about who owes what,” Samuel was saying, “let’s talk about what he owes you. You put yourself at risk when you swam out to save him.”

“Nonsense. I’m a strong swimmer.”

“You are,” he agreed. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. You stole a soul from the Manche when you brought him in. It will not forget.”

“Heavens above, Samuel. Not you, too?”

She should have known. Samuel was not as effusive as his cousin when it came to sea lore, but he saw omens in the clouds and portents in the color of the water just the same.

“The Manche has never been anything but kind to me,” she said. “I am not afraid.”

“I wish I could say the same,” he said soberly. “Lend me some of that confidence, would you? I’ll need it tonight.”

“You’re making a run?”

“Looks like it. The moon’s new and the weather’s lurking. Perfect night for a little ‘fishing.’ ”

Luce frowned. “The crossing will be rough.”

“It will. The Manche is in a foul mood.”

“Why tempt it, then?”

“You know why. Rough water, dark moon—good smuggling.”

Luce nodded. Dark moons hid sails, and bad weather kept customs men—and their speedy clippers—at bay. Even so, the thought of Samuel and Bones sailing their little two-masted lugger, the Dove, across the dark expanse of the Manche filled her with misgiving.

“I thought you said you weren’t afraid?” Samuel teased. “There’s no need to look so worried; we’re only going to Guernsey.”

The salon doors creaked open, and Marie-Jeanne bustled through. She spared not a glance as she passed by, hurrying toward the kitchen.

“How many servants are there?” Samuel asked in wonder.

“I should see if they need help,” Luce said. The urge to see the sailor again, to know how he fared, was suddenly strong.

“Of course.” Samuel watched the salon warily. “Much as I’ve enjoyed lingering with you beneath these fancy stairs, I have things of my own to see to. Is it safe to leave?”

Luce peered out from beneath the stairs. “I think so.”

He ducked out from the cover of the shadows, overcoat swirling as he strode for the door. At the last moment he stopped, came back. “I’m going to search for that wreck when we get back from Guernsey. The tide will be just right in the morning. Come with me. Six bells?”

Despite herself, Luce nodded.

“If for some reason you can’t meet me”—he inclined his head toward the grand salon, and her family—“leave a note at the chapel.”

“I will. Take care tonight, Samuel. The Manche is in a greedy mood.”

“Then I’ll be in good company.” He threw her another wink and settled his battered tricorn on his head. “But I’ll take care, just for you.”

3

WOLF CUB

Le Bleu Sauvage was a confection of luxury and light, fantasy and fashion. Furniture embellished with carved flowers and shells, palm leaves, and foliage adorned every room. The high walls were a tasteful shade of pearl-gray, bedecked with sumptuous mirrors and art. No room, however, was more breathtaking than the grand salon.

With two sets of high double doors opening at either end, one could walk from the vestibule to the center of the room, where silk-covered chairs and chaise longues were artfully arranged, passing beneath an enormous crystal chandelier before pushing aside the gauzy curtains and stepping down to the sweeping expanse of lawn.

The dark-haired man was oblivious to his elegant surroundings. He lay, eyes closed, upon the largest of the chaise longues. Luce drank in every part of him: the black hair flopping over his high brow, the triangle of pale flesh peeking through the laces of his shirt.

“Fetch Jean-François, Nanette,” Jean-Baptiste was saying. “I must send word to the harbormaster at Saint-Malo.”

Nanette obeyed at once, hurrying out into the gardens where the dovecote lay. At the same moment, Marie-Jeanne came back through the doors behind Luce, bearing a tray loaded with bread and broth.

“Ah, well done, Marie-Jeanne,” Gratienne said, pointing. “Put it there. He will be famished when he wakes. Poor wretch.” Her gaze fell upon Luce. “There you are, Lucinde. I wondered where you had got to.”

“Why do you bother, Maman? You know exactly where Luce was,” Veronique said patiently. “She always begins her day in the chapel.”

“Whatever do you pray about, day after day?” Charlotte enquired. “You missed all the excitement this morning.” She gestured to the unconscious sailor, lowering her voice as though he might hear. “The fishermen found him on the beach!”

“Goodness,” Luce said, feigning surprise. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Your mother has everything in hand,” Jean-Baptiste said, tilting his cheek for Luce to kiss. He smelled of ink and coffee; warm, and comforting. “I knew the weather would be foul last night.”

“Oh?” Luce, noticing that his lace jabot was crooked, reached up to adjust it.

“Indeed. I was at the dockyards in Trichet yesterday,” he explained. “Monsieur Gaultier’s new ship is near complete. And what do you think, one of the carpenter’s apprentices stuck his knife in the mainmast in his haste to get to his dinner!”

Luce’s hands stilled. “Papa. You’re not truly blaming that boy for the storm?”

“I most certainly am, mon trésor. A knife in a mast will always raise the weather. If he’d been less eager to drop tools and fill his belly, he’d have remembered it.”

Luce hid a smile. Her father was dressed impeccably in a lace-cuffed shirt, silk faille waistcoat, and breeches. Still, it was impossible to separate the gentleman before her from the young sailor he had once been—along with his superstitions. The ship’s bell and hourglass in the vestibule—manned by the four laquais and rung on every watch except the deeps of the night and early morning—were proof enough of this, as was Jean-Baptiste’s unabiding dislike of reversed maps, upturned shoes, and whistling, which he swore would turn a stiff breeze into a gale. It was an unconditional rule that the women in his household—domestiques included—refrain from brushing or dressing their hair after dark, lest they rouse the weather and endanger his ships.

“Maman, he is still so cold.” In her lace-edged peignoir, her golden hair loose around her shoulders, Veronique looked like she was sitting for a portrait, not nursing an unfortunate sailor. She was also, Luce noted, clasping one of the young man’s hands. “His skin is like ice.”

Gratienne rustled to the chaise, held a hand to the sailor’s brow. “You are right, ma chère fille.” She frowned about the room, then gave a determined nod. “Very well. Out, my daughters. You must leave the room at once.”

“But, Maman!” Charlotte exclaimed.

Veronique pouted. “Might we not stay and help?”

“We must remove his wet clothes and warm him,” Gratienne said crisply. “Decorum must be maintained. Besides, neither of you are dressed to receive visitors.”

“He’s hardly a visitor,” Veronique said.

“He’s not even awake!”

“But he is about to be undressed,” Jean-Baptiste said, a laugh tickling the corners of his mouth. “Off with you, ma filles.”

Luce’s sisters dragged themselves to the door, Veronique clinging to the sailor’s hand until the last possible moment.

“How disappointing,” Charlotte muttered. “This was the most exciting thing to happen since we left Saint-Malo.”

She gave Luce a pointed look. Le Bleu Sauvage was the family’s summer home, a retreat when the walled city became an odious, simmering cauldron. Ordinarily the move occurred when the weather warmed—usually in June. But this year, like the year before, and the year before that, Luce had begged her father to take the family to the malouinière much earlier. Saint-Malo, home to twelve thousand souls, was crowded, noisy, and unbearably close. Yes, it was surrounded on all sides by the sea; but its high walls and ramparts, its locked gates and strict curfew, made reaching it difficult. By the end of March, Luce was climbing the walls. Her father, taking pity on her, had moved the entire household to Le Bleu Sauvage at the end of April.