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D’Artagnon waved his sword at the swarm of flies and they shifted, giving them a clear look at Didier. His eyes were wide, his mouth open in a silent scream and his body, curled up in a ball, was taut not with death, but with agony, and his skin was red and puffy. Didier’s death had not been quick, nor painless. D’Artagnon stood beside the cot, staring at the body as flies settled once again on the gruesome offering. “She boiled him alive from the inside out.”

It was a worse death than D’Artagnon would have granted him, but Aubert could not find it in himself to sympathize. Not after what Didier had done to Constance.

D’Artagnon closed his eye, his sigh coming from deep within his soul. “It seems fate does not want to grant me any vengeance.”

Lance had almost killed D’Artagnon. Had forced him to flee and left him scarred. Lance still lived, having escaped his due. Now Didier dying had stolen D’Artagnon’s chance to right this wrong.

Aubert squeezed D’Artagnon’s good shoulder. “I am sorry.”

“Perhaps it is best this way.” D’Artagnon sheathed his sword. “Despite what he did, he was Constance’s father.”

“Might have been awkward had you killed him,” agreed Edmond.

Would it be the same if they killed Douglas? Isobella might be a werewolf now, but she had not been for long, and she had come from a different time. A more advanced one. For all he knew, they dealt with such things differently in the twenty-first century. Would she understand their need to eliminate all threats to her safety? To exact vengeance on her behalf?

“He is dead.” D’Artagnon stopped in the doorway. “That gives me some satisfaction.” D’Artagnon stepped out into the night.

“Merde.” Remi stood in the doorway, a mix of horror and grim fascination on his face. “Cordelia did that?”

“Did what?” asked Isobella, filing in after him. She halted, her attention fixed on the gruesome sight on the cot. She paled, and her body shook.

Edmond wrapped his arms around her and turned her away. “Do not look. It is not a pleasant sight.”

“Is he…?”

“Dead?” Aubert grabbed a worn blanket and tossed it over the body, the cloud of buzzing insects lifting, then settling back down again. “Yes.”

“Come.” Edmond turned her toward the door. “We should leave. Get you out of here before Douglas returns.”

“But we came here to…deal with Douglas, too.”

He met his brother’s gaze. That pause. It held weight.

Isobella pulled out of Edmond’s arms. “And there might be something here, some clue, that could help us locate Cordelia or…” She strode to a lopsided shelf and started pushing things aside, looking behind them, in them, keeping her back to the body on the bed. “Or help us fight her.”

Were her movements too jerky? Was her spine too stiff? Did she imagine Douglas meeting the same fate as Didier?

His brother shrugged, but Aubert sensed his brother’s concern.

“Isobella is right. We should take the opportunity to look while we are here.” Edmond tipped over a basket and shriveled potatoes rolled across the dirt floor. He tossed it aside and picked up another one. “We might not get another chance.”

Remi’s eyes brightened, and he rubbed his hands together. “You never know what we might find.” He picked up a coat with his fingertips, held up the torn and filthy garment. “Though I have seen beggars that live better than this guy.” He grimaced and dropped the coat to the floor. “I think I will keep watch outside with D’Artagnon.” He disappeared out of the door.

Aubert eyed Isobella. Her body screamed, ‘do not touch me.’ He set his sword down on the table lest he should need it in a hurry, sidestepped a bloodstained patch of dirt and lifted the lid of a chest. Clothes. None were in any better state than the coat Remi had discarded. He rifled through them. Nothing. Aubert tossed the blankets off a second cot, marginally cleaner, and checked under the straw mattress. He opened the sack he found under it. Boots the likes he had never seen before, breeches and a tunic made of a soft material and a small, flat rectangle object. Things from the twenty-first century? Belonging to Douglas? He held up the rectangle object. “Do you know what this is, Isobella?”

She spun around, flinching when her gaze fell on Didier, quickly refocusing on what he held in his hand. “Oh, that must be Douglas’ phone. I wonder…” She took it from him and pressed something on the side of it. “Shame.” She handed it back to him. “It’s no use to us now. His battery’s flat. I probably wouldn’t have been able to get into it, anyway. I might have guessed his password, but I think Douglas used biometrics to lock it.”

Aubert had no clue what anything she had said meant, except that whatever it was could not help them. He shoved it back in the sack, and they kept looking. He lifted the blanket he had thrown over Didier. Again the insects stirred. He batted them away so he could get a better look. No obvious bulges beneath his clothes. His attention snagged on something. A shape tucked behind the cot. He leaned over and extracted it.

A book. Leather-bound. Most of the bloodstains on its cover were old and faded. Some were fresh. From Didier? He flicked it open and thumbed through the pages. More bloodstains and writing. Not Latin. Not Franceis. Not any language Aubert was familiar with. Yet, it reminded him of the big book Constance had had back at the d’Louncrais keep.

Edmond joined him, looking over his shoulder. “What have you found?”

“I am not sure. A book of spells?”

Isobella stilled, then pulled her hands free of the basket she was sorting. “A book of spells? A grimoire? Don’t touch it! Don’t open it!”

They both stared at her, stunned by her vehemence.

Aubert shrugged. “I already have.”

Isobella’s face paled. “Are you all right? Do you feel any pain? Do you feel ill, dizzy, nauseated?”

Aubert shook his head. “No, why?” He held the book out to her.

Before she took it, she unpinned her headscarf and wrapped it around her hands. “That’s odd. It should’ve had a ward protecting it. Something to prevent you from opening it.” She glanced at the body on the cot. “Maybe it did.”

She eased the cover open then paused, holding her breath. When nothing happened, she flipped over a page, then another and another. Faster and faster, past pages and pages of spells until she was at the back of the book. At the last page. She looked up at him then, a beatific smile spreading across her face. “Do you know what you’ve found, Aubert? This”—she snapped the book shut—“this is the grimoire with the time-travel spell in it. The one I used to get here.”