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Aubert was glad Remi had succeeded. More so that he was safe. He patted Remi on the shoulder. “You did well.”

Remi beamed up at him, and his chest puffed out. It seemed a little praise was reward enough. Sometimes they forgot he was but a boy.

“Come, Gaharet,” said Lothair. “Bring your men. And the little spy. He has proved rather useful so far.” Lothair looked them over. “Where are your horses?”

“We left them at the tanner’s,” said Edmond.

Lothair beckoned a keep guard over. “Capitaine, send a man to collect their horses. And fetch my wife to the hall.” Then, with a few of his men by his side, he strode off up the hill toward the keep, with the rest of them trailing along behind him.

“I am surprised he did not take that man’s head,” said Edmond as they passed through the keep doors. “Is Lothair feeling well? Does he have a fever?”

Lothair stopped and turned. “I see no point in killing a man who was merely following his orders. He was a loyal chevalier. Unfortunately, to my wife. Who is not loyal to me.”

Lothair continued walking, issuing orders to his servants to bring food and wine, and to prepare Gaharet’s usual chamber as they traipsed through the keep.

Gaharet shrugged. This was a new Lothair, one they were not familiar with, and Aubert was not certain what to make of it. Neither, it seemed, was Gaharet.

“Our comte is growing a heart,” said Edmond. “Tonight is full of surprises.”

“What happened with Didier and Douglas?” Gaharet kept his voice low.

“Didier is dead.” D’Artagnon’s grimace conveyed the true horror of what they had found. “Cordelia killed him before we got there. Boiled him alive from the inside out. The same way she killed Old Man Brun.”

“Not a nice way to die. That she would do that to her son…” Gaharet laid a hand on D’Artagnon’s shoulder. “But it is better that way. That you did not have to kill Constance’s father. What about the warlock Douglas?”

Aubert huffed. Douglas was still out there. Still a threat to Isobella. He edged closer to her. Edmond did the same on her other side.

“He had gone in search of your keep, but a beggar gave him the wrong directions,” said Edmond. “We were waiting for his return when the chevaliers surprised us.”

Lothair pushed through the doors to the hall. “They surprised you? That is a hell of thing.”

Being as though you are werewolves. The words remained unspoken, but Lothair was thinking them. It was in his eyes. How much of their conversation had Lothair overheard? How much had Gaharet told him?

Aubert scowled. “House Allard used magic to conceal their presence.”

That Isobella had used magic as a distraction, that he had found Cordelia’s book of spells Aubert had no intention of revealing. He tightened his grip on the sack over his shoulder, hitching it higher, conscious of its weight. Of its importance and the risk of it falling into the wrong hands. Lothair wanted to be a werewolf. Had hunted down Gaharet determined to make his vassal bite and turn him. Chained Ulrik in silver beneath the keep to that same end. What would he do with a time-travel spell? Aubert hoped they never had to find out.

They followed Lothair into the main hall, a room far larger and grander than the one at the d’Louncrais keep, Gaharet eyeing the sack over Aubert’s shoulder.

With Lothair’s back to them all, Aubert mouthed, “A book of spells.”

“Whose?” Gaharet mouthed back.

“Cordelia’s.”

Gaharet’s eyes widened, then his face slid into a mask of nonchalance as Lothair halted and turned to his men.

“Guard the door. No one comes in uninvited.”

The keep guard bowed and departed, the heavy doors closing behind them with a thud. They skirted the blaze in the fire pit, their footsteps loud in the empty room. Lothair mounted the dais at the end of the hall, adjusted his sword out of the way and sat in the chair far plainer than any throne but a seat of power nonetheless. A place from which he could lord it over his people.

Lothair rapped his fingers against the arm of his chair. “Faucher. Lance. Marguerite and this warlock Douglas. We are racking up enemies at all turns here, Gaharet.”

Gaharet lowered himself to sit on the dais. “You can always set Marguerite aside. Send her back to her family in disgrace. Confine her to a monastery.”

Lothair could do a lot worse. Rumor about the village had it Lothair had hanged a man from a beam in his own stable for consorting with the comtesse. That Marguerite had a connection to the king was possibly the only reason she was still alive.

“Lance, we must find him first,” continued Gaharet. “And when we do, he will face pack justice. Faucher…” Gaharet set his elbows on his knees. “Faucher is an altogether different matter.”