CHAPTER 1

A M É L I E

SAINT-NAZAIRE, FRANCE

SEPTEMBER 2, 1914

The moment the moon rose over the horizon, I felt the power of it. It was a full moon, bright enough to erase the stars and to cast pale silver shadows at my feet. The moonlight hollowed me out, scraping away my fears and making me bold. The air was heavy with the power and promise of this night, my last with the coven.

There were a few dozen of us witches gathered in the abbey courtyard for the Rite. We had all turned eighteen in the last year, and tonight would mark our entrance into womanhood. We stepped out of the protective shadow of the abbey walls and onto the exposed dirt road. The abbey rose behind us, an extension of the surrounding forest, moss-covered stone with ivy curling down its sides. My home for the last eight years.

“Hoods up!” Sœur Mélanie called. I had already yanked my hood over my hair. I kept my scruffy mane covered as often as possible, but beside me, Lisette sighed as she ran a hand through her long, auburn tresses. If I had hair like hers, I might’ve risked my life to wear it long.

“How do they expect us to take our vows if we have to wear hoods and dress like boys?” she asked. Always the same refrain. But when you’re beautiful, it’s only natural to be vain, only natural to want to wear a lovely witch’s gown instead of men’s trousers and shirt. Outside the abbey walls, we couldn’t risk such frivolity.

Sœur Mélanie’s lantern swung as she walked, casting light on the dirt path before us. The horse-drawn carts we were expecting had been replaced by vehicles: one large flatbed convoy and an armored automobile with a mounted gun. Soldiers milled around the vehicles, but their chatter stalled as Lisette approached. She still hadn’t put her hood up.

The moon was low on the horizon, big and golden, and filled with the warmth of the Goddess’ smile. The convoy puttered in the road as soldiers prepared for us to board. The rifles slung over their backs clanked against their bodies as they jumped from the convoy’s bed. My hand strayed to the revolver in the holster at my hip, just to reassure myself it was still there.

A soldier dropped a crate onto the ground and helped the girls up into the convoy bed. The witches huddled on the benches, their hoods pulled low to cover their hair and faces, their bulky clothes disguising their bodies. The soldiers were relaxed, joking and laughing as they absently fingered their weapons. They had nothing to fear; it was only the women who were in danger this night.

“Lisette!” Sœur Mélanie scolded. “No uncovered hair outside the abbey.”

“Ah, Sœur, let her wear her hair down,” a soldier said with a wink at Lisette. “She’s safer with us than in the abbey. It’s a sin to cover a pretty face like hers.”

The convoy’s driver made the sign of the cross as I boarded. He probably considered it a sin just to look at us.

Lisette brushed out her hair with her hand again as the soldier helped her onto the convoy. His hair was light and looked silver in the moonlight. She squished into the bench next to me and kept glancing at him. Her mouth pinched together to keep from smiling.

"He's rather handsome." She spoke directly into my mind, using the telepathic gift we witches called the voix.

“Can we go anywhere without you falling in love?" I asked with my voix.

"No, but I suppose I could hold out for a man with an estate and servants, so I never have to scrub the abbey latrines again."

I laughed out loud, and Sœur Mélanie gave me a stern look as she took her place at the front of the convoy. I unsuccessfully covered my laugh with a cough and fell silent. This was a night for pious contemplation. My mother would’ve scolded me, too.

I sat up straighter, searching the road for any signs of my mother, but there were no other horses or vehicles. I reached out with my voix, seeking her mind. She was far, but it was a full moon tonight and my powers were at their strongest. My mind crossed the distance with ease.

"Are you coming?" I asked, speaking into my mother’s mind.

"Oh. Amélie. I couldn't get away. The Germans are advancing, and the generalissimo needs my voix to communicate with our girls."

I sagged in my seat. I should’ve expected it. It was selfish--there was a war going on and all, but I had really thought she would come this time, that she would be here for me. I couldn’t shut out her voix, and I was forced to listen to more of her excuses. Joffre is helpless without our communication lines. I have to be here for France. You understand, don't you?"

The driver revved the truck’s engine. Lisette leaned back and looked up the road. “Is your mother not coming?”

I shrugged and tried to keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I think she’s still in Paris.”

“Oh.” She took my hand and squeezed it. I leaned against her and sighed.

The convoy spluttered and roared as it lurched forward. Witches jostled against each other as the convoy bumped down the road, the other vehicle close behind it. The light-haired soldier swung onto the convoy and plunked himself into a seat next to Lisette.

“Do you have a name, ma belle?”

“Lisette.” Her skin radiated with magic. The moon was at its fullest, and so were her powers. She was a talented glamourist, able to change her features on a whim. Her hair rippled around her face in its own private wind. Her lips were perfect and full, red like ripe cherries, and her eyes sparkled. She was irresistible like this, her glamour perfecting every feature in an alluring illusion of beauty. Lisette was pretty enough to attract the gaze of any man, but like this, no one could resist her.

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I held in my sigh; it filled my lungs until I thought they would burst. The soldier lifted his rifle off his shoulder and rested it against a knee. His gaze was fixated on her face. “You planning to come into town this weekend?”

“You might be able to convince me.”

“We should spend some time together before I go to the front.”

She smiled up at him, all false innocence and beauty. “I’d like that.”

He leaned in and boldly kissed her cheek, then moved to the back of the convoy to monitor the skies, though his gaze kept flicking back to her.

“Must you do that to every man you meet?” I demanded.

“Only the handsome ones.”

“Your mother would be furious if she saw you talking to a soldier.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “As if she hadn’t had a dozen lovers of her own before she took her vows. Isn’t this what we’re bred for?”

I cast a furtive glance at Sœur Mélanie. She was scolding another witch who had created a glamoured monkey that jumped about the trees, making the soldiers laugh. “We don’t

have to take our vows and join the Sisterhood. We don’t have to become courtesans.”

“As if that were an option.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not for me. And especially not for you.” She scooted away from me on the bench. I hated that look in her eyes. The resignation. The cowardice.

I stared down at my hands as I twisted my fingers together. The backs of both my hands were painted with large silver circles. Two full moons. My mother wouldn’t be here tonight. She couldn’t force me to do anything.

“Lisette--”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice sharp. “Let me enjoy this. Stop trying to make me believe life could be different. We’re witches, Amélie. We can’t change that.”

I scowled at my hands, itching to rub off the paint. I’d never had any choices, not with the High Witch as my mother. But that ended tonight. I would make the only choice I could: abandon my coven and forge my own path through life. I only wished I could convince Lisette to come with me, but she was beautiful. She had a real future, one where she might be happy.

“I wish I could’ve at least worn a witch’s gown,” she said.

“And that’s worth being carried away by a dragon?”

“Isn’t that what the gun is for? To prevent that from happening?”

I swallowed hard. If there were more than one dragon, a single machine gun wouldn’t be enough. But dragons hunted alone.

She sighed again. “I’d rather be carried off than become mistress to some old senator.”

“No, you’re too beautiful for that. You’ll fall in love. You’ll marry a handsome deputy, and one day he’ll become the president. You’ll be his lovely wife, the beautiful face of France.”

She made a face and scrunched her nose. She imitated sour Sœur Mélanie’s high-pitched voice. “Women don’t need the vote. We hold France’s hearts in our hands.”

I smothered another laugh.

“But what about you, Amélie? I could use my glamour to--”

“No. Glamour can’t help me.”

There were three dozen witches on this convoy, girls I had grown up with since childhood. Tonight they would receive their coven rites, and tomorrow they would enter society as courtesans to the rich and powerful. It was for our survival, we were told. It was the only way to prevent the pyres and the witch hunts that had nearly eliminated us. But I would have no part of it. It wasn’t as if I were pretty enough to be sought after, and I was the only witch in the abbey who couldn’t work glamour. I couldn’t change my appearance; I could never be beautiful like them. The coven didn’t need me.

If leaving made me a traitor to my kind, fine. I could live with that. But I could not live as a courtesan. I only hoped Lisette would understand. That she would forgive me for abandoning her, too.

The rumble of the convoy grew, then sputtered. The vehicle rolled to a stop. The convoy’s driver swore as he slammed open the cab door and stomped around to the front of the truck. We leaned over to watch him yank open the hood and fire out a

string of curses that made Sœur Mélanie blush.

Her scowl curled over her squashed features. “Cover your ears, girls. Don’t let them profane this holy night.”

We waited a quarter of an hour for the driver to get the convoy started again, but nothing he tried worked. Soldiers smoked, and Lisette flirted. I fidgeted and mentally reviewed the contents in the packed bags: a stolen uniform, ammunition, my life savings. Had I forgotten anything?

Sœur Mélanie stood up, drawing everyone’s gaze. “If we don’t get to the Glade soon, we won’t make it before the moon sets. We’ll have to walk from here.”

“Sit down, Sœur,” a soldier said. “It’s not safe for them to go on alone.”

She pushed him aside and stepped onto the road.

“But what about the dragons?” a witch squeaked, looking up at the sky.

“The soldiers will accompany us, and we’re dressed as boys. We’ll be safe.”

I tapped the revolver on my hip. Guns were the only real safety. The disguises only worked from a distance. Once the dragons got close, they could divide the men from the women with ease, without even seeing their faces.

“It must be the way we smell,” Lisette whispered, making me wonder if I had spoken those thoughts into her mind. “They can tell because we bathe more than once a week.”

She was trying to make me laugh, but the air was tense as we started off down the road. Four witches had disappeared last year during the Moon Rite, carried off by dragons and never seen again. For hundreds of years, witches had performed the Moon Rite clothed in gowns of silver without mishap. But after last year, my mother had ordered we take precautions.

The soldiers tried to maneuver the armored vehicle around the truck, but the dirt road was barely wide enough to fit the convoy and was lined on either side by thick trees. We had to abandon the gun, but the soldiers marched in a loose ring around us, rifles in hand. Everyone kept glancing at the sky.

The road narrowed. The leaves rustled in the wind and the branches cast strange shadows at our feet.

Lisette looped her arm through mine when she caught me studying the trees. “I’ll stay close by you once we enter the woods.”

I nodded, swallowing the panic that threatened to rise in my throat. The walk was silent, and my heartbeat was erratic and loud. Something stirred the bushes along the road, and I skittered away. My breath was uneven.

I hated the woods. I hated how the tree limbs blocked out the moonlight, and how the darkness had eyes. I hated the haunting sounds trees made, the tangling roots and the leaves that crackled underfoot.

They said that magic was dying, that the strange and magical creatures who had once roamed the earth had disappeared, banished by disbelief in the magic that had once sustained them. But they hadn’t seen the things I had. There were worse things than dragons. Creatures that haunted dark places and fed off humanity’s malice and fear.

Somewhere to the east a siren split the air, startling crows from their nests. I froze, and Lisette grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin.

“Back to the convoy!” Sœur Mélanie shouted.

I didn’t need her warning. I already had my revolver in hand and dragged Lisette alongside me up the road. We ran hard, charging toward the vehicles. Lisette’s breath came in gasps. She tripped and fell. I yanked her upright with my free hand, keeping

my gun pointed at the sky. We ran toward the automobiles as witches screamed and soldiers shouted.

Another siren wailed, this one farther up the coast. Closer to us.

“Run, Mademoiselles! Run!” our silver-haired soldier shouted.

Another soldier swore and whirled around. He fell to a crouch with his rifle aimed at the sky. I glanced over my shoulder as huge, winged shapes blotted out the white luminescence of the moon.

Dragons.