Chapter Four

Nathalie's eyes were glued to the TV. Such an intense focus absorbed her that the rest of the atelier seemed to fade away. Pale gray walls, rows of books, and framed art pieces slid into some distant dimension, leaving nothing but her, the monitor, and the space between them.

The mayor's voice was crisp in her ear. "We should be ever-grateful that Paris's heroes have not turned their backs on their city in the last twenty-two peaceful months, but rather have made a practice of interacting with its citizens and assuring them of their safety. In the prolonged absence of akuma and sentimonster attacks, the hearts of all Parisians have not lost their tenacious spirits."

"Madame."

Nathalie, at first, did not remove her gaze from the screen. It took the repetition of her title to make her glance to her right, where she found Ruby standing with a cup of green tea.

She took it with a nod of thanks and looked right back at the TV without taking a sip.

"Anxious, Madame?"

To speak seemed more effort than it was worth. Nathalie's breath passed through her lips without forming a response.

Gabriel, who sat on the opposite end of the couch, filled her silence. "There was an altercation only a block from the house, Ruby. We are both a little on edge."

"Indeed. I will leave you be." She placed her hand on Nathalie's shoulder in comfort, but when the woman only tensed under her touch, she drew away swiftly and quitted the room.

"You look like you're going to drop that," Gabriel said once she was gone.

"...regarding the attack made last night by what I am now hearing were two supervillains. Not one, but two supervillains were present." The mayor looked to his left and nodded to something off screen. "Ladybug and Chat Noir, the floor is yours. You may step forward to the podium."

He moved aside, and the pair of heroes replaced him. There was the flashing of cameras and a roar of applause that seemed to Nathalie to last far longer than necessary.

Gabriel had scooted closer until they sat knee to knee. He removed the cup from her hands. Her fingers ached; she curled and uncurled them absent-mindedly. Gabriel set the tea on the coffee table. She could feel his eyes on her while she stared at the TV screen.

Ladybug's initial address was brief and vague, a reprise of the mayor's, a promise of her and Chat Noir's resolve to defend the city from whatever major evil may befall it. Chat Noir tagged on a couple sentences of reassurance, his demeanor absent of the usual charm and humor so characteristic of him. His eyes flicked blankly from face to face that watched him from the other side of the camera.

"Ladybug, can you confirm whether last night's attack was the result of an akuma from Hawkmoth?"

In the half-second before Ladybug responded, her blue eyes assumed a certain gloom that Nathalie would not have noticed did she not know the truth herself. Panic flared up through her body, and Gabriel's hand closed over her own.

"Yes," Ladybug answered, her tone devoid of all emotion. "It is as Miss Rossi says. She was akumatized by Hawkmoth."

Nathalie was light-headed, her chin dropping a centimeter towards her chest. She reached for her tea and brought the cup slowly to her lips. As the drink traveled hotly down her throat, the next question flowed forth with a stifled echo, as though it was being asked in another room.

"Ladybug, what do you make of the second supervillain?"

Even less readily than before, the heroine responded, "We don't know-"

"Come on…" whispered Gabriel under his breath.

" -but based on what we have seen, we have reason to at least suspect he was a sentimonster."

This was the lie they had hoped for. Gabriel sat back against the couch while Nathalie took another long sip. The drink was still too hot for her to consume comfortably, but it was difficult to mind the mild burn at the roof of her mouth when she was beginning to feel her body go numb. One hand trembled as if the cup was too heavy for her to carry. Gabriel still clasped the other, but his touch felt awfully faint.

"Does that coincide with Miss Rossi's interpretation of the events?"

"Miss Rossi claims not to have any recollection of what had happened after she was akumatized," answered Ladybug, "just like every akuma victim. She could not tell us."

Standing at her shoulder, Chat Noir crossed his arms in front of his chest. His brow hung low, his lips slightly parted to reveal clenched teeth. Severity deepened as Ladybug gave her composed replies. Silent as he was, his indignation read clearly. He did not even try to conceal it. As the conversation continued, Nathalie failed to take her eyes away from him.

"Ladybug, do you or Chat Noir have any idea why Hawkmoth and Mayura disappeared for so long?"

"No."

"Ladybug, have you or Chat Noir had any encounter with Hawkmoth and Mayura since the last akuma attack nearly two years ago that the public is not aware of?"

"We have not seen them."

"Why do you think Hawkmoth and Mayura went silent for so long, and why would they attack again now?"

"We don't know."

"Ladybug, Chat Noir," came the next question, "at any point since Hawkmoth and Mayura have made their first appearances in Paris, have you had any suspicions about their civilian identities?"

Nathalie hated how they hesitated. Had she felt she had the strength, she might have thrown her cup at the screen. It should be easy for them to say no. They shouldn't have to even think!

Ladybug's silence lasted long enough for Chat Noir to answer for her, "No," he growled. "We have not the slightest clue who they might be. It's as much a mystery to you all as it is to us."

She dropped her cup onto the table. It landed upright, but some tea leaped over the rim and spilled across the glass surface. Gabriel tried to pull her into his arms, but she wouldn't remain still. She shivered. She dragged her hands down her face. She sighed heavily into her palms. And she didn't know what to do.

"As of now," Chat Noir went on, "we are operating under the assumption that Hawkmoth and Mayura have taken up their original goal. Until we have more information, that is all we can say."

"Do you think there is a possibility, given the hiatus of twenty-two months, that there is a new Hawkmoth and Mayura?"

"Seeing as the victim went by the same name as she did when akumatized the first time, I don't see a reason to believe that." His tone was short and robotic as Ladybug's had been, but to whoever had asked the question, he shot a venomous glare. Even through their cat-like screen, Nathalie found that furious light familiar. Guilt settled deep in her stomach, a remnant of what had come to life the night before.

He'd come through the door de-transformed, Plagg sailing for a hiding place as the bodyguard emerged from the living room to greet him. He told them Marinette had made it home, that everything was fine, the problem taken care of, and rather hastily, the bodyguard was dismissed for the night.

Their conversation had taken place in the atelier, none of them calm enough to sit. They asked him if he was okay, and he asked them the same. He had chosen to call Marinette, but she didn't pick up the phone, nor did she immediately answer the subsequent text. Gabriel and Nathalie were anxious to know what had happened, and it was the mention of Lila's name by Gabriel that seemed to spark something within Adrien, something hot and deep and hurting. He blitzed through his recollection of the fight, utterly uninterested in providing any details about this raven miraculous holder despite Gabriel's constant prompts for more information.

"Did they say what they wanted?" Gabriel demanded, raising his voice.

"Our miraculous, Father, what else?" Adrien spat back. Nathalie knew they hadn't breached the source of his anger. Adrien was seething with a hundred unanswered questions, and it was killing him now that this incident was delaying them.

"Do they even know what they can do?"

"You found out, didn't you? I'm sure all it takes is asking a kwami a few specific questions."

"Where did he even find a raven miraculous?"

"I don't know!" yelled Adrien, and then his eyes darted up towards the ceiling. He remembered the baby. "I don't know," he repeated, quieter. "Look, we'll figure it out, we'll do our best. But I need you to explain to me…" As his words drifted off, a recognizable shyness possessed him, and Nathalie found herself staring at a boy of fourteen or so, who used to be too frightened at times to ask for his father's attention, who used to dread breaking the delicate balance in the moments they could look at each other in the eyes and smile. He'd grown so far past that person and his sad, endearing timidity, just as Gabriel had grown, at least somewhat, out of his cool abrasiveness. For a number of seconds stretched out through silence, Nathalie looked between the two men in the room, and saw them as they had been years ago. Had the curtains been open to reveal the dark window and her reflection upon its glass, would she have seen herself in that same light: passive, observant, and utterly silent, secretly wishing for peace that had long felt out of reach?

She'd prayed then, that it wasn't slipping away from them.

Nathalie could hardly listen to the questions Ladybug and Chat Noir were having thrown their way, all of them, seeming to her to be irrelevant and sensational, like everyone had forgotten what it meant to be under attack by supervillains at a distance. She wondered how they could possibly forget. She wondered if she could blame them if they had. At times that's all she wished she could do.

But as she learned last night, forgetting could be dangerous when others still remember.

Adrien's courage returned, and he'd asked, trying to sound calm but stern, "I need you to explain why you never thought to tell me you were working with Lila."

Gabriel blinked, his gaze cold. "Adrien, can we discuss this at a later time?"

"No, I want to know now," his son replied. "I want to know everything about her that you never said two years ago."

"Lila Rossi was never a priority of ours," said Gabriel, sneering at the name.

"She had a talent for causing chaos," Nathalie offered. "It was useful to us."

"Yes, yes, I know you used her. And I perfectly understand why." Adrien placed his hands on the back of a chair and leaned over it. His kwami was hovering by, having retrieved a wedge of cheese for himself upon the bodyguard's departure. He didn't look at either Gabriel or Nathalie, choosing to fix his narrow eyes on his holder. "What I want to know is why you never told me."

"Adrien, please, take a breath," Nathalie told him.

"We never thought to," Gabriel answered. "Does that suffice? When all of this came to light, neither one of us thought of our affiliation with Lila to be an important detail, not amongst the concerns of our identities or our motivations."

"You never thought to? Never?" he challenged. "I get not bringing it up while you're showing me my mom's body -"

"Adrien."

He flushed with shame, but pressed on meekly, unable to look at them. "...but you never thought that some time in the last two years that you should have explained the rest of it to me?"

Gabriel growled, "What is there to explain? Do you need me to go into detail about every single akuma I've ever made, too?"

Nathalie placed a hand on his arm, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt.

"It's like you don't know how much of a problem this is," Adrien shot back. "I tried to give Lila a chance. I was civil with her for months, and that whole time she was intent on hurting Marinette, hurting my other friends, hurting anyone that didn't buy her lies. I should have seen it sooner that she doesn't care about anyone but herself. Father, she manipulates and threatens and humiliates people for her own entertainment. And now that I know she agreed to aid terrorists solely out of animosity for Ladybug? She doesn't care who she hurts. She doesn't care at all."

Gabriel had nothing to say. He stared down his son from across the room, his hands held stiffly behind his back.

"And you knew that," Adrien added. "You used her to hurt Marinette. To hurt all of my friends, anyone you didn't think was worthy of me, and then you expected me to interact with her and act like her friend to hide the fact that the only reason you kept her around was to be your puppet."

Nathalie took a step towards him. "Adrien, love, please. You know that we regret this."

"You didn't regret it enough to think of telling me." His eyes glistened with tears, but his voice remained strong, accusatory, and worst of all, disappointed. "This entire time, I had thought, I had hoped you'd been sitting around just waiting for someone to feel angry. But it makes sense, that scheme you pulled on Heroes Day…" He shook his head. "I should have known about this. We weren't supposed to be keeping secrets from each other anymore. We were supposed to be telling each other everything. We were supposed to trust each other."

"We do trust you," Nathalie insisted.

He paused and watched her wordlessly as she approached him and took his hand.

"Adrien," she whispered, "We're sorry. You're right. We should have told you." His blonde hair was quite disheveled, and she smoothed it out, fearing for a moment that he would avoid her touch. But he remained where he stood, glaring into her face. "Will you say something?"

"I feel like it sounds silly to ask now," he muttered, as she pulled her hand away, "since I was able to forgive you for everything else, but...how much time did you spend finding ways to actively upset my friends?"

If Nathalie hadn't been shaken enough after the events of that day, the defeat in his voice was nearly enough to bring her down. She kept on her feet, however, grounding herself on the same arm chair he held on to.

"And as villainous as Lila is in her own right," he continued, now looking over her shoulder at Gabriel, "how could you just use a child for your own gain? You encouraged her behavior. You rewarded her for it by giving her the opportunity to attack Ladybug and to spend time with me. Look at her now. Look at what she's done."

Gabriel's eyes widened in fury. "What she did tonight was not our fault!"

"I - I didn't mean that, I just mean - you shouldn't have worked with her!"

"We've done a lot of things we shouldn't have done," Gabriel snapped. "This is no different."

"Gabriel," Nathalie murmured softly, drawing her husband's pale blue gaze. "He's right."

"I know, I know he's right. Adrien, I'm sorry," he finally said. The apology was rough coming out of his mouth and did little to soften the tension in the room. "But I refuse to take responsibility for the girl's actions tonight. That was entirely of her own volition."

"I'm not accusing you of working with her now," Adrien protested.

"She tried to reach us earlier today," added Nathalie quietly. She had almost let the encounter with Alain slip from her mind, but as soon as she had seen the orange-clad figure on the news, fear had resurged through her body like ice water, drew a quivering exhale from between her lips like a breath in the cold.

Gabriel had caught something in her tone, something too dark, too apprehensive, and his anger faded to ember. He stepped towards her and held his hand out. "Nathalie, my dear," he said levelly, "this is not our fault."

"She was looking for us for a reason."

"We did not cause this." His arm wrapped around her waist. "Do you believe that?"

Before she could reply, Adrien's phone chimed. The heat in his face drained away, leaving him pale and stricken.

"What?" asked Nathalie gently.

He stared at his phone in disbelief through several agonizing seconds of silence, before he turned the screen to face them. "They're all gone," he told them. "The box is missing."

Nathalie blinked the memory from her eyes and slipped her knuckles under her glasses to wipe away what was left of it. As she released a small shudder, Gabriel took the remote from the corner of the couch and shut off the TV, cutting off Ladybug's final address to the crowd. He rubbed gentle circles into her back as she collected herself.

"He's still furious. You could see it in him," she muttered. "What have we done?"

"We've done nothing," he said. She leaned over her lap, setting an elbow on her thigh and holding her chin up on her hand to glance at him. He watched her gravely, like she had spoken, but she hadn't. Perhaps, he had managed to read her thoughts anyway. A moment later, his gaze hardened, becoming steel.

The house was quiet. It was but the two of them, Ruby and Jacques in the kitchen, and the baby sleeping above them. A smooth sheet of white clouds blocked out all the color in the sky, and it seemed to have a similar effect on the world beneath it as well. The green of trees was duller than they had been in the previous day's sunlight, which had shone through the leaves to make them glow gold along their edges, faintly twinkling like earthly stars as they rustled in the wind. Today, the leaves merely shivered at the ends of their dull gray boughs, packed in shadow. The windows were closed. There was nothing to hear.

Finally, she asked, echoing his question to her the night before, "Do you believe that?"

He didn't move away; his hand remained on her back, but something in his countenance shifted. He didn't answer her, which was answer enough. He turned to the blank TV screen and remarked, "They said everything they needed to. The world still knows nothing of Hawkmoth and Mayura."

"Miss Rossi knows they are lying."

"But what can she do about that? She needs to play the helpless victim. If she really wanted to be the supervillain than she should have done better to conceal her identity. Everybody knows Volpina."

"She can do nothing for now," Nathalie replied, "But who knows how this situation will change? One of these days, I fear she will accuse them of knowing more than they let on, of protecting us. And it's true."

"She'd have to alter her story quite a bit."

"She's a master liar. She'll find a way." Nathalie looked away so suddenly that Gabriel flinched back. She rose to her feet and paced towards the bookcases at the back of the room. "Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?"

"Breathe," he told her softly. "Nathalie, we need to keep our heads."

"We can't afford it if anyone finds out what's going on."

"Marinette and Adrien are capable. They will handle this."

"And what if they don't? What if this goes on for another two years, and by the end of it all, we're ruined?" Nathalie whirled back around to face him. He had stood from the couch and was approaching her now with her abandoned tea.

"Drink this."

"It's just tea."

"I know, but I need you to take a pause."

"The box is gone," she reminded him emphatically. "Lila has it. She could do anything with it."

He lifted the cup, not replying. Nathalie acquiesced and took a few long sips of the drink, finding it tasteless. She downed half of the cup and set it on a shelf behind her.

"The box is gone," Gabriel repeated when she had finished, "but Lila needs to be careful. People will notice something is up if they recognize the other miraculous."

"You forget the man. Conspiracy, Adrien called him."

"They claimed him to be a sentimonster."

"But that was their own lie. Lila could spin him to be whatever she decides - or whatever he tells her to say. If he begins to use the other miraculous, everyone will associate the collection with Hawkmoth's supposed hand in all of this." She crossed her arms, fingernails sinking into her sunless skin. "We cannot ignore the girl's resentment for Ladybug. I would not be surprised if her intention was to destroy all trust the city has in her. If she makes them all believe that Hawkmoth has the box, that they are fighting without allies..."

"If Hawkmoth had the box, he would build an army."

"We don't know if there's more of them."

"Nathalie," Gabriel said quietly. A strange glint upon his stormy iris compelled her eyes to quit darting about the room, her mind to slow its panicked racing. Like a star burning through the thick of clouds, the light shone upon the surface of his heavy gaze, something shy and earnest all at once, something that begged her to ask:

"What is it?"

He leaned in, he whispered, though they were alone, "There is a silver lining."

Immersed as she was in fear, she only managed to draw just slightly out of the dark, hesitant to cling to that promise of comfort. Her arms uncrossed and hovered above his skin, not yet making contact. She asked again, more urgently this time, "What is it?"

To his jacket, he had pinned a brooch, a gift she had given him two Christmases ago, with which he adorned his outfit whenever the color scheme suited a dash of amethyst. He gestured to it now, and as his index finger brushed against the tip of a silver wing, she remembered. "Marinette had with her two miraculous last night," he said, "The butterfly was one of them."

"Yes," she murmured, glancing aside. "You're right."

"Lila cannot prove that Hawkmoth is the one behind this. But Ladybug and Chat Noir can prove that he isn't."

She shook her head, insisting, "But that's a problem. If they reveal that the butterfly is in their possession, or if they appoint a new butterfly miraculous wielder, then all will know that they have hidden the truth about our circumstances." Nathalie pressed her eyes shut, attempting to hold down the panic that was building once again inside her. "They've bought some time, but this will fall apart. It has to."

"What if I'm the one to wear the miraculous again?"

He'd asked the question so suddenly that Nathalie wasn't certain if she had heard him correctly. She opened her eyes and regarded him, his open, anxious expression, his hands clasped before him, and his entire form posed in apprehension for her response. She merely stared at him for a few seconds, letting the suggestion wash over her.

"Well?"

"You want to be Hawkmoth again?" she asked starkly.

"I'm saying it's a solution."

"A solution? I feel it could be in a perfect world. Unfortunately the one we live in still fears its supervillain pair."

"Only because they believe they are a threat," Gabriel countered.

"Because they have been burned before." Nathalie turned away. Spotting the cup on the shelf, she took the rest of it down and grimaced through the bitterness spreading across her tongue. Bitterness like the taste of shame, having become palpable through the magic of the brooch she used to wear between her collarbones. What good does regret do when there is nothing to change, she always wondered, and what is there to regret when it landed you alive amongst the only ones you love? But she did regret it. She regretted that it made her undeserving of that happy ending. She used to think she'd always have nothing because all she wanted could never possibly belong to her; now it did, and what joy! what gratification! What deal you must have made with the devil unaware. It's all yours, but it hangs by a thread.

"It will be their only option if they want to keep the trust of the city," Gabriel was telling her, but his voice sounded miles away. "They can find a new Hawkmoth if they are in need of allies, but when one lie reveals itself, the rest will soon follow."

She walked around him, returning to the coffee table to set down the empty cup. The TV screen, blank and dark, seemed to her to bear the impressions of the images that had played on its surface minutes earlier. She listened to Ladybug and Chat Noir's voices in her head, winced at the sight of their bleak and angered expressions. Forcing her mouth to speak as though a level head sat on her shoulders, she replied, "You make a point," but the words came hollow. As they rang weightless through the atelier, she turned her eyes on him once more. "But you don't know if what you suggest is any better. The return of Hawkmoth is a dangerous, volatile concept that shouldn't be introduced to an already dangerous, volatile situation as this."

"Then what, do we wait in passivity?"

"As regular citizens of Paris, we must."

"But that's not what we are."

"It is now," she growled.

"Nathalie, my dear," he said gently, "I wouldn't expect you to do the same."

"Was Marinette's offer last night really so appealing to you?" she asked. Nathalie had been shocked when the girl pulled the brooches from her purse. She believed Marinette to have more sense than to have ever suggested such a thing as to use them again, when they had so nearly destroyed everything. It had been so long since she'd laid eyes on the peacock miraculous, and even longer since she last commanded Duusu to initiate the imperfect transformation, something so warped and jagged that to complete itself it needed to rip her apart. Remembering the encounter, Nathalie felt shaken. She reached for the back of the couch and steadied herself.

"I know this seems sudden," Gabriel said gently. That glint in his eye had returned. "But it's something I've actually been thinking about for a long time."

Nathalie gaped at him. "You have?" She combed through her memories, searching for any indication that her husband had any interest in reprising Paris's most notorious supervillain, but in her amazement, she could only focus on the confession echoing through her mind.

"Marinette wasn't actually offering us the miraculous. She was intentionally turning us off from the idea of ever using them again by taking advantage of this vulnerable time. She was doubtful of our - my intentions."

"Why? What does she have to suspect?"

"Nothing. Nothing. I was…" He trailed off into a sigh, looking towards the window. The lines in his forehead deepened, and in his countenance, Nathalie could see the back and forth of conflict, could see how he wearied beneath the struggle. At last, he went on, "I was interested. I was even, at one point, desperate. Three months ago, I asked her if she'd ever consider giving the butterfly back, and she was smart to say no. I wasn't in the right mind."

"Just three months ago?" Nathalie said, incredulous. "I was seven months pregnant. What made you think-?"

"I was scared. You were sick," he interrupted. "There was a time where I didn't know if you or the baby were going to be okay. I felt helpless, Nathalie."

"I -" Her voice caught in her throat as she hugged herself around her abdomen. A shiver passed through her body and the memories through her mind, sudden and cold and unwelcome. Her voice was hardly more than a tiny breath. "I know. I know."

He stepped forward at once, and Nathalie leaned into him as he enveloped her in his arms. She closed her eyes, waited for the warmth of his body to banish the chill in her bones.

"It felt like something I could do," he murmured.

She shook her head against his shoulder. "What could the butterfly miraculous do for our baby?"

He didn't reply. Nothing. It couldn't do a thing on its own. One thousand akumas wouldn't have helped a thing when Nathalie's skin blanched, when she doubled over at the stab of pain in her womb. Had Hawkmoth been at her side rather than Gabriel, it would not have made a difference.

Her thoughts flew to a dangerous place: but the ladybug and cat...

A breath of relief shuddered between her lips. There was no need for such a power; there would never be, and she and Anaïs would still be here either way.

When she pulled away, he grasped her forearms and still held her close, locking eyes with her earnestly. "Marinette was right to deny me then. Fear clouded my judgement. But this could be the way we save ourselves, Nathalie," he told her.

"No," she said forcefully. "We can't risk it. If anyone finds out who we are -"

"They won't. All they'll know is that Hawkmoth has had a change of heart. Mayura by association."

"What difference does it make if we're still anonymous?" She freed herself and tossed her arms in the air. "Why, why couldn't we just disappear? Why did we have to get dragged back into this? We came so close."

"Nathalie, my dear, I know this is terrifying, but we can't sit idly by."

"We're not heroes."

"We could be - could you imagine it? This might be the opportunity to change things. If Hawkmoth re-emerges to clear his name, to join forces with Ladybug and Chat Noir against this new evil -"

"It's too dangerous."

"It might be good."

She threw an irate glare at him. "We have a baby!"

"Exactly!" he shouted, startling her with the surge of passion that leaped into his voice. The storm clouds in his eyes darkened. "She will grow up knowing Hawkmoth and Mayura's names. If I can help it, Nathalie, I won't let her think of us as the villains. I won't."

"So that's what this is about," Nathalie murmured.

He gazed at her, and she felt like she was watching him age years just standing there, breathing shortly, taking in his own words. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes, of course it is."

"We talked about this."

"And it didn't help, did it?" he asked, to which she couldn't respond.

She felt sick. Her head was spinning, and there was an unpleasant taste at the back of her throat. The weight of everything was closing in, stifling her, and then suffocating. She brought her hands to her temples and tried to breathe through the thickening air, counting, craving. She needed medicine.

"Nathalie," said Gabriel softly.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

She blinked at him, trying to stamp the tears out of her eyes.

"For everything. For all of this. You'd been so loyal and unselfish from the beginning. I should have known that anyone in her right mind would have never been content to endure this miraculous endeavor," he told her, looking like he wanted to hold her, fearful he would only smother her more.

She was taken aback. "Gabriel."

"You were patient and hopeful for all that time. It took me far too long to see how it was hurting you. I don't think I ever fully did until now. I'm still learning."

The remorse in his voice was unbearable. Nathalie sobered for a moment as she stared at him. Then she gently, sadly smiled. "I was never in my right mind," she said.

She dismissed herself, for the moment she had spoken, the ill feeling crashed right back in. Nathalie hurried through the foyer and up the stairs, practically bursting through her bedroom door. She rushed to the bedside table and pulled open its small drawer, where she kept a glasses case, three or four books, some hand lotion, and a slew of odd ingredients and materials, sitting on a folded sheet of paper. If it were to be opened, one would read a list of directions and a label on the top scribbled in pink pen, reading Potion.

There was also a single vial in the drawer, its blue contents appearing to glitter in the darkness of the corner in which it rested.

She took it in her palm.

I don't need this.

I do.

Her heart pounded. She did. She needed it. Nathalie swallowed the medicine and rinsed out the vial in her bathroom sink before dropping it empty back into the drawer.

She would need to make more.

The baby was retrieved a moment later, having woken from her slumber wailing and hungry. She sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the room to feed Anaïs, and heard the slamming of a door and the thudding of footsteps as Adrien returned home. He said not a word. And as he passed by the nursery on the way to his room, Nathalie felt a pang in her heart. What had they done? How did they get here?

Her eyes lowered to the baby, who suckled with her eyes closed and her fingers delicately twitching.

A horrible venom coursed through her blood, too scathing to stand. "I hope you're nothing like me," she hissed, tasting scorn on her tongue. "You deserve better than that."

Anaīs's tiny clenched fist came to a rest against her mother's pounding heart.

Tears built in Nathalie's eyes. I pray I haven't broken you already.