Page 13 of Fire to the Stars

Diu himself had promised to revoke the curse someday. All we had to do was prove we could stop hurting each other.

“Cling to the scripture, if it brings you peace.” She sighed. “But answer me this: DidThe Tale of Starsever protect you from unfair judgment?”

Tears filled my vision as I froze in Anne-Sophie’s grip.

“Don’t deny it. You see the truth as clearly as I do,” she pushed. “Diu tampers with the mortal realm like an unsatisfied artist, never happy with the finished product. He punishes us for the imperfectionshehelped instill in us.”

Blasphemy. Anne-Sophie spokeblasphemy. Diu went to war with his own brother toprotecthumans. To give us a chance to redeem ourselves from our misuse of magic with a mortal existence. He would curse her someday for insulting his sacrifice.

The Dames Blanches were the real criminals. The epitome of what Diu wanted to eradicate.

Yet here Anne-Sophie stood, free of scales.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered.

Surprise lit her face. She released me. I turned to run, but she grabbed my wrist so fast that I dropped the jewelry box. She took the opportunity to force a packet of powder into my hand.

“Don’t run from help,” she lectured. “This sedative will keep you unconscious through the Ignition.”

My breath caught. “This will keep me human?”

“Sleep powder is not a cure, and it is a rare drug. You will find the doses you need only on the black market,” she explained. “But if you memorize the celestial events calendar and take this precise dose before each Ignition Day, you won’t turn.”

My hands shook as I considered the powder. If what she said was true, I needed more. I needed to frequent the black market for the rest of my life.

“How do you know this?” I asked, but her drifting gaze spokeher story. The girl in chains possessed Anne-Sophie’s hazel eyes, her high cheekbones. “She’s your daughter,” I realized. “But why didn’t this powder saveher?”

“It did. Until—” Her expression stiffened, and she shook her head. “It is merely a way to remain in human form. Your choices will dictate whether you survive in the long run,” she said instead.

“But how—”

“Steal.Join the Dames Blanches and take back the life Diu stole from you.”

“The Dames Blanches help dragons hide?”

“No.” She squeezed my fingers so hard, I flinched. “If you join us, we will help you survive, just as we help each other, no questions asked. However, you must keep your curse a secret. Even from our sisters.”

“Why? You’re helping me now.”

“I am the exception, not the rule.” She looked to the blood-smeared dock, where her daughter had fallen. “To be a sister to the Dames Blanches, you must be viewed as human first.”

After that, Anne-Sophie taught me everything I know. How to wear various masks to manipulate my targets. How to find sleep powder dealers. How to find a fellow Dame Blanche. Once, when we drank to the bottom of a bottle of wine I stole, she finally told me how her daughter had been caught.

“Leah’s first Ignition happened three months before Étienne took her,” Anne-Sophie mumbled, cheek against the tavern’s table. “I tried everything to suppress her magic. Sleep powder kept her hidden for a time, but he learned about her curse eventually.”

Tipsy, I struggled for words. Watching stone-faced Anne-Sophie unravel made me feel sicker than a green sailor.

“How did he find her?” I asked.

“Leah was so proud that she’d regained her life. She revealed her secret to her favorite sister, believing she would find support.” Her voice broke on the last word. “That sister sold her identity to Étienne in exchange for a cut of the bounty.”

My skin prickled with awareness of the sisters around us. Sparse as the late-night crowd was, the tavern was a Dames Blanches hideout. Who else wouldn’t hesitate to sell out a dragon sister like me?

“Where is that sister now?” I whispered.

Anne-Sophie’s bloodshot eyes found mine. “With Leah.”

My stomach churned with understanding. In the short time since I’d met her, my savior had become someone else’s killer. I didn’t know how to reconcile that, so I drank while Anne-Sophie spoke of another hope she might have followed, had Leah not been captured.