Midnight Beauties

by Megan Shepherd

  “I’m alone.”

  “They attack me every time I leave.” She folded her arms in an attempt to hide the scars. “At your order, I presume.”

  A month and a half had passed since the siege, October to late November. The cold was creeping into the streets and robbing the city of life. The last time she’d seen Prince Rennar, he’d asked her to be his princess. What did he see as he looked at her now? Still a princess? Or just a messy-haired girl, barefoot and barefaced, with stains on her robe and clumsy blue stitches in her arm?

  At least he was barefoot too.

  And there was that look in his eyes. That fog.

  His brows pinched together as his gaze fell to the wound on her arm, repaired so hastily with the wrong kind of spell, and his lips parted. “You’re hurt . . .” He took a step forward.

  “Stay back!”

  He stopped. “Your arms. Your neck. I didn’t realize the crows would hurt you.” She gave a harsh laugh, but he shook his head. “I didn’t. I promise.” He was distracted by something and caught off guard by her wounds. “I hadn’t thought . . . for us it’s so simple to heal ourselves. Blood and wounds are nothing. To get a Goblin’s attention, I’d just as soon pluck out one of his eyes as call his name—​and he’d only shrug and put it back in. I hadn’t thought that my crows would really hurt you.”

  If only she had her Faustine jacket. If only she could hide her scars with the quilted red silk and the mythical creature’s embroidered feathers and claws.

  “Let me fix your scars. I can help.”

  She jerked back. “Like you helped my friends?”

  “Your friends are safe with me.”

  “Even Hunter Black?”

  Prince Rennar reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a small, round mother-of-pearl-backed mirror that bristled with enchantment. “See for yourself.”

  She scoffed. “You’re fou if you think I’ll reach through the protection spell.”

  He gave an arrogant sigh but set down the mirror and took a few steps back. Her heart pounded. It could still be a trap. But if Hunter Black was alive . . .

  She took a quick step forward, grabbed the mirror, and darted back. Her breathing was rapid. Rennar hadn’t moved. Cautiously, she looked into the mirror. It didn’t reflect her face. Instead, she saw three cages within its round silver frame. One held a mouse; one held a cat; and in the last one, there was a wolf with careful stitches across its throat, stitches that could only have been made by a hand highly skilled at magical healing. The hand of a prince.

  Her heart leaped.

  Hunter Black was alive.

  She was so fixated on the animals in the mirror that she didn’t notice Rennar had stepped closer until he said, “Things have changed, Anouk.”

  Her heart shot to her throat. Her fingers curled around the mirror. She narrowed her eyes at his feet, which were just inches from the protection spell. Wary didn’t begin to describe how she felt. And yet there was a tremble in his voice. A haunted cast to his eyes. His face was perfect, of course. The skin smooth and taut. But she had lived in the house of a witch long enough that she could see beyond perfection. His skin had an odd sheen to it. It looked too fresh, too new. She’d seen that sheen on Mada Vittora every time the witch had healed herself after battles with other witches. Mada Vittora had remade torn skin, reformed broken bones, and replaced missing fingers, but she couldn’t hide that sheen. Judging from the extensive repair work Rennar had done on himself, he must have been shredded nearly to the bone.

  She glanced back at the front window. Viggo and the Goblins had mashed their faces against the glass to get a better view. She turned around and stepped down the front steps slowly, chin held high, until she and Rennar were one step apart on either side of the protection spell.

  “What happened to you?” she asked.

  He looked surprised that she could see beyond his magic. He brushed at a glossy patch of skin that began beneath one ear and ran down the side of his neck. The skin was smoother than the rest of him, as though that patch had taken effort to repair. “London. London happened.”

  She blinked in surprise. “London?”

  It might as well have been another world.

  “While you and I were distracting each other in Montélimar, the Royals in London went silent. First Prince Maxim, then Lady Imogen, now everyone within the Court of Isles. I went to investigate. They’ve all vanished.” He touched his throat again, flinching at some dark memory.

  She made a show of raising a careless shoulder. “My problems are here, in Paris. My problem is with you. Why should I care about the Court of Isles?”

  “Because as much as you hate me, as cruel as we’ve been to each other, even as much as you worry for the fate of your friends, all of that pales in the light of what I’ve just seen.”

  That tremble returned to his voice. It was caused by more than fear. Beneath his perfect hair and perfect face, he was traumatized.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You have two minutes before I slam this door.”

  “They closed the city,” he said in a rush. “The Coven of Oxford. The same witches who evicted your Goblin friends. They put up border spells to prevent any living magical thing from passing into or out of London.”

  “You seem to have made it out in one piece.”

  He barked a laugh before the look in his eyes turned nasty. “Two pieces, as a matter of fact. They cast the spell as I was crossing into the elevator portal. Have you ever seen a person cut down the middle? I can’t say I’ve quite experienced such pain. It wasn’t easy to put myself back together again.” He touched that odd sheen running down his neck again.

  She stared at him in disbelief. “They cut you in half?”

  He dismissed that with a flick of his fingers. “The important thing is, most of me ended up on the right side of the elevator, back in Paris. But the things I saw, Anouk. Surely you’ve noticed the increase in technology over the past few weeks. The city is crawling with it. Every Pretty in Paris has his head bowed over some new device and another one beeping in his pocket.”

  Anouk looked back at their Goblin audience fogging up the window. Little Beau had joined them, his wet nose against the glass. For weeks she’d been sitting at that window, watching for a break in the crows. She’d heard the usual dinging of bicycle bells and scuffing of shoes through autumn leaves, but more and more often, she’d also heard the chatter of mobile-phone conversations. Podcasts. Teenagers tapping away on tablets. The whir of the drones that photographers used to capture the city from above.

  “I suppose so, yes. Mobile phones, that kind of thing?”

  “Oh, far more than that. The witches have unleashed technologies that the Haute agreed should remain undiscovered. Advanced cloning. Macro-robotics. Time relativity. That’s just to name a few. Magic and technology do not mix well, as I’m sure you know. The Coven witches knew this too. They anticipated that a sharp spike in technology would throw the magic in London into chaos and that they could use the distraction to steal power from the Court of Isles. But they haven’t been able to reel back in the chaos they unleashed. Playing with relativity has splintered pockets of the city into time loops. Cloned toads are raining from the sky. Advanced optics caused a glitch that created two moons. All the coal waste from the robotics industry is making black rainbows.”

  She could only stare at him. Black rainbows? Double moons?

  “I watched British Pretties step into a time loop and never come out again,” he added quietly, his eyes flashing. “Entire families choked by black smoke. Schoolchildren driven mad by the two moons. I’m not the only one torn apart by what the witches are doing; I’m just the only one able to put myself back together again.”

  Anouk thought of a fairy tale that Luc had told her, “White to Red.” Once, in a kingdom by salt-encrusted cliffs called the White Coast, there was a string of prosperous cities that traded with one another in a spirit of innovation and equity. A handsome king ruled the northernmost cit
y, Kosu. One day a sea witch emerged from the waves and fell in love with him, but when he told her his heart belonged to another, the witch cursed his city with a plague. The rulers of the other cities on the White Coast, fearing her wrath, did nothing to help, and everyone in Kosu fell ill and died. But then the illness spread to all of the cities. One by one they fell, and for centuries the kingdom was known as the Red Coast. Hundreds of years later, children’s rhymes still held warnings:

  Cities falling one by one

  White to Red

  White to Red

  A coughing girl, a bleeding son

  Love the witch or you’ll be dead.

  That was why Rennar had come to her door. London had fallen, and they didn’t have the luxury of watching the tragedy from a distance. Tragedy, like evil, had a way of spreading.

  “Do you understand?” Rennar asked.

  “We’ve scrambled for our lives,” she said softly. “Now we have to scramble for our world.”

  He nodded gravely. “I can’t defeat the Coven of Oxford on my own. Neither can you.” An almost regretful look wavered in his eyes. “Wearing the crown means making difficult decisions. Knowing when to hold on to power and when to give it up. I’m tired, Anouk. Tired of these silent wars over magic. Tired of feuds with witches and the other Courts. It’s time for all that to end. For too long, power has been in the wrong hands. We want the same thing now, you and I. It will be a scramble for both of us.”

  She blinked in surprise. Tired of ruling?

  She’d never much wondered what life was like for someone like him, someone with all the world’s power at his fingertips. He might have been alive for centuries, but now he was only a young man alone on her doorstep without any shoes on, asking for help, admitting that his power was unearned, that it belonged in the hands of the Goblins, the beasties, even the Pretties.

  She leaned against the railing, wondering whether or not to believe him. She could think of worse things than a prince needing her help. To be honest, she would enjoy watching him beg.

  Chapter 3

  Anouk tilted her chin high. “Do you mean that? That power should change hands and you’ll do what you must to make that happen?”

  “I swear it,” Rennar said.

  She raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that a Royal would willingly give up power, but she would play along if it freed her from the townhouse. “I can’t help you like this. Trapped here, starving to death.”

  “Shall I summon you a feast?”

  She leveled a hard glare at him. “You need me because I can wield magic with no consequences. But look at me. Look at the scars. I used a mending spell for buttons to sew up this wound. That’s the best I can do.” She didn’t try to hide her arm this time. “Did you never wonder why I kept trying to leave? Why I kept fighting your crows?” Her eyes flashed. “I was going to the Cottage.”

  “The Schwarzwald?” he scoffed. “That’s an awful idea.”

  “It’s a place where Pretty girls go to become witches.”

  “It’s a place where Pretty girls go to die. No, it’s impossible. I won’t allow it.”

  Her pulse raced. She didn’t dare look at him for fear that his piercing gaze would see straight into her heart, see that, yes, she’d heard the stories, she knew the risks, and she was just as afraid as she should be.

  “I need strong magic, Rennar. Witch magic. Without it, I can’t turn back Beau and Cricket and Luc and Hunter Black, and I can’t fight the Coven of Oxford.”

  He scowled. “You’ve never been to the Cottage. I have. Royals from all the near realms travel there every wintertide to witness girls die in the Coal Baths.”

  “I know about the Coal Baths.”

  “You may have heard of them, but no stories match the reality. The ceremony lasts three days. There’s a feast the night before for the girls who are about to risk their lives, and then in the morning, we light the blue flames and observe as the acolytes enter, one by one. The odds are bleak. Most years, only one out of ten girls survives. Some years, none at all. The rest burn so completely that even their bones vanish. And do you know what we do while this is happening? We drink wine. We eat chocolate Bethmännchen. Because we’ve seen so many girls die, Anouk, it means nothing to us. The only time we care is when one survives, because then we can use her. Every realm wants the loyalty of a fresh witch.”

  Anouk traced the stitching on her arm. It might have been rough, but it had done the job. “My chances are as good as anyone’s. Better. I can already do some tricks and whispers.”

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “Magic won’t save you from the Coals. That isn’t how they work. Perhaps if you had years to study there, or even months. But wintertide is in six weeks. It’s impossible.”

  “They said it was impossible for a beastie to cast spells. They said it was impossible to stand up to Mada Zola at Montélimar.” She raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you need to reconsider your use of that word.”

  He stepped as close to her as the protection spell allowed. “Come with me, Anouk. I’ll train you myself.” He held out his hand. The same one that had imprisoned her friends.

  Her own hands curled at her sides. “No. It’s my turn to make you a deal. Give me my friends back. Call off your crows. Grant me safe passage to the Cottage. I’ll undergo the Baths and I’ll survive. Then, when I am a witch, I’ll help you with London.”

  Slowly, he paced, barefoot, his marble foot scuffing against the stone step. “I am fond of deals,” he said at last, “but I’ll counter yours with my own. There are three beasties you care about in my possession, so I will make you three bargains. If Viggo and your Goblin guests come with me as collateral, I’ll free Luc and turn him human. If you become a witch and swear loyalty to my realm, I’ll free Hunter Black and turn him human. If you agree to become my princess, I’ll free Cricket.”

  “And turn her human.”

  “By then, you’ll be a witch. You’ll be powerful enough to turn her back yourself.”

  Anouk narrowed her eyes, trying to find a trap in his words. “Why do you care if I’m your princess? We don’t need to be married to work together.”

  His eyes flashed. “Royal weddings happen rarely. When one does, not only must all Courts send a delegation to attend, but they also are bound to grant the new couple a Nochte Pax—​think of it as a wedding gift. If we’re going to achieve our goal, we’ll need the help of the other Royals. They won’t be able to refuse our Nochte Pax request.”

  “A political arrangement, then.” She hesitated. “Nothing more?”

  A heavy moment of silence hung between them.

  Then his lips quirked in a half grin. “Let’s just say nothing more would be required, but everything is up for negotiation.”

  “If you think you’d get as much as a kiss from me, you’re wrong. But a strictly political union—​if it will force the Royals to help us—​maybe.” She glanced at the front window, where the dog still had his nose against the glass. “And you wouldn’t try to stop me from turning Beau back if I become a witch?”

  He grumbled in annoyance. “If you must.”

  She hesitated. On the other side of the window, Viggo was shaking his head and mouthing something that looked like No, you idiot, whatever he’s offering, say no. But Viggo didn’t know that the Coven of Oxford had cut off London and were aiming for Paris next. Viggo hadn’t peered into the darkest corners of her heart, didn’t know how much she wanted—​needed—​witch magic.

  Rennar looked at her intensely. “Well?”

  She said quietly, “Okay.”

  “Okay?” A glimpse of pleasant surprise crossed his face, but then that arrogant mask slipped back over it. He jerked his chin toward the mirror. “Keep that, then.”

  “So you can spy on me?”

  “Yes, exactly, and don’t act surprised. I need to know that you’re holding up your end of the bargain. I can see you through this mirror. I’ll know when you’ve made it to the Cottage
. In return, you’ll be able to see that I am holding up my end. And if you get into trouble, you can use it to summon me.”

  “Beg you for help? I’d sooner an elevator cut me in half.”

  He flinched. “Don’t be foolish, Anouk. Take help when it’s offered. You think I’m your enemy, but I’m not.” He leaned as close as the protection spell would allow him. “Be careful. There is dark magic out there.”

  Without another word, he strode down Rue des Amants, limping slightly. Anouk waited for him to disappear around the corner and then stuffed the mirror deep into her robe pocket, where the only thing he could spy on was lint.

  “There’s dark magic,” she whispered after him, “everywhere.”

  * * *

  Viggo was waiting for her in the foyer, hands on his hips, scowl on his face. “You shouldn’t have said three words to him,” he scolded. “Not unless it was Va te faire foutre.”

  “That’s four words.”

  “Whatever.”

  She dismissed his concern with a wave. Now that the deal had been made, a nervous energy was stirring in her chest. “He’s calling off the crows.”

  Viggo raised a cautious eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I have a bag to pack.”

  Before she could witness the dawning look of alarm on Viggo’s face, she ran for the stairs, Little Beau following at her heels. She took the steps two at a time. Little Beau sensed her excitement and barked as he ran after her. There was the dull thud of Viggo’s cane far behind. What did she know about the Black Forest? Only what she’d been able to glean from the maps in the library and from Luc’s fairy tales: Castles hidden in glens. Trees as tall as city buildings. Wolves and stags and bears. Mad princes who drowned in lakes. None of Mada Vittora’s books described an ancient academy deep in the woods, a place where it always snowed, where girls wanted magic bad enough to die for it.