Midnight Beauties

by Megan Shepherd

  “Did you think you’d be safe here?”

  “Oh, no. Anyone who comes here looking for safety is making a terrible mistake.”

  Chapter 9

  Esme continued the tour and took Anouk to a room that might once have been a chapel, judging by the shape of the boarded-up windows. It was now filled with medical supplies. The infirmary wasn’t much to speak of, just a dreary stone chamber packed with dusty wooden drawers that smelled of salves and ointments. Several pairs of crutches were propped up in one corner. Two giant woven baskets were bursting with bandages, clean in one, bloodstained in the other.

  “Boots off,” Esme ordered, taking down a jar of salve from the shelves. As soon as Anouk had removed her boots, Esme frowned. “You’re missing your little toes.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Esme applied the cream to Anouk’s fingers and the blackened tips of Anouk’s toes, then put some on the sensitive pads of Little Beau’s paws. There must have been magic in the salve, because moments after Esme applied it, Anouk’s fingers began to come to life again. It was cold in the infirmary and hardly comforting, but at least the lantern was warm.

  She cleared her throat. “The Duke said something about finding a . . . crux?”

  Esme looked up from where she was dabbing the salve carefully around Little Beau’s claws. “All the girls come here thinking they’re going to learn spells and potion-making. That’s part of it, of course. There’s a library filled with books on the Selentium Vox and the history and politics of the Haute, and there are storerooms filled with samples of every kind of life-essence imaginable. But this is, above all, a place for searching. The Duke will explain it to you.”

  “I’d rather hear it from you.”

  Esme sat back on her heels. “Do you know that every witch has a preferred kind of life-essence? A certain type of flower, or butterfly, or herb?”

  Anouk’s mind flooded with the cloying smell of Mada Vittora’s roses. “I do.”

  “Here, we call that her crux. It isn’t just that, say, the Rébeval Witch of Lucerne liked the smell of peonies so she favored them for her spells. For her, peonies held a unique power. Decades ago, she came to the Cottage as a Pretty and spent months searching for her crux before she found it. Cruxes are a symbol of each witch’s unique connection to magic.”

  Anouk hadn’t heard them described as cruxes before, but she knew what Esme was talking about. For Mada Vittora, it had been roses. For Mada Zola, fresh-cut lavender. Though witches could and did use all types of life-essences, there was one living element that each witch seemed preternaturally drawn to; it could be goose down, dragonfly wings, allium bulbs, or any of a nearly infinite number of possibilities. That life-essence would be included, even in a tiny portion, in almost all of the witch’s potions to give it a personal touch of power.

  “Where are we supposed to find our cruxes?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? That’s the purpose of the Cottage. To figure out what your crux is. A lot of girls spend hours in the Duke’s storerooms, sniffing and tasting every flower and herb and living thing, hoping that they’ll suddenly just know what the right crux is, but that’s a misguided approach. Cruxes don’t work that way. In order to discover one’s crux, one has to delve deep into magic—​into spells, history of magic, politics, physical casting. Some girls discover their cruxes through study. Like Marta. She spent months in the library studying the Selentium Vox, and then one day, we found her passed out on the floor in a puddle of spilled tea. When she woke, she chattered on about bees, bees, how honeybees were the secret to everything. She must have learned thousands of words in the Selentium Vox, but it wasn’t until she learned the word for ‘bee’ that something clicked for her.” Esme swatted at an invisible bee with a shiver as though glad that wasn’t her crux, and then she continued. “Not all of the girls are certain of their cruxes yet. But they’d better decide soon. Time is short—​I don’t have to tell you that. Karla thinks hers is marigold. She came across a drawing of a marigold in an old manuscript and dreamed about a field of them that night. Sam can’t decide between thorns and anise pods—​she’s been taking long runs every morning, barefoot in the snow, hoping that the exertion will give her clarity. Jolie—​ah, that’s an interesting story. She discovered her crux by accident. A literal accident. She spent months studying, meditating, doing physical casting exercises in the courtyard, and she still didn’t have a clue. But then she fell from the bridge and plunged into the ravine. She nearly died. We brought her here, to the infirmary, and when she woke up, she said she’d had a vision of butterfly wings. Frederika won’t say what hers is. Either she doesn’t know or it’s something embarrassing. Heida suspects Frederika’s crux is poppy seeds. You know, opium. Crazy drawn to crazy. And the sisters! Heida and Lise have a theory that their crux is each other. That for each girl, it’s a lock of her sister’s hair. They think their power lies in their sisterhood.”

  “Have you found your crux?”

  Esme didn’t answer right away. Anouk got the sense she’d asked a taboo question, but then Esme tipped her chin up and said, “Maybe. I’ve spent months in prayer—​no books or barefoot jogging for me. Laugh if you want. I know prayer is out of fashion in the Pretty World. I’m the only girl here who prays. But in my prayers, I see something white, like stone, but living.” She paused, her eyes glistening. “I think mine is bone. I’m not quite sure. I need to pray on it more.”

  “What if you think it’s bone but it isn’t?”

  Esme gave a sardonic grunt. “If I’m right, I’ll clutch my crux and walk through the Coal Baths in one piece. If I’m wrong, I’ll burn.” Esme put away the salve, closing the drawer a little too forcefully. “Obviously most girls are wrong, despite how they rave about visions and signs and dreams. The ones like the Rébeval Witch, who thought hers was peonies and was right, are the exception. There are ten of us here now. We’ll be lucky if even one of us is still alive after wintertide.”

  Anouk had been stroking Little Beau’s head but now her fingers curled in the scruff of his neck.

  Esme opened a cupboard full of muslin dresses and undergarments. “No girls come here on a lark. All of us want something. Revenge. Strength. Ambition. Becoming a witch is the only way we’ll get it.”

  She handed Anouk a stack of dresses. Little Beau pressed his nose into them. Anouk could smell the mustiness. Lye. Wool. Dust. So different from the delicate smells of Paris.

  “Sorry again you’ll have to lose the jacket. Put it somewhere safe. Hope you live to wear it again.”

  Esme continued the tour, showing her the laundry rooms and the kitchen, a confectionery and canning room, and the floor that housed the Duke’s offices and his personal library. By the time Anouk had been shown the endless chambers of storerooms where every type of life-essence was cataloged, the courtyard where they could exercise, and a few dreary rooms for studying ancient texts, Anouk was yawning.

  “One more stop, I’m afraid.” Esme’s gaze fell on the dog.

  Anouk’s stomach twisted as she and Little Beau followed Esme back through the great hall, where the pair of sisters were now scrubbing the floor on their hands and knees, and down a set of curving stairs to the cellars. Anouk could tell from the smell, even before seeing it, that it had been converted into stables for the goats and chickens. Esme opened a dusty stall door with a metal bolt. “Marta’s in charge of the animals. She’ll feed your dog and bring him water, and you can visit him when you have free time, but I’m afraid that won’t be often. The Duke keeps us busy with our chores. If you have goodbyes to say, say them now.”

  Anouk sank to her knees and ran her hands through Little Beau’s fur. She pressed her forehead against his. When Beau had been a boy, he’d hated to be alone. He was always hunting out someone to talk to, even if it was just a Goblin or the Pretties who delivered packages. As a dog, he’d barely left her side.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “You have to stay here. It isn’t sa
fe otherwise.”

  His big dark eyes swallowed her. He plunged his nose into her side, hungry for her familiar scent. On a whim, she set aside the stack of muslin dresses and shrugged out of the Faustine jacket. She straightened her bulky sweater underneath, pulled the collar high around her neck to keep out the chill, and gently tucked the jacket into the corner of the stall.

  “Here. For you. A little piece of me so that you aren’t all alone.” Anouk leaned forward and planted a kiss on the dog’s head. He tried to follow her when she left, but she closed the stall door. He whined softly. “I’ll visit you whenever I can, Beau. I’ll bring you treats.” She turned away with tears in her eyes. Suddenly she felt so trapped. Cold all the way to her bones. Her fingers skimmed over the bare place at her throat.

  She’d lost her magic.

  She’d lost her friends.

  She was separated from Beau.

  Little Beau started scratching at the door and she pressed a hand to her heart and hurried to the steps. Esme followed silently. When Anouk stopped at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall and breathing hard, Esme touched her shoulder.

  “I’ll take you to your room. It’s late. You can get some rest.”

  “Just tell me which one it is.”

  “Last on the left. The corner one.”

  Anouk wanted to thank her for showing a glimmer of kindness in such a dreary place, but it was all she could do to race up the stairs to the dormitory floor. She ran past open doors. They were small monastic cells, built as a solitary room for each of the original monks, though now two beds had been squeezed into each room.

  Her chest felt tight. She kept thinking of Beau trapped below, all alone. And of girls dead in the woods, and girls dead in fires. She was tired of living in a world where girls were so expendable.

  On the verge of panic, she threw herself into the last room on the left and slammed the door behind her. The cell was empty and identical to the others except that since it was on a corner, it had two high, tiny windows instead of just one. There were two wooden beds with a trunk at the foot of each one, and it was so cramped that Anouk could barely turn around. There was little to tell her about her roommate other than a pink sock peeking out from the sheets and a vase of dried lavender on the nightstand.

  She leaned back against the door, wondering if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Why had she ever dared to dream of stepping beyond thresholds? What had that gotten her? Maybe she should return to Paris. Listen to Duke Karolinge and throw herself out. How could she possibly find her crux when it had taken the other girls months and they were still filled with doubt?

  In six weeks Rennar would arrive in an expensive car with servants at his bidding and clothes cut for a god. He’d take one look at her and know that she’d lost her magic. Would he still want her as his princess then? Would he claim that their deal was invalid since she’d lost the one thing he cared about?

  She dug through her pants pocket until she found Rennar’s mirror. She cleaned it with her sleeve. Her vision was blurry from tears, which she wiped away angrily.

  The mirror showed the three cages.

  A white cat.

  A bandaged wolf.

  A small gray mouse.

  No!

  Anouk was so mad, she wanted to hurl the mirror across the room. He hadn’t changed Luc back! That was their deal, wasn’t it? What was Rennar waiting for? Was this all a game to him? Was it a trick?

  She opened the door, planning to throw the blasted mirror down the length of the hall, but then froze. Someone was there, a girl who ducked and shrieked in surprise at Anouk’s raised arm. The girl had strawberry hair pulled back into a messy bun and angular features.

  Anouk gaped. “Petra?”

  Chapter 10

  Anouk glanced briefly at the lavender on the nightstand. “Petra, you’re the other new girl?”

  Petra straightened, still shaken from the sight of Anouk ready to smash a mirror in her face. “I wouldn’t say new. I’ve been here two months. That’s two months of gruel. Two months of this hideous dress. It’s been an eternity.”

  “They said my roommate’s name was Lala!”

  Petra snorted. “That’s just a nickname that Esme gave me. I sing in the bathhouse. La-la-la.” She shoved past Anouk and into the room, then whirled around. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe the Duke let you stay.”

  “I offered to cook.”

  “Ah! All men put their stomachs over their heads.”

  Anouk sank onto one of the beds, glancing at Petra’s hands on her hips. “And he let you stay? Did he ask you about your past? Does he know?”

  “That I’m transgender? Yes, he knows. They all do. My first night, one of the girls said it wasn’t right for me to be here, that only women can undergo the Baths, not men. I said that I didn’t see what the problem was.” She pulled her hair out of her bun and gave her strawberry-blond locks a flip. “The Duke agreed. He said they’d never had a transgender acolyte but that I was as welcome as any other girl.”

  “Do you think it will make a difference?”

  Petra shook her head. “I know who I am.” She put her hair back up in a bun and sat on the bed opposite Anouk. She lowered her voice. “You’re the one I’m worried about. It was foolish for you to come with only weeks before the Coal Baths.”

  Anouk let out a sigh. It must have been past midnight. Her limbs were so heavy. Without her magic, she felt like she was still wandering in the woods, lost and frozen.

  “I didn’t have a choice.” She explained about the growing plagues in London and the unlikely bargain she’d stuck with Prince Rennar, her trip to Bavaria and the awful moment when Duke Karolinge had drawn the magic out of her. She pressed a hand to her throat, wincing at how frigid her skin felt. Then she glanced at the door and lowered her voice. “What happened to Cricket and Luc and Hunter Black? You said you’d watch out for them, but Rennar has them caged in Castle Ides.”

  Petra ran a hand slowly over her face. “I tried to help them, I promise. But it wasn’t that simple. After you fled the château with the Goblins, Rennar rounded up your friends and caged them. It wasn’t like I could walk up to him and demand that he free them. He’d just murdered my mother.”

  “Is that why you’re here? You want to become a witch so you can get revenge against the Royals?”

  Petra snorted. “Give me more credit. I have loftier aims than revenge.” Her eyes sparked as she leaned forward and said conspiratorially, “I have to know what magic feels like. I know that you understand. You had magic, even if it’s gone now. Look at you—​you look sick without it, like someone’s ripped your heart out. That’s because no one can live her life on the edge of a magical world and not want to be a part of it. No one can walk away from tricks and whispers, from Goblins and spells. I want it all, Anouk. Everything Mada Zola had and more.”

  Anouk’s fingers fluttered over the base of her throat as she remembered the warm champagne fizz that was gone now. “Can the Duke be trusted?”

  Petra gave a wavering head tilt. “I don’t know about trust. Most of the girls here have only heard rumors about the Haute. They’ve never met a witch, let alone a Royal, so they have their Pretty little heads in the clouds. When I first arrived, the Duke invited me to his study and kept me up all night droning on about the long history of girls burned alive, trying to frighten me off. I told him what he could do with his scare tactics. Ever since then, he hasn’t offered to advise me again.”

  “And this crux business—​have you found yours?”

  Petra’s lips quirked in a movement that could have been a smile or a grimace. “I’m working on it.” She leaned back. “When I first got here, I tried studying with Marta, learning the Selentium Vox, memorizing spells, understanding the history of magic. Marta says study takes her to a place where her soul feels whole, like her eyes are open for the first time, and that with those open eyes, she was able to see her potential cruxes in the subjects she studies, and
that’s how she discovered hers.” Petra puffed a lock of hair out of her face. “But all I saw were dull old textbooks filled with dull old history lessons.” She glanced at the window. “The Duke encouraged me to look for it in physical ways. Exercise in the courtyard, he said. Spar with Frederika, he said. Ha! I can tell you one thing—​I know myself well enough to realize that I’m not going to discover my crux by sweating in the snow.” She leaned forward with a smirk, a strawberry lock falling in her eyes, highlighting that fire that blazed there. “Mada Zola studied here six hundred years ago. She didn’t find her crux through any of the usual ways either. She was the first Pretty to find a crux through a creative path. Every morning that she was here, she climbed down the ravine and gathered clay from the riverbed, then began sculpting it. She let her mind go blank and allowed her hands to take control. For months she shaped nothing but meaningless lumps, and the other acolytes laughed at her. But the night before the Baths, after the Eve Feast had concluded, she stayed up late and her hands worked the clay into an etching of flowers. Lavender. She found dried lavender in the Duke’s storerooms and carried it into the flames with her. She was the only acolyte who didn’t burn. Guess who was laughing then.” She pushed back more loose strands of hair that had escaped her messy bun.

  “So your plan is to experiment with mud?”

  Petra’s grin vanished. “No. But Mada Zola was my mother, even if not biologically. I know I’ll discover my crux while doing something creative too. So while the other girls stay up all night with their noses in books or praying until their knees have bruises, I’ve been doing artwork . . . of a sort.” She hitched up the hem of her dress, exposing her calf and thigh.

  Anouk’s eyes went wide.

  Tattoos ran up Petra’s leg all the way from her ankle to her thigh. They weren’t like any tattoos Anouk had ever seen. Goblins adored tattoos, but theirs tended to be colorful and bizarre, things like squid tentacles holding teaspoons, and they changed them with a whisper every few weeks anyway. Petra’s tattoos were abstract, bands of indigo and black, some thin as a strand of hair and some as thick as Anouk’s thumb, with concentric circles at the curve of her calf.