Anouk sank back into her chair and rubbed her temples. The wine was already going to her head. She took another sip and a few drops sloshed onto the wedding dress on the table. “Oh, merde.”
Rennar took the chair next to her, picked up the dress, and, with a gentle whisper, made the stain vanish.
“Why must you be so infuriatingly calm about all of this?” she snapped, and she wasn’t talking about the dress. “You heard Petra—we’re facing ruin and you just dance and drink!”
He swirled the wine in his glass and looked moodily into the liquid. “I’ve been alive five hundred years, Anouk. This isn’t the first time someone has shrieked about impending doom.”
“It’s the first time someone cut you in half.” Her eyes fell on the glossy mark where he’d repaired himself after being cut in two. “I don’t buy this nonchalant act of yours. You’re frightened. You’ve just never learned how to look afraid.”
He flinched. He set down the glass and took her hands in his. For once, the arrogance was gone from his face, and his blue eyes searched hers. “Very well. You want me to tell you that for the first time, I’m uncertain about the future? I am. But I’m certain about you.”
He kissed her knuckles. She bristled at the intimate gesture, then relaxed. Maybe they were in this together. Maybe his centuries of experience did count for something. He let go of her hands, but on impulse, she grabbed his hands and pulled him even closer.
He looked surprised.
She whispered, “Rennar, turn them back. Please.”
His hands tightened in hers. His features were just as tense. “You’ll get Cricket in a few days, after the wedding.”
“What about Hunter Black and Beau? Forget the deal. It was just a game, like you said. I failed the Baths—that doesn’t mean Hunter Black should be doomed to a lifetime of being muzzled. And Beau was always supposed to stay human, not me.”
“Beau,” he said slowly, “is in love with you. And I am marrying you. Only a fool would bring him back. At a minimum, he’d stop the wedding. He’d probably try to poison me.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
But Rennar had been grumbling with the reluctance of someone who hated to concede but knew he was going to. He filled her glass with champagne. “You’re impossible. Drink this.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to turn Hunter Black back for you, purely out of the goodness of my heart, and the least you can do is make a toast to my honor.”
A smile crept onto her face. It felt good to smile again. She clinked her glass against his and downed the champagne in one heady sip. As the bubbly warmth spread through her, making her the slightest bit tipsy, she thought back to the kiss in the Cottage’s confectionery. Before she knew what she was doing, she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his cheek.
“To you,” she said softly.
Chapter 21
Anouk’s kiss left a drop of champagne on Rennar’s cheek. He wiped it away, as flustered as she’d been by the kiss in the dessert pantry. He drained his own glass and then stood, snatched up a fork, and tapped it loudly enough against the crystal to silence the surrounding chatter. The Goblin drummer, oblivious in his headphones, still pounded away. Rennar cast a quick whisper to silence his instruments. The Goblin’s eyes shot open in surprise when his drumsticks turned to putty.
All eyes were fixed on Rennar. Queen Violante gave him an unabashedly flirtatious look, and Prince Aleksi listened respectfully, but most of the Royals watched with the stiff faces of guests who were forced to listen to something they’d rather not hear.
“A speech? Now?” Luc whispered as he surreptitiously came to stand behind Anouk.
“Not a speech.” Anouk shivered as she looked around at the cold stares in the ballroom and found that more than a few sets of eyes were focused on her. She’d nearly forgotten this party was to celebrate her own engagement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Rennar began. “Royals and witches of every realm—and Goblins—today, as you know, we come together to celebrate my impending nuptials. The last time we all gathered for a Royal wedding was eighty years ago, when Prince Sorin married Princess Marieta of the Barren Court. It is my hope that this wedding will unite not only my bride and me, but all of us. There are still those of you who refuse to acknowledge the threat posed by the Coven of Oxford and what has befallen the Court of Isles, but I promise you, a great danger hovers at our doorsteps. The only way we will protect our realms is if we unite our forces.”
The Royals’ faces remained eerily still. No smiles. No smirks. No frowns. Over hundreds of years, they had learned to perfectly hide their emotions, and they gave no reaction now. Standing in the center of his palace, Rennar, too, wore a mask of indifference. He cut a striking figure in his frost-gray suit. Every person in the room hung on his every word, though they all pretended otherwise, and it was hard for Anouk not to fall under his spell too. She snatched up her champagne glass and sniffed it, feeling suddenly uneasy. Had he enchanted it?
Luc leaned down and whispered, “Not exactly the tone I’d expect from someone planning to surrender his power once all of this is over.”
Anouk whispered back, “He’s willing to step down. It doesn’t mean the other Royals will do the same without a fight. He’s not a fool.”
Luc made a noncommittal snort.
“But let us not dwell on such troubles tonight,” Rennar continued. “There are times for war and times for power, but let us put such times aside.”
“See?” Anouk whispered to Luc.
“Tonight, we celebrate.” Rennar smiled. “Relish the wine. Savor the cake. Enjoy the entertainment. In fact, I have a special performance planned. I am rarely one for spectacle, but this is to oblige my bride.”
All eyes shifted to Anouk. Queen Violante stared at her with bald curiosity, doubtlessly wondering how such a simple girl—a girl who even now had a dust streak on her cheek—had won a prince.
Anouk’s face warmed under the scrutiny. She clutched the bell around her neck.
“You,” Rennar commanded to a group of butlers surrounding the wolf’s cage. “Bring the wolf.”
The butlers, despite their enchantment, weren’t quick to oblige. One of them, who had a bandaged hand, took a step away from the cage, and Anouk could guess what had happened. One started to hold a trembling key to the lock, but the wolf snarled and leaped at the bars, and the butler fell back with a cry.
Viggo, sulking by the balcony, gave an exasperated sigh. “Out of my way, cowards. I’ll do it. He’s just a pup.” Stumbling slightly—he’d had a lot to drink—he pushed through the butlers, grabbed the key, and unlocked the cage. The wolf bared his teeth and growled but Viggo reached in, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and growled back. The wolf, as surprised as everyone else, went quiet. Viggo unlatched the chains and led the wolf toward Rennar.
Perhaps no one else would have caught it, but Anouk saw how Rennar eyed the wolf cautiously. The last time bars hadn’t separated them, in the bell tower of the Château des Mille Fleurs, the wolf had nearly killed him.
Rennar touched yellow powder to his lips and whispered, “Des skalla animaeux . . .”
A ripple of interest came from the audience as magic began to swirl around the wolf. The bonds circling his neck and his feet clattered to the floor. The muzzle disintegrated into a puff of dust. As soon as he was free, the wolf lunged at Rennar, but with a quick whisper, bonds of golden rope replaced his chains. Enraptured, Anouk pushed through the crowd. She’d seen her friends turned to animals, and it had been the worst experience of her life. This felt topsy-turvy, like history reversing itself. The magic in the air tasted sweet and tart, like gingersnaps.
“Des skalla animaeux . . .”
A sheen of sweat broke out on Rennar’s forehead. To turn a man into an animal was a simple thing, but the reverse was no easy feat. Even Rennar, who had written the beastie spell, struggled to contro
l the chaotic ribbons of magic that swirled around the wolf. A hush fell over everyone except King Kaspar of the Lunar Court, whose cough became more violent by the minute.
“Fiska ek forma humane.”
With a dramatic flick of his wrist, Prince Rennar summoned a flash of light so bright that at least one Goblin shrieked. Plates and glasses shattered around the room, table by table, like miniature dynamite blasts. The windows shook in their frames. The Pretty broker with the long gloves and pet hare jumped backward and smacked into an hourglass perched on the mantel behind Anouk. It tottered, and he reached for it but couldn’t catch it in time. It fell and shattered into a mess of broken glass, sand going everywhere. The hare leaped out of his arms. Anouk jumped up too, pressing a hand to her heart, dodging the mess.
“Sorry about that.” The broker hastily swept up the sand into a napkin. “I owe you a favor for nearly slicing you apart. I’m Sinjin. Hacker extraordinaire and rabbit enthusiast.”
“Forget it,” she said.
He carried the spilled sand toward the door but tripped and dropped it all over the Lunar Court’s table, and then he turned the other way and spilled it on Mia’s hair. He started apologizing profusely to them too.
When Anouk looked back to the center of the room, the wolf was changing. His thick fur was falling off in clumps; pale skin and taut muscles and a smear of charcoal hair replaced it. And then two smoldering eyes appeared—human eyes, eyes she knew—and Hunter Black shed the rest of the fur like he was shrugging out of a coat. His pelt fell to the floor. He stood upright on two feet.
Entirely human.
Also entirely naked.
A few gasps came from the crowd, along with more than one appreciative whisper from a woman in the room and perhaps from a few men; Hunter Black did cut quite the figure. His eyes were unfocused. He fell to his knees again. Luc grabbed a nearby tablecloth and draped it around Hunter Black’s shoulders. The motion made Hunter Black blink hard a few times and then shake his head as though waking from a drugged slumber. He looked at his bare knees and roared, “What the devil?”
The crowd erupted in cheers. “What a performance!” Queen Violante stood, clapping uproariously. Her sisters followed suit, though not quite as enthusiastically.
“Magnifique!” cried a princess from the Minaret Court.
“I thought it was only a rumor!” said the hacker, Sinjin, who’d come back from the Lunar Court’s table and had managed to catch his pet hare again.
Rennar ignored the crowd. He held himself wearily, especially the leg that had turned to stone, as though the magic had exhausted every bone in his body. He searched the crowd until his eyes fell on Anouk.
She rested her fingers on the table to steady herself. What had she just witnessed? A miracle. The opposite of the cruel magic that had reduced her friends into things with tails. Rennar’s spell had taken an animal and evolved it into something that could rationalize, feel complex emotions, dance a jig, bang a drum, kiss. A grin stretched across her face and she felt like that dreamy, hopeful girl she’d once been. This was the kind of magic she wanted. The kind she’d been so close to winning. And maybe it was what Rennar wanted, too. Maybe everything he’d said wasn’t so far-fetched. Her head fizzed like the champagne cocktails that butlers were now serving on golden trays throughout the ballroom. Could she possibly get magic back?
“Hunter Black! Move aside, you devils, let me near him!” Viggo shoved through the crowd, then fell to his knees beside the assassin. He rested a hand on Hunter Black’s back. Sweat dripped from Hunter Black’s hair and soaked into the tablecloth over his shoulders. “Someone get this man a coat, for the love of God. And a comb!” When no one listened to him, Viggo grumbled under his breath and helped Hunter Black to his feet. Anouk set down her glass, intending to go help them, but then someone screamed.
She spun toward the sound. It came from the direction of the Lunar Court’s table, but with the throngs of attendees, she couldn’t see what was happening. One of the Minaret Court women seated at the next table cried out and stumbled back against her chair, sending china crashing to the floor. Anouk stood on tiptoe but still couldn’t see. What had happened?
Hunter Black, ever the warrior, stumbled toward the nearest table and grabbed a knife from among the silverware, but his eyes were still glassy, and Viggo thrust himself in front of his friend, brandishing his cane.
Petra shrugged off her Faustine coat and climbed onto a chair. She pulled out a flask that, by its anise and sooty smells, held a powerful potion, and threw back a swig. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Her body was tense, ready to battle.
Anouk pushed forward, nearly getting trampled by the Goblin musicians who were dragging their drum kits and guitars toward the door. At last, she reached the front of the crowd.
It was King Kaspar.
Only moments ago, during Rennar’s performance, his hacking cough had been impossible to ignore. He was a hunched old man whom she’d barely have noticed if it hadn’t been for Prince Aleksi’s concern. Now the king’s normally curved back was ramrod straight, grotesquely so, as though someone had thrust a metal pole through his spine. He must have stood over seven feet tall, towering over even the tallest partygoers. His head was tilted toward the ceiling as though he’d been suspended on invisible wires from his eyes; his crown slid backward, and his arms contorted behind his back.
Anouk’s stomach turned. Bodies weren’t meant to move like that.
All the Barren Court delegates fled, clearing her view completely, and she gasped. The king wasn’t naturally that tall; he was floating about a foot off the floor. Thin ribbons of satiny black smoke curled from his mouth and ears.
She clapped a hand over her mouth.
Black tears—just like the ones from her vision—were pouring down his face.
Chapter 22
“He’s possessed.”
The man who spoke was Baron Winter, a Court of the Woods delegate. He was one of the few Royals who hadn’t fled to the edges of the room.
“It’s witch magic,” Marquesa Ana spat.
Several sets of eyes turned to Petra, the only witch in attendance. The three Crimson Court sisters turned on her like a pack of wolves, wrestled her to the ground with violent whispers, and held her in place with spells. Tablecloths bound themselves around Petra’s wrists and stopped her from reaching for her flask of lavender ash.
“It isn’t me!” she cried.
Before she could get out another word, the tablecloth wedged itself in her mouth as a gag.
Anouk clutched at the bell, wanting to rip it from her neck. She was useless! The Lunar King’s contorted body rose higher. The ribbons of smoke poured out of his mouth. Black tears rolled down his face, dripping into a puddle of tar. Suddenly she was back in the flames, having her body pulled apart, burning without burning at all, and sweat broke out on her brow.
“Let her go,” Rennar ordered the Crimson Court sisters, motioning to Petra. “She wouldn’t do this. She’s a new witch, anyway. It takes decades to master a possession trick.”
“It must be her,” Marquesa Ana insisted. “She’s commanding that smoke. There’s something unnatural about it—I can feel it making my skin prickle. It’s poison.”
The smoke twisted toward the Marquesa as though drawn to her voice, and the Marquesa recoiled.
A chill ran up Anouk’s back. She grabbed Rennar’s arm and dragged him a few feet away. He frowned when he saw how her hands were shaking.
“Anouk, what is it?” Concern laced his voice.
“It’s the Coven.” She gestured toward the puddle of black tears. “I saw all of this in a vision during the Coal Baths. I thought it was just delusions, but the Oxford witches were there, somehow, in the flames. A group of them were summoning smoke that curled just like this. It rose so high that I couldn’t see them anymore.” She shivered. “They were crying black tears too.”
He pursed his lips. “You’re certain?”
�
��I know I disappointed everyone before, but I’m positive. They’re here.”
Although she sounded crazy, he didn’t argue. Before he could act, Prince Aleksi shoved to the front of the crowd and touched silver powder from the vial around his neck to his lips. He began to whisper. Threads of magic wove themselves together into golden ropes that wound around his father’s limbs and tried to pull him back to the floor. The king’s head twisted unnaturally to observe him. Blankness filled his eyes. Something was looking through them, but not King Kaspar.
The threads of golden magic pulled the king back, but each inch was a battle. The Lunar Prince was straining under the pressure. Rennar reached for his own powder vial, but then the king’s eyes began bubbling with tar. His mouth hinged open and a blast of bright light bolted out. Prince Aleksi was struck. He fell back into a chair, clutching at his chest.
Words began pouring out of the king’s mouth along with more ribbons of smoke. They grew from low, unintelligible hisses into fragments spoken in the Selentium Vox.
“Previso . . . rivet . . . morfin . . .”
“What’s that?” Viggo grabbed her shoulder. “What’s he saying? I don’t speak that damn language.”
“Get back, Viggo,” Luc snapped. “Don’t breathe in the smoke.”
The Royals and Goblins who hadn’t yet fled the room all listened uneasily. Anouk translated for Viggo in a hushed voice. “It’s strange—he’s speaking as ‘we,’ not as ‘I,’ like the witches are a collective voice speaking through him. His words are broken. He’s threatening an . . . an impending darkness. A deathless death.”
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