“Follow me,” Viggo said. “We should go along the river. It’s a little out of the way, but we’ll get a close view of Big Ben. Better to see what we’re up against.”
“Lead the way,” Anouk said.
As they headed down Bow Street, Petra explained what had been happening back in Paris. Ever since the beasties had left, Rennar’d had his hands full with the other Royals. The Barren Court and the Minaret Court deeply resented that the Nochte Pax bound them. Rennar, along with Queen Violante and Prince Aleksi, had gotten them in line, although any agreements between them were shaky at best. Anouk found herself dangerously curious about Rennar’s safety. What if the other Royals turned on him?
“All the Royals are on standby,” Petra explained as she stepped on a smooshed toad in the middle of the road and grimaced. “As soon as we open a doorway for them, they’re prepared to enter London and fight the Oxford witches.”
“Yeah,” Beau said, swerving to avoid the toad, “except there aren’t any Oxford witches to fight.”
“Um. What?”
Once Anouk had explained the situation to her, Petra gave a heavy sigh and said, “So how do we fight something that has no physical presence?”
Anouk glanced in the direction of Big Ben, though it wasn’t yet visible over the rooftops. “Leave that to me.”
Petra raised an eyebrow but didn’t question her. They continued to make their way through the silent city, past the Opera House and the Strand junction. The snow was light, melting almost as soon as it landed. Hunter Black seemed particularly troubled by the silent city, his dark eyes darting to every shadow, checking every Pretty they passed for signs of breath. Luc moved slowly too, wincing as though in pain, but whenever Beau offered to help, he shook his head. They reached the walkway that followed the Thames River—the water frozen in motionless waves—and then passed Victoria Bridge. Viggo stopped at a police officer, pilfered the woman’s pistol, and tucked it into his own waistband.
Cricket shot him a look. “Are you that stupid?”
“It’s not like she’s using it.”
“You can’t use it either. Guns have moving parts. It’ll be frozen like everything else.” She sighed and handed over one of her sheathed knives. “Take this.”
He slid it into his back pocket with an easy grace, looking as though that was what he’d been planning all along. How some Pretty boys got away with such unearned self-assuredness, Anouk would never know.
They passed another bridge and Anouk stopped in the middle of the street. Ahead, through a gap in two Parliament buildings, she could make out the tower of Big Ben. With the two moons hidden now behind clouds, the illuminated clock face glowed bigger and brighter than anything else on the skyline. The pair of elegant clock hands kept moving, unaffected by the Snow Children’s spell. Smoke clumped thickly around the tower as though the entire structure were encased within a thunderstorm, with tendrils of smoke reaching out into the street, settling low over the river, and extending toward the Parliament buildings and a nearby department store, Pickwick and Rue’s, that had banners out front announcing its recent grand opening. Once the snow fell into the smoke, it disappeared.
Petra slid up her sunglasses. “That’s the Noirceur?”
Anouk nodded. The pit of her stomach turned colder just looking at it. The dark ancient magic that conjured that smoke wasn’t so different from the Dark Thing inside her.
Beau rested a hand on her shoulder. “We should keep moving.”
They plunged back into the thick of the city, away from the river, passing government buildings until they reached Piccadilly Circus. An enormous open square, it was normally a boisterous tangle of tourists, vendors, honking cars, and pigeons going after crumbs, just as busy at night as it was during the day. Even now, lights were on in all the shops and restaurants, car headlights blazed, and Pretties congregated in the square, but nothing so much as quivered, all of it encased in ice.
Anouk knew Omen House immediately. It was identical to Castle Ides, down to the brick. The same exterior gate and sign for a private club—written in English here, naturally—the same porte-cochère in front that Beau had pulled Mada Vittora’s town car up to countless times in Paris, even the same marble busts on the front lawn, though instead of Prince Rennar, these portrayed a young couple Anouk recognized from portraits as the missing Prince Maxim and Lady Imogen.
Cricket unlocked the gate with a touch of mint leaves to her lips and a whisper.
Viggo rested his hand on the front door. “Here goes nothing.”
They stepped into the foyer. On the outside, Omen House was identical to Castle Ides, but inside, instead of glittering crystal chandeliers and a glass wall divider, Omen House’s entryway looked like it belonged to a much-loved but musty old hotel. There was a small check-in desk in front of mailboxes filled with dangling keys, a threadbare rug, and a few mismatched tables and chairs next to a bar.
“No Marble Ladies,” Cricket observed, eyes darting to the corners, fingers brushing the hilts of her blades. “Unless they’re hiding.”
“That’s not how Omen House works.” Viggo walked behind the reception desk like he owned the place. He dinged the bell a few times, and Anouk cringed as it echoed loud enough to wake the dead, but nothing happened. “Eight boxes and eight keys,” he explained. “You sign your name in that fat old ledger there, and then you can take a key. The keys operate the elevator. You can only access the floor you have the key for.”
He signed his name in the visitors log, and the key to the penthouse suddenly seemed to take on a life of its own, sparkling as though begging to be picked up. He plucked it off the nail, went to the elevator, and jammed his thumb on the button. Nothing happened. He frowned and pushed the button again and again, at least twenty more times, but still nothing happened.
“Stop before you break it!” Luc said. “It’s frozen, just like everything else. Nothing mechanical works.”
“So how are we supposed to get to the penthouse?” Beau asked.
“We aren’t.” Petra set the jangling box of hardware on the reception counter. She turned to Anouk, lowered her sunglasses briefly, gave her a knowing look, and passed her a brass doorknob. “Leave this to the witches, friends. Step back. Way back. Farther. Viggo, you might as well go outside.”
Viggo didn’t look amused, but he did step behind the bar and eye the closest bottles.
The spell to open a door between the penthouse in Paris and the foyer in London was relatively straightforward, though it did require preparations. Petra explained that they needed two doors, one in each city, and for that they needed two witches working at the same time. Under Petra’s orders, Luc and Hunter Black cleared the artwork off the wall until it was nothing but plain wallpaper and a few empty nails. Petra ran her hand over the wallpaper, nodding, measuring with the width of her hand, and then directed Beau to use a piece of chalk to draw in the approximate shape of double doors to her measurements. Finally, Cricket climbed on a chair and hammered in the hinges and other hardware on the edges of Beau’s drawing.
“Now.” Petra took one of the doorknobs and handed Anouk the other. “Ready?”
“Jamais. Never. But let’s do it anyway.”
Mada Vittora had rarely worked with other witches, and maybe that was a mistake. It felt good to perform a kindred whisper with Petra. Their words spoken at the exact same speed, their movements simultaneous as they pressed the knobs to the drawn-in doors. Beau’s chalk outline started to glow. The hinges produced a long creaking sound. The knob began to warm in Anouk’s hand and vibrate a little, as eager to be handled as the enchanted key that Viggo had collected behind the reception desk.
“Okay,” Petra breathed. There was a thrill in her voice. Magic was as new to her as it was to Anouk. “Whisper the opening spell. Now!”
Petra whispered the final word of the spell in English and Anouk whispered it in French, and they twisted the knobs at the exact same time and threw open the doors. A blast of sou
nd and light erupted from the other side. In a city that had been stopped in time, Anouk had gotten used to perpetual silence, but now the sounds of music and footsteps and voices assailed her ears and she staggered back, pressing a hand to her chest.
A figure came hurtling through the doorway fast as a blur; it crashed into Anouk and toppled them both to the threadbare old rug. Anouk caught sight of bright yellow braids and garish makeup. Grinning, December flashed her golden teeth.
“Anouk! Hello again!”
December was lying on top of Anouk, her knees digging into Anouk’s stomach, still wearing her clunky vintage roller skates. The wheels slowed to a stop, and December frowned. “Sorry. Still getting the hang of these things. I accidentally enchanted them to my feet and now I can’t get them off.” December pushed herself to her feet, wobbling precariously, hands extended for balance. She started wheeling backwards and nearly crashed into a chair before Hunter Black caught her.
More figures crossed into the lobby through the enchanted doorway. Queen Violante and her sisters Carlotta and Ludovica; the Minaret Court Marques and Marquesa, Prince Sorin of the Barren Court, Duke Karolinge with Saint perched on his shoulder; and behind them a motley group of Goblins who were practically skipping as they returned to London. A Goblin boy with brown skin and golden dreadlocks petted the paisley wallpaper fondly. Two Goblin girls in short skirts poured themselves gin from the bar. A third grabbed the bottle and cried in joy at the label written in English.
The last Royal to come through the doorway was dressed in a frost-gray suit, though he’d left his crown behind. He leaned over Anouk, who was still on her back on the ground, massaging her bruised rib cage. His hair was perfect. His eyes devastatingly blue-gray. His lips dusted with fine white powder that made her think of sugar and dark, private dessert pantries. Her pulse throbbed to life.
He offered her a hand up. His wedding ring gleamed. “Anouk.”
“Oof. Rennar.” She clasped his hand, and as he pulled her to her feet, he gave a half smile down at her ring. Then he raised an eyebrow. “Do you know that you have roller-skate grease on your socks?”
She looked down at the black marks streaking her clothes, then shrugged. “Welcome to London.”
Chapter 39
Rennar was Anouk’s husband now—that was the wildest part. The thought made her laugh deliriously, which earned her a disdainful look from the Royals. She stopped laughing. Dirty socks be damned. She was a princess now and they were bound to her commands.
“Everyone out,” she ordered. “Into Piccadilly Circus. We have work to do.”
They obeyed, though not without a few lingering looks of contempt, and gathered in the streets that surrounded Piccadilly Circus. Hours had passed, but the moons hadn’t moved an inch. Dawn would never come unless they vanquished the Noirceur.
The Royals’ arrogant looks wavered as they took in the frozen city. The Snow Children’s spell was a level of magic beyond even their own. The Goblins, however, were less perturbed. Twin Goblin girls stuck their tongues out to catch snowflakes. A Goblin girl with rose tattoos down her arms ran up to a red telephone booth and hugged it. The rest viewed their city with stars in their eyes, even if it was plunged in the middle of a frozen chaos.
Anouk said sotto voce to Rennar, “I’m glad the Goblins are home, but Prince Sorin and the Marquesa of the Minaret look ready to murder you.”
“I imagine that’s precisely what they’re planning.”
“They can’t, can they?”
“Not while they’re bound by the Nochte Pax. Even afterward, it would take some cunning to get around the vitae echo and find a way to destroy me. Then again, they’re resourceful, and they feel as though I’ve made fools of them, which makes them particularly dangerous. If you and I come out of this alive, we’ll be facing a royal war.”
“I take it they don’t agree with you that power needs to change hands.”
“Not unless more goes to their hands.”
“So what do we do?”
“Try not to die now so that we’ll be alive to deal with them when the time comes.”
He was teasing, wasn’t he? She frowned. He didn’t laugh it off and tell her that he’d faced royal wars before and come out in one piece. Instead, he looked perplexed.
“You’ve been busy.” His gaze scoured the frozen streets and then her. “I’ve seen many girls turned to witches. They may look like the same girls who entered the Coals, but they’re different.”
She straightened, touching a lock of her hair. “Don’t I look different?”
“In some ways.” He paused. “But I think the flames liked what they found in you. They left part of your soul intact. I can see it.”
“You once said that beasties don’t have souls.”
“Perhaps I misspoke. If such a thing as souls exist, then mine and everyone else’s is made of salt, and yours is made of air. We are creatures of thought and sin. Your kind is tied to nature in a way we will never be.”
She didn’t have an answer for that. It was possibly the kindest thing he’d ever said to her, maybe the kindest thing anyone had ever said to a beastie. He must have seen her eyes growing big because he ran a hand over his face, and when he was done, he was back to wearing a cruel twist of a smile.
“Hopefully being a witch won’t rot you out over the centuries like it does the others.”
Just like that, any charitable feelings she’d had for him were gone. She sighed. Royals. But then she wondered if Petra’s soul would rot like the other witches’. Over the decades, as the vitae echo ate away at her insides, would Petra become as cruel as Mada Vittora and Mada Zola?
The snow was growing lighter. Worried, Anouk glanced toward the roof of the museum. She couldn’t see her shadow self, but she could feel a shift in the air, as though the magic was fading. In a few minutes, her shadow self would vanish. The snow would stop. The city would erupt in chaos again.
Anouk grabbed Rennar by the sleeve and pulled him toward the smoke that clung around Big Ben’s base. “I need you to keep it snowing.”
“Simple enough, but that requires full concentration. I’ll be useless when it comes to anything else.”
She paused. That would be a problem—she needed him to convince the other Royals to help them and to fight the Noirceur. She glanced over her shoulder.
“Duke Karolinge!” She hadn’t seen him since her wedding. “I need your help.”
He looked at her closely, then took off his glasses, wiped them, and gave a nod. “Mada Anouk, I am yours to command.”
The words took her breath away. Mada Anouk. The honorific of a real witch.
She told him about the Snow Children and the spell, and he agreed to take up a position on the museum rooftop and maintain the snow spell. Anouk and Rennar led the rest of the group back down Whitehall Street, past the British War Offices and 10 Downing Street, and toward the park that faced Big Ben. Just before they reached it, Beau backpedaled at the sight of a glistening motorcycle frozen in traffic. A Pretty boy was sitting on the back of it, coated in ice.
“I don’t believe it,” he breathed.
“Is it a fast one?” Anouk guessed.
He grinned. “Sure, it’s fast. But it’s a Genevar. There were only a few ever made. They’re Objekte too, in a sense. Made by Pretties but charmed by Muscovite Royals who could do wonders with engines. How did you get ahold of this, friend?” he said to the frozen boy riding it. He poked him, then dropped a hand to the handlebars. Unable to resist, he cranked the bar, and the motorcycle roared. “Ah! You see. Not frozen. I guess the Hammer Court knows a thing or two that even the Snow Children don’t.”
Anouk eyed the motorcycle closely and said, almost to herself, “Luc said the smoke is drawn to sound. At the engagement party, it clustered around anyone screaming, and even now, it’s clumping at Big Ben because that’s where most of the sound is.”
“What does sound have to do with anything?” Beau asked.
“Nothing—
for now. But I might have an idea.”
The others were already far ahead. Anouk nudged Beau, and they joined the others at the base of Big Ben. The grass in the square was brown and, like everything else, coated in frost that crunched beneath her feet. The smoke had spread out over a five-block radius around the tower, hovering up to their ankles. Anouk could barely see her oxford shoes. Several Goblins climbed on top of the park’s marble monuments as though they thought the smoke might swallow them.
“It’s poisonous,” Rennar said, gesturing to the smoke with a grimace, doubtlessly remembering his brush with the smoke in Castle Ides. It was billowing out of the upper windows of Big Ben, pouring steadily down into the street. “The more of it we breathe, the more it’s going to poison us. If we try to go in there, we’ll die.”
“We aren’t going in Big Ben.” She turned on her heel to the building opposite the clock tower. It was the department store that had just had its grand opening, Pickwick and Rue’s, taking over a former government office building above the Westminster Tube station. The banners out front boldly proclaimed it to be London’s best new shopping destination, with a confectionery and coffee shop and gourmet market on the ground floor, and upper levels packed with exclusive Chanel, Burberry, and Dior treasures. “We’re going in there.”
“Shopping?” Cricket looked puzzled but not altogether against the idea.
“Not exactly.”
Rennar raised an eyebrow but didn’t question her. With a few commands, he ordered the Royals to follow Anouk through the crystal-studded front doors. Inside, the store was frozen in brand-new perfection. Glass jars of sugared plums tied up in ribbons. Gorgeous displays of boxed pears. Earthy-smelling coffee bundled in beautiful packaging. Everything was untouched, sparklingly new. Since no amount of magic would make the elevators work, Anouk led them up a spiral staircase in the center of the store that rose all five stories and was connected by balconies to the many departments: Menswear on the second floor, Accessories on the third, Home Goods and Lingerie on the fourth, and, at the very top, Ladies’ Shoes. They wound past displays of heels and golden sneakers and studded boots until Anouk stopped at the building’s most ambitious architectural feature: a one-story-high domed window that looked out across the park, directly at Big Ben.
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