She pushed a pair of fireball Louboutin heels off a display table, climbed on top, and addressed the crowd.
“I know many of you are here against your will,” she announced. “But this is bigger than what any of us want. The ancient Royals trapped the Noirceur in time, and the Coven of Oxford awakened it in every clock within the city limits of London. But they couldn’t control what they unleashed. So it’s up to us to contain the Noirceur once more. This is an effort that requires all of us, the four orders of the Haute, working together.” She gestured behind her at the clock. “I’ve seen what’s inside that tower. It’s an enemy like you’ve never faced. Something that can’t be manipulated. Can’t be stabbed. Can’t be charmed with spells.”
Prince Sorin’s expression was tight. “Can it be swept up with a broom, little maid?”
Beau turned on the prince and gave him a smart clip on the jaw. Sorin stumbled back into a display of ballet flats, clutching his chin.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a maid,” Beau said.
“He’s right.” Rennar folded his arms. “Anyway, she’s your princess now. The beasties are our allies. Disrespect them again and I’ll throw the next punch.”
This silenced the Royals, though Beau went broody, not liking Rennar stealing his thunder. Anouk ignored their pissing match and laid out the plan as concisely as she could: They would divide into teams, go through each of London’s inner neighborhoods, and use Cricket’s new stealing spell to transfer every clock to a pile at the base of Big Ben. Grandfather clocks, church-spire clocks, wristwatches, alarm clocks, ovens with digital clocks. Once all the clocks were gathered, they would join in a kindred spell to trap and contain the Noirceur into the Heart of Alexandrite. At the same time, to protect them from the worst of the poison smoke, Hunter Black would scale Big Ben and seal the windows. Meanwhile, Beau would ride the Genevar motorcycle with one of the Goblin’s portable audio players strapped to the back, drawing the noxious smoke out of the city with music blaring. They didn’t need to contain the smoke, just get rid of it.
December’s eyes grew wide at the idea of saving the world with rock music. “Consider the Goblins in.”
Rennar turned to Cricket. Under his breath, quietly enough that only Anouk and the others gathered closely could hear, he asked, “You truly penned such a stealing spell?”
Cricket looked offended. “You don’t think I can?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think if it’s true.”
Cricket rolled her eyes, but he’d challenged her, and to prove it, she quietly whispered the spell to him while the rest of the group argued about which neighborhoods they’d take.
Suddenly, the Goblin with golden dreadlocks cried out, “My watch!” Then the Goblin girl with the rose tattoos did the same. Soon all of the Goblins were grabbing for their pocket watches in a panic, finding nothing at the end of their watch chains.
“Calm down! I’m just proving a point!” Cricket pointed to a display table near the stairs. Every one of the Goblins’ watches was stacked in a tidy pile amid the Chanel loafers. A few Goblins cried out in relief. “See? The transference spell works.”
Rennar’s expression was unreadable, as though something about Cricket’s performance had troubled him. “It’s a clever spell, but there’s a problem. The spell requires the caster to know what is being stolen. An easy enough feat when it’s limited to all the pocket watches in a single room. But we cannot possibly know where all the clocks in London are.”
The chatter in the crowd turned sharper. Dissenting voices began to grow louder. Sweat broke out on Anouk’s temples. Those old fears came back to her.
Failure.
It sounded almost like a real whisper, and she twisted around sharply and stared at the bright round clock face across the street. The two clock hands kept inching forward, and with each tick, she felt her muscles tensing. Suddenly she was back in the Cottage, feeling Frederika’s wild eyes on her, inescapable. Reliving the awful final moments of Esme and Marta and Frederika and Heida. How Lise had cried out when her sister burned.
“We need a sister spell,” she blurted out, surprising the others so much that they quieted.
Unlike what she’d first assumed, a sister spell didn’t involve a pair of related witches—it involved a pair of related spells. Sister spells weren’t common. They required not only a team of magic handlers working together—and when had magic handlers ever managed to coordinate on anything?—but also more than one spell. Casting two spells simultaneously was dangerous work that involved weaving together the spells word by word.
Queen Violante stroked her chin. “A sight spell to pair with the stealing spell. A spell that would allow us to see every clock so that we could then bind it with Cricket’s spell.” She waved over Prince Aleksi to discuss the possibilities, then called in Petra for her advice, then brought Luc over so he could tell them about available forms of life-essences.
While they were conferring, Rennar moved to stand next to Anouk and said quietly, “What has Cricket told you about this spell of hers?”
“What do you mean? It’s just as she said, a stealing spell. I’ve seen her use it. Here, with the watches, and in Castle Ides and at the British Museum.”
He peered at her intensely. “What was she stealing?”
Anouk shrugged. “Meaningless things. Old artifacts. Pottery bowls. Some artwork. Why? I assumed she was practicing her spell on anything at hand.” Even as she said it, though, she knew how unlikely it sounded. Cricket wasn’t the kind to steal worthless trifles when treasures abounded.
“You don’t see what I see,” Rennar warned. “She has a reason for creating that spell that she’s not telling you. It goes beyond merely stealing for the joy of it. She used the words Ut vol fer rein ut deux.”
“That just means ‘move from one place to another’ in the Selentium Vox.”
“Not exactly. Fer is used only in reference to people. Pas is for objects.” He paused and looked at her, as though that meant something serious. At Anouk’s blank expression, he explained, “It’s people she wants to find and move, not objects.”
Anouk knit her brows together. “She just doesn’t know the Selentium Vox as well as you do. She hasn’t spent centuries casting whispers. It’s a simple mistake. What does it matter, anyway? It worked on the Goblins’ watches, didn’t it?”
“I’m not concerned with whether or not it worked, I’m concerned with why she chose the words she chose.”
“You think she’s up to something?”
“You don’t?”
She frowned. If she was being honest, then of course she did. Cricket was always up to something. But Cricket was also clever and smart and fair and would never do anything to harm anyone who didn’t deserve it. If Cricket was keeping her spell secret, it was for a good reason. “She’s my friend,” Anouk said firmly.
Before Rennar could suggest anything more, the arguments among the Royals rose in tenor. Queen Violante scoffed at Prince Aleksi and asked, “And who is going to be willing to do that?”
“If you want the sight spell,” he told her, “that’s what it will take.”
Anouk’s ears perked up. “What will it take?”
“Sight,” Prince Aleksi replied.
“He means that literally,” Violante explained. “The prince wants one of us to give up our vision. The Selentium Vox requires it as part of the elixir. Someone must voluntarily go blind. Any takers? Ah, you see? I thought not.”
Aleksi said haltingly, “It would be only temporary. Once the spell is finished, we will return the vision to its owner.” He paused. “Of course, no one’s ever performed this spell before. So that’s theoretical.”
Anouk felt sick. “If it isn’t certain, then we can’t ask anyone to—”
“I’ll do it,” a voice at her side said.
Anouk closed her eyes. She wished she could turn back time. She opened her eyes and gave Beau a hard look. “Beau, you can’t.”
“I
t’s my offer to make.”
She let out a groan. “There’s no guarantee they’ll be able to return your sight to you.”
“There’s no guarantee we won’t all be swallowed by the Noirceur,” he said. “Life doesn’t come with guarantees, cabbage. What choice do we have, anyway?” He went over the logic of his plan. “Everyone who can cast a half-decent whisper is needed to gather the clocks and join in the kindred spell. That includes you and Petra. We need Cricket to steal the Heart of Alexandrite. We need Luc to mix enough elixir for hundreds of magic handlers. We need Hunter Black to scale the tower. What magic can I do? That one blasted sleeping spell? That isn’t going to get us out of a bind this time.” His face darkened. “It has to be me.”
She shook her head. “We need someone who can ride that Genevar motorcycle around the city to draw out the smoke.”
“Yeah,” he said plainly. “You, cabbage.”
She blinked, shocked. “I can’t drive.”
“Well, not yet.”
She pressed her lips together. Outside, across the park, the storm clouds surrounding Big Ben were rumbling. She went to the window. The smoke below was now three feet high, swallowing sidewalks and shrubs, bumping up against the revolving door. She crossed the shoe department to the balcony that looked down over the five-story atrium. As she feared, black ribbons of smoke were seeping through the revolving door into the store.
She felt Beau’s presence at her side. He wordlessly looked over the balcony, and Cricket did too, both of their faces tight with apprehension.
“Okay,” Anouk said haltingly. “I don’t like it, for the record. Cricket, stay here. Teach the others how to cast your stealing spell.”
Cricket looked at Anouk and Beau. “Where are you going to be?”
Anouk let out a long breath. “I’ll be outside, breaking my neck on a Genevar.”
Chapter 40
The Genevar motorcycle stood where they’d left it, on a side street between the British Museum and Piccadilly Circus. The boy straddling it wore a chrome helmet and a navy-blue pea coat with a scarf frozen mid-billow behind him. Ribbons of black smoke had spread even this far and now swirled in and out of the motorcycle wheels and around Anouk and Beau’s feet. She kicked at the street curb anxiously.
“We’ll have to get him off of there.” Beau attempted to gently pry the Pretty’s fingers off the handlebars.
Anouk kicked once more at the smoke. They were running out of time. She gave the Pretty a good solid shove. He tumbled off the seat and crashed onto the sidewalk, where he was nearly swallowed by the smoke. His hands and legs were still posed for driving, like a doll whose limbs only moved when repositioned.
“Anouk!”
“Well, we need his ride, and we don’t need him.” She threw a leg over the motorcycle, hoping she looked like she knew what she was doing. “Show me how this works.”
Beau knelt by the Pretty and patted the poor boy’s shoulder, then unfastened his helmet and handed it to Anouk. “Wear this. I’ve never heard of witches dying in traffic accidents but stranger things have happened.”
She buckled the helmet under her chin as he climbed on behind her. His body was solid. Settling against him felt like leaning into her favorite chair.
“First, take the handlebars.”
She gripped them with sweating palms. She tried not to focus on the smoke rising up to their knees.
“Not so tight. Easy. Like . . . like you’d hold a plum. Light enough not to bruise it, hard enough for a solid grip.”
She closed her eyes. She could almost taste the plum he was talking about. It made her think of summertime in the townhouse kitchen. Fruit tarts and jams. Sweet as the first time they’d kissed.
“Beau, I don’t like this,” she confessed, opening her eyes.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“No, I don’t mean the motorcycle. I mean this plan. You handing over your vision for the sake of a spell we aren’t even sure will work. You could be blind forever.”
He was quiet for a moment. The smoke at their feet was so thick she couldn’t see her shoes. Anouk couldn’t help but feel something tug inside of her—the dark thing that she’d tried to hide from her whole life. Even as the Gargoyle, she wasn’t free of it. If beasties had souls, as Rennar had said, then what was hers? Was it air? Was it wings? Or was it the same substance as the rising smoke?
Beau pressed his lips to her ear. “I don’t need vision. I told you when we crossed the Chunnel. My heart would know you anywhere.”
She felt tears at her eyes. She turned her head toward him. “Beau. Beau.”
Words couldn’t express what was in her heart. She tilted her mouth to fit against his. He leaned forward. He cupped her face with his hand, his palm rough against her cheek. She leaned into him, her back pressed into his chest. One of his hands curled around her middle and held her there against him, like he was afraid she might float away. She twisted around another inch to deepen the kiss.
“Anouk,” he breathed. “Be careful. The darkness . . . it calls to you. I see it.”
She pressed her forehead against his. At the sound of their voices, the smoke rose in tendrils around their knees.
His thumb traced over the apple of her cheek. “I’d give anything to be out there with you, protecting you, holding you back when it calls to you. But I can’t be by your side this time.”
She swallowed. “I don’t know what it is, Beau. Something in the Noirceur pulling at me. Like two magnets pulling together, like the fastener on Mada Vittora’s ostrich clutch. Rennar said something about our souls being tied to nature, and the Noirceur is also nature, in a sense. Don’t you feel it too?”
He nodded. “I think I know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember being a dog in the Cottage cellar, but in a strange way, I remember a feeling of being there. Like it was a dream. I have a sense of girls telling me their hopes. Their fears. I think it was the other acolytes coming to visit me and give me treats—they needed someone to talk to. But out of all of us, you’re the most deeply connected to magic. You’re the one it attracts the most. Just be careful. I don’t plan for our story to end here.”
His lips found hers again. Beneath her hand pressed to his chest, she could feel his steady heartbeat. She ran her hand down his arm and rested her head against the crook of his neck. He turned to kiss her temple. Then he took her hand, placed a kiss on her knuckles, guided both of her hands back around, and clamped them firmly onto the motorcycle handles.
She sighed. “We really have to do this?”
“Make me proud, cabbage.”
In a few brief moments, he taught her how to start the ignition, how to use the clutch and front and rear brakes, how to signal, how to lean in to curves. His love for engines was palpable. Driving had been his greatest pleasure working under Mada Vittora, and he was a good teacher. When the lesson was finished, they climbed off the motorcycle, smoke swirling up to their knees, and she took his hand. She opened his fingers and laid his rough palm against her cheek.
“The blindness will only be temporary, Anouk,” he said softly.
“That’s what they say, but they wouldn’t hesitate to lie if they thought it’s what you needed to hear.”
He didn’t answer right away. Big Ben kept ticking away, the only sound in the city. He flicked an errant piece of ash off her cheek.
“My beautiful gargoyle.”
“What happened to ‘cabbage’?”
“I was wrong. You’re fierce and strong and terrifying and nothing to make soup with.”
She smiled and kissed him again.
* * *
Anouk drove them back to Pickwick and Rue’s on the Genevar motorcycle, a little wobbly at first, but by the time they pulled up to the revolving glass door, she’d more or less gotten the hang of it. Smoke had risen above their knees, and the entire park was obscured beneath it except for the tallest monuments. Upstairs in the department store, they discovered that everyone had been busy
mastering Cricket’s transference spell. They’d stacked high heels on one table and were whispering them to another table on the other side of the department. Steadily, the shoes transferred locations pair by pair.
Cricket set up the pair of fireball Louboutins and motioned for one of the Goblins to practice again. “Welcome back,” she said to Anouk. “The Goblins picked up the spell right away. It took the Royals longer. They’ve spent their lives mastering how to get other people to do their dirty work.” She gave a long eye roll. “But they got it in the end.”
Anouk felt a figure looming behind her and turned to find handsome Prince Aleksi. His eyes were fixed on Beau.
“It’s time, Master Chauffeur.”
Hunter Black and Cricket dragged an armchair up from the Home Goods department and placed it by the window, where, even without his vision, Beau would be able to hear the ticking of Big Ben and know if their attempt had been successful. Beau took a seat hesitantly, his fingers clutching the armrests.
Prince Aleksi placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Do you have a high tolerance for pain?”
Beau’s face paled a shade. “Just do it.”
With a touch of orange powder on his lips, Prince Aleksi whispered the spell to capture Beau’s vision. His words were uttered as solemnly as a prayer, and Anouk felt like she was back in the Cottage’s great hall with its vaulted ceiling that had once been part of a church, Esme praying softly by the fireplace. Oh, Esme. It was horrid to think of her gone. Marta and Heida and Frederika too.
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