Grim Lovelies

by Megan Shepherd

  “I don’t mind,” Petra said quietly.

  Anouk realized that Petra, as a witch’s girl, must have a bloodletting chair just like Viggo’s. She felt a sudden protectiveness for this girl who was willing to drain pints of her blood for them.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Mada Zola said, “but without the wording of the spell itself, no amount of blood will keep them from turning back.”

  “Mada Vittora had the spell,” Anouk said in a rush. “We could go back to Paris and fetch it.”

  Mada Zola shook her head. “Written spells die with their witch. Her copy will be nothing but ash now. The Royals have a copy, but spells of that magnitude are kept in only one place: the spell library at Castle Ides. Only members of the Haute who have invitations can access them. I had an invitation, but it was revoked with my banishment.” She motioned to the delicate bracelet on her wrist; it looked like jewelry but was, in fact, the bond of her imprisonment. “One step beyond the fields and I turn to dust.” She swiped a finger along the top of a cabinet, coming away with a fine coating of dust that sizzled when she brushed it into the fire.

  “But we have only a few days left.” Anouk fingered the clock in her pocket with a growing sense of panic. “You mean everything we’ve risked is for nothing?” She shook her head violently. “It can’t all just be lost.”

  The witch looked at her with pity. “How much time do you have left?”

  Beau said quietly, “About fifty-two hours.”

  “Then it isn’t over yet. There might be a way to extend your enchantment without the original spell, some alternative trick.”

  Anouk found it hard to take comfort from the witch’s words. How many hollow promises had Mada Vittora made her? Her mood turned sour, nasty. Witches were tricky. “We can repay you, if that’s what this is about. We can serve you like we served our last mistress. I’m a wonder with a mop. I make a good quiche too.” She didn’t mean for her words to sound as bitter as they did.

  A log popped in the fire. Mada Zola eyed the three of them for a long time.

  “Quiche. Mops.” There was an oddly electric look in her eyes. “You poor dearies. You don’t have a clue what you really are, do you?”

  Anouk’s breathing felt too fast. A distant voice was ringing in her ears, Prince Rennar standing in Mada Vittora’s foyer, leaning toward her with those fathomless blue eyes and unsettling words on his lips. You aren’t made for sweeping floors, little beastie.

  From every wall, his face watched, his eyes finding hers over and over. She knew that whatever Mada Zola was about to tell them was what Rennar had been referring to. The great mystery, revealed.

  The next few words were about to change their lives forever.

  Chapter 15

  Two Days and Three Hours of Enchantment Remain

  “We know what we are,” Beau said tensely.

  Mada Zola gave him an unmistakably pitying look. “Do you?”

  She motioned to the walls of portraits, which, in the flickering firelight, played tricks on Anouk’s eyes. The skin tones, ranging from pale white to reddish brown, looked more like real flesh than paint. Mada Zola pointed to a small portrait of a woman—​an ancient witch, judging by her long blue gown—​poised on high castle walls above the sea.

  “The beastie spell is centuries old. Until you were discovered, the last beasties that anyone knew of lived in Dubrovnik in the mid-1800s. The Sea-Salt Witch of Babin Kuk enchanted seals into beautiful women whom she used to lure sailors and their cargo to her fortress. She called those beasties selkas. But those all died out long ago. After that, the spell was lost to everyone but the Shadow Royals. I don’t know how Mada Vittora got her hands on a copy of it, but she did, and she clearly didn’t understand its power. She was a fool to think it was meant for creating house servants. The Royals would have stopped her if they’d found out, but their kingdom is vast and they can be, well, aloof. They aren’t in the habit of taking a second look at maids. In any case, they had no intention of allowing beasties to be made again. Not after what happened to the others.”

  “What happened to them?” Beau asked hesitantly.

  “The selkas? Oh, the seal-women weren’t the problem. The Royals killed the last selkas before they could turn dangerous. It was the first ones, the original ones Prince Rennar made, that became, over time, unmanageable.”

  The word clouded the air like smoke.

  Mada Zola pointed to a portrait of the Shadow Royals that looked just like the one that hung in a gilded frame in the townhouse. There was Rennar and Lord and Lady Metham in the center, flanked by lesser Royals and a witch at the end of each row. They were in a vast library, all leather-bound books and gleaming brass balconies. In the background stood dozens of figures that weren’t painted in as much detail as the rest, maids and butlers—​enchanted Pretties—​dressed in black with their eyes averted. A few mischievous Goblins were peeking through doorways.

  “Do you know the three orders of the Haute?” Mada Zola asked.

  “The Royals, the witches, the Goblins,” Cricket answered. “The Royals and Goblins have been around at least as long as the Pretties have, evolving alongside them but hidden. Born of magic, like the Pretties are born of flesh. Witches are different. They’re born Pretty and undergo a change to make themselves magical. It’s dangerous. Most don’t survive.”

  Mada Zola smiled—​she had survived. Anouk noticed that Petra remained close-lipped during all of this, busying herself by picking thorns from her sweater. She was a witch’s girl and thus privy to the inner workings of the Haute, but she wasn’t of the Haute. She’d been born Pretty. Had a lifespan that would last decades, not centuries. That fact had rankled Viggo. Did it eat away at Petra too?

  If so, she hid it better.

  “And do you know about the vitae echo?” Mada Zola asked.

  Anouk felt a shiver as she thought of livers turned to stone, hearts to wood.

  “It is the way in which magic stays balanced,” Mada Zola explained. “Whenever handlers use magic to, say, heal a burn or open a locked door, they experience an echo. A consequence. A cost. Magic comes from consuming life, and life demands a tax in return. If it wasn’t for the vitae echo, our magic would be limitless.” She crossed the room to a painting of Pretties working with wooden contraptions.

  “In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Pretties developed more advanced technology, and it began to interfere with the Haute’s magic. We were able to adapt to most mechanical technologies created before that; there are certain motor engines and clockwork mechanics that do not hinder our spells. But electricity, ah. New technology like that throws our magic completely into chaos. Magic is thinning. And less magic to go around means more competition. Witches vying with one another for what power remains. Territory wars.” Anouk thought of how Vittora had fabricated a lie about insubordination to get Zola banished. “Prince Rennar foresaw this as far back as the late eighteenth century. He wanted to create something to rewrite the balance, as he knew technology would continue to grow. Something powerful enough that it wouldn’t be limited by the vitae echo.”

  Her eyes flashed brighter. “Rennar wasn’t a prince then, not yet. He was a spell-scribe with an idea. He wrote a spell to create a fourth order: beasties.”

  None of the portraits showed mice or horses or women with skins of seal, and the witch’s eyes shifted to the three of them. As though they were painted figures come to life that needed no gilded frames.

  Her lips stretched into a smile. “Prince Rennar’s intention was that beasties would look human—​be human, on almost all counts—​but that their souls, as animals, would reside in the natural world. The vitae echo, you see, is uniquely tied to the human world: the world of morals and sin. By contrast, the natural world lies outside of the echo. There is no sin for beasties, because you are not moral creatures but natural ones. And thus you are not bound by the vitae echo. Rennar believed this would make you limitless in his attempts to right the balance of power. He
created your kind as saviors.”

  Anouk studied the portrait of Rennar, trying to discern the truth, but it was only a facsimile of him. His painted eyes so darkly teasing, almost as real as the eyes of the boy who’d stood on her doorstep, but not quite. Only the real Rennar could answer the still-forming questions in her head. A shiver of vertigo washed over her and she touched her brow, felt something like the start of a fever. She rested her forehead against the cool glass of a window.

  “You’re saying we can do magic?” Cricket’s voice was skeptical, but Anouk knew she believed the same thing.

  “My dearie, I don’t think you understand. I’m not talking about cheap magic that even Goblins can do. I’m saying that beasties are the most powerful order of the Haute. More powerful, even, than the Royals who made them. You can take life without repercussions and thus wield unheard-of magic.”

  None of them spoke. All those painted eyes. All of him. The most powerful order? She was a girl who spent her days dreamily gazing out windows, making frosted cakes just so Beau could lick the spoon, listening to Luc tell her stories. A maid, not a magic handler, and certainly no one’s savior.

  Had Vittora really never known this?

  Beau was facing away from the fireplace, his expression lost to shadows. He seemed oddly distant. He suddenly grabbed his gloves from the entry table.

  “Lies,” he spat. “She’s a liar, just like Mada Vittora. Come on, Anouk. Cricket. We’re getting out of here.”

  He grabbed Anouk’s hand and started to pull her down the hallway into the foyer.

  “Beau, stop!” Anouk wrested her hand away. “I’m not leaving.”

  “I’m begging you,” he said, lowering his voice. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just like Mada Vittora. Before he disappeared, Luc—” He stopped short as though thinking better of what he’d been about to say.

  “What about Luc?” When he didn’t answer, Anouk pressed. “Do you know where he is? Is he here?” When he still didn’t answer, she hissed, “You’ve treated me with kid gloves my whole life, Beau. Be honest with me now. I can take it.”

  Beau looked away as though he didn’t like this fiercer version of Anouk. “I only know that Luc didn’t trust Mada Vittora. You loved her too much to see it, but Luc saw it, and Cricket did, and so did I. And I’m telling you that I see that same glimmer of scheming now. That witch’s words are honeyed poison.”

  “But I think I can do magic,” she insisted. “In the closet, I whispered for us to be protected and it worked.”

  He ran a hand over his short hair. “Listen. I watched Mada Vittora beat Luc. I watched her let Viggo try to put his hands all over Cricket. I watched her cut off your toes, Anouk! And all that time, I did nothing. I let Luc handle it all. But he needed help as much as we did.” His eyes were full of ghosts. “In the car on the way here, there was something I was trying to tell you.”

  The fairy tale of the peasant boy and the princess—​she hadn’t forgotten.

  He took her hand and the tension broke. He was gentle now, and more than a little bit awkward. “I wasted our time together being too much of an idiot to tell you. In Luc’s story, do you remember what the peasant boy says to the princess in the end?”

  “‘Only a fool would risk a monster’s impalement for love,’” she recited, “‘and I’m a fool.’”

  He squeezed her hand, his blue eyes searching hers. “I’m a fool, Anouk.”

  She wanted to stuff her hands in her pockets, find some charm to tell her what to say. The knife. The mint. The clock. Useless. She closed her eyes.

  “Beau . . .”

  “Like Cricket said, we only have each other now. You’re my princess, Anouk. I’ve loved you since the first time I wiped a streak of dust off your face. And I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  Her hand felt shaky in his. He loved her? He’d joked about such things, always giving her messy kisses on the cheek. She’d never quite realized that it wasn’t all in jest.

  He cupped her face, leaning in, and for a second she thought he might kiss her. But he whispered, “I’m telling you this so you know why we have to leave.”

  “She isn’t like Mada Vittora,” Anouk insisted. “There aren’t servants here. She’s broken the rules to have a daughter, not a son. Cricket trusts her, at least a little.”

  “Cricket just wants to learn dark spells so that she can slice the Royals into little pieces.”

  Anouk fingered the mint deep in her pocket, worried nearly to dust. “What if Zola could prove it to us?”

  “Prove that we’re more powerful than the Haute? How?”

  “I have an idea.”

  He didn’t look convinced. In fact, he looked like he might throw her over his shoulder and carry her kicking and screaming to the car. But he didn’t, and it dawned on her that something had changed between them in the past few minutes, some subtle shift of power, and she knew without having to ask that he would do whatever she requested of him. It was a power she hadn’t asked for, wasn’t even sure she wanted.

  But it was there.

  “Trust me, Beau.”

  She stood on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek and felt him shudder with longing in response. He didn’t argue as she led him back to the sitting room. Mada Zola stood from the armchair. For a small woman, she had a way of filling every corner of the room like a clap of rolling thunder.

  Anouk pointed to the fire. “Teach me a spell, witch.”

  Chapter 16

  Two Days and Two Hours of Enchantment Remain

  Mada Zola smiled slowly. “Very well, but not the fire trick. That one’s finicky.”

  She went to a bouquet of red roses and plucked off the fattest blossom. The firelight cast shadows over half her face, and Anouk felt herself drawn to the witch all the more. Mada Zola held the rose out in open palms.

  “Take it, dearie. We aren’t allowed powder in this house, but not all spells require such complexity. Sometimes a simple rose can do the job.”

  Anouk hesitated, but she’d gotten them into this and she couldn’t change her mind now. She popped the rose in her mouth. The petals felt wrong against her tongue, like she was eating perfumed silk. She forced it down.

  Mada Zola nodded. “A rose alone isn’t enough to perform most enchantments, but it can create a light breeze. Make someone forget what he was about to say.” She looked at Beau. “Put someone to sleep, like your handsome friend.”

  Beau grunted. “Why do I have to be the victim?”

  Mada Zola ignored him and rested her hands on Anouk’s shoulders. “Feel the life of the flower spreading through you. From your stomach to your throat to your tongue to your fingertips. And whisper after me: Dorma, dorma, sonora precimo.”

  Anouk paused. “Are you okay with this, Beau?”

  He muttered, “Go ahead.” For all the resignation in his voice, there was a trace of curiosity too.

  Anouk’s throat felt scratched raw from the rose, and yet the pain had woken her body in some way. She closed her eyes, raised her fingertips, and whispered, “Dorma, dorma, sonora precimo.”

  “I don’t feel anything. You—” Beau collapsed to the oriental rug. It happened in less than half a breath. His head hit the edge of a chair as he fell but he didn’t cry out, didn’t move. It was so fast that Anouk had barely finished speaking.

  “Beau!” She dropped to her knees. She held her breath until he suddenly shuddered and let out a raking snore, and she sighed with relief.

  “You did it!” Cricket whirled on Petra. “Give me one of those roses.”

  Petra held her back from the vase. “Who are you going to enchant? We can’t have all of you passed out and useless.” But Cricket was fast enough to grab a rose anyway; she stuffed it in her mouth and coughed out something vaguely resembling the spell. Nothing happened.

  Petra smirked. “They call it the Silent Tongue for a reason. Not the Yawping Squawk.”

  Cricket narrowed her eyes as she spat out chewed-up petals.

/>   Anouk stroked Beau’s hair, worried, and looked up at the witch. “How long will he be out?”

  “Until morning, I’d imagine,” said Mada Zola. “It was a large rose.”

  Despite herself, a part of Anouk felt relieved. No more of Beau trying to drag her back to the car, and the thought made her feel guilty. She brushed a clump of dust out of his hair.

  “We’ll put him to bed in the west bedroom,” Mada Zola said. “He’ll be safe there until he wakes.” She rested one hand on Anouk’s shoulder and the other on Cricket’s. “You should rest, too, dearies, though I know it won’t be easy. You look dead on your feet.”

  “I want to try that spell again,” Cricket said.

  “Patience, dearie. Patience.” The witch made a small tsk noise. “You can’t do magic properly if you don’t have a rested mind.”

  “But I could help you look through spell books—” Cricket insisted.

  “No.” Mada Zola’s voice was firm, but then she softened it with a gentle pat on first Cricket’s and then Anouk’s cheek. She turned to Petra. “Show them to the bedroom.”

  Petra was already picking up Beau’s feet. Anouk and Cricket had little choice but to help her hoist him up, and groaning under his weight, the three girls carried him down the hallway and up a flight of stairs to a bedroom. They placed him on the bed.

  Petra handed Anouk a gas lamp. “Good night. Try to sleep. Did you know you have a streak of dust on your face?”

  Anouk sighed. “Always.” She swiped her sleeve over her cheek and then fluffed the pillow under Beau’s head. He felt warm. She went to open a window. The clouds were heavy, casting a murky glow over the fields. She sucked in a breath as she caught sight of a tremor of movement in the fields. “Petra, there’s something out there!”

  Petra, unconcerned, lit another gas lamp for them. “Those are just the gardeners. They tend to the flowers at night.”

  “I thought you said you two were alone here.”

  “We are,” Petra answered.