Grim Lovelies

by Megan Shepherd

  She closed her eyes. What would she lose if she failed? No more beautiful couture jackets. No more fairy tales. No more cooking, smiling, laughing.

  Only darkness.

  She shivered awake with a jolt. How long had she slept? She glanced at the clock—​it was past noon. It was stormy as they returned to the city. On the horizon, the distant lights of Paris lit up the clouds.

  Beau adjusted the rearview mirror. “We’ll be there soon.”

  A crow flew by overhead, casting a shadow on the car.

  When they had left—​had it really been only forty-eight hours ago?—​she’d felt as though she were hurtling through some twisted dream world.

  And now?

  Only two days had passed, and yet those days had changed everything. She wasn’t anyone’s servant. She stroked the sleeves of her jacket; her battle armor, her second skin.

  Rain slapped against the windshield, blurring the city into a kaleidoscope of streetlights. The streets were empty of everything except black umbrellas that hid faces. Beau circled a roundabout.

  “That’s it ahead.”

  She jumped as Viggo thrust himself between the front seats, jabbing a finger toward a gray stone building lit up in the rain. The Champs-Élysées was lined with edifices, each more impressive than the last: international banks, luxury hotels, boutiques that catered only to the wealthy. But Castle Ides stood alone. Set back from the street behind a black iron fence, ten stories high, it looked more like a seventeenth-century fortress than a castle, despite its name. The windshield wipers swept back and forth steadily, giving them brief glimpses of the structure before the rain obscured it again. The building looked darker than it had in Mada Zola’s paintings.

  “Scrying crows,” Hunter Black said, answering the question in her head. Hundreds—​thousands—​of crows perched on every rail and foothold of the building, blackening it with glossy feathers. She had to press her hands against her ears to filter out that incessant chattering. Didn’t the Pretties hear it? But the ones outside, hunkered under umbrellas, went about their day as usual. Anouk felt a chill. The Haute wielded power over the Pretties, but the Pretties greatly outnumbered magic handlers. If the enchantments were broken, what would happen? If the Pretties’ technology continued to grow, would it render magic obsolete? Would the entire Haute become nothing but a memory?

  “Is it always like this?” Anouk yelled above the din.

  “No,” Viggo answered. “It’s because of Mada Vittora’s death. The whole city is in chaos now.”

  Rain pelted the car. If the crows felt the rain, they didn’t care. They let it roll off their waxed wings, squawking and whispering and climbing over one another in a tangle of sharp little beaks.

  Beau stopped the car. The engine rumbled. The windshield wipers went back and forth. Anouk peered out the window at the imposing entrance with its the heavy iron doors. Two crows flew away from a sign that warned away visitors, though Anouk imagined stronger magic was also at work to keep out any curious Pretties. The sign read:

  The Ides Club

  Invitation Required

  The clock clicked to one o’clock in the afternoon.

  “Ready?” Anouk said.

  Beau tugged gently on her sleeve, and she realized she was still wearing the Faustine jacket, clutching it hard enough to almost tear the fabric. She shed it reluctantly. Cricket’s hair was smoothed back, her face scrubbed of black eyeliner. She looked different; younger, softer. It rankled Anouk—​they shouldn’t ever have to be anything other than themselves.

  “Ready,” Cricket said, brandishing the feather duster.

  Cricket and Viggo and Hunter Black climbed out the back. She reached for the handle, but Beau stopped her.

  “Wait.”

  The rain kept pelting the car, the windshield wipers sweeping it away. She felt as though they were back in that car wash in the Marais where he’d promised her that everything would be okay.

  He reached into his pocket. “For luck.”

  He handed her the franc coin she’d found in the Château des Mille Fleurs.

  She gasped. “Luc’s coin.”

  “You left it on the dresser. I thought you’d want it with you. This way it’s almost like he’s still watching over you.”

  She leaned across the dash and planted a soft kiss on his cheek.

  “Thank you, Beau.”

  “Be careful, cabbage. Come back to me.”

  “Always.”

  She strung the coin on the chain around her neck, took her broom, and climbed out of the car into the rain. It was cold, and she dashed to the covered porch where the others waited, collars turned up against the rain: a thief, a witch’s boy, and an assassin.

  The crows’ whispers paired with the rain were deafening. Slick oil puddled in the driveway, its swirling colors the only brightness on the gray afternoon. Thunder cracked, and a flock of the crows alighted on a statue by the front door. Rennar’s granite face looked out over Paris. She shivered again.

  “After you, my love,” Viggo said.

  He held open the heavy iron door. The others hunched in the rain, waiting for her. She darted inside. The foyer was startlingly bright. White marble floors, white columns, white molding on the ceiling. Even the gaslight chandeliers were glitteringly bright. A wall of glass cut through the center of the room, separating them from the steam-powered elevator and broken only by two small vents at the top and a glass turnstile in the center.

  “They must have a good maid,” Cricket observed of the pristine room.

  “Shh.” Anouk nudged Cricket, nodding toward a woman sitting at a reception desk. Another woman stood to the side of the turnstile. They were both very pale—​as colorless as the walls—​and very still, with identical white-blond hair and ivory suits that were heavily starched. Neither of the women acknowledged them as they approached, and a creeping feeling spread up Anouk’s back. There was something wrong with them. They didn’t move.

  “Don’t worry,” said Viggo. “Say whatever you like. They can’t hear us. None of them are real.” He gestured to two more women on the far side of the glass that Anouk hadn’t noticed.

  “What do you mean, not real?”

  He fumbled in his pockets for his invitation. “These are the Marble Ladies. They’re enchanted statues. They don’t think or care what we say as long as we have an invitation.” He found his invitation and presented it with a flourish. The woman at the desk snapped to attention with mechanical precision, inspected his invitation, and then abruptly stood.

  Anouk gasped. The woman’s back . . . it simply wasn’t there. The receptionist was only half a person—​the front half—​like a relief statue carved from a block of stone.

  “What if it doesn’t work?” Anouk whispered.

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  Slowly, the receptionist’s white eyes lifted to Viggo. “Welcome, monsieur.”

  Viggo smirked and started to enter the turnstile, followed by his shadow, Hunter Black. But the receptionist slammed a hand into Hunter Black’s chest with enough force that the air rushed from his lungs. Another one of the ladies lunged out of the shadows and grabbed Cricket’s wrist.

  Viggo stepped back from the turnstile.

  “Hey, relax!” he said, making a calming motion and gesturing between himself and the others. “They’re with me.”

  “I must inform you that the rules have changed, monsieur,” the woman said mechanically. “No guests.”

  The two other Marble Ladies near the elevator stepped closer to the opposite side of the glass wall, one under each of the vents. They were a foot taller than even Beau and wider by a hand’s width.

  “But it’s Hunter Black,” Viggo said. “He always accompanies me. And the others are—”

  “This change in policy is a direct order from the head of the Haute,” the Marble Lady continued as though he hadn’t spoken. “The building is under tighter security. We cannot allow in anyone who does not personally have an invitation.�
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  Viggo glanced back at Anouk. “Any ideas, my love?”

  Anouk thought. The glass wall prevented them from making a mad dash to the elevator, and it was too high to climb over. In every good recipe, there had to be adaptation. Room to substitute one ingredient for another, adjustments to be made in the event of a pot boiling over or a shortage of salt. She could do this.

  Do you want to hear a story? Luc’s voice came to her, and just like that she was back in her turret bedroom, cuddled under a quilt as thunder cracked outside, Luc sitting cross-legged on the foot of her bed with a mug of tea that steamed delicate tendrils around his face. Once upon a time there was a girl locked in a thousand-foot glass tower. The prince of a warring country intended to keep her there until she agreed to marry him. No way out, no way down, not even bed sheets to tie together for a rope. Luc had smiled. Do you want to know how she escaped?

  Anouk thought of the story, of the girl, and inspected the wall of glass keeping them from the elevator. “I have an idea,” she said, eyeing the stiff Marble Ladies. “But you aren’t going to like it.”

  Chapter 22

  Ten and a Half Hours of Enchantment Remain

  As soon as Anouk told them her idea, both Cricket and Hunter Black scoffed.

  “I told you that you wouldn’t like it,” Anouk replied, then warily eyed the Marble Ladies on the opposite side of the glass wall. “You’re sure they can’t hear me?”

  “No ears,” Viggo said.

  He was right—​their carved hair covered the place where ears would have been.

  “Well,” Anouk said, “the invitation will let in one person, the bearer of the invitation. But here’s the thing—​it doesn’t specify who. So we go in one at a time, then pass the invitation back to the next person.”

  “We can’t pass an invitation through a glass wall,” Cricket said. “And the Marble Ladies are too close to the turnstile for us to pass it through that way.”

  “That’s the trick. It’s like Luc’s fairy tale about the girl in the thousand-foot tower. Remember how she got out?”

  Cricket shook her head, looking blank. “Luc never told me that one.”

  Hunter Black groaned—​he clearly knew it, and he knew what Anouk was referring to.

  “You and Hunter Black have to work together,” Anouk explained. “In the story, the girl is an excellent climber, but she can’t escape on her own—​the glass walls are too smooth to climb down, and the trapdoor to the tower roof is too high. So she comes up with a plan, and the next time the prince comes to ask her to marry him, she drugs him with willow bark scraped from the bedposts, then leans his sleeping body against the wall and uses it to climb to the roof. She’s rescued by something, then. A dragon, I think.”

  “A griffin,” Hunter Black corrected her. “At least get the details right.”

  Anouk rolled her eyes. “Well, I propose the same. We can’t climb sheer glass, but we can climb them—​the Marble Ladies. You’re both in excellent physical shape. Hunter Black, you go through the turnstile, then climb up the Marble Lady on the opposite wall and pass the invitation through that vent back to Cricket on the other side. We don’t dare drop it—​it could get sucked up in the elevator machinery. She’ll give it to Viggo to go through, and we’ll repeat everything, and then I’ll go through, and then Cricket.”

  Cricket snorted. “Climb those freaky statues? That’s a death wish.”

  “You heard Viggo,” Anouk continued. “As long as we obey the rules, they won’t interfere. And we aren’t breaking any rules. Besides, I’ve seen you scale the courtyard wall just to break into the kitchen and steal a slice of cake. You’re an excellent climber.”

  “Fine,” Cricket said. She ripped the veil off her head and stuffed it in her apron. “Hold this.” She shoved the feather duster into Viggo’s hands and then, after flexing her fingers a few times, she grabbed the nearest Marble Lady’s shoulders and set a foot in the stiff crook of her arm. She whispered a prayer as she climbed. She stepped on the statue’s shoulder, then on her head, and reached the vent.

  Anouk took the invitation from Viggo and handed it to Hunter Black. “Your turn.”

  He presented it to the Marble Lady by the desk, who smiled mechanically. “Welcome, monsieur.”

  He passed through the turnstile. His grumbles were audible as he rested his hands on the shoulders of the Marble Lady on the far side of the glass and lumbered up on top of her, struggling under the bulkiness of his heavy coat. With a grunt, he took it off. Beneath it he wore a surprisingly plain shirt. He looked younger without his shell against the world. He climbed to the top of the Marble Lady’s body and reached toward the vent. He could just manage to pass the invitation through to Cricket.

  She grabbed it and tossed it down.

  “Your turn, Viggo.”

  He passed through, and then they repeated the process, and Anouk went through.

  “Welcome, mademoiselle,” the Marble Lady said.

  Anouk was just handing the invitation to Hunter Black when the elevator dinged. The Marble Lady whose shoulder he was perched on suddenly turned toward the elevator, and he wobbled, barely holding on. She took a few strides toward the elevator and stopped there, waiting patiently by the controls. Hunter Black jumped off her shoulders and landed cleanly on the marble floor. Cricket’s Marble Lady turned sharply as well and returned to the reception desk. Frowning, Cricket climbed off of her.

  “Um . . . what now?” Cricket called.

  She was on the opposite side of the glass from the rest of them. With no Marble Ladies standing near the glass anymore, there was no way they could reach the vent to pass the invitation through.

  Anouk bit her lip, thinking, but none of Luc’s fairy tales offered a solution this time.

  Cricket cursed again. “Okay. The vent is too small for me to climb through, but it gives me an idea. Maybe I could make another vent. A hole. A bigger one closer to the ground.”

  “How?” Hunter Black asked skeptically.

  Cricket cracked her knuckles. “I didn’t learn that cutting whisper for nothing. I’ve only cast it on wood, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work on glass.”

  “Even if you can, coming in any way other than the turnstile is against the rules,” Viggo pointed out. “They’ll stop you.”

  “Ha, but they’ll have to catch me first. You all get in the elevator and hold it open.”

  Anouk hesitated. “No. It’s too risky.” But an idea was starting to form in her mind. If Cricket could use magic, maybe she could use magic too. “I’m not powerful enough to prevent the Marble Ladies from chasing you, but there is one simple trick I can do. A diversion spell. The same one I used in the closet to keep Hunter Black from noticing us.”

  Cricket eyed the glass wall, mapping out the cuts she would need to make. “Worth a shot. Ready?”

  Anouk nodded. She, Hunter Black, and Viggo piled into the tight elevator, which was made of mirror that reflected back their faces. There was a glittering chandelier overhead, and a panel of brass buttons, 1 through 8, and a single button above that labeled PENTHOUSE. ESCORTS REQUIRED.

  The doors started to close, but Hunter Black held them open.

  Cricket closed her eyes, swallowed a eucalyptus leaf, and began whispering in the Selentium Vox. An almost imperceptible line etched itself in the glass wall, turning at a 90-degree angle and then turning again until it was a rough square.

  “Get ready,” Cricket told them. She gave the glass a gentle tap with her finger.

  It hit the floor and shattered, sending broken glass everywhere.

  The spectacle didn’t go unnoticed by the Marble Ladies. As one, they stepped toward the glass wall.

  “Now, Anouk!” Cricket cried.

  Anouk hissed in a breath. She’d seen how fast the Marble Ladies had grabbed Hunter Black. If they seized Cricket with those stone hands . . . She thought of the bird she’d once seen caught under a car on Rue des Amants. Crushed.

  “Non avis ila, non a
vis ila, spero . . .”

  The Marble Ladies slowed but didn’t stop entirely, as though they had simultaneously realized they’d forgotten something important. Cricket moved fast—​first an elbow through the glass hole, then her head, left shoulder, then the right, then torso. Then she was through to her waist and had to suck in a breath to squeeze her hips through.

  As soon as she touched the floor, all four Marble Ladies’ heads whipped around as though they had felt the vibration. They all focused intently on her. No longer forgetful. Anouk’s spell was fading.

  “Hurry!” Anouk yelled.

  The Marble Ladies moved in a flash. The two by the elevator lunged toward Cricket with startling speed. The one by the desk shoved through the turnstile, coming after her. Cricket dodged the closest one, then jumped up onto the back of the other, using the momentum to spring high enough to reach the chandelier. The receptionist she’d used as a springboard reached for her but she twisted her feet out of the way just in time.

  Anouk whispered again. “Non avis nos, non avis nos, spero . . .”

  But they barely paused this time; the spell didn’t work the same on stone creatures as it had on Hunter Black.

  Cricket swung back and forth, building momentum, and then let go of the chandelier and went hurtling toward the elevator. The Marble Ladies lunged for her again, but she crashed into the elevator; Viggo and Anouk caught her as they all fell back against the mirrors.

  “Hunter Black, let the door close!”

  He released it. For a few seconds the steam-powered gears clanked, and Anouk felt her heartbeat pounding harder than it ever had before. The doors were closing too slowly. The Marble Ladies were coming for them too quickly. They were three steps away. Now two. Anouk brandished her broom, her only weapon. The door was still open two inches, then one, then . . .

  Closed.

  Cricket let out a cry of relief, sagging back against them.

  “Quick,” Anouk said. “Get ready. Put your veil back on.”