Grim Lovelies

by Megan Shepherd

  Cricket thrust the feather duster accusingly in Anouk’s general direction. “You look dangerously close to caring.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Incroyable. We needed Viggo to get us into Castle Ides, and here we are. Let Rennar carve him up into a ham, for all I care, and serve him with pineapple at Christmas.”

  “And Hunter Black? I gave him my word that the five of us would stick together. And besides, Viggo is here only because I’m here. I’m responsible for him. I can’t leave him to be tortured.”

  Cricket mumbled a curse under her breath. “Fine. We get the spell, and then—​only then—​rescue their pathetic derrières.”

  Anouk grinned.

  “Now.” Cricket ditched the feather duster and cracked her knuckles. “Prepare to watch the greatest thief in all the Haute perform the trickiest heist in history. Et voilà, the scene of the crime: the spell library of Castle Ides.”

  With a flourish, she opened the pair of gilded doors.

  Anouk felt a prickle of magic as she crossed the threshold. What a library. Nearly every inch from floor to ceiling was lined with shelves containing folios of every color: dusty reds and sea-green blues, faded yellows and darkest blacks. The ceilings must have been thirty feet high, buttressed with wrought-iron arches that made her think of the Eiffel Tower’s latticed curves. A balcony ran the full length of the room, and dozens of rolling library ladders stretched up to the very highest shelves. It smelled of crisp paper and older, mustier things: leather and long-held secrets. Rain pounded at the windows—​she’d forgotten about the storm.

  Spaced evenly in the library were three enormous glass cases. They emitted a mottled blue glow that gave the room a dreamlike cast, like it was underwater. Anouk rested her fingers on the closest case; inside, thousands of fireflies floated on gentle wings, locked in by a magic far beyond her ability to break.

  “Blue ghosts,” she said, remembering a book she’d read. “They’re only found in the Americas, and only for two weeks each year. They glow blue, not yellow. The light leads the Royals to the exact folio they’re looking for.”

  Cricket pressed her face to the case, looking unimpressed. “You’ve got the dragonfly?”

  Anouk held the jar to the light. The trapped dragonfly inside, its only movement a slight pulsing of its elongated body, might not have been magical or rare, but it had its own beauty.

  Anouk pulled out a chair at one of the mahogany library tables. “We’ll have to be fast. Rennar will be suspicious if we don’t deliver tea soon. Are you ready?”

  Cricket stretched her neck. “Always.”

  Anouk set her supplies on the table: the glass jar with the dragonfly, the pouch of floral herbs, the scrap of paper that contained the finding spell. This wasn’t like the simple whispers she’d cast before, sleeping spells so easy that even clumsy Beau could learn to do them. This was higher-level magic. Magic reserved for those who were born magical, like the Royals and the Goblins, or who were made magical through unendurable pain, like the witches. She’d heard rumors of the bleak, severe academies where human girls were trained to become witches. Only a small handful survived the final test, the coal baths, where excruciating black flames tore apart and rebuilt Pretty flesh into magical flesh. Who was she, an untrained, untested neophyte, to dare such a spell?

  She cleared her throat. Pinched the dusty floral herbs between her fingers and choked them down raw.

  She began the whisper. “Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia.”

  Nothing happened. The dragonfly rested immobile in the jar, its fractured eyes revealing nothing.

  Cricket glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow.

  Anouk cleared her throat. “Um . . . I must not have gotten the intonation right.”

  “I’d say take your time, but we don’t have any.”

  “Thanks.” Anouk swallowed down another pinch of the dry herbs. She closed her eyes and focused on the tastes: the sweetness of fennel, the bitter tang of bloodroot. They mixed with the library itself—​the moldering paper of the spells, the waxed floors—​and for the briefest instant, there was only one taste. Only one moment. Only one sensation, and it was magic.

  She whispered, “Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia.”

  The dragonfly started buzzing madly in the glass jar. Anouk’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the insect thrash so hard that the jar toppled over. The lid came off. Freed, the dragonfly shot into the air.

  “It’s loose,” Anouk cried, and then, “It worked!”

  The dragonfly flew straight up toward the arched ceiling, thirty feet high.

  “Merde,” Cricket cursed. “Keep an eye on it!”

  The dragonfly was a grain of sand tossed in the ocean; if they lost sight of it for even a second, they’d never find it again.

  With a burst of energy Cricket bolted for the closest ladder, climbed it two rungs at a time, then swung herself up and over the balcony railing like a trapeze artist.

  “Where did it go?” she yelled.

  “There!” Anouk pointed toward the east window. “To the upper windows.”

  “I’m on it. Holà, if I just knew a flying spell, this would be a breeze.”

  Cricket sprinted the length of the balcony, folios rustling in her wake. Anouk paced on the lower level, eyes fastened to the dragonfly as it whizzed as fast as a shooting star. Outside, the rain droned harder, in ripples of water like a typhoon. “There,” she cried. “Now it’s behind you!”

  Cricket dropped to all fours on the balcony, pushed off, and ran back the other way. Her pace was breakneck and yet she was almost completely silent. She moved like a ghost through a graveyard. Anouk would have felt awestruck if she hadn’t been so focused on not losing sight of the dragonfly.

  The insect swooped down over the tables, and Cricket grabbed the iron railing, jumped up and over, and landed gracefully on her feet.

  No wonder the Royals used the blue ghost fireflies. They’d be slow and ethereal, lazily lighting the way straight to the folio in question, not doing the mad chaotic dance of the dragonfly. Anouk glanced over her shoulder for a split second. Was Rennar consulting his watch and wondering where the two maids were with his tea?

  A chair toppled as Cricket leaped onto one of the tables, and Anouk spun back around. She searched the vast library space with a plunging sense of panic.

  “I lost it!” she gasped.

  “I haven’t,” Cricket answered, her attention focused eight feet off the ground near a set of shelves. She leaped on one of the golden ladders and climbed swiftly. “It’s fast. Holà, Anouk, give me a shove.”

  Anouk ran to the ladder and pushed it on its rolling tracks as Cricket focused intently. “Faster! No, wait, it’s going the other way. Back, back, back!”

  Anouk heaved the ladder in the other direction.

  “Stop!” Cricket yelled sharply.

  Anouk dug her heels into the floor, braking the ladder so fast that Cricket nearly lost her balance. But her reflexes were sharp; she climbed another rung and then held her hand over a dusty red folio seven shelves up. Anouk could just make out the dragonfly resting on its spine.

  “That’s it,” Anouk breathed. “The beastie spell.”

  Cricket shooed away the dragonfly, took down the folio, and hugged it to her chest as though it were some living, delicate thing. The blue ghost fireflies in their glass cases pulsed steadily, and as rain pelted the windows harder, Anouk once more felt overcome by that underwater sensation. Cricket climbed down, and Anouk took the folio from her with shaking hands. Such a simple thing. Bound red casing. A single page within. And yet it felt heavy in her arms.

  “People are going to write songs about this theft,” Cricket boasted. “Wait and see. Songs.”

  Anouk’s fingers itched to open the folio. She wanted to silently mouth the words that had made them. And yet it was already growing darker outside. A wet, stormy night was coming. She sniffed the air—​she smelled citrus and onion and, oddly, it made her thi
nk of Luc.

  She couldn’t resist. She cracked open the folio. A single page. Here was all that separated them from a lifetime of humanity. She’d cast magic before—​why not now? Zola herself had said beasties contained a vast magical ability, so why must a witch cast the spell and not her?

  A crow suddenly flapped against the outside window, cawing in sharp calls. “Time to go,” Cricket warned.

  Anouk ripped out the spell and rolled it into a tight cylinder that she stuffed into the hollow shaft of her broom. To even attempt the spell, she’d need herbs, wings, blood . . .

  The crow pecked sharply at the window outside. “We’d better get that tea,” she said. “And see if Viggo’s been turned into someone’s Christmas dinner yet.”

  Chapter 25

  Eight and a Half Hours of Enchantment Remain

  They dared not run. Maids don’t run, Anouk reminded herself. And that’s what they had to be now, furniture with legs, faceless girls concerned only with dust. But she clutched the broom hard in defiance.

  Maids didn’t steal either. Or cast magic, or rescue idiot witch’s boys, and yet here she was. They’d done it! She held their very lives in her hands, hidden in the hollow broom shaft. What would Beau say when she pressed the spell against the windshield? They’d fly back to Montélimar as if the car had wings. Let the crows chase them. Let the whispers and rumors nip at their heels. It didn’t matter. As the stars came out, they would stand in the Château des Mille Fleurs’ gardens, and Mada Zola would take these stolen words and make them human forever, one by one. Wherever Luc was, he would feel the magic of it too. And she’d find him. She would. If she could steal this spell from Castle Ides, she could do anything.

  Little dust bunny, Luc would say, and he’d lick his thumb and wipe away the perpetual streak of dust on her cheek. You saved me when I thought you were the one in need of saving.

  She had to lower the lace veil to hide the smile on her face. “Which way is the kitchen?”

  Cricket discreetly rolled up her sleeve and consulted the map on her forearm. “The hallway on the right, beneath the arch, second door on the left. Unless it’s past four o’clock. Then it’s the third door.”

  An ancient grandfather clock sat beneath an arch, and Anouk checked the hour, but for once she didn’t feel shackled to its ticking and tocking. They had the spell. They had enough time for Mada Zola to cast it—​though only just. All that was left now was to warn Viggo, get to the elevator and down to Beau.

  The familiar aroma of baking bread and garlic led her to the kitchen. The penthouse kitchen was massive, and so crowded with cooks and maids and butlers that she and Cricket had to squeeze their way in. Steam rose from large pans on monstrous twin ovens. A gaggle of girls rolled dough, stamping Rennar’s crest into the crust. Cricket slowed, uncertain of the unspoken rules of a kitchen, but Anouk threw herself into the mess, expertly ducking pans, swerving around butlers carrying crates of wine. She spotted a stack of copper trays and grabbed one, hunted up a teakettle, sniffed out the éclairs, and arranged them prettily on the tray. She pulled a sharp knife from the wooden butcher’s block, hesitating only briefly before setting it next to the éclairs. Her hands knew the motions by heart: boil water, collect sugar cubes and cream, scoop out the tea—​

  She paused at the row of labeled tea canisters.

  Lavender.

  Bergamot.

  Lavender to signal that they’d successfully stolen the spell and they should all meet at the elevator. Bergamot to mean that something had gone wrong and it was every beastie for himself. Her instinct was to reach for lavender, yet the scoop didn’t move in her hand. She whistled Cricket over, who narrowly ducked a piping-hot tray of madeleines to join her.

  “Lavender or bergamot?” Anouk said quietly.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It should be your choice, not mine. Viggo’s been awful to you. A brute.” She handed Cricket the scoop. “So you pick. I’m your friend above all else, Cricket. If you say screw the jerks, then we’ll give a tray of bergamot tea to the closest butler to deliver and sneak off to the elevator on our own. Leave them to their fates.”

  Cricket was at a rare loss for words. She took the silver scoop and tapped it anxiously against the palm of her hand, leaning toward one canister, then the other.

  At last, she scooped out a hefty spoonful from one and dumped it into the pot of boiling water, then picked up the tray and shoved it in Anouk’s direction. Anouk lifted the lid to catch the aroma.

  “Lavender. You’re sure?”

  “If anyone is going to torture the salaud, it’ll be me.”

  Anouk adjusted her lace veil to hide as much of her face as possible, and Cricket did the same, then Anouk carried the tray into the hallway, Cricket right behind her with the broom and feather duster. Cricket glanced at the map on her arm and whispered directions to the salon. The door was cracked open. Anouk could feel heat within and hear the crackle of a fire and voices. A woman’s biting hiss, and then Viggo’s petulant moan.

  “In and out,” Cricket whispered, hand on the doorknob. “Like thieves.”

  “Like ghosts,” Anouk agreed.

  Cricket nodded solemnly and opened the door. Anouk tried to hide the slight shaking of her hands as she entered the salon. She kept her gaze low, taking in the room out of the corner of her eye: Viggo sitting on the sofa, Hunter Black at his side. Countess Quine—​she of the hissing voice—​towering over Viggo with a blade-capped fingertip an inch from his face. Lord Metham in a leather armchair, stuffing a pipe. His wife by the window, looking drearily out at the rain, lips stained green and pink from powder.

  Where was Rennar?

  His absence made her falter, and she nearly tripped on the heavy fringe of the salon’s rug. The teacups clattered and Countess Quine shot her a look. Fear rippled all the way to Anouk’s toes. Rennar hadn’t recognized her earlier, but Countess Quine had been at the townhouse that night too, and so had the Methams.

  “Pardon me,” Anouk said quietly. “I’ve brought tea at the prince’s request.”

  She bent forward to set it on the coffee table and was able to catch Hunter Black’s eye. His face was as growl-some as ever, his posture tense and folded in on itself, but when he smelled the lavender tea, she saw that mask slip.

  Was that—​could it possibly be—​a look of trust?

  “My love!”

  Anouk’s short-lived optimism came crashing down. Viggo, the imbécile! He was already pitching himself toward her, almost knocking the tray out of her hands and looking inclined to throw his arms around her. Countess Quine stopped talking and stared at Viggo as though he were speaking in tongues. Lady Metham turned from the window with a quizzical expression. Anouk felt the blood drain from her cheeks, but they were saved by Hunter Black. He slammed his elbow into Viggo’s side, knocking the breath out of him before he could say one more incriminating word.

  Viggo collapsed back on the sofa, clutching his side.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Countess Quine asked him. “Do you even know this maid?” She started to look more closely at Anouk, her eyebrow rising.

  Hunter Black leaned in as though to help Viggo, and Anouk heard him whisper something low and fast. Viggo blinked with understanding.

  “I loved,” Viggo choked out. “I meant to say that I loved her. Mada Vittora, of course. I loved her as a mother; how can you think I had anything to do with her death?”

  Countess Quine lowered her metallic fingernails one at a time as her suspicion shifted away from Anouk and onto Viggo. “Then who did?”

  Anouk set down the tray and quickly poured the tea.

  “How am I to know? She wasn’t short on enemies! Mon Dieu, I’d never have come here if I knew I’d be subjected to these accusations. My own mother murdered in my house, and you’re supposed to be the law of the Haute, you’re supposed to find out who did it and bring that person to justice—”

  “What about your lapdog?” Countess Quine ask
ed, looking at Hunter Black.

  “Hunter Black, like myself, has been trying to solve this murder. What have you been doing? Sipping your tea and . . . and putting pomade in your hair and no one thinks about me, about what I’m going through. Don’t you understand how hard this is for me? Adopted children have attachment issues!”

  He stood dramatically. “Hunter Black, we’re leaving. I refuse to allow myself to be abused in this manner. It’s unconscionable, really, treating us like Goblins. Worse—​like Pretties! You there, you two maids, fetch my coat at once and escort us to the elevator.”

  Perhaps he wasn’t a complete idiot after all. Anouk picked up the tea tray.

  He started for the door, and then a look of minor terror crossed his face. A figure blocked his path.

  Prince Rennar had decided to join them.

  “Viggo, may I suggest that you sit back down, drink your tea, and shut your mouth before it gets you into even more trouble?”

  Prickles tickled their way up and down Anouk’s spine. Thank goodness for her veil—​she doubted she could have hidden her shock. Viggo, however, was as poor at acting as Cricket was. He stared, open-mouthed, searching for something to say.

  “Your Majesty, really, it isn’t fair—”

  Rennar slapped him across the cheek.

  Viggo gasped. “You hit me!”

  He started to protest more, but then wisely shut up. Hunter Black jumped to his feet, and from the way his eyes narrowed, Anouk guessed he must be fighting the urge to defend his master. Viggo slunk back to the sofa, cradling his cheek, sitting as ordered. Anouk could feel Cricket’s uncertainty as palpably as her own; the four of them were so close to escaping. An elevator ride was all that separated them from freedom.

  No, not just the elevator—​Rennar.

  “These people,” Rennar muttered as he crossed to the fireplace to warm his fingers. “With their little dreams and their little desires.”