Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

She whipped her head around, looking back down the street. Through blurred vision, she took in the far end, which she’d never been able to see from the turret window, the fountain so close now, just a hundred meters away . . .

“I’ll be right back.” She tore out of his embrace and started running.

“Anouk, wait! What are you doing?”

The sidewalk bit at the soles of her bare feet. What was she doing? She should stop, turn around, but she didn’t. She clutched the coin harder.

The alley was just as she’d always imagined. Ivy twisted in the iron gate. Roses climbing the walls. Worn bricks underfoot. The babble of water eased the thrashing grief inside her, and she felt hope rising in its wake. Was this what the Pretties felt like here? Was this why they came to the fountain, for this swell of hope?

But she stopped short when she saw the statue.

It wasn’t a Greek god. It wasn’t a mermaid, either. Nothing nearly so lovely.

Gargoyle; the word came to her. She’d seen drawings of them in old books, hideous things that clung to buildings like demons, and a pang of disappointment hit her. How could the Pretties wish on something so ugly?

Her heart was thundering. She was foolish, foolish! She started to turn back toward Beau, but then the gargoyle’s mouth caught her eye. It had an odd curl to the stone. Almost . . . a smile.

She took a step closer, clutching the coin around her neck.

The gargoyle was small, no bigger than a cat, crouching by the fountain’s pool, spitting a thin stream of water from its stone lips. Its forehead was blockish and ugly, but its eyes were bright, almost playful. Maybe this was why the Pretties found it so magical: beauty and ugliness in one.

She tugged the gold chain over her head, took off the franc, and held the coin out with a shaking hand.

She closed her eyes.

“I wish for her soul to be at rest.”

The babble of water was a balm against her thumping pulse, but it didn’t erase the sweat on her brow, the blood staining her clothes.

She opened her fist.

“No.”

She felt a hand close over hers, stopping the franc before it fell. Beau. Her eyes snapped open.

“If you’re going to make a wish,” he said, “make it for us, not her. That we get out of here with the skin still on our backs.” He lowered his voice. “There are scrying crows all over the rooftops. Can’t you hear them whispering? They’ll spread word of what happened throughout the Haute’s scryboards—?both the official ones and the illicit ones. We need to go.”

Despite how confident he sounded, his hand was shaking too. He was more worldly than she was, but only barely. He’d been human for two years to her one. His life had been the house and the car and not much in between.

She turned back to the fountain. “I wish for us, then. To be safe.”

She dropped the coin in.

Together, hand in hand, they hurried to the Rolls-Royce. Beau had left the key in the ignition, the doors open. Would their wish count? She’d expected Beau to tell her again that the wishing fountain was just a silly thing the Pretties believed in, but he didn’t. Maybe deep down he wanted to believe too.

Beau slid into the driver’s side and slammed the door. Anouk raced to the passenger’s side. She took in the townhouse in one final, heady glance. It looked different from the outside. Only three stories tall, not the seven that it was inside. Where did the ballroom fit? The attic? The courtyard?

A crow landed on the roof cresting, followed by another, and another. Dozens of them. Twice the size of Corpus crows. Peering down at her with sharp glass eyes. The low murmur of whispers carried on the wind. With a flurry of wings, one landed on the chrome hood ornament just feet from her. The bird lunged, moonlight glinting off its sharp beak. The tip of it caught the flesh of her arm. She gasped at the red scratch.

The bird lunged for her again. She jumped back and grabbed Luc’s watering can. Tears in her eyes, anger in her throat, she swung it as hard as she could at the bird, slammed the can into it with an explosion of feathers and white shimmering smoke. She waved the smoke away, coughing.

The crow was gone.

But more cawed from the rooftops. Louder. Sharp talons. Sharp beaks.

“Anouk—”

“I know!”