Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

“It’s for your own safety.” Petra’s muffled voice came from the keyhole. “I promise, it’s better this way. Nights around here can get . . . unpredictable. I’ll unlock it at first light.”

Anouk and Cricket pounded on the door, calling for Petra, but there was no response. Frustrated, Anouk sank onto the bed. “Our own safety? That’s rubbish.”

“I’d guess that Zola doesn’t want us snooping through her things,” Cricket said, sitting cross-legged on the other side of Beau. “Witches, you know. Secretive to the bone. I’m surprised that we’re not wrapped in chains in some dungeon.”

“Do you think Zola is telling the truth about the spell library at Castle Ides?”

Cricket took out a knife, tapped the hilt anxiously in her palm. “I don’t know what to believe.”

Anouk lowered her voice. “There’s a room here with herbs hanging in the rafters, tied up in the same clove-hitch knot Luc uses.”

Cricket considered this. “You think he was here?”

“Yes, or—?I know this sounds crazy—?is here now.”

“And, what, Mada Zola has him bound and gagged in a closet? That’s what she doesn’t want us to snoop around and find?”

“Maybe.” Anouk eyed Beau, who was muttering in his sleep. “I think Beau knows more than he’s letting on. He promises that he didn’t kill Mada Vittora, but I think that he knows who did.”

Cricket’s expression turned grim. “I still think Viggo did it. He isn’t capable of love, not even for his mother. You know what I’d most like to do with what little time I have left? Find him and smother him with that stupid slouchy hat of his.”

At the mention of Viggo, Anouk looked back at the window where she’d thought she’d seen the motorcycle. She cocked her head. “Cricket, does Viggo have an invitation to Castle Ides?”

“Why? What are you plotting and why didn’t I think of it first?”

Anouk lay back on the pillows, drumming her fingers on her ribs, thinking. “Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”

“Well, he does.”

It wasn’t a large bed and she was pressed against all six feet of Beau. At home, sometimes she and Beau had fallen asleep in bed together, Luc usually snoring in her armchair. But that was before Beau’s confession in the foyer. Only a fool . . . and I’m a fool. She wasn’t sure what to do with those words, which were mixing around in her stomach like champagne bubbles, but she knew that sometime in the past few days, he’d ceased to be like a brother to her. He was something else. Something more. But how much more?

Cricket lay down on Beau’s other side, toying with her charm earring distractedly, her foot anxiously jiggling enough to make the whole bed shake. Anouk reached across Beau and took Cricket’s hand. Cricket stopped tapping her foot. They interlaced their fingers and held tight. A mouse, a dog, a wolf, a cat, an owl, Anouk thought. All predators and prey. If the worst happened, would they turn on one another? She found herself scratching her arm as though fur were already pushing its way out.

“I want to cast magic,” Cricket said quietly, a private admission. “I want to show the Royals that they aren’t the only ones who matter.”

Anouk thought of those dark spells Cricket had found on the Internet and scrawled down. Cricket wanted revenge and that made Anouk uneasy. And yet, didn’t Cricket deserve it? Didn’t they all?

“You’ll learn. I know it. It’s easier for me because I already speak a bit of the Silent Tongue.”

“Yeah, that and your whispers actually sound like proper whispers, not like someone coughing up a hairball.”

She squeezed Anouk’s hand. Anouk squeezed back.

The clock was ticking on the table, that black cat’s tail always moving in a constant circle. Tick-tick-tick. Beau snored softly. She envied him his enchantment. Tonight, she knew, he was the only one who would get any sleep.

Chapter 17

One Day and Seventeen Hours of Enchantment Remain

Anouk was wrong. At some point, exhaustion overcame her and she tossed and turned and dreamed of awful things: Luc, bloodless and drained, haunting the halls of the château, leaving thyme leaves skittering in his wake.

She sat up with a jerk. Sunlight warmed the window. Beau still slumbered beside her. The other side of the bed was empty.

The door was open, to her relief. Someone had left fresh clothes for her, oversize scraggly sweaters that looked as though they belonged to Petra. She pulled one over her black dress and rolled up the long sleeves and went into the hall. She called for Cricket but got no answer, so she followed the smell of burned toast to the kitchen.

Cricket and Petra were trying to toast bread over an open flame and, judging by the pile of charred ash, failing miserably. Anouk took the tongs out of Petra’s hand and dumped their efforts in the trash. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll cook. Petra, do you have any eggs?”

Obviously relieved, Petra went to the icebox for bacon and eggs and then disappeared into the pantry for more ingredients.