Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

“It’ll work,” Anouk said. “But we have to hurry. It takes seven hours to drive back to Paris and the same to return here so the Mada can perform the spell. That gives us ten hours to figure out the plan and actually go through with it.”

Beau let out a sigh to the heavens.

Anouk headed for the foyer. She’d often sat with Luc in his attic rooms as he’d prepared the various potions that Mada Vittora’s more complicated spells

required. And while a love spell wasn’t particularly challenging, it took just the right life-essence ingredients in a particular balance or the nature of love would be thrown off. Too much vervain, the lover would be aggressive. Too little sage would result in a short-lived crush. She needed the real thing. Obsessive love. Consuming love.

She picked up the hedge clippers that Petra had left on the entry table and an old basket and went outside. How many mornings in the townhouse had she yearned to do this one simple act? Step over the threshold without needing anyone’s permission? Such a small act, one that everyone else in the world took for granted.

A gust of wind blew her hair back. She worked the franc coin in her pocket between her fingers. If tomorrow night came and they hadn’t renewed their enchantment, would Luc, wherever he was, turn back into an animal too?

She found Petra and Mada Zola by the hedge. Fresh soil had been churned up, presumably to fill Viggo’s tunnel, and the hedge entrance was closed. She took another step and a branch snapped beneath her foot.

“Has your quarry awoken?” The witch motioned to the fallen branches. “They did a lot of damage getting in here.”

There was a hard note to her voice, and with a sick feeling, Anouk looked back at the branches underfoot. Thorns and small green leaves like shaggy fur. She quickly stepped back. It was Toblerone—?or what was left of him since Hunter Black had chopped him into firewood.

“Toblerone—”

“You enchanted him. I know. But you attempted a spell beyond your ability and now he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

“Let this be a lesson, then. Spells are complex things. Magic isn’t something to be trifled with. Members of the Haute spend decades, even centuries, studying the craft of casting. And you’ve been alive for, what, one year? It’s impressive you can even manage a sleeping spell at this point in your young life, but don’t get ahead of yourself. You have lifetimes’ worth of knowledge still to learn.”

Mada Zola gave one final whisper as grass knit itself back over the churned soil, erasing every vestige of the tunnel. Anouk picked up a small branch lined with thorns. A wooden jawbone, or what was left of one.

“I need your help.” She let the branch fall. “And yours too, Petra. I have a spell in mind, but I’ll need your blood.”

Anouk couldn’t read Petra’s face, but Petra glanced at Mada Zola, and some imperceptible understanding passed between them.

Petra nodded. “I’ll be in my bloodletting room.” She left Anouk and Mada Zola alone in the moonlight.

Anouk fished a scrap of paper out of her pocket. “It’s a love spell. I’ve heard Mada Vittora whisper it before, but I don’t know how to do it myself. I wrote it down the best I could remember it.”

Mada Zola took the paper, lips moving silently as she read, and then smiled. “You’ll need snapdragons.”

They spent the next hour gathering flowers and herbs from the garden—?seeking out asters, cutting sprigs of bay laurel, gathering everything carefully to keep the buds intact, and then they took their supplies to the potting shed. Prince Rennar watched Anouk from a portrait hung up by a nail. She let her gaze trail over his slightly crooked nose, the deep-set eyes. It was infinitely easier to look him in the eye, she decided, when she knew he wasn’t looking back.

A knock came at the door. Petra handed her a wineglass full of still-warm blood.

“Thanks, Petra.”

She shrugged. “More where that came from.” But she looked pale.

Anouk frowned in concern. “Those cookies I made this morning—?you should eat one. Sugar helps after losing blood.”

This brought a half smile to Petra’s face. “Not going to argue with cookies.” She gave Anouk a nod. “I’m keeping watch over your captives. They’re getting very drunk. Viggo is, at least.” She motioned to the far gardens. “And Cricket’s making sawdust out of our willow saplings.”

Anouk poured the blood into a bottle. “That I want to see.”

They made their way to the water gardens, where willows lined an artificial stream. It might once have been a bucolic spot, but now shredded limbs and leaves littered the ground; it looked as though a construction crew had passed through. Cricket was attacking two remaining saplings at once. She was using her regular knifework on the tree at the left, slashing and slicing as fast as a crow took wing, while consuming eucalyptus leaves from a pouch at her waist and using their life-essence to cast whispers toward the tree on the right. Mirrored slash marks cut across its trunk, though she hadn’t touched it. Leaves rained down, though she was ten feet away. By the time she was finished, both trees had been destroyed with alarming intensity. She hadn’t even spared the stumps.

“Exactly which Royal is she planning on using that spell against?” Petra asked.

“Um . . . all of them? She’s not a fan of the Haute.”

“Yeah. I gathered that,” Petra answered.