Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

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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