Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

The elevator stopped.

They all went silent. For a second, no one moved. The elevator’s mirrored walls reflected the faces of misfits and nobodies.

The doors opened onto an eerily calm foyer.

Anouk could hear voices and footsteps in distant rooms. Mahogany panels lined the walls, along with chandeliers and fine sconces, nothing electric, just like in the townhouse. The floor was made of intricately inlaid wood, and everything was spotless, not a single cobweb or speck of dust.

Cricket rolled up her sleeve to reveal the map she’d penned on her forearm. “We’re here.” She pointed to a place at her inner elbow. “The elevator foyer. It’s near the start of the hour, so the floor plan won’t change for about another fifty minutes.”

“The Royals will be in the west salons,” Viggo said. “They retire there after lunch.” Out of all of them, he was the only one who didn’t look terrified, though his eyes held that feverish, enchanted sheen. His life wasn’t at risk, despite all the protestations and promises he’d made Anouk. He wasn’t in danger of turning into anything but what he already was: a spoiled boy, richer than a king, who’d never had to do a true day’s work his entire life. “I think the salons are that way, if I have the time right.”

He jerked his head toward the opposite hallway.

Cricket rolled down her sleeve as another maid approached the elevator, but the enchanted Pretty girl didn’t look up, her head cast down, eyes half hidden by the lace veil.

“I’m to take you to your escort,” she said quietly.

“Go,” Anouk said to Viggo and Hunter Black, but she muttered quietly to Hunter Black, “Make sure Viggo doesn’t do anything stupid.”

“If he doesn’t, they’ll know for certain that something is wrong,” Cricket added under her breath.

Viggo opened his lips, probably to recite some love poem to Anouk, but Hunter Black slammed a hand over his mouth. He gave Anouk and Cricket a grudging nod. “Be careful.”

“Aw, it’s almost like you care,” Cricket said.

He scowled and dragged Viggo down the east hallway after the maid. They disappeared around a bust of Prince Rennar.

“Right,” Cricket said. “Let’s get the spell before the two of them screw everything up, as they inevitably will.”

They hurried down the west hallway, past more marble busts of bygone Royals with plaster eyes that seemed to follow them. They turned at the corner and entered a hallway that was lined with glass cases holding treasures. Cricket’s fingers twitched as they passed by golden robes and jewels and oddly mundane objects too: a threadbare stuffed rabbit, an empty soda bottle, a dented watering can.

“What are they?” Anouk whispered.

“Artifacts,” Cricket replied, her eyes gleaming. “This was how the Royals took power over the great Pretty leaders, not with wars or jewels, but with regular objects imbued with magic. Objects no one suspected. That pair of scissors—?it was slipped into Napoleon’s suitcase and inspired him to wage war against Russia.”

They passed more objects: a postcard from Egypt, a bird’s nest, a pair of red socks. A butler came down the hall and Cricket feigned cleaning the cases with her feather duster, but she needn’t have bothered; the enchanted butler paid them no attention, his lips moving in silent whispers to himself.

Cricket consulted the map on her arm again. “Merde—?I’m sweating and it’s making the ink run. It looks like the library’s down this hall on the left. On the right here, these big doors, this is . . .” She blanched. “Prince Rennar’s private apartments.”

Anouk felt a wave of apprehension, but it was mixed with curiosity. There, through those ancient doors, not gilded like the others, was where Prince Rennar laid his head at night, where he looked over his city, where he hung the scrying portraits through which he watched his private world and maybe had even watched her dusting . . .

She tripped on her shoes and bumped into one of the glass cases. It didn’t topple, but the gardening wire she’d used on her uniform snagged and tore. Part of her apron ripped and she cursed. The costume needed to last only a few more minutes, just long enough to—?

“This door,” Cricket said. “Wait, no, that’s a freckle. That one.”

She pointed to an opulent gilded door with rich blue trim. Anouk gave a fleeting final glance at the opposite doors, the ones to Rennar’s apartments, and then slipped her hand into her apron pocket and clutched Mada Zola’s jar with the dragonfly. The finding spell’s whisper was poised on her lips. Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia. The dragonfly would lead them along the shelves, past folios of love spells and healing whispers, of potion recipes and invisibility chants, right to the very folio, one of ten thousand, that was the means of their existence.

“This is going to be a theft for the ages,” Cricket said, rubbing her hands together in delight. She started to push the door open, but a voice spoke at their backs.

“You two. Turn around.”

Anouk froze.

She knew that voice. The deep tone that was both casually unassuming and undeniably powerful. A voice that had once whispered into her ear that she wasn’t made for sweeping floors, didn’t she know that?

Her lips parted. She gripped the broom hard.

Prince Rennar had given an order, and no one disobeyed the prince.