Cricket mumbled a curse under her breath. “Fine. We get the spell, and then—?only then—?rescue their pathetic derrières.”
Anouk grinned.
“Now.” Cricket ditched the feather duster and cracked her knuckles. “Prepare to watch the greatest thief in all the Haute perform the trickiest heist in history. Et voilà, the scene of the crime: the spell library of Castle Ides.”
With a flourish, she opened the pair of gilded doors.
Anouk felt a prickle of magic as she crossed the threshold. What a library. Nearly every inch from floor to ceiling was lined with shelves containing folios of every color: dusty reds and sea-green blues, faded yellows and darkest blacks. The ceilings must have been thirty feet high, buttressed with wrought-iron arches that made her think of the Eiffel Tower’s latticed curves. A balcony ran the full length of the room, and dozens of rolling library ladders stretched up to the very highest shelves. It smelled of crisp paper and older, mustier things: leather and long-held secrets. Rain pounded at the windows—?she’d forgotten about the storm.
Spaced evenly in the library were three enormous glass cases. They emitted a mottled blue glow that gave the room a dreamlike cast, like it was underwater. Anouk rested her fingers on the closest case; inside, thousands of fireflies floated on gentle wings, locked in by a magic far beyond her ability to break.
“Blue ghosts,” she said, remembering a book she’d read. “They’re only found in the Americas, and only for two weeks each year. They glow blue, not yellow. The light leads the Royals to the exact folio they’re looking for.”
Cricket pressed her face to the case, looking unimpressed. “You’ve got the dragonfly?”
Anouk held the jar to the light. The trapped dragonfly inside, its only movement a slight pulsing of its elongated body, might not have been magical or rare, but it had its own beauty.
Anouk pulled out a chair at one of the mahogany library tables. “We’ll have to be fast. Rennar will be suspicious if we don’t deliver tea soon. Are you ready?”
Cricket stretched her neck. “Always.”
Anouk set her supplies on the table: the glass jar with the dragonfly, the pouch of floral herbs, the scrap of paper that contained the finding spell. This wasn’t like the simple whispers she’d cast before, sleeping spells so easy that even clumsy Beau could learn to do them. This was higher-level magic. Magic reserved for those who were born magical, like the Royals and the Goblins, or who were made magical through unendurable pain, like the witches. She’d heard rumors of the bleak, severe academies where human girls were trained to become witches. Only a small handful survived the final test, the coal baths, where excruciating black flames tore apart and rebuilt Pretty flesh into magical flesh. Who was she, an untrained, untested neophyte, to dare such a spell?
She cleared her throat. Pinched the dusty floral herbs between her fingers and choked them down raw.
She began the whisper. “Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia.”
Nothing happened. The dragonfly rested immobile in the jar, its fractured eyes revealing nothing.
Cricket glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow.
Anouk cleared her throat. “Um . . . I must not have gotten the intonation right.”
“I’d say take your time, but we don’t have any.”
“Thanks.” Anouk swallowed down another pinch of the dry herbs. She closed her eyes and focused on the tastes: the sweetness of fennel, the bitter tang of bloodroot. They mixed with the library itself—?the moldering paper of the spells, the waxed floors—?and for the briefest instant, there was only one taste. Only one moment. Only one sensation, and it was magic.
She whispered, “Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia.”
The dragonfly started buzzing madly in the glass jar. Anouk’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the insect thrash so hard that the jar toppled over. The lid came off. Freed, the dragonfly shot into the air.
“It’s loose,” Anouk cried, and then, “It worked!”
The dragonfly flew straight up toward the arched ceiling, thirty feet high.
“Merde,” Cricket cursed. “Keep an eye on it!”
The dragonfly was a grain of sand tossed in the ocean; if they lost sight of it for even a second, they’d never find it again.
With a burst of energy Cricket bolted for the closest ladder, climbed it two rungs at a time, then swung herself up and over the balcony railing like a trapeze artist.
“Where did it go?” she yelled.
“There!” Anouk pointed toward the east window. “To the upper windows.”
“I’m on it. Holà, if I just knew a flying spell, this would be a breeze.”
Cricket sprinted the length of the balcony, folios rustling in her wake. Anouk paced on the lower level, eyes fastened to the dragonfly as it whizzed as fast as a shooting star. Outside, the rain droned harder, in ripples of water like a typhoon. “There,” she cried. “Now it’s behind you!”