Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

He stood dramatically. “Hunter Black, we’re leaving. I refuse to allow myself to be abused in this manner. It’s unconscionable, really, treating us like Goblins. Worse—?like Pretties! You there, you two maids, fetch my coat at once and escort us to the elevator.”

Perhaps he wasn’t a complete idiot after all. Anouk picked up the tea tray.

He started for the door, and then a look of minor terror crossed his face. A figure blocked his path.

Prince Rennar had decided to join them.

“Viggo, may I suggest that you sit back down, drink your tea, and shut your mouth before it gets you into even more trouble?”

Prickles tickled their way up and down Anouk’s spine. Thank goodness for her veil—?she doubted she could have hidden her shock. Viggo, however, was as poor at acting as Cricket was. He stared, open-mouthed, searching for something to say.

“Your Majesty, really, it isn’t fair—”

Rennar slapped him across the cheek.

Viggo gasped. “You hit me!”

He started to protest more, but then wisely shut up. Hunter Black jumped to his feet, and from the way his eyes narrowed, Anouk guessed he must be fighting the urge to defend his master. Viggo slunk back to the sofa, cradling his cheek, sitting as ordered. Anouk could feel Cricket’s uncertainty as palpably as her own; the four of them were so close to escaping. An elevator ride was all that separated them from freedom.

No, not just the elevator—?Rennar.

“These people,” Rennar muttered as he crossed to the fireplace to warm his fingers. “With their little dreams and their little desires.”

Such a simple phrase, thrown out like day-old bread crumbs for the birds. And yet a cold feeling washed over Anouk that was frigid enough to turn her blood to ice water.

Those words.

The voice was different—?it had been raspy before, filtered through the wires and speakers of Luc’s scryboard, but it was the same.

She almost let out a cry.

Prince Rennar had been the man she’d heard through the scryboard.

Her mind started to whirl. Prince Rennar and Mada Zola were the scheming pair that Luc had written about in his secret log. But if that was the case, why would Mada Zola have sent them here, to the den of her accomplice? To the very man whom she conspired with to take control of the Haute?

She felt the prickly sensation of eyes on her and saw that Countess Quine was subtly watching her from across the room. Her sharpened fingernails click-click-clicked anxiously on the glass vial of powder around her neck. Her lips were now stained with a pale blue color. She’d swallowed some powder.

She knows, Anouk realized. They all know.

What a fool she was.

Prince Rennar had recognized her. Of course he had—?he’d even been expecting her. He had known she was coming because Mada Zola had told him, probably as soon as they’d left. And now they had done his work for him, rounded themselves up tidily like pigs trotting together to the slaughter pen.

Shocked, she let the tea tray slip from her hands.

Beau.

The tray seemed to fall impossibly slowly, as though time were broken; she was distantly aware of Viggo jumping in surprise, but her eyes were on the window. Rain pounded against it, and beyond was the incessant flapping of crows.

Beau.

And then time resumed and the tray smashed to the ground with the crashing of china. Hot water scalded her feet. Countess Quine cried out, and Lord Metham choked on the smoke from his pipe, but Anouk didn’t flinch.

She didn’t care about the boiling water at her feet. The smell of lavender, sickening now.

Prince Rennar looked at her.

Really looked at her. No casual glance, no side-eyed peek. He saw her for what she was, what he had always known she was: the prey that had walked straight into the trap he had set for her.