Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

She felt the push of frustrated tears at the corners of her eyes, and she kicked at a skull. What on earth had made her think she could put her trust in Goblins?

Tenpenny bent to inspect the nearest cage, which was full of rats. “What a lovely coat on that one. Though I’ve always been partial to white.”

She spun on him angrily. “Stop picking out a new pet and help us!”

“But I require another rat.”

“So you can bite its head off too?”

“No, dearie. So you can.”

This shut her up. He returned to inspecting the rats and at last settled on a small black one that he fed a piece of cheese and then set on his shoulder. “I haven’t forgotten my promise. I told you I would help, and, if you’d stop screeching in my ear, that is what I will attempt to do. Now, pick two more rats and follow me.”

She looked around for the others. Beau was still being carted around on someone’s shoulders, and there was no sign of the others in the crowd. She reached toward a rat, but paused. She thought of the small mouse pelt they’d taken from Mada Vittora’s closet.

“Do we have to use rats? It’s a little, um, personal.”

Tenpenny drummed his fingers on the rib-bone bars. “Do you feel a kinship with roaches? No? Good. Come on. We can find some privacy in the Skull Crypt.” He grabbed a jar of cockroaches and thrust it in her hands.

She followed him down a small side tunnel and into an old crypt with a limestone sarcophagus on top of which was someone’s half-finished dinner. Tenpenny swept the plates t

o the ground and started humming as he set down the jar of cockroaches and several messy-looking containers that reeked of rotten, dead things. In the distance, she could still hear the whir of the party.

She took a step back and tripped over a dry, brittle skull. “We’re really running out of time,” she pointed out.

“You can’t rush magic. We’re already working outside the rules as it is. You know about the vitae echo, yes? Magic Is Life; Life Is Magic, and so forth and so on. The witches in their grand estates prefer to take life from flowers and butterflies and rosebuds. Hmph. You’ll find none of those pretty things in the dank holes they’ve relegated us to. Worms, slime, rats. Those are our ingredients.”

Anouk made a face.

“Don’t recoil so, my dear! There is nobility in the rat. Beauty in the moth. Though the rest of the world might not respect the dark creatures of the night, within these catacombs they are prized. Each rat cherished . . . until its death. And if we must sacrifice our crawly friends, we pour out a cup of tea in the deepest tunnel and say prayers for them.”

“And you can keep us human with slime?”

“Absolutely. Doubtlessly.” He bit his lip. “Maybe.”

She dug the beastie spell out of her pocket and fanned the dust from the sarcophagus before laying the paper down reverently and smoothing out the wrinkles. “I hope you’re right. We risked a lot to get this spell.”

He cocked his head curiously, stroking the rat on his shoulder, then pushed the spell back her way. “Ah, perhaps you misunderstand. Such a complex spell is beyond Goblin capabilities.”

Alarm bells went off in her head. “But you said you’d help us!”

“And I shall. I cannot cast the beastie spell, but one thing we Goblins excel at is working around the rules.”

She sighed in frustration as he started pulling down jars and old tea tins from among the bones, humming to himself as he poured it all into a porcelain teakettle.

She turned away while he worked, watching the party, trying to spot the others. Beneath their makeup, the Goblins looked worn and tired. Some had mascara-streaked faces. Almost all had thin, malnourished arms.

It wasn’t anything like the beautiful world of the Haute that the portraits showed, mischievous Goblins peeking around corners. Goblins hadn’t fallen to the bottom of the Haute by chance; it was a system designed to make them powerless.

“Almost ready, dearie,” Tenpenny called. “Fetch the others.”

She made her way back into the heart of the revelry, searching the made-up faces for her friends. She found Beau assessing stores of insects and bitter herbs next to the blond-haired Goblin girl with gold teeth. Cricket was inside the Black Death with two Goblins who were showing her the art of summoning tricks with hand gestures. Hunter Black was in a small crypt, sharpening a bone into a weapon. And Viggo—?

“There you are, my love, my soul, my heart.” He pushed through the crowd and smacked into her hard enough to make her shoulder sting. His face was wan and lovesick. She led them all to the Skull Crypt, where Tenpenny was mixing together the final ingredients with a curved rib bone. He gave the concoction a sniff and tossed the bone aside.

“Now then, beastie friends. This won’t cure you, but it will do the next best thing.”

“What’s that?” Beau asked suspiciously.