Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

She put down the final branch and stepped back. She could feel the magic flowing within her, and it felt right. Creating, not destroying. But as much as she wanted to resurrect the bear herself, she didn’t dare use up any of Viggo’s blood. It was a finite supply, enough for only a single big spell, one burst of magic. If she used it now, she wouldn’t have enough left to cast the contra-beastie spell on Mada Zola.

“Tenpenny, can you resurrect him?”

The Goblin tenderly handed his fallen friend’s bowler hat to December, who tucked it into her motorcycle bag. He fished a worm out of his pocket, swallowed it, and then held his hands over the wooden bones and whispered.

“Vitae. Vitae ahhora.”

It happened slowly. First there was a flutter of leaves. Then a twig fluttered too, moving a little too much to have been caused by breeze alone, and then an even bigger branch rolled onto another. The branches began to graft themselves back together at the places where they’d been cut, forming a wooden skeleton with limbs and a backbone and a heavy skull with thorny teeth. And then it all came together in one beautiful shiver, and Anouk was looking not at a pile of hedge clippings but at a living topiary bear. Toblerone pushed himself up on his trunklike legs, shook out his leafy green pelt, and then swiveled his head to Tenpenny.

“Command him to tear through the hedge,” Anouk said.

After swallowing more worms, Tenpenny whispered another spell. Slowly the bear’s head swung to face the hedge. He lumbered forward on heavy limbs, swiped at the nearest branches with a massive paw, and shredded them with his sharp thorn-claws like they were made of crepe paper. No vines darted out to snag him; no branches fought back. Beneath his woody paws, the hedge gave way as he tossed branches aside, snapped sticks, and cleared a path wide enough for them to pass through.

“Bravo!” Anouk said.

Tenpenny turned to his Goblin army. “Prepare for entry.”

The Goblins dismounted from their motorcycles and checked their belongings one more time, making sure each was safely secured by its brass pocket-watch chain. A few knives glinted in the sunlight, and even an antique sword or two. The air filled with the smell of bitter herbs, rue and horehound and wormwood, and the tang of blood as the Goblins consumed the life-essence they needed for the battle. Anouk winced at the squeals of rats that were dispatched for the cause. A murmuring spread through the crowd as the Goblins thanked their deceased animal companions for the sacrifice they had made.

“Do not forget the dark truth about this place,” Tenpenny announced to the crowd. “Beneath the witch’s fields are the flesh and bones of our brothers and sisters, Goblins lured here and used to strengthen the witch’s powers. We do this as much for their memory as for ourselves!”

With a roar of engines, the Goblin army mounted their motorcycles and swarmed into the Château des Mille Fleurs’ outer fields. There were hundreds of them, top hats tumbling off their heads, a fleet of exiled Londoners far from home. Motorcycles zipped and weaved around Anouk and the others, and the danger of it caught in her throat, the roar of engines making her breath quicken. Her hair flew around her head as the last Goblin motorcycles disappeared through the break in the hedge. She ran a short ways after them, stopping at the first fields, watching the dust rise in their wake as they rode toward the château.

Cricket joined her, breathless.

“This is it.” Anouk glanced at her friend. “You finally get a chance to tear the world apart.”

There had been a time when Cricket would have smiled grimly at the idea of slashing through the highest members of the Haute, but she didn’t smile now.

“Cricket?”

Cricket shook her head. “That damn Goblin is right. It can’t just be about destruction. After all this is finished, if we succeed in tearing down the Haute, you and I are going to have to put it back together again. Better.”

Two more motorcycles roared. Beau and Hunter Black pulled up on either side of them. Luc rode on the back of Hunter Black’s motorcycle. He was sweating badly in the sun, blinking with eyes that still weren’t quite used to bright daylight.

“Are you sure you’ve recovered enough for this, Luc?” Anouk asked.

“I am, if you’re sure it’s worth the risk.”

She shoved her fists in her jacket pockets. “There’s no turning back now.”

She and Cricket climbed onto Beau’s motorcycle, and the five of them brought up the rear of the army. As the engines revved, she felt Viggo’s blood quicken in her limbs. It made for a heady feeling—?almost like having a secret. No Royal or witch had ever consumed this much human blood and lived.

She tried to imagine the look on Mada Zola’s face when a simple maid overpowered her. Then, maybe, the Haute would understand that they couldn’t play with humans or animals or anyone. Living things weren’t toys for their pleasure.

But her determination wavered as they approached the château. The beautiful stillness that had enveloped them on their first visit was gone now. There was smoke everywhere. Goblins were screaming. They were fighting against some sort of army that Anouk couldn’t make out in the smoke. But what army? It was supposed to be only Zola and Petra and a handful of lesser Royals.

Beau cut the engine and she

jumped off, coughing. The smoke was clearing and she wasn’t certain what she was looking at. It was a scene from a nightmare. Giant soldiers made of wood were stalking the garden in pursuit of Goblins. They towered ten feet high. Their bodies were formed of spindly branches, their legs powerful trunks, their hands like many-fingered roots. Smoke rose from their wooden shoulders.

She spotted one that was only half burned. His arms and head were bare wooden branches, but his lower half was covered in manicured leafy green.

“It’s the topiaries.” Her voice was a stunned gargle. “The Royals enchanted them to fight.”

“And the Goblins are using fire spells against them,” Luc said. “But it doesn’t look like it’s working.”

The burned wooden skeletons left behind were hideous things. They couldn’t be stabbed or shot with arrows—?there was no flesh to them. She watched, stunned, as one lumbering wooden soldier snatched up a Goblin in a neon dress and twisted her body in a terrible way. Her screams died along with her. As the smoke continued to clear, the horror grew. More bodies on the ground, bleeding out into the soil. Crushed like autumn leaves. Broken Goblins. Dead Goblins.