She pressed a hand to her chest, rubbing life back into her newly awakened heart. “December, spread the word among the Goblins who can still drive. Tell them to carry as many wounded as they can back to Paris and meet us at 18 Rue des Amants. They can take shelter there.”
December left to tell the survivors, and in seconds, the first revs of engines began. Anouk rested a hand on Beau’s bruised cheek.
“We don’t have the Rolls-Royce.” He coughed.
“No.”
“And my arm . . . I can’t steer a motorcycle with only one hand.”
“No.”
“And you can’t drive, and the Goblins are going to be overloaded with the wounded. So what do we do, cabbage? Hot-air balloon?”
She laid a hand on his shirt and smoothed out the wrinkles. “I have a better idea. There’s a garage hidden behind the chapel.”
He leaned toward her so fast that they almost bumped heads. “Cars?”
She nodded.
“Cabbage, I could kiss you.”
“There’ll be time for that if we get out of here.” She grabbed the lapels of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. His face twisted in a grimace as he hobbled on his left leg, clutching his left arm, which hung too low from his shoulder, the joint protruding unnaturally. Piles of ash billowed columns of smoke that they weaved between, pressing sleeves to their mouths as their eyes burned. Dozens of Goblins rushed in a dizzying mob toward the motorcycles, which roared to life one by one. But it was hard to feel relief for the survivors as they hobbled past dozens more bodies on the lawn, limbs twisted like switches of ivy, and glistening white stone statues of Goblins who had once danced among gravestones beneath the streets of Paris.
She looked up at the bell tower. Empty now.
“What happened to Luc and Cricket and Hunter Black?” Beau coughed out. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
She concentrated on the pillars of smoke. On the dirt path to the garage. Anything but those awful animal howls.
“Anouk?”
“Turned.” She had to spit the word. “All of them. And Hunter Black . . .” She swallowed back bitter heartache. Ironically—?tragically—?it hadn’t been until he’d become an animal that he’d been his most human. “I don’t think he made it.”
Beau’s feet stopped on their own. A look of surprise passed over his face, and it seemed like he had to force himself to start walking again.
“And we just leave them?”
It pulled at her like tiny little thorns in her skin, scratching her up inside. What would the hero in one of Luc’s fairy tales do? Charge back in to save his friends? This wasn’t a fairy tale. This was a graveyard.
“Rennar put them in cages. If we go back for them now, we’ll never get out. But we’ll come back for them,” she promised. “We’ll find a way out of this, I know we will. For us and for them.”
Beau didn’t remind her that they themselves were only hours away from turning. He didn’t have to; it was a noxious, dense cloud over the both of them.
A bolt of light suddenly shot from an upper window. Anouk tugged Beau behind a Goblin statue a second before the bolt shattered against the stone. Dust and pebbles rained over their hair and clothes.
“The lesser Royals.” Anouk gasped.
Anoth
er ripple of light was lobbed past them, close enough to graze Anouk’s arm. She cried out. Heat throbbed in her shoulder. But when she pressed her palm to the pain, it came back clean. No blood. The metallic threads in the Faustine jacket had deflected the attack.
“Tenpenny was right,” she said. “Fashion is magic.”
Two more flashes of light erupted from the upper windows, shattering the two nearest statues. One after the other, Beau and Anouk darted from shelter to shelter, crouching behind a fountain, then hiding behind the potting shed.
“The garage is just to the left of the chapel,” Anouk said, her breath shallow. “We’ll have to make a run for it. Are you ready?”
“No. Come on!”