Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

She’d lost her magic.

She’d lost her friends.

She was separated from Beau.

Little Beau started scratching at the door and she pressed a hand to her heart and hurried to the steps. Esme followed silently. When Anouk stopped at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall and breathing hard, Esme touched her shoulder.

“I’ll take you to your room. It’s late. You can get some rest.”

“Just tell me which one it is.”

“Last on the left. The corner one.”

Anouk wanted to thank her for showing a glimmer of kindness in such a dreary place, but it was all she could do to race up the stairs to the dormitory floor. She ran past open doors. They were small monastic cells, built as a solitary room for each of the original monks, though now two beds had been squeezed into each room.

Her chest felt tight. She kept thinking of Beau trapped below, all alone. And of girls dead in the woods, and girls dead in fires. She was tired of living in a world where girls were so expendable.

On the verge of panic, she threw herself into the last room on the left and slammed the door behind her. The cell was empty and identical to the others except that since it was on a corner, it had two high, tiny windows instead of just one. There were two wooden beds with a trunk at the foot of each one, and it was so cramped that Anouk could barely turn around. There was little to tell her about her roommate other than a pink sock peeking out from the sheets and a vase of dried lavender on the nightstand.

She leaned back against the door, wondering if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Why had she ever dared to dream of stepping beyond thresholds? What had that gotten her? Maybe she should return to Paris. Listen to Duke Karolinge and throw herself out. How could she possibly find her crux when it had taken the other girls months and they were still filled with doubt?

In six weeks Rennar would arrive in an expensive car with servants at his bidding and clothes cut for a god. He’d take one look at her and know that she’d lost her magic. Would he still want her as his princess then? Would he claim that their deal was invalid since she’d lost the one thing he cared about?

She dug through her pants pocket until she found Rennar’s mirror. She cleaned it with her sleeve. Her vision was blurry from tears, which she wiped away angrily.

The mirror showed the three cages.

A white cat.

A bandaged wolf.

A small gray mouse.

No!

Anouk was so mad, she wanted to hurl the mirror across the room. He hadn’t changed Luc back! That was their deal, wasn’t it? What was Rennar waiting for? Was this all a game to him? Was it a trick?

She opened the door, planning to throw the blasted mirror down the length of the hall, but then froze. Someone was there, a girl who ducked and shrieked in surprise at Anouk’s raised arm. The girl had strawberry hair pulled back into a messy bun and angular features.

Anouk gaped. “Petra?”

Chapter 10

Anouk glanced briefly at the lavender on the nightstand. “Petra, you’re the other new girl?”

Petra straightened, still shaken from the sight of Anouk ready to smash a mirror in her face. “I wouldn’t say new. I’ve been here two months. That’s two months of gruel. Two months of this hideous dress. It’s been an eternity.”

“They said my roommate’s name was Lala!”

Petra snorted. “That’s just a nickname that Esme gave me. I sing in the bathhouse. La-la-la.” She shoved past Anouk and into the room, then whirled around. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe the Duke let you stay.”

“I offered to cook.”

“Ah! All men put their stomachs over their heads.”

Anouk sank onto one of the beds, glancing at Petra’s hands on her hips. “And he let you stay? Did he ask you about your past? Does he know?”

“That I’m transgender? Yes, he knows. They all do. My first night, one of the girls said it wasn’t right for me to be here, that only women can undergo the Baths, not men. I said that I didn’t see what the problem was.” She pulled her hair out of her bun and gave her strawberry-blond locks a flip. “The Duke agreed. He said they’d never had a transgender acolyte but that I was as welcome as any other girl.”