Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Marta leaned forward, pushing her glasses up. “You have something in you, Anouk. A fire. It was clear the night you arrived.” She touched her own chest. “You want magic as bad as I do.”

Anouk raised an eyebrow. “How did you learn about the Haute?”

Marta let out a puff of air and said dreamily, “I was in my first year at university. I was studying in a café for end-of-term exams. The café closed for the night, and I left to find a place where I could continue reading. I wandered the city and came across a drunk guy by the river. I was afraid he’d try to drown himself. He saw me calling to him and laughed. He said, ‘Can’t you see, pretty girl, that I’m walking on the water? Of course you can’t. Your eyes are closed. Here, my pretty. See.’ He raised the glamour and I saw him for what he was—?a Royal. A minor count of the Minaret Court. That night, we sat on the riverbank and drank his wine and he told me about millennia of magic, of powerful spells, of passionate Royal affairs. I forgot about my exams. What did I care about school anymore after learning about the Haute? Screw the exams. Screw my degree. I wanted magic.”

“Didn’t he glamour you once the sun rose?” Anouk asked.

Marta grinned and shook her head. “He passed out. I’m not sure he ever remembered our conversation. Or me.” Her face grew serious, and she rested a hand on Anouk’s arm. “Do yourself a favor and stop torturing yourself with these texts. Try prayer, maybe?”

Anouk wrinkled her nose.

The antler clock in the great hall chimed three o’clock in the morning, the sound echoing through the entire abbey and reaching them in the library.

“Chores.” Marta sighed.

Anouk perked up. “Could we swap?”

“Me make breakfast? I can’t even boil water.”

“Just for today.”

Anouk didn’t say anything about Little Beau, but she didn’t have to. Marta seemed to understand. She reached into her pocket and set a piece of biscuit on the desk. “Just for today. Here. Give your dog this. I saved it from yesterday’s breakfast. We all like him, you know.”

Anouk briefly debated telling Marta that Little Beau was actually a boy with shaggy hair and a love of fast cars, but then she took the biscuit and closed her books. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the cellar stairs that it hit her: as soon as winter fell, just a few short weeks away, she or Marta or, most likely, both of them would be dead, as would Esme and Petra and all the other girls.

Her thoughts were dark as she descended the stairs.

“Sang vivik.”

Anouk shrieked and pressed a hand to her chest. She wasn’t alone. Frederika was lurking on the landing. Her hair was its usual wild black storm cloud. Her eyebrows shadowed her eyes into dark pools.

“Frederika!” Anouk swallowed. “What did you say?”

In the two weeks Anouk had been at the Cottage, Frederika hadn’t spoken a single word to her. She rarely spoke to anyone except Sam, who did the laundry, and then only to tell her that she’d torn another one of her dresses while exercising in the courtyard. Still, Anouk had felt Frederika’s glistening eyes fixed on her at every meal.

“Sang vivik,” Frederika repeated.

Anouk’s eyebrows rose. She glanced toward the top of the stairs, wondering if anyone else was within earshot. “Is that in the Selentium Vox? Something about blood? I don’t know that usage of vivik.”

“A witch took two of your toes. Esme says.”

Anouk glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. It was after three o’clock in the morning. Karla and Lise should be there, up early to start making the daily bread, but they were both notoriously deep sleepers, and they knew that Anouk, the head chef, wouldn’t scold them too severely. No sounds came from the kitchen.

“That’s right.” Anouk’s toes curled in her shoes.

Frederika lifted two fingers to her mouth and started gently gnawing on them, all the while staring at Anouk.

“Are you all right?” Anouk took a step down the stairs, away from her. Maybe Frederika was nervous about the delivery the previous day—?just after breakfast, two enchanted Pretties had shown up leading a string of mules loaded down with firewood, having just barely survived the precarious mountain path. They carried in load after load until half the courtyard was filled with stacks of wood. It had shaken Anouk when she realized that preparations were already beginning for the Coal Baths. Tomorrow, Duke Karolinge would begin the grueling, four-week-long process of whispering the wood into coals that would form the basis of the trials. Then, the Coals would need the magic of the Royal Courts to convert them into blue flame. Rennar would be there. She’d confront him about why he hadn’t turned Luc back yet. She’d force a promise out of him—?one sealed in magic this time.

Suddenly, Frederika pulled her fingers out of her mouth and dropped to the floor. She started doing pushups on the landing, counting out the numbers in German.

Anouk took another step away from her, then made her way down to the cellar as quickly as she could. When she got there, she closed herself up in the stall with Little Beau and swept him into a hug.

“Beau,” she breathed into his fur. “This place is getting to me. What’s my crux? I haven’t had any insight. Nothing’s called to me. If I learned anything from the Goblins, it’s that I’m not drawn to rats or cockroaches. I know it isn’t roses, like Mada Vittora’s crux. I like thyme, but that’s only because it reminds me of Luc.” She groaned. “This would be easy if I had my magic.”

Little Beau went to the stall corner, took her Faustine jacket in his mouth, and dragged it over to her. He nudged it into her lap and ran his bandaged paw over the winged creatur

e on the back. He whined softly.