“I know why you’re here.” He studied her for a long time, so long that she started to shift uncomfortably, and then he sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Sooner or later every acolyte comes for help.”
Had Petra come? Had Esme come? Had Mada Vittora once sat here on this hard wooden bench with doubt and fear in her heart?
“I remember your mistress when she was your age.”
Anouk’s eyes snapped to him. “You were in charge of the Cottage then?”
“No, it was run by a duke from the Barren Court, but I came with the Royal procession to witness the Baths. I was a minor duke at the time. Sixty years old, although I looked to be about your age. We do age, you know, though much more slowly than Pretties. Mada Vittora was a great beauty. She came from a seaside village in Italy, though it was the Parisian Court who enlisted her services after she survived the trials. She was so determined, so beautiful, so bold when she faced the flames. She’d seen nine other girls die before her, yet she didn’t bat an eye. She clutched three long-stemmed roses and strode into the Coals and out the other side like it was nothing. We all knew she’d be a force to reckon with.”
Anouk wandered down the length of the bookcase while he spoke, running her finger along the spines. “Why do you think she survived and not the other girls?”
“The simple answer is that she found her true crux. But cruxes are deceptive. They’re only a symbol; there isn’t any inherent magic in them. Does it matter if a girl walks into the flames holding an acorn or a feather? Not exactly. The Coals don’t evaluate whether or not you’ve found your true crux—?they determine whether you’ve found your true connection to yourself. You must believe you’ve found your crux.”
Anouk reached the end of the bookshelf. Saint’s perch was just a few feet away. The falcon was hooded and asleep, as best she could tell. The bell sparkled in the light of the study. “She wasn’t a kind person,” Anouk said.
“Heavens, no. She was a monster even as a young Pretty. But the Coals don’t care if a girl is good or bad.” He motioned to the books she was inspecting. “These volumes were written by the original Royals. They deal with the morality of magic. A complicated thing. It isn’t like the morality of the Pretty World. Magic doesn’t reward one for good deeds and it doesn’t punish one for being bad. It’s far more complex than that. It could take ten lifetimes to understand it.”
She saw Saint out of the corner of her eye. “You’ve read them all?”
“Each one a hundred times.”
She glanced at the door anxiously. She needed to stall for time. She blurted out, “Do they mention something called the Noirceur?”
This seemed to surprise the Duke. “That’s quite an obscure reference, one I haven’t heard mentioned in decades. It happened thousands of years ago, at the time of the Snowfire Court. Few Royals today know of the Noirceur. How does a beastie know of it?”
She sneaked another glance at the door. “Something I heard Mada Vittora say once.”
He gave her a doubting look. “You have greater concerns than an ancient force. You came for my advice, did you not?”
A knock finally came, sharp and insistent. Anouk let out a long breath of relief.
The Duke grumbled but strode around his desk, adjusting his red cloak, to answer it. Petra was on the other side, staggering under a crate of fresh oranges.
“Ah! These just arrived,” she said. “Where do you want us to put them? The pantries are full and there’s a family of rats in the kitchen. I’m afraid if I leave them out, the rats will eat them.”
He made a dismissive gesture toward the hallway. “Put them in the kitchen. I’ll whisper away the rats.”
“Thanks, and, um—”
“You’re a clever girl, Petra. You can figure out where to put some fruit.”
He closed the door and rubbed his nose, then turned back to Anouk and dropped his hand, looking almost as though he’d forgotten she was there. Then he said, “You asked me about your crux.”
Anouk’s hands were deep in her apron pockets. “Yes. I . . . I thought that because I’m not a Pretty, my crux might be different. Something unique to a beastie. Maybe a bit of Beau’s fur?”
She couldn’t read the odd expression he gave her, but after a long time, he took off his glasses. “It sounds like you don’t need my advice after all.” He opened the door, clearly dismissing her. She was all too happy to hurry out.
She ran to the cellar, taking the stairs as fast as her tender feet could handle, and then threw open the door to Little Beau’s cell and wrapped her arms around the dog. He sniffed at her pocket and she took out the bell she’d stolen while Petra had distracted the Duke.
“I made a fake bell out of an old brass cup in the kitchen,” she told him. “I put that around Saint’s neck instead of this one. We have to hope the Duke doesn’t notice before the Baths.”
In the faint light of the cellar, the bell glowed with soft green light.
Little Beau let out a low whine.
Anouk sighed. As tempted as she was to swallow it down to regain her magic, the Duke would know instantly that she’d broken the rules. Besides, Rennar had made it clear that magic wouldn’t protect her from the Coal Baths.
“Everyone else’s crux is something from the Pretty World,” she mused. “But I’m not of the Pretty World, so why would my crux be? My crux is of the Haute. It’s something magic.”