Anouk’s legs, smeared with cold mud, felt sluggish. Frederika darted to the pile of tools in the far corner and grabbed a broom. Before Anouk could run, she slammed it over Anouk’s shoulders. She collapsed. Frederika rammed the end of the broom into her ribs, knocking the air out of her. Her fingers slipped in the mud, searching for something, anything . . . a rock . . . a piece of wood . . . a nail . . .
Frederika slammed the broomstick down again. Anouk felt hot tears at her eyes. They mixed with the blood and mud in her mouth. She couldn’t find the bell. She raised a hand to shield her head against the next blow, but Frederika slammed the broom into her shoulder. She fell back, out of breath. Tried to sit up. Her fingers found the trough, reeking with rotted vegetables for the goats. She tried to pull herself up but her arms gave out and she collapsed back.
Frederika raised the knife.
“Let. Her. Go.”
Frederika turned toward the new voice. Anouk tossed her head up. Petra, crowbar in hand, stomped through the muck and knelt next to Anouk. She rested a hand on Anouk’s back. Her fingers came away with blood and she grimaced.
“You’re complètement folle, Frederika! This is a place for sane people! The Duke will throw you out when I tell him.”
“This is a place for Pretties,” Frederika said, her face red. “For girls.” There was an edge to her words.
“For girls,” Petra repeated with an equally sharp edge. “Not a place for me either, is that what you mean?”
Frederika’s eyes blazed. “You weren’t born a girl.”
Petra let out a harsh laugh. “The Duke doesn’t care about that.”
“It isn’t up to the Duke. It’s the Coal Baths that determine who will live and who will die. What will happen when you step into the blue flames and the magic there senses that someone born as a boy has—”
“Shut your fichu mouth.” Petra let go of Anouk, grabbed a rotten apple from the goat trough, and slammed it into Frederika’s mouth before she could react. Frederika doubled over and coughed out rotted, wormy bits.
Little Beau continued to bark viciously from his stall.
“I’ve got your back,” Anouk whispered to Petra.
“I’ve got yours.”
Frederika raised her knife. Anouk grabbed a shovel from the tool pile in the corner, and a pitchfork for Petra.
A rumble began in the coal chute, though no coal had been delivered to the abbey in decades. All three of them whipped around. Something from outside was coming in with the sound of frantic movement and cries. Before anyone could close the coal-chute door, a storm of wings rushed in. Birds! There must have been hundreds. Crows. Ravens. Falcons. Even a few owls, their eyes round and yellow. Anouk clutched the shovel, staring, transfixed. The birds circled the goat pen, flapping their sharp wings, cawing their deafening cries.
Frederika ducked to cover her head.
And then as soon as they’d come, the birds circled and poured out through the coal chute again, leaving the goat pen in a thunderous silence. Anouk dared to raise her head again. The sound of cawing came from high above and they looked upward.
“They’ve moved on to the courtyard,” Petra said, tracing the sound from room to room overhead. “And there . . . now it sounds like they’ve moved to the great hall.”
The shrill whistle of Duke Karolinge’s falcon call pierced the din, and Frederika jumped as though she was conditioned to respond to the whistle just as his birds were. Muttering a curse, Frederika sheathed the knife in her apron. “I have to have a crux before tomorrow.”
Petra, blood trickling from her lip, waved her toward the stairs. “Well, there’ll be no murder today, so va se faire foutre.”
Frederika gave them a long, unreadable look, then turned and climbed the stairs.
Petra snorted. Anouk fell to her knees, dug through the mud, and sighed in relief as her fingers at last closed around something small and hard. She wiped it on her apron. The bell.
“What’s that?” Petra asked.
“Nothing.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Those crows.” She coughed. “I recognize them. They belong to Rennar.”
“What does that mean?”
“The Royals are here.”
Petra cocked an eyebrow. “From Paris?”
Anouk shook her head. “From all of the realms.”