Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Cities falling one by one . . .

White to Red, White to Red . . .

“I’m not sure we have a choice,” Luc said quietly.

All this heavy talk seemed to unnerve Viggo, who tore open the plastic wrap of the fruit basket and thrust a banana at her. “Eat something, Dust Mop. You’re skin and bones. The Goblins packed this for you.”

She pushed away the banana and he frowned.

“At least have a grape.”

“I don’t want fruit right now! I don’t want anything!”

She grabbed the fruit basket and chucked it onto the floor. “Don’t you understand? I failed. I missed something. I thought I knew myself and my connection to magic. I was so sure. But it turns out I don’t know myself at all. All that time at the Cottage studying spells and reading about other witches and I still got it wrong. I had to beg Rennar for help.” She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “I want to go home.”

“Ah. Yes. About the townhouse . . .” Viggo started. Her eyes snapped open again. Viggo looked fairly sick. He turned to Luc for help, but Luc just stuffed a grape in his mouth, leaving Viggo to answer alone. Viggo grimaced. “It’s, ah, it’s gone.”

Anouk blinked, thinking she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”

“Burned,” Viggo clarified in a nervous rush. “An awful accident. Just a few days after we left. You’d already gone to the Black Forest, and the Goblins and I packed up and moved to Castle Ides. December and I went back for my hat. The whole building was already on fire. Pretty fire trucks were on the scene, even some news reporters. But they couldn’t put it out. You can imagine my horror. I nearly choked on my own tongue. December practically had to perform the Heimlich.”

Anouk was speechless. The townhouse was gone? It didn’t feel possible that she would never again go back to her old turret bedroom with the playbills pasted on the walls and her collection of found objects from the Pretty World that Beau had brought her—?baby shoes, toupees. She’d never again set foot in Mada Vittora’s wondrous closet of shoes. Never whip up buttercream frosting in the kitchen and smack Beau with a wooden spoon when he tried to lick the bowl. Never curl up in a chair in the library to read tales of the world beyond the windows.

There was no going back now. There was nothing to go back to.

“How?” Her voice was hollow.

Viggo looked away, ashamed. “Turns out I’m not such a good Goblin babysitter after all. One of them must have left some toast on the stove.”

She narrowed her eyes. There was something Viggo wasn’t telling her. He’d always been a terrible liar. “There was no more bread left. The pantry was bare.” She turned to Luc. “What do you make of all this?”

Luc’s face was as serene as always. If she hadn’t known him so well, she would have missed the ripple of suspicion in his eyes. “Seems like too strange a coincidence for Rennar not to be behind it. I think he wanted you to have no home except his.”

Her mood turned even nastier. “Well, the joke is on him. He didn’t know that I’d fail in the Baths and be useless, townhouse or no townhouse.”

Viggo and Luc didn’t respond. Their silence might as well have been an accusation. Failure. Disappointment. What right had she had to think she could do anything grander than sweep the floors?

An awful idea took hold of her. “Beau! He’s still at the Cottage!” Before the Baths, she had left him in the stables in the Cottage basement, locked in the muddy stall with only a few ham scraps and her Faustine jacket, and that had been a week ago!

She pitched forward, tossing off the covers. “Shoes . . . I need shoes . . .”

“Calm down.” Luc pressed his palms gently against her shoulders, easing her back into bed. “Beau is okay. Petra has him. When she and I got you out of the Coal Baths, she promised to get the dog and bring him here as soon as she could.”

Anouk’s muscles relaxed slightly. Petra was a witch now. At least that was a ray of light in the darkness. If the Duke or anyone else tried to stop Petra from taking Little Beau, she’d be a force to reckon with. And then Anouk’s thoughts turned dark. She was supposed to be a witch too. She should have been able to free Little Beau herself, even turn him human again. He should have been in bed with her; they should have been whispering dreams and plans to each other and nibbling on the goodies in the fruit basket. “I’ve ruined everything.”

Viggo and Luc were silent. Rain pelted harder at the window, icy and loud, threatening to turn to snow. The city skyline was a growing smear of gray on the horizon.

“Get some rest,” Luc said at last. He nudged Viggo and motioned at the door. As soon as they’d left, a deafening silence filled the room, and Anouk wanted to call them back. The bedroom was too empty without them; the luxury gave her no comfort. Her thoughts bumped around the high ceilings and echoed back to her. She palmed the melted bell angrily. She lost track of time. She had no townhouse to return to. No magic sparking at her fingertips, not even the simplest tricks and whispers. No clue what she’d gotten wrong when she’d chosen her crux. No idea how to make it all right again.

At least she could rid herself of the bell. On an impulse, she ran to the window, preparing to hurl the bell to where she’d never have to see it again.

But she froze.

The last thing she’d expected to see, eight stories up, was a face. She nearly fell over. “Jak!”

He was crouched on the exterior sill. He tapped one long fingernail against the pane. “Let me in, lovely?”

She hesitated, then decided that things couldn’t get much worse. She twisted the brass lock and opened the window. He unfolded his nimble limbs, climbed in, and took a look around at the opulent décor. Though his eyes glittered with curiosity, he didn’t move more than a few feet from the window; he was bound to the cold.