Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

He shook his head. “We were interrupted. I’ll try again. I know she’s frightened by this King Kaspar business—?she was sobbing on my shoulder. I’ll see if I can’t take advantage of that.”

Anouk nodded. “Find out what you can, then meet us. We need someplace safe. Someplace private.”

“There’s a billiard room down the hall,” Viggo offered in a whisper, overhearing them. “I’ve never seen it used. The Royals hate games—?they find them utterly dull.”

“Meet us there as soon as you can, Luc,” Anouk said.

Luc nodded and disappeared into the crowd, looking like just another rattled Royal in velvet and silk.

Anouk knelt by Rennar’s side. His breathing was labored. His eyes were glassy. His muscles twitched involuntarily, threatening to convulse. Anouk touched a shard of glass that was buried deep in his chest. Black blood pooled over his skin and she hissed and pulled her hand back. If she tried to remove the glass, he might bleed to death.

“Petra,” she whispered loudly, motioning her over. “Can you help me carry Rennar out of here?”

“Are you sure it’s safe to move him? I could cast a trick. Enchant that table to grow wheels like a hospital stretcher.”

Remnants of smoke were still rising toward the ceiling. Anouk eyed them warily. She hadn’t liked how the smoke seemed to respond to the sound of their voices. “Save your magic until we’re farther from that smoke, and keep your voice down too. Who knows how the Coven got in here. We’ll just carry him. I’ll take his arms. You get his feet. Careful, one leg is made of stone.”

A few feet away, near the wreckage of the engagement cake, Viggo rested a hand on Hunter Black’s shoulder and said gallantly, “And you lean on me, my friend.”

Hunter Black swatted away Viggo’s hand with a growl. “I don’t need rest.”

“Of course you don’t. You’re made of piss and steel. But humor me.” He dragged Hunter Black’s arm around his shoulder despite the assassin’s protests.

As Anouk prepared to stand, the Crimson Queen met her gaze, her eyes filled with mistrust. Anouk froze. The queen squeezed the vial around her neck and took a step toward Anouk, but then one of her sisters started coughing and the other sister screamed, afraid she was possessed, and Violante’s attention was dragged back to the other Royals.

“Now. Hurry.” Anouk and Petra slowly made their way through the ballroom and into the hall, grunting under Rennar’s weight. Viggo followed closely, Hunter Black leaning on him for support. They all stopped at a massive grandfather clock that sat where the corridor forked.

“Which way?” Anouk asked.

“Take a left. It’s almost always a left after midnight. Here, let me go first. I told you I’d be good for something.” Viggo led the way, counting doorways as he supported Hunter Black, and then toed open a blue door that was slightly ajar. “Aha! I told you. Smell that. Cigars. Whiskey. Cue chalk.”

The curtains were drawn, casting the furniture in shadows. Petra whispered the gaslights on, and they flickered to life one at a time, illuminating twin billiard tables lined with black felt, a fireplace flanked by massive leather chairs, and a wall of shelves laden with chessboards from every corner of the globe.

“There. Lay him on that billiard table.” Anouk nodded toward the closest one. Groaning, she and Petra hoisted him onto the felt and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed, but he was whispering feverish things in a language Anouk didn’t know. She pulled up one of his eyelids and her breath stilled—?his irises were black with swirling smoke. She swallowed back her panic. Fingers shaking, she focused on easing open the buttons of his shirt to reveal the worst of the cuts. He smelled of sweat and that citrus-vanilla-pine aftershave. It did something to her, smelling that. She felt a tug in the pit of her stomach.

She couldn’t afford to lose him.

She toyed with one of his buttons, uncertain whether she wanted to touch his skin. Black smoke marbleized the blood dripping down his side. She fought the urge to wipe it away with her hand. “Petra, the smoke got into his cuts.”

Petra leaned in to inspect the poisoned blood and then cursed. “I’ll need a potion to draw it out.” She looked helplessly around the room. “There’s nothing alive in here. Just chessboards and cue sticks.” She grabbed a cue from the rack, sniffed it, then recoiled. “The wood’s been treated too much. What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they keep ingredients around the house? Mada Zola stuffed acorns in every spare drawer and hung herbs from every rafter.”

“They keep their life-essence in vials around their necks.”

Petra bit hard on her lip. She turned to Anouk. “We need Luc. He knows potions better than anyone.”

“I’ll find him.” Anouk started for the door, then returned to the billiard table and rested her fingers gently on Rennar’s brow. “Stay strong, you idiot.”

She went into the hall and followed the dizzying maze of corridors back to the ballroom. When she found no sign of Luc, she checked the salon, then a washroom, and she eventually found him hidden in a coat closet with a blond count from the Court of the Woods. Luc was murmuring reassurances that the count would never be possessed like King Kaspar. The boy’s blue-tinted powder streaked Luc’s cheeks.

“Luc! Er, Baron von . . . um . . . we need you.” Anouk ignored the surprised look on the count’s face as she tugged Luc out of the closet by his shirt cuff. “Hurry, please,” she hissed. “If the clock changes, we’ll never find our way back.”

He wiped the blue kisses off his cheeks with the back of his hand. He smelled of rosewater cologne. She gave him a hard look. “I thought you were interrogating a member of the Minaret Court.”

“I . . . interrogated her too.”

“Ugh—?boys. Zip up your trousers and come on.”

They raced back to the billiard room, where Luc finished straightening his clothes and then set about inspecting Rennar’s wounds. “I need something for expelling smoke,” he muttered. “Petra, fetch me that arrangement of fresh hydrangeas in the hallway. And try to be quiet, everyone. The smoke looked like it was responding to vibrations from sound.”