Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

“A transference spell? You’re writing it yourself?”

“Trying to.”

Anouk was about to prod her again—?she was clearly not telling the whole truth—?but Luc gave a satisfied grunt.

“There!” He swirled the antidote, then touched a few droplets to Sinjin’s lips, the edges of his nostrils, and the inside of his ears, using every last drop.

On the floor, Sinjin let out a groan. Luc gathered up his supplies, exited the locker, and slid the bolt closed behind him. Sinjin sat up and squinted at them through the wire mesh.

“Guess what?” Cricket said, sneering. “You’re going to live, but you and your bunny belong to us now.”

Hunter Black said bleakly, “I say we feed him to the dead upstairs.”

“Hunter Black gets cranky,” Cricket informed Sinjin, “when he goes more than three days without assassinating someone.”

Hunter Black spun on her. “I never said I enjoyed killing.”

“Ha! I’ve seen you kill. You look like you’re having really good sex or really bad indigestion.”

He growled, “Mada Vittora made me to kill and so I kill. Not because I enjoy it. Sometimes difficult things must be done, and I’m the only one who has both the stomach and the skill to do them.”

Cricket threw up her hands and exclaimed dryly, “Oh, noble you.”

Before Hunter Black could retort, Viggo pushed between them and gripped the bars of Sinjin’s cage. “Look, ignore these two,” he said to the broker. “One witch’s boy to another, tell us how we can defeat the witches. They must have weaknesses. All witches do. Certain organs that haven’t yet turned to wood and can still bleed.”

Sinjin scowled. “Organs? What are you talking about?”

Anouk joined Viggo at the cage. “Tell us how many witches there are. What their monikers are. What they use as oubliettes.”

Sinjin stared at them oddly.

Luc came over, dusting herbs off his hands. “Listen, you’d best tell us everything. I have it on good authority from a Crimson princess that one of the Royals is in league with your witches. That’s the only way the witches could have gotten into the Castle Ides ballroom. Tell us how. In exchange for the information, we’ll spare your life and even keep your secret. You can go back to Paris and hack whatever Pretty websites you want.”

Sinjin’s expression slowly cracked into a cruel smile. He started laughing.

Beau slammed his palm against the wire cage. “It’s no use. He won’t betray his witches.”

Sinjin’s laughing tapered off. “You don’t understand, any of you.There are no monikers or oubliettes. There are no organs. Not anymore,” he spat out sourly. “There’s nothing left to betray.”

Anouk considered him carefully. “What are you saying?”

“There are no more Oxford witches. The entire coven is dead.”

Viggo barked a laugh. “Yeah, right.”

Anouk added, “We saw them at the engagement party when they pos

sessed King Kaspar.”

“They possessed King Kaspar not to threaten you. They were warning you. Begging for help! When your Royals killed King Kaspar, they killed the final spirit of the witches too.”

Cricket shot up from a crate and waved her knife. “I’ve got a whole city plunged into chaos out there that would disagree with you. Chaos your witches awoke.”

Sinjin shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re up against.”

Anouk crouched next to the cage and said softly, “Then tell us.”

He looked up with cruel words poised on the tip of his tongue, but then he met her eyes and the fight seemed to go out of him. He sighed. Sank back heavily against the water-lily paintings.