Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Sinjin’s body slumped to the ground. Anouk started to run over, but then stopped. There was no point in feeling for a pulse. His chin was practically touching his spine. She spun on Hunter Black with hot cheeks. “I thought you said you didn’t enjoy killing!”

“Luc is family,” he said grimly. “And I make an exception when someone hurts my family.”

Should she feel grateful or disturbed? “Luc.” She picked up a cloth and pressed it to his neck, but he waved it away—?the bleeding had already stopped. “Cricket, get his herbalist kit.”

Luc shook his head. “Dust Bunny. No.” His face was slick with sweat. It smelled sharp and astringent. “I used the last of the antidote on Sinjin.”

“Then we’ll get more. It’s a big city. We’ll get flowers and . . .” She turned helplessly to Cricket.

Cricket looked like she’d seen a ghost. “The poison I used is from Mada Zola’s stash in Montélimar. It contains a cultivar of lavender found only on the estate. The antidote has to come from there too.”

Anouk staggered to the nearest seat, the throne from the Nutcracker set. She felt numb. Luc was poisoned. They had no antidote. She had no magic to save him. They had the golden hare, which meant they had the ruby stud. Theoretically, if they could get the ruby to Paris, Petra could pass into London—?but she’d never arrive before the poison reached Luc’s heart.

At her feet lay the Nutcracker dolls that Jak had commanded like puppets. She kicked one, watched it roll across the stage and bump into the presents that had been set up to look like Stonehenge.

Her spine went rigid. An idea was forming in her head, a valiant one, and those were the most dangerous. She closed her hand instinctively around her Faustine jacket, still hanging on the back of the throne.

Cricket stopped pacing and gave Anouk a searching look. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“Leaving? Why? Where?”

Head spinning, Anouk pulled on the jacket, letting the silk slide over her like battle armor.

It’s snowing, Jak had said before disappearing, in Wiltshire.

Her eyes fell to one of the paintings in

the art locker, a landscape of a field of heather beneath a brilliant blue sky. For all she knew, it was a field in the Russian countryside, not in Great Britain, but regardless, something about the field reminded her of Jak’s words. “I’m going to Wiltshire.”

Cricket stared at her as though she’d gone mad. “What’s in Wiltshire?”

Anouk flipped up her jacket collar. She checked the security cameras trained on the exterior steps, noting with satisfaction that a light snow had started.

A place of immense power, Jak had said. A place of transformation and blue flame.

“Stonehenge,” she answered.

Chapter 34

“Anouk. Wait.”

She was halfway up the stairs. Hunter Black, his face cast in shadows, took a single, halting step toward her.

“You’re leaving,” he said. “You’re going to do something dangerous. At the least, you’re going to fight your way through the dead up there.”

“If you’re going to tell me not to go—”

“I’m not.” He took another step toward her, closing the distance. “You wouldn’t listen to me anyway. But I want to tell you . . .” He cleared his throat, and she found herself curious and a little worried. It was rare to see Hunter Black flummoxed. Rarer still that it didn’t have to do with some poor soul he’d just killed. “Be careful.”

She let out a laugh without meaning to. “Careful?” How many times had Hunter Black himself threatened her? He was Mada Vittora’s loyal wolf, there to do her dirty work. In the case of Anouk, that had meant making sure she was too scared to ever leave the townhouse.

He gave something like a growl, coming up the rest of the stairs until they were just a few steps apart. “I know I . . . I’ve been a monster. But it isn’t like it was before. I meant what I said about us being . . . being . . .”

That ugly feeling inside her softened, and she hesitantly took a step down. “Family?”

After a second, he muttered a word that resembled yes.