Puzzled, he laughed off her embrace and readjusted his cap. “Hop off now, girlie. Howl at the moon somewhere else tonight, eh?”
She spun in a circle in the center of the stones. They weren’t humming like they’d been the night before, but she still sensed magic in them. She felt connected to the stones and the grass and the visitors’-center employee in a way she never had before, as though the world were now an extension of her own body and she might make the grass ripple as effortlessly as she tossed her own hair. Was this what it felt like to be a witch? Not just small sparks of magic at her fingers, but as though the whole world were a warm glittering dream that until this point she’d been merely sleeping through?
The smile left her face as she remembered London. “I have to save Luc!”
The bewildered old man called after her as she leaped over the guard railing and sprinted down the path to the visitors’ center. An awful idea hit her and she stopped abruptly. Without Jak, how was she supposed to get back to London? She needed a bus schedule . . . a ticket . . .
“Idiote!”
She groaned. She was a witch! She thrust a hand into her pocket and found the bag of Cricket’s eucalyptus. At the Cottage, Esme had told her that, with the right combination of life-essences, doorways could be altered to lead to different destinations. It was tricky magic. Flowers alone wouldn’t suffice. She swallowed three dried eucalyptus leaves along with a handful of fresh dewy grass from within the circle. A glittering, warm fizz spread through her body. Why hadn’t Mada Vittora told her that magic could feel like this, like the tickle of a feather on the back of her neck, both delicious and bothersome at the same time? Raising her hands toward the nearest bathroom door, she whispered the words that were bumping around in her mouth. “Abri nox.”
Creating doorways was far more advanced magic than sewing on buttons. She’d expected the magic to explode from her like water from one of Luc’s garden hoses set on high, but instead it simply was there when she needed it and wasn’t when she didn’t. It reminded her of “The Goat Lottery,” one of Luc’s fairy tales, about a poor goatherd girl who’d bet her family’s flock in the village’s annual lottery and won a magical coat from the meadow sprite who ran it. Every time the girl needed money, she reached in her pocket and there it was. Exactly as much as she needed, no more, no less.
She held her breath as she twisted the bathroom doorknob. The last thing she wanted to see on the other side was a commode—?and to her delight, the bathroom beyond had indeed disappeared. The door now led into the grand entryway of the British Museum, with a banner over the ticket booth advertising the upcoming Nutcracker Ballet special exhibit.
She paused to smile over her shoulder at the old man.
“Thanks for not calling the police, monsieur.”
The door now led into the grand entryway of the British Museum, with a banner over the ticket booth advertising the upcoming Nutcracker Ballet special exhibit. The ancient stones had wo
rked their magic again—the border spell was no match for their mysterious energy. The elderly visitors’-center employee would doubtlessly run after her though the door, but he’d find only the usual row of urinals. A shiver of magic ran through her as she crossed the enchanted threshold. No trains, no buses, not even any help from Snow Children. That warm tickle ran through her whole body, but there was a scalding-hot edge to it too, and she pressed a hand to her stomach as if she’d gotten a sudden cramp. Magic wasn’t limitless. She could open a doorway across half of England, but she couldn’t travel that far that fast without a hefty bout of motion sickness.
Her shoes echoed on the museum foyer floor as the door shut behind her.
“Anouk!”
Cricket was on the stairs, skipping down the steps two at a time to join her. “We’ve been looking for you all night! Beau’s tearing up exhibits to find you. Luc is barely hanging on. The dead have completely taken over the upper floors—?we had to barricade the basement to keep them out. You . . . whoa. Arrête un moment.” Cricket stopped on the last step. Her features twisted as she looked Anouk over. “You don’t look like you.”
Anouk knew what Cricket meant, even though on the outside she looked like she always did, dressed in the Faustine jacket, tawny hair pulled back in a messy ponytail.
“I did it,” she breathed. “Cricket, I’m a witch.”
The caution in Cricket’s face intensified. She was a thief, after all, and thieves had a sharp eye for traps. But then Cricket’s gaze settled on the grass stains on Anouk’s shoes. Her frown vanished.
“Like, seriously? Anouk, that’s incredible!”
She ran over, touched a lock of Anouk’s hair, rubbed the silky strands between her fingers, and laughed. Anouk beamed until a rasping groan came from the top of the stairs.
Both girls tensed.
“The dead,” Cricket warned. “We’d better get out of here. Luc’s still downstairs. Hurry.”
The sound of multiple sets of alarmingly fast footsteps came from the upper level. The dead had heard them. Anouk and Cricket ran to the basement, pushing aside the crates the others had used as a barricade. Anouk used the last of her eucalyptus to cast a barrier spell to keep the dead from following them, and then they raced down the stairs.
Had a tornado swept through the basement? Crates were thrown open. Packing straw littered the floor. Viggo was knee-deep in a storage box. Saint was high in the rafters as if he’d been spooked by something. Luc was laid out in one of the sarcophagi, his brow beaded with sweat, his eyelids fluttering.
“Anouk!” Viggo collapsed onto a pile of packing straw. “Finally! We thought one of the dead had gotten you!”
“Anouk? Where?” Beau appeared from a back room with a broom in his hand, a layer of dust on his hair and shoulders as though he’d been poking the broom through the rafters looking for her. When he saw her, he dropped the broom and went to wrap her up in bear hug, but then he stopped. A shadow wavered in his eyes.
“It’s me, Beau,” she said softly. “I know I look different. Jak took me to a place where the Coal Baths occur naturally on midwinter dawns.” Her voice danced. “I did it this time. I survived.”
He didn’t seem to trust his own eyes until Anouk pushed up her jacket sleeves and showed off her smooth skin, free of bruises. When her skin caught the light, it even glowed with a golden undertone.
His eyes widened. “Mada Vittora’s skin gleamed like that. I thought it was makeup.”
“Not makeup. Magic.”