“He’d better,” Beau muttered, “otherwise there won’t be any city left to save.”
Luc was shivering. Hunter Black shrugged off his heavy coat and rested it over the gardener’s shoulders.
Cricket folded her arms tightly. “So how exactly are we supposed to stop the Noirceur when we can’t walk two steps beyond the museum without getting caught in a time loop? We’ll never make it to Big Ben. We’d get hit by a falling toad or struck by lightning.”
Anouk thought about this, then jerked her head toward the clouds. “Snow.”
“Um, cabbage, it isn’t snowing,” Beau pointed out.
“Not yet.” Anouk felt the magic tingling in her palms. This time, she didn’t have to rely on anyone to cast magic for her. She needed a big storm, big enough to cover the whole city. She began to whisper. She spun her left hand in a circle, and the clouds lowered and darkened. Flakes started to fall.
“You’re summoning Jak,” Cricket realized.
Anouk muttered between whispers, “Not just Jak—?all the Snow Children. They can’t stop the plagues, but they might be able to interrupt them. Buy us time before the city is torn apart.”
The snow fell like the gods were sugaring the city. In the chaos below, the few Pretties not caught in time loops raised umbrellas. Snow fell thick on Anouk’s head and arms. It caught in Cricket’s hair and in Beau’s eyelashes. Hunter Black pulled up the collar of his shirt, hunkering low. Soon a light coating of snow dusted the glass dome of the museum roof.
Anouk heard a cruel chuckle behind her and spun.
“Miss me so soon?” Jak asked.
He was clutching the spire at the top of the dome.
Behind him, more faces appeared, all of them pale with black eyes and icicle hair. Dozens of Snow Children perched on the glass dome. A girl with jagged frosty curls. A cluster of boys with clothes made of ice. Even as a witch, Anouk felt uncertain. These were ancient creatures. Older than Goblins, older than Royals, so old that they weren’t even an order of the Haute.
“Jak,” she said. “The Noirceur is spreading too fast. I need you and the other Snow Children to freeze the city. Coat it all in ice temporarily. Cricket and I have a plan to transfer the Noirceur to a new vessel—?the Heart of Alexandrite—?but the plagues are going to destroy the whole city and everyone in it before we can.”
Jak didn’t seem concerned about the bedlam below or her anxiety. “Cities rise and fall. It is the way of things. Why should we intervene?”
Her cheeks burned. She was desperate. “You want a kiss. I’ll . . . I’ll give you one once all of this is over.”
Hunter Black growled his disapproval.
Beau spun on her. “Cabbage, are you crazy?”
Viggo, in the doorway, looked deeply troubled. “You can’t, Dust Mop. Think of those dead girls in the forest you told us about. You want to join them?”
She ignored them. “I’ll do it,” she told Jak. “I promise. I’ll risk it.” She held her chin high, but to her surprise, Jak sadly shook his head.
“No, lovely.”
Her eyes widened. “Why not?”
“You’ve changed. You’re no longer warm—?you’re burning. The blue flame inside of you would burn me too.”
Anouk let out a cry. She’d become a witch to defeat the Coven of Oxford, only to find they’d ceased to exist, swallowed by something even more daunting. Now she couldn’t even kiss a Snow Child. “Then what do you want?”
“A kiss, just not from you.”
His black eyes skimmed over Cricket, who gave him a scowl, to Beau, who straightened quickly, to Viggo, who leaned in the doorway and picked carelessly at his fingernails, to Hunter Black, who looked like a sullen shadow even without his coat, to Luc, where they finally settled.
Jak smiled.
Luc tensed. He pulled the collar of Hunter Black’s coat higher around his neck. The other Snow Children crept forward over the dome, soft and graceful as spiders, leaving no prints behind.
Hunter Black moved defensively in front of Luc. He cracked his knuckles. “Try it, and you’ll kiss my fist.”
“He’s right,” Anouk said. “It’s me or nobody.”