Bong.
And then more bells came from more churches on different blocks, tolls that broke the beautiful night with crashing, gnashing, deafening sounds. Twelve chimes. Even long after the bells had stopped, their vibrations traveled throughout the city, straight into the little alley at the far end of Rue des Amants.
Midnight had come at last.
Chapter 41
Time Over
When Anouk woke, the moon shone bright enough to burn her eyes.
She rolled over, woozy and foggy-headed, to find ivy crumpling beneath her hands. She heard the sounds of trickling water and felt cool night air. Crushed bits of dry leaves clung to her face. For a moment, nothing made sense. Her memory was like an unfinished jigsaw puzzle, missing more pieces than it contained. The fountain . . . a car . . .
Then the impossible happened.
The moon turned off.
She blinked in the bizarre sudden darkness, and then her eyes adjusted and she slowly came to make out two people standing in front of her: a young black couple with blue jeans and white sneakers. Americans. The man held a phone to his ear, but when he saw she was awake, he swung it back toward her and shone that bright light again that she’d mistaken for the moon.
They said something in English, but to Anouk’s ears it sounded like clunky gibberish.
“What time is it?” she rasped, pressing a hand to her dry throat.
But they shook their heads, not understanding her French, and she tapped on her wrist to indicate her question. The man turned his phone around and showed her the time backlit on the screen: 12:59 a.m.
The woman’s gaze shifted to something behind Anouk, and her face suddenly broke in a smile. She crouched down, making a sound like she was calling to an animal. Anouk pressed a hand to her head. She was at the fountain near the townhouse. The cute spitting gargoyle. She’d had a coin, she’d come here with Beau, and . . .
Beau.
She sat up, remembering everything with a rush of panic.
The American woman made that inviting noise again. A shadow came out from the corner, a shadow that changed in the phone’s light to two big brown eyes and a wagging tail and sandy-brown fur. It inched forward at the girl’s beckoning motion but stopped a few feet away, hesitant and wary.
Anouk found herself staring dumbly at the creature.
Dog.
A dog.
She collapsed backward, her palms scraping on the bricks, but she felt only numbness. The fountain kept tinkling, and the sound was all she could cling to to keep her mind from slipping away.
“Is he yours?”
Another girl, a French teenager in a waitress uniform, had joined the Americans and was peering at her strangely. The girl pointed to the dog.
“Is he yours?” she repeated.
Anouk grabbed for the dog, some instinct making her pull it close and wrap her arms around it fiercely.
“Yes,” she said. “He’s mine.”
Her voice was wild enough that the American couple exchanged a look and then stepped back. The man’s phone rang and they used the excuse to walk away at a fast clip. But the French girl knelt down and pressed something cool into Anouk’s hand.
“For luck,” the girl said. “I was going to throw it in myself, but it looks like you need it more than me.”
The girl left, and Anouk stared at the glistening franc in her palm. Still clutching the dog by the scruff of its neck, terrified of letting go, she crawled to the fountain as fast as she could and threw in the coin. It bounced off the gargoyle and plinked into the water.
“For Beau to be human again,” she whispered in a rush. “For Beau to be Beau.”