A beautiful, perfect Hermès purse.
“It’s her oubliette.”
Beau jumped backward and almost knocked over a chair. “That’s it? You’re certain?”
“It shimmers, regardless of its form, if you know how to look at it.”
Cricket reached out for it, but Anouk held it back protectively.
“Come on,” Cricket urged. “There could be all kinds of things in there we need. Money. Gold. Spells we could trade for!”
“It isn’t that simple.” Anouk opened the bag and turned it upside down. Nothing came out. Cricket’s face fell.
“It’s empty? That’s impossible.” Beau grabbed the bag and pawed through the space.
Anouk took the bag back from him. “It isn’t empty, but its contents are protected. We’ll need a witch to truly open it.”
Something outside caught Anouk’s ear. A certain familiar rev of an engine. She went to the window. The sun was rising above the tall buildings, casting the city in bright, clear morning light.
The rev came again.
A motorcycle pulled up in front of the apartment, and the driver shut off its engine. The gunmetal color winked in the sunlight. Two figures were on the back, helmets shading their faces. But Anouk didn’t need to see their faces. Only Hunter Black’s coat.
She spun away from the window. “They’re here.”
Beau swore as he looked down at Hunter Black’s motorcycle. “We have to run.”
“Where?” Anouk said. “We’re five stories up and there’s only one staircase.” She went to the door and pressed her ear against its peeling paint. The other residents were up and about now; she heard the canned sound of a radio and the clatter of pans. The downstairs neighbor must be making breakfast.
And then footsteps on the stairs. Two sets.
She recoiled from the door. “They’re coming.” Her hand went to her necklace, needing the soothing touch of Luc’s coin but finding nothing, just skin and bone and an empty chain.
Gone. In the bottom of the fountain.
She dropped her hand. “We have to hide.”
“Are you mad?” said Cricket. “Hunter Black was literally made for this. To hunt. He’ll find you in seconds.”
But Anouk was already searching the room for possible hiding places. She and Beau and Luc had played hide-and-seek whenever Mada Vittora was away and they’d had the full run of the townhouse, a place where entire ballrooms were hidden within closets, staircases led to floors that shouldn’t exist, cupboards opened to secret tunnels.
But Cricket’s apartment was tiny and sparsely furnished and not magic in the slightest, leaving only a handful of options: Under the bed. Beneath the kitchen sink. In the closet.
“She’s right. We don’t have any other choice.” Beau threw back the shower curtain, eyed the tub. “I parked the Rolls-Royce around the corner, and they didn’t see us come in, so they might not know that we’re here.”
Footsteps thundered up the stairs. One flight down now.
“Zut.” Cricket started to throw the scattered pelts into a pile on the floor. “We have to hide these too. Help me.”
The musty smell of pelts and stomp-stomp-stomp of approaching boots made Anouk lightheaded. “The closet. It’s the only place big enough.”
The three of them dragged the pelts to the closet and threw them over the messy piles of clothes just as the footsteps stopped short on the landing.
Someone knocked, hard.
“Quick, get in!” Cricket whispered, herding Beau and Anouk toward the closet.
“The oubliette . . . where is it?” Beau hissed. “If Viggo sees it, he’ll recognize it.”