Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

“Why would Luc want another witch’s help?” Cricket said. “Help with what?”

“I don’t know, but whatever his aim, he thought he could trust Mada Zola, and I trust him. We should go to Montélimar unless you know a good reason not to.”

“Just one? We have every reason not to go!” Cricket counted off on her fingers. “One: As far as Mada Zola’s concerned, we’ve always been loyal servants for the witch who orchestrated her downfall. Two: Word has probably reached her that we’re potential witch murderers, which I doubt will reassure her when we show up at her door. Three: Even if she does extend the spell, we’ll just be trading one mistress for another. Which brings me to four: Have you heard the rumors about what she does to Goblins? And five: Montélimar is more than halfway across the country. That’s, what, Beau, six hours from here?”

“Seven.”

“See? It’s almost noon, which means we have only two and a half days left to find a way out of this. We can’t spend seven of our last hours on a tour of the countryside.” She shook her head. “No. We stay in Paris and go to the bird-market broker.”

Anouk turned to Beau for help. “We need a witch, not some Pretty broker. Luc contacted Zola for a reason.”

Beau relented. “If Luc trusted her, then it might be worth the risk. I say Montélimar. Sorry, Cricket. You’re outvoted.”

“Zola is dangerous,” Cricket insisted.

“I don’t doubt it.” He glanced at the black-cat clock ticking away on Cricket’s toaster. “Her estate is called the Château des Mille Fleurs. The House of a Thousand Flowers. I drove Mada Vittora there last winter. We could make it before sundown. If we get there and it looks too dangerous, we leave. Come back to Paris and go to the bird-market broker. We’d still have about”—?he quickly counted—?“forty-five hours.”

Cricket didn’t answer. She chewed her gum anxiously, and then, grumbling, grabbed a backpack and started stuffing things into it. The yellow headphones. A handful of candy. The cat clock. She slung the backpack over her shoulder and rooted around in a pile of coats by the front door until she found three umbrellas, two of which she tossed to them, saying, “Fine, but take these.”

“It isn’t raining,” Anouk said.

“It isn’t for that. It’s for the crows. To get us from here to the car without them seeing us.”

Cricket didn’t bother to lock her door, though she did give the room one final look. Tiny as it was, the apartment was as much freedom as Cricket had ever had in her short life. Cricket turned away sharply, and they descended the stairs into the foyer that smelled stronger now, like curried fish.

Cricket peered through the peephole. “It looks clear. No motorcycles or idiots in slouchy hats.” She rested her hand on the doorknob. “Eyes wide. Umbrellas up. Remember, we’re in this together.”

She shoved open the door and they were awash in daylight. Anouk took shelter beneath her umbrella, ignoring the Pretties on the sunny street who gave their umbrellas odd glances. They rushed to the car, Anouk’s heart slipping and sliding around in her chest. S

he kept expecting to hear the roar of Hunter Black’s motorcycle. The flapping of wings. She dared a peek toward the skies and saw hundreds of dark outlines circling overhead. She dived into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

“The crows are everywhere!”

Cricket was already in the back seat. “The crows aren’t our real enemy.” She dug around in the backpack until she pulled out the black-cat clock. “This is. Time.” She spat her gum into her hand, mushed it onto the clock’s base, and then leaned forward between the front seats and affixed it to the dashboard.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Beau climbed in and shot the black-cat clock a doubting look but said nothing as he threw the car into drive, then whipped them through the maze of narrow lanes of the Latin Quarter into the Marais. Eventually, tall buildings bled into countryside: Vast fields of dying grass, dotted with sheep. Villages that clustered together as though for warmth. A train barreled past them in the other direction, and Anouk smooshed her face against the window and watched it grow smaller until it was gone.

“So what exactly do we know about Mada Zola?” Beau asked.

“What’s to know?” Cricket leaned forward between the seats. “She’s a witch like all the rest. She’ll have a houseful of servants, an insufferable brat for a witch’s boy, and skin stretched too tight over creaky old bones. If we’re lucky, maybe she won’t do to us what she did to the Goblins.”

“What did she do to the Goblins?” Beau asked, though he sounded as though he dreaded the answer.

“Goblins are an old order but an unambitious one; they’d be content living their quiet, bizarre little lives and never amassing an ounce of power. It was easy for witches to exploit them. Last summer, there was an ugly rumor going around that Zola lured Goblins to her estate with the promise of fantastic tea parties, but the ones who attended kept disappearing. And then the ones who went looking for them disappeared. Speculation started that she’d been poisoning their tea and burying their bodies in her flower beds. She thought her lavender grew better in blood. More potent. For her tricks and whispers.”

Beau looked sideways at Anouk. “This is where you want us to go? An estate with chopped-up Goblins mixed in with the potting soil?”

“It’s only a rumor,” Anouk offered, though her toes had curled tightly in her shoes.

Cricket snorted. “You still have that knife I gave you, right, Anouk?”

Anouk took it out of the jacket and unwound the towel, wincing at the glimpse of her reflection in the blade. Sunken eyes. Messy hair. Mada Vittora would have had a fit. The thought triggered the memory of blood on her mistress’s cream-colored blouse, and Anouk leaned forward, head between her knees.