A woman stood in the shadows of the doorway.
Though Anouk couldn’t see her face, it had to be Mada Zola. She felt a strange sort of guilt, as though by being here, she was being disloyal to Mada Vittora. She felt a pang of . . . what? Sadness? Grief? Anger?
Mada Zola took a step forward, and the dying sunlight washed over her face. She was beautiful, of course. Witches always were. But there was something about her wine-red lips and deep brown eyes that hinted at some ancient lineage, as though before she was French, she had been many other things with many other names. Her black hair fell in ripples all the way to the hem of her pale blue blouse, untucked over jeans that were rolled up to the ankles.
She took another step forward, barefoot on the stone steps. Her expression seemed both surprised and utterly not surprised at the same time. She made a soft gasp. “You’ve come back.”
Her voice was perfumed yet hardy, like the lavender itself. A delicate gold bracelet circled one wrist, but that was the only ornament she wore, as earthy as her own gardens.
Anouk’s shoes crunched in the gravel. This was the woman who could protect them from the bleakness of what they were before—?or curse them to an eternity of it.
Cricket whispered, “Um, what does she mean by back?”
Anouk’s chest felt electric and tense, like she’d swallowed a swarm of bees. As the sun sank behind the purple hills, a fear crept over her that coming here was the exact mistake that Cricket and Beau had said it was.
She hadn’t made the mistake of leaving the knife behind again. She dug it out of her pocket and thrust it forward, warning the witch not to come closer.
“Stay back.”
Mada Zola stopped in front of Anouk, ignoring the knife. She looked at each of them with shining dark eyes that seemed to hold the kind of knowledge that people had killed for.
Petra, leaning in the doorway, folded her arms and looked away.
“I knew you’d make it back to me,” the witch said. “My dearies. My lovelies.”
Despite the witch’s smile, despite the welcoming arms, Anouk was chilled to the marrow.
“Now, which one of you,” the witch said, “is my little lost Cricket?”
Chapter 13
Two Days and Four Hours of Enchantment Remain
No one answered, least of all Cricket. Anouk tried hard not to look at her friend, which might have given her identity away.
Mada Zola gave a soft laugh. “So serious, aren’t you? My poor dears. My grim little lovelies. What you must have been through. Come inside and rest. You’re safe now.”
Safe. A tempting word that Anouk didn’t dare believe. From all directions, the blank faces of topiaries observed her in perfect stillness. She shifted her weight and felt something give way beneath her left shoe. A crushed rose. Its bruised petals were the only imperfect thing in this terribly perfect place.
Petra held open the heavy wooden door for them.
Anouk felt a jab in the center of her back. “It was your idea to come here,” Cricket said in a hard whisper. “You go first.”
Anouk fidgeted with her jacket, zipping it higher against the evening chill. She closed her eyes and imagined that the wings on the back of the jacket were her wings, gossamer and strong; that the sharp horns sprouted from her head; that she was as rigid and unflinching as a gargoyle. From somewhere inside the house she could hear the crackling of a fire.
She stepped across the threshold and ran straight into another topiary. This one was restricted to an enormous clay pot in the center of the château’s entrance hall. Branches smacked at her face, and she sputtered and fought them off. The bush was clipped into the shape of a bear, though it was overgrown and shaggy with untrimmed leaves. She eyed its branches warily—?bones of wood, claws of thorns, fur of leaves—?half expecting it to move.
“Did the bear get you?” Petra asked, turning around. “We’ve named him Toblerone. Like the chocolate.”
“Cute,” Anouk muttered. She fought back a cough; apparently no one had dusted Toblerone in ages.
They followed Petra down a hallway flanked with the kind of deep-set windows Anouk had seen in books about abbeys and cloisters. Open doors led to rooms that appeared all but abandoned. Her shoes echoed too loud on the stone floors, and she yearned to kick off the stiff oxfords and walk silently and barefoot, like Mada Zola. But her missing toes had a way of inviting questions she’d rather not answer.
They passed an enormous room that might once have been a chapel, and the smell of thyme wrapped around her. She paused and gave it a closer look.
Empty, the fireplace cold.
But the smell of thyme was fresh, and when she pitched her head to the high rafters, she saw hundreds of bunches of the herbs tied up in clove-hitch knots for drying. The same knots that Luc used. Were you here, hanging these herbs? she wondered silently, and then a new question crept into her mind: