She motioned to the walls of portraits, which, in the flickering firelight, played tricks on Anouk’s eyes. The skin tones, ranging from pale white to reddish brown, looked more like real flesh than paint. Mada Zola pointed to a small portrait of a woman—?an ancient witch, judging by her long blue gown—?poised on high castle walls above the sea.

“The beastie spell is centuries old. Until you were discovered, the last beasties that anyone knew of lived in Dubrovnik in the mid-1800s. The Sea-Salt Witch of Babin Kuk enchanted seals into beautiful women whom she used to lure sailors and their cargo to her fortress. She called those beasties selkas. But those all died out long ago. After that, the spell was lost to everyone but the Shadow Royals. I don’t know how Mada Vittora got her hands on a copy of it, but she did, and she clearly didn’t understand its power. She was a fool to think it was meant for creating house servants. The Royals would have stopped her if they’d found out, but their kingdom is vast and they can be, well, aloof. They aren’t in the habit of taking a second look at maids. In any case, they had no intention of allowing beasties to be made again. Not after what happened to the others.”

“What happened to them?” Beau asked hesitantly.

“The selkas? Oh, the seal-women weren’t the problem. The Royals killed the last selkas before they could turn dangerous. It was the first ones, the original ones Prince Rennar made, that became, over time, unmanageable.”

The word clouded the air like smoke.

Mada Zola pointed to a portrait of the Shadow Royals that looked just like the one that hung in a gilded frame in the townhouse. There was Rennar and Lord and Lady Metham in the center, flanked by lesser Royals and a witch at the end of each row. They were in a vast library, all leather-bound books and gleaming brass balconies. In the background stood dozens of figures that weren’t painted in as much detail as the rest, maids and butlers—?enchanted Pretties—?dressed in black with their eyes averted. A few mischievous Goblins were peeking through doorways.

“Do you know the three orders of the Haute?” Mada Zola asked.

“The Royals, the witches, the Goblins,” Cricket answered. “The Royals and Goblins have been around at least as long as the Pretties have, evolving alongside them but hidden. Born of magic, like the Pretties are born of flesh. Witches are different. They’re born Pretty and undergo a change to make themselves magical. It’s dangerous. Most don’t survive.”

Mada Zola smiled—?she had survived. Anouk noticed that Petra remained close-lipped during all of this, busying herself by picking thorns from her sweater. She was a witch’s girl and thus privy to the inner workings of the Haute, but she wasn’t of the Haute. She’d been born Pretty. Had a lifespan that would last decades, not centuries. That fact had rankled Viggo. Did it eat away at Petra too?

If so, she hid it better.

“And do you know about the vitae echo?” Mada Zola asked.

Anouk felt a shiver as she thought of livers turned to stone, hearts to wood.

“It is the way in which magic stays balanced,” Mada Zola explained. “Whenever handlers use magic to, say, heal a burn or open a locked door, they experience an echo. A consequence. A cost. Magic comes from consuming life, and life demands a tax in return. If it wasn’t for the vitae echo, our magic would be limitless.” She crossed the room to a painting of Pretties working with wooden contraptions.

“In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Pretties developed more advanced technology, and it began to interfere with the Haute’s magic. We were able to adapt to most mechanical technologies created before that; there are certain motor engines and clockwork mechanics that do not hinder our spells. But electricity, ah. New technology like that throws our magic completely into chaos. Magic is thinning. And less magic to go around means more competition. Witches vying with one another for what power remains. Territory wars.” Anouk thought of how Vittora had fabricated a lie about insubordination to get Zola banished. “Prince Rennar foresaw this as far back as the late eighteenth century. He wanted to create something to rewrite the balance, as he knew technology would continue to grow. Something powerful enough that it wouldn’t be limited by the vitae echo.”

Her eyes flashed brighter. “Rennar wasn’t a prince then, not yet. He was a spell-scribe with an idea. He wrote a spell to create a fourth order: beasties.”

None of the portraits showed mice or horses or women with skins of seal, and the witch’s eyes shifted to the three of them. As though they were painted figures come to life that needed no gilded frames.

Her lips stretched into a smile. “Prince Rennar’s intention was that beasties would look human—?be human, on almost all counts—?but that their souls, as animals, would reside in the natural world. The vitae echo, you see, is uniquely tied to the human world: the world of morals and sin. By contrast, the natural world lies outside of the echo. There is no sin for beasties, because you are not moral creatures but natural ones. And thus you are not bound by the vitae echo. Rennar believed this would make you limitless in his attempts to right the balance of power. He

created your kind as saviors.”

Anouk studied the portrait of Rennar, trying to discern the truth, but it was only a facsimile of him. His painted eyes so darkly teasing, almost as real as the eyes of the boy who’d stood on her doorstep, but not quite. Only the real Rennar could answer the still-forming questions in her head. A shiver of vertigo washed over her and she touched her brow, felt something like the start of a fever. She rested her forehead against the cool glass of a window.

“You’re saying we can do magic?” Cricket’s voice was skeptical, but Anouk knew she believed the same thing.

“My dearie, I don’t think you understand. I’m not talking about cheap magic that even Goblins can do. I’m saying that beasties are the most powerful order of the Haute. More powerful, even, than the Royals who made them. You can take life without repercussions and thus wield unheard-of magic.”

None of them spoke. All those painted eyes. All of him. The most powerful order? She was a girl who spent her days dreamily gazing out windows, making frosted cakes just so Beau could lick the spoon, listening to Luc tell her stories. A maid, not a magic handler, and certainly no one’s savior.

Had Vittora really never known this?

Beau was facing away from the fireplace, his expression lost to shadows. He seemed oddly distant. He suddenly grabbed his gloves from the entry table.

“Lies,” he spat. “She’s a liar, just like Mada Vittora. Come on, Anouk. Cricket. We’re getting out of here.”

He grabbed Anouk’s hand and started to pull her down the hallway into the foyer.

“Beau, stop!” Anouk wrested her hand away. “I’m not leaving.”

“I’m begging you,” he said, lowering his voice. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just like Mada Vittora. Before he disappeared, Luc—” He stopped short as though thinking better of what he’d been about to say.

“What about Luc?” When he didn’t answer, Anouk pressed. “Do you know where he is? Is he here?” When he still didn’t answer, she hissed, “You’ve treated me with kid gloves my whole life, Beau. Be honest with me now. I can take it.”

Beau looked away as though he didn’t like this fiercer version of Anouk. “I only know that Luc didn’t trust Mada Vittora. You loved her too much to see it, but Luc saw it, and Cricket did, and so did I. And I’m telling you that I see that same glimmer of scheming now. That witch’s words are honeyed poison.”

Tags: Megan Shepherd Grim Lovelies Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net