Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

For all of them.

She turned to Cricket and Hunter Black and Viggo.

“Run.”

Chapter 26

Eight Hours of Enchantment Remain

It was too late.

Lady Metham lifted her hands up and, with a single whisper, made the salon doors slam shut. Cricket threw her shoulder against the joists, then fiddled with the lock, but not even she could pick it.

“A trap,” Cricket said. “A putain trap.”

Viggo shoved himself to his feet, tugged his hat off, and raked his hand through hair that was now streaked with black. His eyes found Anouk’s. She knew that look—?he was going to do something stupid. Heroic, but stupid. Her heart pounded. It was wrong, all of it. Especially that heartsick expression. If a boy ever looked at her like that, she wanted it to be real, not the result of magic.

“If you touch her,” Viggo threatened the prince, “I’ll break every bone in that pretty face of yours.”

Rennar raised an amused eyebrow.

Anouk ripped off the veil that hadn’t disguised anything anyway. “Be quiet,” she whispered to Viggo. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

Through all of this, Hunter Black remained perfectly still on the sofa, hands resting on his knees, his expression masked by the high collar of his coat and the dark hair falling in his eyes. But ice-cold energy radiated off him. A winter storm on the horizon, building in strength, and for an uncertain second, she wasn’t sure which she dreaded more—?the wrath of the Royals or Hunter Black.

Rennar tented his hands together and turned to Lady Metham. “The driver?”

“The Marble Ladies captured him and brought him upstairs. He’s locked away.”

Anouk felt the air rush out of her. Beau. The only one who might have escaped, but it was too late now. Dizzy, she became all too aware of clocks ticking from all sides. On the mantel. The grandfather clock in the hallway. Lord Metham’s pocket watch. Every clock in the penthouse simultaneously chimed five o’clock.

A cry rushed up her throat.

Too late.

There would be no drive back to Montélimar now. What had she been three days ago? A starry-eyed girl who’d dreamed of grander things. And now all those beautiful dreams would be within her grasp, if only midnight wouldn’t come.

She grabbed the broom from Cricket and brandished it like a weapon.

“You set us up,” she spat at Rennar. “You and Mada Zola. She was never on our side. She sent us here knowing she was delivering us straight into your arms.”

He smiled, but there was no pleasure in it. “Everyone in the entire Haute is searching for you—?you must know that. And you’ve done well. But there’s only one certain way to catch something that doesn’t want to be caught: they have to willingly trap themselves.”

Anouk’s knuckles were white on the broom. Why had she ever thought of him with any reverence? The light caught the edges of his briar-thorn crown, flashing like stolen pieces of stars, but he was no god.

“Put down that broom, little beastie.” Rennar beckoned with long, graceful fingers. “The spell inside won’t help you without someone to whisper it to life.”

“You said I wasn’t made for sweeping floors.”

“You weren’t. But you should never have been made at all—?none of you. It was a cruel, stupid twist of fate, what Vittora did to you. Gave you human life, and now I must be the one to take it away. Believe me, I take no pleasure in it.” He went to the rain-streaked windows, gazing out over the city. “You’ve evaded my crows, you made it past the Marble Ladies, you proved that you are just as capable as you were intended to be. But it’s over now, Anouk.”

And then he was next to her. Had it been magic or had he crossed the room that fast? He touched her arm. There was no violence in the gesture; rather, it was the contact of a herdsman on a skittish horse. His skin was cold from being near the rain-chilled windows.

“I. Said. Not. To. Touch. Her.”

Prince Rennar seemed to have forgotten Viggo’s existence. Viggo wasn’t a beastie, and the Royals had no use for a witch’s boy with no witch. But Viggo refused to be ignored. He threw himself hard at the prince, and his fist connected with the prince’s jaw with a resounding crack.

For a few startled seconds, no one moved.