Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

Magic was still crackling in Anouk’s skin. It tore through her, possessing her, consuming her thoughts, twisting them into one single demand: Stop him.

“Ak ignis bleu.” She cast the whisper without thinking. It was a spell buried deep in her memory. It shot out of her in the form of blue fire that blazed across the carpet straight to Lord Metham. Flames licked up his fine suit. He whispered protection spells, but the blue fire moved too fast. Though the flames didn’t burn fabric or flesh, they robbed the oxygen from the air around him. He clutched at his throat. Gasped. Collapsed on the carpet. By the time the flames subsided, he was dead.

“Mon Dieu,” Hunter Black said, breaking the silence. “I want to learn that spell.”

Lady Metham’s head was cocked at a too-acute angle, her eyes too wide, as though she were a doll that might break. Countess Quine turned sharply to Anouk, one of her eyes twitching and wary.

Prince Rennar was as much at a loss for words as anyone else, and his eyes settled on Anouk. He searched her hungrily with his gaze, her arms, her neck, her face, the broom she clutched in one hand, looking for something—?what?

“My love,” Viggo whispered, “we have to go now.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the door. The movement made Lady Metham snap back to herself and she let out an anguished cry and hurled herself toward them, but Hunter Black jumped to block her. Cricket fought off Countess Quine, metal fingernails to knives, slicing whispers to cutting ones.

But Rennar didn’t chase. He only stood and watched Anouk with that curious look on his face, almost the hint of a smile.

And then Viggo pulled her into the hallway. She couldn’t catch her breath. She looked one way, then the other, trying to recognize the hallways. But the hour had changed, and with it the floor plan.

“We have to find Beau,” she said.

Both jumped at the sound of footsteps. “True, but staying alive would also be ideal.”

They ran down the hallway. She clutched the broom tightly. She tried to find some reference point, the kitchen or the hallway with the artifacts under glass. But maddeningly, everything had shifted around, and they ran under a stone archway she certainly had never passed before.

“Beau!” Anouk called. “Where are you?”

Only the ticking clocks answered.

Viggo stumbled, and she caught him before he fell. Her hand slid against his stomach and came away slick with blood—?his black clothes had hidden the severity of his wounds.

“Merde,” she said. “We have to get you out of here.”

And then the faintest sound: “Anouk.”

“Beau!” With one hand she helped Viggo steady himself, feeling her pulse picking up again. “Viggo, did you hear that? He’s close.”

She called Beau’s name, making her way through the maze of hallways toward his calls as fast as she could help Viggo hobble.

She threw open a glass door she’d never seen before, but then—?yes. It was the hallway with all the strange little mundane artifacts under glass. To the left, the wide gilded doors led to the spell library. To the right—?zut—?Rennar’s apartments.

Viggo stumbled again and sank onto one of the benches outside the library, clutching his cheek. “Leave me, my love. Get Beau. Just don’t . . . forget . . . to collect me on the way out.”

“I can’t leave you,” she said, though she could hear Beau calling her name from somewhere close. “I might never find you again.”

“Cricket will . . . be able to find the library. Don’t worry, I won’t . . . go anywhere.”

Anouk had never felt any affection for the witch’s boy until that moment, but against her every instinct, she pressed her lips to his cheek.

“I’ll come back. I promise.”

And then she ran past the glass cases, calling, “Beau! Beau!”

“Anouk!”

Closer no

w. She pounded on a wooden door inlaid with gold filigree. The knob stuck, but it wasn’t locked. She slammed the broom handle against it and it opened at last. She stumbled into a dark room and blinked until her eyes adjusted. Heavy curtains were drawn over the windows. She grabbed one and tugged it back to let in light, murky though it was from the storm outside.

A bedroom.