Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

All the girls became quiet. Their eyes went from Anouk to the piece of vine and back.

“Jermis,” the girl with glasses said quietly, and hearing a spell on a Pretty’s lips jolted Anouk for a second. Pretties, like these girls, couldn’t cast magic, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know the wording of spells. “She used the jermis spell. Growing.” She sniffed the air. “With mint as the life-essence.”

“Witch!” the storm-cloud girl cried, then she jabbed an accusing finger at Little Beau. “Witch’s demon!”

The British girl rolled her eyes at the other girl’s ramblings. She cocked her head toward Anouk. “Can you really cast whispers?”

Anouk felt skewered by five sharp sets of eyes. These were Pretty girls who had clawed their way here through that forest of death, only to face even more danger.

Anouk hesitated, then said, “Let me to talk to the Duke. I’ll make my case. He’ll accept me.”

“Will I?”

All eyes turned to the top of the stairs. A hulk of a man stood on the upper level, dressed in a full-length red cloak more suited to a knight from one of Luc’s fairy tales than the headmaster of an academy. His hair was graying at the temples, though everything else about him spoke of immense strength. He had deep-set eyes and wore wire-rimmed spectacles. Around his neck hung a gold chain that held a vial of powder. The cloak did little to disguise his massive stature; two thousand years ago he might have been a gladiator. What struck Anouk most was his unkempt shadow of a beard. It was rare to see anything less than coiffed perfection among the Royals.

“Who has come knocking in the thick of a storm,” he asked, observing Anouk, “with a mongrel on her heels and a whisper on her lips? Not a Pretty acolyte, surely. This is a place for those who seek magic, not those who already have it.”

Anouk hugged her jacket around herself as if it were battle armor. “I know a few tricks and whispers, but I need more. I need to become a witch.”

There were bags under his eyes—?he looked as though he’d been up late squinting at a book by poor light—?and yet now a spark lit up his gaze. He made a point of checking the time on a massive clock at the front of the hall, set into a full rack of elk antlers that had been intricately carved with depictions of forests. One of the antler tips was broken off. Anouk felt for the broken piece in her pocket, wondering if the Duke knew she possessed it.

“She made a vine grow in the snow,” the younger redhead said.

The Duke circled Anouk slowly, his cloak dragging on the floor. “You aren’t a witch, though you can do magic,” he mused. “You aren’t a Pretty, though you seem of their world.” He brushed back her hair. “No pointed ears. Not a Goblin.”

Anouk’s gaze shifted toward Little Beau, and the Duke followed her eyes and then raised an eyebrow.

“Ah. Interesting.” He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses. “I thought the last of your kind had been killed centuries ago. I can’t fathom how you ended up on my doorstep, beastie, but this isn’t the place for you.”

She lifted her chin. “I deserve a chance as much as anyone else.”

He stroked his unshaven chin in consideration. “So you’ve come in search of stronger magic than you possess. I wonder what you’ve been told of this place.”

Anouk told the Duke what she’d gleaned from overheard conversations in the townhouse: that for centuries it had been the place Pretty girls went to become witches. She’d assumed it involved learning spells and making potions, dangerous tests and having to prove one’s mettle. “You evaluate them and determine who is worthy,” she finished. “There’s a ceremony, the Coal Baths. All the Royals come to light the flames and bear witness.”

The older redhead snorted. “She doesn’t know anything.” She turned back to the table and bit off a hefty piece of her hunk of bread, apparently finding her supper more interesting than Anouk.

“My dear,” the Duke said to Anouk, “you’ve been misinformed. I do not decide anyone’s fate. It is the Coals and the Coals alone that determine whether to burn a girl or birth a witch. I am merely a guide on the journey. It is up to each girl to find her own path to magic—?her missing crux.”

“Crux?” Anouk was tired and cold and wet, and the last thing she wanted was more riddles. She rubbed her bleary eyes. “I don’t know what that is. But whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

He dismissed her weariness with a tsk. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. The Coal Baths are in less than six weeks. Most of these girls have been here for the better part of a year. The last acolyte to come arrived two months ago. Now, with the Baths so close? No. I cannot.”

“I’m not leaving,” Anouk said.

“I’m turning you away for your own good. No one finds her crux so soon before the ceremony. Most never find it. Come wintertide, the Coals will burn your flesh from your soul.”

“I can . . . I can help you,” Anouk offered desperately. She considered the cobwebs underneath the long tables. “I can clean.”

“We already have Heida and Lise to clean.” The Duke motioned to the pair of sisters and began to walk toward the door, clearly ready to throw her back into the cold.

She thought fast. The Cottage was a bleak place, the kind of place where good meals were probably in short supply. The chunks of bread the girls were eating looked rough as sandpaper. Those bowls of soup didn’t seem likely to win any culinary prizes either. “I can cook too.”

The Duke stopped. The girls at both tables sat up straighter. The girl with glasses looked with distaste at her bowl of soup.

“French cuisine, if you like,” Anouk added quickly. “Or German. I don’t mind slaughtering the animals if I have to. If you have chickens, I could make a cassoulet.”

Duke Karolinge and the girls exchanged a long look. Someone’s stomach growled. Anouk felt an inward flush of success. Nothing won over doubters like the promise of a good meal. She felt the uncanny sensation of being watched and found the storm-cloud girl, still on all fours, staring at her with pointed intensity. Anouk touched her own cheeks and forehead, wondering if she had dirt on her face. She did. But even after she wiped it off, the girl still stared.