Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

She still held the bell in her palm, but she no longer wanted to throw it out the window. What had Jak said? You weren’t looking in the right place. She found a gold chain in a drawer, strung the empty bell on it, then fastened it around her neck. A reminder to keep looking for the right place.

She jumped when a knock came at the door.

It was Countess Quine’s green-eyed daughter, carrying a large rectangular cardboard box.

“It’s you,” Anouk said in surprise.

“My name is Mia.”

Anouk’s fingers plucked uselessly at the chain around her neck. “Mia, listen, what happened in Montélimar to your mother—”

Mia shoved the box

into her arms. It was heavier than Anouk had expected, bulky and flat, and tied with a cream-colored ribbon. “A package from Prince Rennar. With his most sincere hopes that you’re feeling better.” If the girl felt any anger over her mother’s murder, her face did not show it. She just drummed her black-clawed fingernails against her arms.

Anouk tried again. “You must hate me.”

The girl gave a sigh that conveyed annoyance. “Countess Quine wasn’t my mother. She was my twin sister.” Mia looked no older than ten, whereas Countess Quine had been in her thirties. Mia smiled flatly. “I took herbs to age more slowly. It was always a point of vicious jealousy for her. I’m not sorry she’s gone. One of these centuries, one of us would have killed the other. You just beat me to it.” She shrugged. The girl’s heart was even colder than her late sister’s.

With a tip of her small chin, Mia left, and Anouk, feeling even more lightheaded, tossed the package onto the bed. Her mind whipped in dizzying circles. How could she regain her magic? What was her crux? And what of the Noirceur? It seemed like blankness over the world, not unlike what she called the Dark Thing.

The Dark Thing . . .

The Noirceur . . .

Was it possible they were different terms for the same void?

Her bare toes—?all eight of them—?curled anxiously against the rug. She sat on the corner of the bed, twisting a strand of hair around one finger. Her eyes fell on the package. She tugged off the ribbon distractedly, threw aside the lid, and dug through what must have been a hundred layers of tissue paper.

“Oh!” She covered her mouth with one palm, but a small gasp escaped anyway. “Merde.”

Chapter 19

A?wedding dress.

Tucked amid the layers of tissue paper was a garment made of textured silk as fine as frost on a windowpanes; it was the same silver-gray color as the suit Rennar wore when he was feeling princely. Anouk pulled it out and held it up to the light. Hundreds of crystals were embedded in the bodice in a snowflake pattern. The train was just long enough to graze the floor. Soft white feathers spilled out from the bustle in the back. To a casual observer, the feathered detail would look like a soft adornment. Only those who knew her past—?like Rennar—?would recognize the subtle pattern as wings and understand its significance. Two glass shoes were also tucked in the box, clear as crystal and molded to fit perfectly around her missing toes.

Angry and a little embarrassed, she crammed the dress back into the box, fighting the sea of tissue paper. She paused before tossing in the shoes; they were lovely—?but no. Into the box they went. She slammed the lid shut, picked up the box, and threw open the bedroom door.

Mia was still in the hallway, pretending to admire a portrait, a snicker on her face as Anouk strode by. Anouk’s cheeks burned. Did everyone in Castle Ides know what was in the box? She stomped down the maze of hallways, muttering under her breath. She turned a corner and stopped at a dead end. A grandfather clock ticked tauntingly before her, reminding her that every hour on the hour, the floor plan changed.

She tried a different hallway. Cricket had been the one to memorize each of the changing blueprints, not her. Two Pretty maids were sweeping the hallways but she didn’t bother to ask them for directions. Their eyes were glazed over with enchantment; they’d be no help. At last she turned a corner and found the beautiful doors of the spell library. Directly across the hall from them was the unassuming wooden door that led to Rennar’s room. It was slightly ajar.

Struggling under the unwieldy shape of the box, she threw her shoulder against the door and burst in, a string of expletives poised on her tongue, but the room was empty. She shifted the awkward-shaped box. The sound of running water came from another interior room. She walked toward it. “Rennar? Where are you? You must have lost your mind if—?oh!”

She was in a master bathroom. Rennar was standing in front of an ornate mirror, naked from the waist up, a razor blade in one hand. Shaving cream that smelled of vanilla, citrus, and pine coated half his chin. Anouk dropped the box. The crystal shoes tumbled onto the bathroom rug.

In the mirror, Rennar’s reflection raised an eyebrow, the razor hovering over his neck. “I take it you received my gift?”

The only men she’d ever seen shirtless were Beau, when he washed the car in summer, and Hunter Black, when Luc was stitching up his wounds. Never a prince. Though Rennar’s body looked a twenty-year-old’s, a map of scars interlaced with faded ink spoke of centuries of life. His chest and stomach were lean and hard from the physical demands of spell work.

She managed to close her mouth. She picked up the shoes and stuck them back in the box with the dress that was spilling out of it, then shoved the whole mess at him. “What is this?”

“It’s a wedding dress.”

“I know it’s a wedding dress! Of course it’s a wedding dress! You’ve lost your mind if you think we’re still getting married.”

He wiped his blade on a towel, then returned to shaving. “Oh?”