“The trains,” Luc explained, motioning to either side. “This access tunnel runs between the two lanes, one from London to Paris, one from Paris to London.”

As soon as the train passed and the rumbling stopped, Anouk squinted down the tunnel. “So that’s England on the other side?” She took a curious step forward and smacked into something hard. “Ow!” She bounced back, rubbing her head.

She stared at the place she’d just hit. It was thin air, no different from the rest of the empty space around it. Luc approached, holding out his hand, and then he, too, stopped as if he’d encountered a glass wall.

“The border spell,” he said in a hushed voice. “That’s it.” He jerked his head toward Viggo. “Viggo, go over there.” He pointed beyond where he and Anouk stood.

Vi

ggo took a few cautious steps forward as if he were walking over a barely frozen lake, afraid to put his weight in the wrong spot, but he passed through without any obstruction.

“See?” Luc said. “He can cross. The spell stops us because we’re magical in our human forms. But it won’t stop us once . . .” He cleared his throat. “Once we turn.”

His words cast a dark shadow over the tunnel. Another train rumbled by, loud enough to drown out anything anyone would have said, and Anouk was glad for the pause. Panic was starting to crawl up her throat. Nothing about this dank, utilitarian tunnel felt heroic. This didn’t feel like the kind of place where magic happened. If she had to turn back into an owl, she would have preferred to do it amid the beautiful bones of the Goblins’ catacombs or in some charming glen in the Black Forest.

And that dark end of the tunnel . . . it felt impossible that England actually lay on the other side. A crazy fear came to her that there was nothing at the end. That the blackness was complete. She would willingly walk straight into the Noirceur, which waited for her, ready to swallow her whole.

“Are you ready?” Beau rested a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She jumped and spun toward him. She saw herself reflected in his eyes: frightened, bedraggled, nothing like a princess.

She clutched the melted bell around her neck, then grabbed his hand. “Beau, I’m afraid.”

One of the lights flickered behind him, throwing shadows over his face. In that moment, she would have given anything for them to be back at 18 Rue des Amants, cuddled up in Mada Vittora’s library with a bowl of popcorn. She hadn’t been free, but life had been simple.

Her stomach tightened.

The townhouse was gone. Mada Vittora was dead. There was no going back. There was only one way forward, and it was through this dark tunnel.

In only moments, she would become an owl. Petra was already digging through Viggo’s backpack for the vials of blood and other supplies that she needed to perform the contra-beastie spell. Anouk looked at her hand clasped in Beau’s. Soon his hand would be a shaggy golden paw; hers a talon. It would have made her feel sick to think about it, if she could have brought herself to think about it.

She let out a cry. Beau swept her into his arms and held her tightly. “Don’t be afraid, Anouk. We’ll be together.”

“We won’t know each other! You know what it’s like. So dark, so cold, and everything shrouded in fog. What if we don’t make it to London? Or what if Sinjin can’t turn us back? We could be trapped like that forever, Beau.”

“I don’t care what the spell says,” he said, smoothing her hair. “I’d know you anywhere, Anouk. If I lived forever as a dog and you as an owl, I’d spend the rest of my life with head upturned, searching the night sky for your silhouette.”

She buried her head in his chest. She wanted to believe him. Wanted to feel that, regardless of what happened, they’d recognize each other’s souls. She knew it was foolish . . . but maybe she hadn’t given up on fairy tales just yet. She clutched the bell again. Maybe she wouldn’t give up on magic either.

He brushed some dust off her temple and pressed a kiss on the center of her forehead.

She closed her eyes.

Something hard snapped around her ankle.

Her eyes shot open and she kicked involuntarily at a rope Viggo was tying to a plastic ring around her foot. Her toes connected with his nose.

“Hey!” he complained. He rubbed his nose as he unrolled the rope connected to the ring around her ankle. “I can’t have you flying away. You’d perch up somewhere in those pipes and I’d never get you down. I’d have to use Luc as bait.”

She felt sick. “That isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

None of the others looked amused either. Viggo had already tied a rope around Luc’s wrist. He had a third fastened to a collar around Cricket’s neck, and a fourth attached to a chain around Hunter Black’s. They all stood with their hands on their hips, shooting daggers at Viggo with their eyes.

Anouk moved to stand next to Petra and said quietly, “If you’re ever going to tell me your moniker, it might as well be now. I might be an animal forever. If it’s a secret, it’ll be safe with me.”

Petra smiled mysteriously. “When—?not if—?you’re human again, I’ll tell you.”

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