Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

Anouk said sotto voce to Rennar, “I’m glad the Goblins are home, but Prince Sorin and the Marquesa of the Minaret look ready to murder you.”

“I imagine that’s precisely what they’re planning.”

“They can’t, can they?”

“Not while they’re bound by the Nochte Pax. Even afterward, it would take some cunning to get around the vitae echo and find a way to destroy me. Then again, they’re resourceful, and they feel as though I’ve made fools of them, which makes them particularly dangerous. If you and I come out of this alive, we’ll be facing a royal war.”

“I take it they don’t agree with you that power needs to change hands.”

“Not unless more goes to their hands.”

“So what do we do?”

“Try not to die now so that we’ll be alive to deal with them when the time comes.”

He was teasing, wasn’t he? She frowned. He didn’t laugh it off and tell her that he’d faced royal wars before and come out in one piece. Instead, he looked perplexed.

“You’ve been busy.” His gaze scoured the frozen streets and then her. “I’ve seen many girls turned to witches. They may look like the same girls who entered the Coals, but they’re different.”

She straightened, touching a lock of her hair. “Don’t I look different?”

“In some ways.” He paused. “But I think the flames liked what they found in you. They left part of your soul intact. I can see it.”

“You once said that beasties don’t have souls.”

“Perhaps I misspoke. If such a thing as souls exist, then mine and everyone else’s is made of salt, and yours is made of air. We are creatures of thought and sin. Your kind is tied to nature in a way we will never be.”

She didn’t have an answer for that. It was possibly the kindest thing he’d ever said to her, maybe the kindest thing anyone had ever said to a beastie. He must have seen her eyes growing big because he ran a hand over his face, and when he was done, he was back to wearing a cruel twist of a smile.

“Hopefully being a witch won’t rot you out over the centuries like it does the others.”

Just like that, any charitable feelings she’d had for him were gone. She sighed. Royals. But then she wondered if Petra’s soul would rot like the other witches’. Over the decades, as the vitae echo ate away at her insides, would Petra become as cruel as Mada Vittora and Mada Zola?

The snow was growing lighter. Worried, Anouk glanced toward the roof of the museum. She couldn’t see her shadow self, but she could feel a shift in the air, as though the magic was fading. In a few minutes, her shadow self would vanish. The snow would stop. The city would erupt in chaos again.

Anouk grabbed Rennar by the sleeve and pulled him toward the smoke that clung around Big Ben’s base. “I need you to keep it snowing.”

“Simple enough, but that requires full concentration. I’ll be useless when it comes to anything else.”

She paused. That would be a problem—?she needed him to convince the other Royals to help them and to fight the Noirceur. She glanced over her shoulder.

“Duke Karolinge!” She hadn’t seen him since her wedding. “I need your help.”

He looked at her closely, then took off his glasses, wiped them, and gave a nod. “Mada Anouk, I am yours to command.”

The words took her breath away. Mada Anouk. The honorific of a real witch.

She told him about the Snow Children and the spell, and he agreed to take up a position on the museum rooftop and maintain the snow spell. Anouk and Rennar led the rest of the group back down Whitehall Street, past the British War Offices and 10 Downing Street, and toward the park that faced Big Ben. Just before they reached it, Beau backpedaled at the sight of a glistening motorcycle frozen in traffic. A Pretty boy was sitting on the back of it, coated in ice.

“I don’t believe it,” he breathed.

“Is it a fast one?” Anouk guessed.

He grinned. “Sure, it’s fast. But it’s a Genevar. There were only a few ever made. They’re Objekte too, in a sense. Made by Pretties but charmed by Muscovite Royals who could do wonders with engines. How did you get ahold of this, friend?” he said to the frozen boy riding it. He poked him, then dropped a hand to the handlebars. Unable to resist, he cranked the bar, and the motorcycle roared. “Ah! You see. Not frozen. I guess the Hammer Court knows a thing or two that even the Snow Children don’t.”

Anouk eyed the motorcycle closely and said, almost to herself, “Luc said the smoke is drawn to sound. At the engagement party, it clustered around anyone screaming, and even now, it’s clumping at Big Ben because that’s where most of the sound is.”

“What does sound have to do with anything?” Beau asked.