Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

“Okay,” Anouk said haltingly. “I don’t like it, for the record. Cricket, stay here. Teach the others how to cast your stealing spell.”

Cricket looked at Anouk and Beau. “Where are you going to be?”

Anouk let out a long breath. “I’ll be outside, breaking my neck on a Genevar.”

Chapter 40

The Genevar motorcycle stood where they’d left it, on a side street between the British Museum and Piccadilly Circus. The boy straddling it wore a chrome helmet and a navy-blue pea coat with a scarf frozen mid-billow behind him. Ribbons of black smoke had spread even this far and now swirled in and out of the motorcycle wheels and around Anouk and Beau’s feet. She kicked at the street curb anxiously.

“We’ll have to get him off of there.” Beau attempted to gently pry the Pretty’s fingers off the handlebars.

Anouk kicked once more at the smoke. They were running out of time. She gave the Pretty a good solid shove. He tumbled off the seat and crashed onto the sidewalk, where he was nearly swallowed by the smoke. His hands and legs were still posed for driving, like a doll whose limbs only moved when repositioned.

“Anouk!”

“Well, we need his ride, and we don’t need him.” She threw a leg over the motorcycle, hoping she looked like she knew what she was doing. “Show me how this works.”

Beau knelt by the Pretty and patted the poor boy’s shoulder, then unfastened his helmet and handed it to Anouk. “Wear this. I’ve never heard of witches dying in traffic accidents but stranger things have happened.”

She buckled the helmet under her chin as he climbed on behind her. His body was solid. Settling against him felt like leaning into her favorite chair.

“First, take the handlebars.”

She gripped them with sweating palms. She tried not to focus on the smoke rising up to their knees.

“Not so tight. Easy. Like . . . like you’d hold a plum. Light enough not to bruise it, hard enough for a solid grip.”

She closed her eyes. She could almost taste the plum he was talking about. It made her think of summertime in the townhouse kitchen. Fruit tarts and jams. Sweet as the first time they’d kissed.

“Beau, I don’t like this,” she confessed, opening her eyes.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“No, I don’t mean the motorcycle. I mean this plan. You handing over your vision for the sake of a spell we aren’t even sure will work. You could be blind forever.”

He was quiet for a moment. The smoke at their feet was so thick she couldn’t see her shoes. Anouk couldn’t help but feel something tug inside of her—?the dark thing that she’d tried to hide from her whole life. Even as the Gargoyle, she wasn’t free of it. If beasties had souls, as Rennar had said, then what was hers? Was it air? Was it wings? Or was it the same substance as the rising smoke?

Beau pressed his lips to her ear. “I don’t need vision. I told you when we crossed the Chunnel. My heart would know you anywhere.”

She felt tears at her eyes. She turned her head toward him. “Beau. Beau.”

Words couldn’t express what was in her heart. She tilted her mouth to fit against his. He leaned forward. He cupped her face with his hand, his palm rough against her cheek. She leaned into him, her back pressed into his chest. One of his hands curled around her middle and held her there against him, like he was afraid she might float away. She twisted around another inch to deepen the kiss.

“Anouk,” he breathed. “Be careful. The darkness . . . it calls to you. I see it.”

She pressed her forehead against his. At the sound of their voices, the smoke rose in tendrils around their knees.

His thumb traced over the apple of her cheek. “I’d give anything to be out there with you, protecting you, holding you back when it calls to you. But I can’t be by your side this time.”

She swallowed. “I don’t know what it is, Beau. Something in the Noirceur pulling at me. Like two magnets pulling together, like the fastener on Mada Vittora’s ostrich clutch. Rennar said something about our souls being tied to nature, and the Noirceur is also nature, in a sense. Don’t you feel it too?”

He nodded. “I think I know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember being a dog in the Cottage cellar, but in a strange way, I remember a feeling of being there. Like it was a dream. I have a sense of girls telling me their hopes. Their fears. I think it was the other acolytes coming to visit me and give me treats—?they needed someone to talk to. But out of all of us, you’re the most deeply connected to magic. You’re the one it attracts the most. Just be careful. I don’t plan for our story to end here.”

His lips found hers again. Beneath her hand pressed to his chest, she could feel his steady heartbeat. She ran her hand down his arm and rested her head against the crook of his neck. He turned to kiss her temple. Then he took her hand, placed a kiss on her knuckles, guided both of her hands back around, and clamped them firmly onto the motorcycle handles.

She sighed. “We really have to do this?”

“Make me proud, cabbage.”