Midnight Beauties (Grim Lovelies 2)

A chill ran through Anouk. Something scratched at her ankles like the remaining few wisps of smoke had grown fingernails. Hunter Black went moody and quiet.

A block away, Petra rounded the corner and called to them. She jogged over, marveling at the pile of clocks. “Finished! Hey, I think that cuckoo clock over there was one of mine! You should have seen all the clocks that came out of the primary school on Dover Street. Almost no clocks in the government buildings, which is alarming, don’t you think? Shouldn’t Pretty politicians care about time more than schoolchildren?” She turned back to them and frowned. “Hunter Black, good God, are you feeling okay?”

Anouk spun to him. He was still fidgeting with his buttons, but his moodiness had shifted. His face was now oddly slack.

Cricket asked, “Hunter Black?”

The assassin stood very straight, head tilted up at the illuminated clock face of Big Ben. A tiny curl of smoke—?almost imperceptible—?snaked out of his ear.

Anouk took a quick step away from him. “Hunter Black!”

Cricket caught sight of the curl of smoke. “Oh, merde.” She pulled her knives.

Another curl of smoke twisted from his nostrils. His lips parted. An inhuman growl came from his throat. Anouk’s eyes dropped to the button at his shirt collar that he kept toying with. It was one of the three buttons that Petra had charmed in the Castle Ides billiard room when she’d made his new clothes.

“Petra, the glass you used to make Hunter Black’s buttons—?where did you get it?”

“It was a paperweight,” she sputtered. “On the floor. Someone must have knocked it over when we carried Rennar in.”

Anouk thought back to the lump of glass, how it was raw cut and oddly shaped. At the time, she hadn’t thought twice about it. But now she realized how out of place a paperweight would be on the floor of an impeccably tidy billiard room.

“The sand,” Anouk whispered. Then: “Cricket, keep your distance from him!” Anouk’s throat tightened as she pulled Cricket back.

Petra looked at the buttons blankly. “Sand? What sand? I told you I made them out of glass!”

“Glass is made of sand, Petra! Haven’t you ever read a book on geology? The Noirceur was able to possess King Kaspar and Mia through the sand from the broken hourglass. But when the Royals used magic against the possession, it must have melted some of the sand into glass, like lightning does in nature. We must have accidentally brought the glass to the billiard room with Rennar, not realizing what it was at the time.”

Petra frowned. “So that means the buttons I made . . . oh.”

All eyes turned to Hunter Black.

“Hunter Black, look at me,” Anouk said.

Her voice trembled, but not because she was afraid of him. She was afraid for him. She was no maid anymore, no pastry chef useful only for making sweet treats. She was the Gargoyle. Magic hummed in her palms. The Faustine jacket covered her skin like battle armor. Its golden threads had protected her before, and now its pockets held owl feathers, her crux. She didn’t want to hurt him, but what if he gave her no choice? He squared himself and faced her. His eyes were threaded with smoke. Ribbons of it poured out of his mouth as he continued to make that awful growling. The sound slowly took the form of the Selentium Vox.

“Previso . . . rivet . . . morfin . . .”

It was the same warnings and curses King Kaspar had whispered.

“Hunter Black, if you’re still in there, give us a sign.”

Anouk eyes darted from him to the pyre of clocks to the knives in Cricket’s hands. Cricket wouldn’t hesitate to strike whether Hunter Black was in possession of his own body or not. Spells scrolled through Anouk’s mind. Containment spells. Defensive spells. Exorcism spells. But the Royals had attempted all of those on King Kaspar and none had worked.

Hunter Black’s hand moved to draw his knife from the sheath strapped beneath his shirt. His movements were stilted. Anouk plunged her hand in her jacket, whispered open her oubliette pockets, and pulled out a long white feather. Just as he rushed forward with the knife raised, she pushed the feather down her throat and swallowed.

“Ak ignis bleu!” she whispered. The knife sparked in his hand, burning hot. He dropped it with a hiss.

“Anouk? Cricket? Petra?” From across the park, someone was calling to them.

She dared a glance. It was December, hurtling forward on her enchanted roller skates. In the distance, the orange and purple lights had stopped flashing, though the blue and green ones continued. The Royals and Goblins hadn’t finished yet.

Anouk whipped her head back toward Hunter Black, bristling for an attack, but Hunter Black had fled. December skated up and crashed into Anouk. Her eyes went wide when they explained what had happened.

“He could be headed anywhere in the city,” Anouk said.

“Um, or he could be right there.” December pointed in the direction of the Pickwick and Rue’s.

Chapter 43