Cricket’s lips fell open. She lifted her hands, feigning ignorance, as Mada Zola searched among the portraits until she found what she was looking for, took it down, and handed it to Cricket.
Cricket made a gargling sound in her throat and dropped the painting. “What is that?”
“That, my lovely, is you. Or rather, what you were.”
Anouk picked up the frame. It was a simple painting, done by an amateur but one who had a clear fondness for the subject. Maybe Mada Zola or Petra had even painted it. She held it out to Beau.
He left the window and took the portrait. His face wrinkled in confusion as he looked between it and Cricket. It was a cat. White fur and long whiskers, green eyes with a clever kind of look. Anouk couldn’t help but think of the pelts in the car trunk. One of them had been white and soft and small, the size of a cat. Judging by the distressed look on Cricket’s face, she figured Cricket remembered the same pelt.
“Merde,” Cricket cursed.
With her honey-brown skin and light copper eyes, Cricket looked nothing like a cat—especially not this cat. But there were her careful ways. Her ability to move silently. Anouk looked closer at the painting and spied something gold at the cat’s neck.
“Did you see this?” she asked hoarsely. She passed the portrait back to Cricket, pointing at the collar.
Cricket’s face paled a shade. She clutched the charm earring in her ear self-consciously, but it was useless. They both knew what was stamped on it.
CRICKET
It was identical to the charm in the painting. Cricket’s earring, which Viggo had given her years ago but hadn’t bothered to tell her what it was, had once been part of a collar. A tag.
Anouk had rarely let herself wonder about her past, about that frightening cold place. Certainly not about what animals they had started life as. Whenever she’d looked through the turret window and seen an animal in the street, she’d turned away sharply and dusted, ignoring the fear rising in her throat. It hadn’t been until she’d seen the pelts—a wolf, a dog, an owl, a mouse, and a cat—that she’d let herself play that dangerous matching game.
Which was which? Which was she?
And now Cricket was the first to learn the truth about herself, and clearly, it wasn’t welcome knowledge.
“It’s true, then?” Anouk said. “You knew Cricket . . . before?”
Mada Zola replaced the painting on the wall. “Oh yes. Mada Vittora came here years ago. We got in an awful row. She knew I loved that cat. After she left, I couldn’t find it anywhere.”
Petra carried in a tray of steaming mugs, and Anouk’s stomach tugged—she hadn’t eaten much at the café. But she was hungry for more than just chocolate. She wanted this—everything the room promised. A cozy fire and warm drinks and a mistress who didn’t keep servants, who wasn’t bothered that her witch’s boy had wanted to become a witch’s girl, who didn’t care if dust bunnies multiplied throughout the house, who hadn’t blinked at Anouk’s messy ponytail.
And yet, did she dare trust it?
She wanted to. They all sat, and Anouk took the cocoa with shaking hands. Lavender and honey. Divine. How badly she wanted to drink it. She dared to take the slightest sip. Beau had warned her not to, but Beau was always warning her.
“And Anouk and me?” Beau asked hollowly. “Are we from here too?”
The witch’s face softened. “No. I don’t know where the two of you come from, or what—creatures—you were before. I’m sorry.”
Cricket had looked dazed for the past few minutes, but now she suddenly stood, fists clenched. “If what you say is true, then we need your help.”
“Yes, I gathered that, my dear.”
“You know what she did to us. She made us work for her, and she beat us, and worse.” Cricket swallowed. “Now, without her, the spell that keeps us human will expire at midnight on Saturday. We’re almost out of time. We need you to recast the enchantment. I can’t go back to . . . to that.” Her eyes flickered toward the cat painting.
For a moment, all were silent. Anouk wasn’t sure why Cricket had decided to trust this witch after arguing not to come here in the first place. Maybe because of the painting and the collar that matched her earring. If Mada Zola was telling the truth about that, maybe she was telling the truth about everything.
“Why?” Petra asked, surprising her. She was standing in the doorway with her arms folded tightly. “Why does it matter to you what form you take? Sleep all day, drink saucers of milk. Doesn’t sound so bad.”
Anouk cocked her head, curious about this girl. She remembered now why witches took sons, never daughters. Only females could become witches, so it was fathomable that a daughter might grow up to become a rival witch herself, whereas a son could never threaten their power. Did those same rules apply to a girl who hadn’t been born a girl?
Petra’s question seemed genuinely curious, but Cricket’s face turned cold. She snapped, “Because my life is worth more than catching mice.”
Cricket’s stare was vicious, challenging. One more word from Petra, and Anouk had a feeling the blades were going to make an appearance.
“It isn’t about whether skin or fur covers us,” Anouk blurted out, hoping to avoid a fight. “It’s about what’s beneath that, even beneath bone.”
All eyes turned to her, and she wished she had kept her mouth shut. These were dark thoughts. Thoughts she had ignored her whole life, truths she had looked away from at night, alone in her turret bedroom, when it was hardest to escape them.
Her eyes met Beau’s. He gave a small nod of encouragement.
“Before, for all of us, it was a dark place.” Her voice wavered as she continued. “A cold place. I don’t mean to say that life before was miserable. I mean that it was empty. Until Mada Vittora made me into myself, I wasn’t me. What I am—my memories, my dreams, the people I care about, and the thoughts I think about when I’m alone—it means everything to me. Imagine if one day everything that made you who you are simply disappeared. If all you thought of was filling a hungry belly. If the world was cast in shades of gray, not color. If you lost the ability to express yourself in words. If you never loved. If you never dreamed. That’s what we stand to lose. Everything.”
Petra was quiet. She looked shaken.
“Restart the enchantment,” Anouk said, turning to Mada Zola. “Grant us the chance to remain ourselves. A lifetime of being perfectly normal, that’s all we want. The same as anyone.”
The witch was quiet for a long time. Her cocoa sat before her, cooled now, the marshmallows melted away. The fire kept crackling. Beau had gone back to stand by the window, but he’d stopped staring out of it, watching for Viggo. Night had fallen at some point; Anouk had barely noticed.
“I’d like to help you.” Mada Zola stood. “And I will, as best I can. But the spell you were made with isn’t just any whisper. It isn’t as simple as making flowers bloom year-round or sparking fire in kindling. Prince Rennar wrote it himself centuries ago. It requires a lengthy whisper with challenging intonations and a tincture of the exact right life-essence. Not to mention a lot of blood.”
“I don’t mind,” Petra said quietly.
Anouk realized that Petra, as a witch’s girl, must have a bloodletting chair just like Viggo’s. She felt a sudden protectiveness for this girl who was willing to drain pints of her blood for them.
“Thank you, my dear,” Mada Zola said, “but without the wording of the spell itself, no amount of blood will keep them from turning back.”
“Mada Vittora had the spell,” Anouk said in a rush. “We could go back to Paris and fetch it.”
Mada Zola shook her head. “Written spells die with their witch. Her copy will be nothing but ash now. The Royals have a copy, but spells of that magnitude are kept in only one place: the spell library at Castle Ides. Only members of the Haute who have invitations can access them. I had an invitation, but it was revoked with my banishment.” She motioned to the delicate bracelet on her wrist; it looked like jewelry but was, in fact, the bond of her imprisonment. “One step beyond the fields and I turn to dust.” She swiped a finger along the top of a cabinet, coming away with a fine coating of dust that sizzled when she brushed it into the fire.
“But we have only a few days left.” Anouk fingered the clock in her pocket with a growing sense of panic. “You mean everything we’ve risked is for nothing?” She shook her head violently. “It can’t all just be lost.”
The witch looked at her with pity. “How much time do you have left?”
Beau said quietly, “About fifty-two hours.”
“Then it isn’t over yet. There might be a way to extend your enchantment without the original spell, some alternative trick.”
Anouk found it hard to take comfort from the witch’s words. How many hollow promises had Mada Vittora made her? Her mood turned sour, nasty. Witches were tricky. “We can repay you, if that’s what this is about. We can serve you like we served our last mistress. I’m a wonder with a mop. I make a good quiche too.” She didn’t mean for her words to sound as bitter as they did.
A log popped in the fire. Mada Zola eyed the three of them for a long time.
“Quiche. Mops.” There was an oddly electric look in her eyes. “You poor dearies. You don’t have a clue what you really are, do you?”
Anouk’s breathing felt too fast. A distant voice was ringing in her ears, Prince Rennar standing in Mada Vittora’s foyer, leaning toward her with those fathomless blue eyes and unsettling words on his lips. You aren’t made for sweeping floors, little beastie.
From every wall, his face watched, his eyes finding hers over and over. She knew that whatever Mada Zola was about to tell them was what Rennar had been referring to. The great mystery, revealed.
The next few words were about to change their lives forever.