He wasn’t dressed in jeans and a scarf this time. He looked as though he had stepped straight out of the portrait hanging above Mada Vittora’s mantel; he was wearing a frost-gray suit with threads as fine as spider’s silk. A crown of golden briars circled his head, the points catching the hallway lights as though he’d managed to ensnare little pieces of the stars themselves. And those eyes that had seemed to follow her as she had cleaned—not flat chips of paint now but the blue-gray shade of the sea where it dropped into unknowable depths. Impossible to capture with a paintbrush.
His hair, though, was still the slightest bit mussed.
Cricket lowered her face so that the lace veil hid her features and nudged Anouk, who quickly did the same. “Your Majesty,” Anouk whispered.
She clutched the broom close to her chest. Cricket, never an adept actress, halfheartedly fanned the feather duster over the doorway as though sweeping for cobwebs, but the way it flopped in her hand made it clear she’d never used one before. Anouk thought it impossible that the prince wouldn’t notice such a glaring detail, but he only brushed a wrinkle out of his suit distractedly.
“We’ve guests,” he said offhandedly. “A witch’s boy and his associate. Fetch a tray of tea and éclairs and bring it to the east salon.”
Another second passed before Anouk moved. She loosened her grip on the broom, her palms slippery with sweat. Cricket fanned the duster too hard and sneezed.
The prince leaned closer. “Be certain there’s a sharp knife on the tray.” He paused. “For the éclairs. They can be difficult to slice.”
It took every ounce of Anouk’s concentration not to shoot a look at Cricket.
A sharp knife?
She dared the slightest peek at the prince from beneath the veil, and for a second, he met her eyes. A dangerous thrill went through her. She should have looked away to keep her identity safe, but for this one instant, though it was incredibly foolish, some part of her wanted him to see beyond her apron. She yearned for him to recognize her, to tell her once more that she was made for greater things.
And for the briefest second, she thought he did recognize her. But then he looked away, bored and distracted, and the moment was gone. “You understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “A sharp knife.”
His footsteps echoed down the hallway as he left, reverberating off the glass cases. She didn’t dare breathe until he had disappeared around the corner.
Cricket touched her shoulder and she jumped.
“That was close. I was afraid he’d recognize us, even with our veils.”
Anouk folded up her lace veil. “All men like him ever see are aprons. I could be Mada Vittora risen from the dead, but if I had a mop in my hand he’d still just ask for tea.”
Her voice was bitter.
Bitter because it was true. She’d had it in her head ever since the night of the party that the handsome prince was different, that he judged the worth of a person not by his or her clothes but by something deeper. And to admit that he was just like all the others—the witches and the Royals whose gazes skimmed over her like she was a forgotten old lamp—sharpened her anger.
“He asked for a knife,” she said. “What do you think that means? It’s not for éclairs, I can promise you that.”
Cricket’s fingers involuntarily went to the folds of her uniform as she checked her own blades. “It means their top witch is dead and they want answers from her witch’s boy. And that they aren’t going to waste the energy to use magic when knives will do.”
Anouk drew in a sharp breath. “You think they’re going to torture Viggo?”
“I hope so.”
The thought sat with Anouk uneasily, like she’d eaten too much sticky icing. Viggo and Hunter Black had just walked into a room full of the most dangerous magic casters in Paris—no, she’d sent them into the room—and the handful of defensive skills between the two of them would mean nothing against the Royals’ tricks and whispers.
Cricket thrust the feather duster accusingly in Anouk’s general direction. “You look dangerously close to caring.”
“Well . . .”
“Incroyable. We needed Viggo to get us into Castle Ides, and here we are. Let Rennar carve him up into a ham, for all I care, and serve him with pineapple at Christmas.”
“And Hunter Black? I gave him my word that the five of us would stick together. And besides, Viggo is here only because I’m here. I’m responsible for him. I can’t leave him to be tortured.”
Cricket mumbled a curse under her breath. “Fine. We get the spell, and then—only then—rescue their pathetic derrières.”
Anouk grinned.
“Now.” Cricket ditched the feather duster and cracked her knuckles. “Prepare to watch the greatest thief in all the Haute perform the trickiest heist in history. Et voilà, the scene of the crime: the spell library of Castle Ides.”
With a flourish, she opened the pair of gilded doors.
Anouk felt a prickle of magic as she crossed the threshold. What a library. Nearly every inch from floor to ceiling was lined with shelves containing folios of every color: dusty reds and sea-green blues, faded yellows and darkest blacks. The ceilings must have been thirty feet high, buttressed with wrought-iron arches that made her think of the Eiffel Tower’s latticed curves. A balcony ran the full length of the room, and dozens of rolling library ladders stretched up to the very highest shelves. It smelled of crisp paper and older, mustier things: leather and long-held secrets. Rain pounded at the windows—she’d forgotten about the storm.
Spaced evenly in the library were three enormous glass cases. They emitted a mottled blue glow that gave the room a dreamlike cast, like it was underwater. Anouk rested her fingers on the closest case; inside, thousands of fireflies floated on gentle wings, locked in by a magic far beyond her ability to break.
“Blue ghosts,” she said, remembering a book she’d read. “They’re only found in the Americas, and only for two weeks each year. They glow blue, not yellow. The light leads the Royals to the exact folio they’re looking for.”
Cricket pressed her face to the case, looking unimpressed. “You’ve got the dragonfly?”
Anouk held the jar to the light. The trapped dragonfly inside, its only movement a slight pulsing of its elongated body, might not have been magical or rare, but it had its own beauty.
Anouk pulled out a chair at one of the mahogany library tables. “We’ll have to be fast. Rennar will be suspicious if we don’t deliver tea soon. Are you ready?”
Cricket stretched her neck. “Always.”
Anouk set her supplies on the table: the glass jar with the dragonfly, the pouch of floral herbs, the scrap of paper that contained the finding spell. This wasn’t like the simple whispers she’d cast before, sleeping spells so easy that even clumsy Beau could learn to do them. This was higher-level magic. Magic reserved for those who were born magical, like the Royals and the Goblins, or who were made magical through unendurable pain, like the witches. She’d heard rumors of the bleak, severe academies where human girls were trained to become witches. Only a small handful survived the final test, the coal baths, where excruciating black flames tore apart and rebuilt Pretty flesh into magical flesh. Who was she, an untrained, untested neophyte, to dare such a spell?
She cleared her throat. Pinched the dusty floral herbs between her fingers and choked them down raw.
She began the whisper. “Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia.”
Nothing happened. The dragonfly rested immobile in the jar, its fractured eyes revealing nothing.
Cricket glanced back at her with a raised eyebrow.
Anouk cleared her throat. “Um . . . I must not have gotten the intonation right.”
“I’d say take your time, but we don’t have any.”
“Thanks.” Anouk swallowed down another pinch of the dry herbs. She closed her eyes and focused on the tastes: the sweetness of fennel, the bitter tang of bloodroot. They mixed with the library itself—the moldering paper of the spells, the waxed floors—and for the briefest instant, there was only one taste. Only one moment. Only one sensation, and it was magic.
She whispered, “Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia.”
The dragonfly started buzzing madly in the glass jar. Anouk’s eyes snapped open just in time to see the insect thrash so hard that the jar toppled over. The lid came off. Freed, the dragonfly shot into the air.
“It’s loose,” Anouk cried, and then, “It worked!”
The dragonfly flew straight up toward the arched ceiling, thirty feet high.
“Merde,” Cricket cursed. “Keep an eye on it!”
The dragonfly was a grain of sand tossed in the ocean; if they lost sight of it for even a second, they’d never find it again.
With a burst of energy Cricket bolted for the closest ladder, climbed it two rungs at a time, then swung herself up and over the balcony railing like a trapeze artist.
“Where did it go?” she yelled.
“There!” Anouk pointed toward the east window. “To the upper windows.”
“I’m on it. Holà, if I just knew a flying spell, this would be a breeze.”
Cricket sprinted the length of the balcony, folios rustling in her wake. Anouk paced on the lower level, eyes fastened to the dragonfly as it whizzed as fast as a shooting star. Outside, the rain droned harder, in ripples of water like a typhoon. “There,” she cried. “Now it’s behind you!”
Cricket dropped to all fours on the balcony, pushed off, and ran back the other way. Her pace was breakneck and yet she was almost completely silent. She moved like a ghost through a graveyard. Anouk would have felt awestruck if she hadn’t been so focused on not losing sight of the dragonfly.
The insect swooped down over the tables, and Cricket grabbed the iron railing, jumped up and over, and landed gracefully on her feet.
No wonder the Royals used the blue ghost fireflies. They’d be slow and ethereal, lazily lighting the way straight to the folio in question, not doing the mad chaotic dance of the dragonfly. Anouk glanced over her shoulder for a split second. Was Rennar consulting his watch and wondering where the two maids were with his tea?
A chair toppled as Cricket leaped onto one of the tables, and Anouk spun back around. She searched the vast library space with a plunging sense of panic.
“I lost it!” she gasped.
“I haven’t,” Cricket answered, her attention focused eight feet off the ground near a set of shelves. She leaped on one of the golden ladders and climbed swiftly. “It’s fast. Holà, Anouk, give me a shove.”
Anouk ran to the ladder and pushed it on its rolling tracks as Cricket focused intently. “Faster! No, wait, it’s going the other way. Back, back, back!”
Anouk heaved the ladder in the other direction.
“Stop!” Cricket yelled sharply.
Anouk dug her heels into the floor, braking the ladder so fast that Cricket nearly lost her balance. But her reflexes were sharp; she climbed another rung and then held her hand over a dusty red folio seven shelves up. Anouk could just make out the dragonfly resting on its spine.
“That’s it,” Anouk breathed. “The beastie spell.”
Cricket shooed away the dragonfly, took down the folio, and hugged it to her chest as though it were some living, delicate thing. The blue ghost fireflies in their glass cases pulsed steadily, and as rain pelted the windows harder, Anouk once more felt overcome by that underwater sensation. Cricket climbed down, and Anouk took the folio from her with shaking hands. Such a simple thing. Bound red casing. A single page within. And yet it felt heavy in her arms.
“People are going to write songs about this theft,” Cricket boasted. “Wait and see. Songs.”
Anouk’s fingers itched to open the folio. She wanted to silently mouth the words that had made them. And yet it was already growing darker outside. A wet, stormy night was coming. She sniffed the air—she smelled citrus and onion and, oddly, it made her think of Luc.
She couldn’t resist. She cracked open the folio. A single page. Here was all that separated them from a lifetime of humanity. She’d cast magic before—why not now? Zola herself had said beasties contained a vast magical ability, so why must a witch cast the spell and not her?
A crow suddenly flapped against the outside window, cawing in sharp calls. “Time to go,” Cricket warned.
Anouk ripped out the spell and rolled it into a tight cylinder that she stuffed into the hollow shaft of her broom. To even attempt the spell, she’d need herbs, wings, blood . . .
The crow pecked sharply at the window outside. “We’d better get that tea,” she said. “And see if Viggo’s been turned into someone’s Christmas dinner yet.”