She jumped up fast enough to send the bones skittering across the floor. A cloud of dust rose in their place. “Where’s the oubliette now?”
Tenpenny scratched his chin. “Last I saw, December was guarding it.”
She ran back into the thick of the party, searching the crowd for the Goblin girl with the blond braids. She spied Cricket dancing on top of the Black Death with a Goblin boy in an indigo kilt and pushed toward them.
“Cricket!” she shouted. “Where’s Beau?”
“He disappeared with December. That way, back toward the old Métro tunnels. Is everything okay?”
“Get the others and meet me in the Skull Crypt.”
Cricket gave her a curious look but kissed her Goblin boy sweetly on the cheek and climbed down from the top of the Métro car, using the window frames as a ladder. The lights and music were pounding harder than ever. Anouk pushed through dancing bodies to the tunnel that led back to the Métro line. A few Goblins loitered beneath the archway, smoking something spicy and sweet, but there was no sign of Beau. She ran over the damp, dirty stone ground, calling his name.
Low flickers of flame lit up loitering groups of Goblins, some laughing or speaking in low voices, others in romantic embraces of two—or three—people.
“Have you seen December?” she called to a group catching spiders in the dark with a butterfly net, and they pointed farther into the darkness. It was cold here so far from the bonfire. She hugged her arms around her jacket, running her fingers anxiously over the embroidery. Then, in the dim light of an old curved Métro lantern, she saw the back of Beau’s sandy head.
“There you are—”
He wasn’t alone. He turned and she saw blond braids. December, her lips painted an electric pink, a matching glow to her cheeks. Beau’s own lips were the same electric shade.
“Oh.”
Not the most eloquent response, but it was all she could think to say. Heat flushed up her neck. They’d been kissing here in the dark tunnel. Beau and December. Was this about that business with Viggo? Some kind of revenge?
Beau’s face went a shade paler. He made a quick effort to wipe the lipstick from his mouth. “Anouk. Um . . . listen. Oh, merde, I’m an ass.”
Yes, he most certainly was, and she was about to tell him as much but then her eyes fell on the oubliette resting at December’s feet. That was more important than any kiss. She grabbed the bag and shook off the dust, unable to keep her anger from escaping. “It’s Luc,” she spat.
Beau’s face flickered with uncertainty. “Luc?”
“He’s trapped in the oubliette.” She hugged the bag to her chest and started running down the tunnel, past the kissing couples and the spider-chasers, hearing Beau and December’s footfalls echoing behind her.
“Anouk, wait!”
The cold enveloped her like a shadow, but she barely felt it. Luc was here. He’d fix all of this. She’d soon see him again, those warm brown eyes, that easy grin that said their problems were only hiccups and scrapes. This? he would say. The Royals after us and time running out? This is nothing.
She ran into the Skull Crypt, where Tenpenny and Cricket were waiting. She clutched the bag close. Beau and December ran up behind her.
“Anouk,” Beau whispered insistently.
She waved him away without glancing at him and turned to Cricket. “Where are Viggo and Hunter Black?”
“I couldn’t find them.” Cricket raised an eyebrow at the smeared pink lipstick on Beau’s mouth. “I see where you’ve been, Beau.”
Beau swore mildly under his breath and scrubbed at his face with his shirttails, glancing anxiously at Anouk.
Tenpenny snatched up the oubliette. “I’ll take that.” He laid it on the sarcophagus with a flourish and rolled up his sleeves for dramatic effect. “Now. There is fine skill involved in breaking into a witch’s oubliette. Each one is locked with a particular spell that can be opened only by the witch who whispered it. Of course, we Goblins are excellent at lock-picking.”
Anouk glanced at Beau out of the corner of her eye. His arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and she couldn’t read the look on his face; anxiousness, certainly, and almost a bit of dread, but she couldn’t be sure how much of it was because she’d caught him with December or how much of it was due to the potion they’d drunk. They were mostly dead, after all.
“Watch this.” Tenpenny shook out a few wriggling worms from a jar, slurped them down, and polished them off with a mug of beer. After a belch, he waggled his fingers over the oubliette.
“Changa, changa, a forma verum et abria.” The burlap fabric started to glisten as it transformed from rough fibers to silk. Anouk caught glimpses of the other bags it had been—ostrich leather, the Hermès gold buckles—but it continued to morph until it settled on a well-worn leather sack with primitive stitching.
“The oubliette in its true, original form,” Tenpenny said in a stage whisper, and then he flicked off a piece of worm he’d spat out. “Ugly, isn’t it? Fashion has improved dramatically in the past four hundred years.”
“Just open it!” Cricket cried.
Tenpenny upended the leather sack. All manner of things tumbled out onto the floor: Glass jars packed full with herbs. Old books with titles in a language Anouk had never seen. Oddly shaped wood carvings. And a parrot who squawked and flew away. December chased after it.
“Hey, that’s mine!” Cricket cried, grabbing a well-worn book. “The book about the girl on the magic train! I thought Mada Vittora burned it.” She hugged the book to her chest, grumbling curses about lying witches.
Tenpenny shook the sack once more, and it grew and expanded, and then something enormous tumbled out of it, something with arms and legs that somersaulted over the dusty floor and landed against the tomb with a painful-sounding crack.
“Luc!”
He looked awful. Grime coated his scalp and shoulders. The white gardener’s uniform he usually wore was stained with dirt and long-dried blood. His brown-black skin was more sallow than she’d ever seen it. He didn’t sit up.
Anouk shoved past Tenpenny and knelt by Luc’s side, touching his shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
His eyelids fluttered and he muttered something unintelligible, but he didn’t wake. She shook him. This was wrong. He was supposed to grin at her and wink and say everything would be all right.
“He’s been in there a long time,” Tenpenny explained. “Cramped space, you know. Not much to eat. I’m surprised he didn’t gobble down that parrot.”
“Shouldn’t he have turned back into an animal?” Cricket asked. “Midnight came and he didn’t drink the potion.”
“Ah, but time doesn’t exist the same way in the oubliette as it does here. He’s been in a state of suspended timelessness.”
Anouk glanced at Beau. He was chewing hard on his lip. Sweat had broken out on his temples. He didn’t say anything. Was this still about the kiss?
“Beau, you don’t look very surprised,” Anouk said. Come to think of it, he’d been fiercely protective of the oubliette ever since they’d fled the townhouse. She narrowed her eyes, but then Luc suddenly coughed back to life and she turned to him and touched his face.
“You’re okay!” she cried.
“Anouk?” Luc’s voice was rusty. He licked some moisture into his dry lips. “Where . . .” His eyes were dazed. “You’re out of the townhouse. How . . .” He started coughing again. Anouk helped him stand. He was so thin, a boy made of sticks. He had spent almost two weeks trapped in whatever strange world lay within the oubliette’s walls.
“I’m so sorry we didn’t get you out earlier. We didn’t know where you were.”
Luc blinked a few times, pressing a hand to his forehead. Despite his weakened state, he had an air of solidity about him. Even on his deathbed, he’d still manage to find the strength to jump up and box the ears of anyone who insulted her.
His hands were smooth and firm and the color of night tulips as he traced a finger over her cheeks painted with red hearts. “I’m supposed to look out for you, remember? Not the other way around.” He tried to grin, but it came out as a grimace.
She hugged him hard, feeling tears welling at the trace of thyme on his clothes. She had her North Star again. She let go and then it was Cricket’s turn to embrace him. Cricket whispered something in his ear that made him smile. He kissed her cheek. “Always, gumdrop. Always.”
Then he seemed to notice the tension between Beau and Anouk. His eyes dropped to the empty bag, then went back to Beau.
“You didn’t tell them?” Luc said.
Anouk whipped her head to Beau. “Tell us what?” And then Beau’s silence suddenly made sense to her. It was about far more than a kiss. She shoved herself to her feet. “Beau, did you know Luc was in there?”
Beau flinched as though he’d been struck. “No!” She stared at him hard, and he winced. “Well, not the whole time. I only learned that he was in the oubliette the night we fled. And then I didn’t believe it was possible to get him out without another witch. Besides, once the Royals were searching for Vittora’s killer, I thought it would be best for him to stay in there, hidden, until it was safe to come out.”
Anouk gaped at him. “What does Vittora’s killer have to do with anything?”
Both Luc and Beau went very quiet.
At last, Luc rested a hand on Anouk’s shoulder. “You loved her so deeply, Anouk. I’m sorry.”
Anouk still stared at Luc and Beau, uncertain, and then it all came crashing down on her. She leaned against the tomb, suddenly not trusting her own legs to keep her standing.
“You killed her,” she whispered to Luc.
Luc sank wearily onto the tomb, dusting the grime from his short hair. He took a deep breath. “It started with the rabbits . . .”
He explained in a rusty voice how he had overheard Mada Vittora’s plan to kill and replace all of them but Anouk and that he knew he had to stop her. He prevented it the best he could, having Anouk cook the rabbits before the witch could perform the spell. He even tried to contact Mada Zola for help, not knowing that Mada Zola would turn on him. After he returned from the Château des Mille Fleurs, Mada Vittora was waiting for him. She cursed him into the oubliette.
“It was dark in there, like the world was cast in shadows. I searched for a way out, but there was nothing. No doors. No windows. I had no idea how much time was passing. For all I knew, she was going to leave me there for centuries. But the rest of you were in danger—I had to come up with a way out. And then I found this.” He took a vial out of his pocket.
Cricket squinted. “Parsley?”
“Jimsonbane,” he said. “It’s rare. Most of the world has forgotten about it. I came across a reference to it years ago in an ancient botany encyclopedia. I’m not even certain Mada Vittora remembered she had a vial left in the oubliette.”
The distant dance party still raged, but in the quiet of the crypt, Anouk felt like she was caught in that same never-ending timelessness that Luc must have felt in the oubliette.
“Jimsonbane,” he continued, “is the only herb known to have ethereal-projection properties. If handled correctly, it can cast an herbalist’s spirit outside of the body.”
“And out of the oubliette to escape,” Cricket guessed.
“Well, that was the idea.” Luc frowned as though remembering something unpleasant. “It didn’t quite work like that. I did cast my spirit out, intending to escape, but I cast it right into Mada Vittora’s bedroom. She was there. It looked late outside—maybe close to midnight. She’d been drinking. When she saw my spirit, she went pale. I saw myself in the mirror. I looked translucent, like a ghost.”
“A ghoul, you mean,” Tenpenny clarified. “Ghosts don’t exist.”
Luc gave him a suspicious look. “Um, who are you again?”
“Long story.” Tenpenny petted his new rat.
“Right . . .” Luc eyed the rat blood on the Goblin’s cravat. “Anyway, I could feel the jimsonbane fading. I could see my spirit flickering, and Vittora saw it too. She thought she’d won. But she didn’t know that spirits on jimsonbane have the ability to hold physical objects—one of the reasons why it’s so valuable. I took the knife from her dresser and stabbed her. I had to. She was going to kill us.”
Anouk looked down at her hands, remembering her mistress’s blood on them. She wanted to feel that hot buzz of anger again. She wanted to feel something. But could she condemn Luc for killing their mistress after everything she’d done to them—and was going to do to them? Still, she felt a small part of herself slip away. She’d loved Mada Vittora once. A twisted, misunderstood love, but even the cruelest forms of love were never lost without heartache.
“I didn’t have much time after that,” Luc said. “The jimsonbane was used up. My spirit returned to my body in the oubliette. Beau came upstairs just as it was happening.”
Anouk turned hotly on Beau. “There was no reason not to tell us.”
Beau rubbed his scalp awkwardly, wincing at her tone. “Telling you wouldn’t have freed him. Besides, what was I supposed to say, that your best friend had murdered the witch you considered a mother? I was afraid it would break your heart. I was trying to protect you.”
Anouk stared at him, uncertain what to think. What did it mean that he thought lies could protect someone? Was that how he saw her—as an artless, sheltered girl incapable of facing reality?
She stepped back. Looked at the scattered magical objects at her feet—anything to avoid looking at Beau. Jars of herbs. Scraps of paper with long-forgotten spells. Gold coins. Priceless objects that now belonged to them.
Luc touched her shoulder. “Can you forgive me, Anouk?”
She drew in a breath. “I understand why you did what you did.” She paused and then blurted out, “At least you’re here now. You can fix this entire mess.”
She waited for Luc’s confident grin. That knowing wink.
He held out his hands, shaking his head. “I can barely stand, dust bunny. I’ve been gone. I can’t fix anything.”
“But you always know what to do,” Anouk insisted.
Then she saw that Cricket and Beau and Tenpenny were now looking at her the same way she had once looked at Luc. When had she become the one everyone turned to for guidance?
A flicker of hope started to return. She swallowed. “There’s nothing wrong with a little dust,” she said, blowing a streak of it off Luc’s thumb.
Outside the crypt, the dance party had dwindled to a core group of revelers; the rest of the Goblin horde were asleep on the catacomb floor using skulls for pillows. It felt cold—too cold.
Where was Viggo? Ever since she’d cast the love spell, he had been practically glued to her side.
The smile fell off her lips.
“Where are Viggo and Hunter Black?” she asked sharply.
“Um, about that.” Beau looked even more uncomfortable. “I was so sick of that love spell that I had December break it. I didn’t think we needed Viggo’s help anymore.”
“Love spell?” Luc asked, bewildered, and then he raised his eyebrows doubtfully. “Viggo?”
“I have so much gossip to tell you,” Cricket said.
“If the spell is broken, then Viggo isn’t loyal to us anymore,” Anouk said. “He’ll go straight to the Royals and tell them that we’re here in the catacombs.”
“I’ll find the prick,” Cricket offered, producing a blade.
“We don’t have time. They could be anywhere in Paris by now. We have to change our plan.”
“To what? We were short on options to start with.”
A paper fluttered to the floor and landed amid the detritus. The beastie spell. Anouk knelt down, smoothed it out, and then flipped it over and sniffed. Once more she smelled that familiar odor of onion and lemon, only now, with Luc back, she remembered where she knew it from: the secret messages she and Luc used to write to each other in invisible ink and slide beneath each other’s doors.
She met his eyes and smiled.
She dug a match out of her pocket, whispered a flame to life, and held it a careful distance below the spell. Luc might not be able to solve their problems for them anymore, but he had given her an idea.
“There’s always another way,” she said, “if you’re desperate enough.”