For days, Anouk’s world was filled with books. She spent every minute between her kitchen shifts in the library, bent over a dusty volume. She memorized hundreds of new phrases in the Selentium Vox. She learned the eleven words that meant “night,” the four words that meant “day.” She found a yellowing old volume on a top shelf that had been handwritten by one of the original Royals, an ancient baron of the Lunar Court, the pages so old they barely stayed intact in her hands. She memorized spells for withering trees, tricks for flooding a riverbed, whispers for mending a broken heart. Marta kept her company, though she was such an unobtrusive soul that Anouk often forgot she was there. Marta liked to study while wrapped up in a blanket on the floor, stacks of books around her, eating from a jar of pickled black walnuts. Anouk had glanced at Marta’s books—they were mostly political theory of the Haute and histories of the ancient Royals. When Marta read, it was like the world stood still; the only sounds were pages turning and walnuts being nibbled.
Anouk rubbed her eyes. She’d been at the Cottage for a week and didn’t have a clue what her crux might be. No lightning had struck her when she’d read references to sunflowers. She’d gotten no flashes of insight when she learned the Selentium Vox words for “fox fur.” She slammed her most recent book shut—a genealogy of previous witches and their cruxes—and opened a new one at random. Her candle flickered over a page streaked with dust. Her eyes snagged on one phrase.
Gray rainbows
She was suddenly aware of how quiet the library was. She frowned and scooted the book closer. It had been handwritten by the Pretty monks who lived here centuries ago. Gray rainbows. It was eerily similar to the plagues in London that Rennar had told her about. Black rainbows, he had said. Could it be a coincidence? She held her candle closer and kept reading.
. . . besieged by the curse, overtaken by the plagues. The triple moons and gray rainbows. Rainstorms of worms. Dublin . . . to Prague. A madness over the population . . . they call it . . . the Noirceur . . .
“The Noirceur,” she whispered to herself. The book was badly damaged, though the words were legible. She scanned the next few pages, which told of plagues that were similar to what was happening in London. Gray rainbows in the past, black rainbows now. Triple moons before, double moons now. Rainstorms of worms then, falling toads now. How could history written about centuries ago in a random book be repeating itself?
She ripped out the pages and put them in her pocket before rifling through the rest of the book for similar references.
. . . worms falling from the sky . . .
. . . the Noirceur, the Darktime . . .
She ripped out those pages too. She skimmed through the rest of the book until her candle burned out, and the next night, she moved onto another book written by the same monk. She spent long nights poring over the books, hoping for another passage that might explain the odd references.
One night a week later, Marta stuck her head around the shelves, startling Anouk. Marta grinned. “I’m going to get some of the leftover bread from supper. Do you want anything?”
Anouk hesitated, and then, before she could stop herself, she took out one of the pages that she’d been collecting throughout the week. She smoothed it out and tapped a word.
“Marta, have you ever come across references to something called the Noirceur?”
Marta blinked, thinking. “Not that I recall.”
“Or plagues? Strange phenomena like creatures raining down from the sky, multiple moons, that sort of thing?”
Marta cocked her head. “There are some accounts like that, legends about the early Royals. About the Snowfire Court, what is now part of the Hammer Court, far north in Siberia and Scandinavia. And there are a few ballads about the mystical King Svatyr and Queen Mid Ruath and how they banished a dark evil while dressed in fabulous bearskin cloaks and wearing glittering powder on their lips. Sometimes that ‘evil’ is referred to as plagues. The accounts of King Svatyr and Queen Mid Ruath aren’t in any of these books, though. I saw them in the Duke’s personal library while I was feeding Saint. I used to browse through the books until he caught me. Since then he doesn’t let me feed Saint unless he’s there.”
Anouk ran her finger over the page, thinking.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Marta said hesitantly, adjusting her glasses. She motioned to the stack of books by Anouk’s side. “But I don’t think you’re going to find your crux through study. You’ve been at it for almost two weeks. If you’re on the right path, you don’t fall asleep with your face in a book.” She motioned to a drool stain on Anouk’s collar. Anouk wiped it away guiltily. Marta grinned. “You need to find something that makes your soul sing. That fills you with joy like you’ve never known. Only that feeling can guide you to your crux.”
Anouk looked around at the dreary library, at the desiccated books and the cold stone floors, so different from Mada Vittora’s cozy library with its overstuffed chairs. If spending hours hidden away in here brought Marta such ecstatic joy, maybe Anouk was on the wrong path.
Marta leaned forward, pushing her glasses up. “You have something in you, Anouk. A fire. It was clear the night you arrived.” She touched her own chest. “You want magic as bad as I do.”
Anouk raised an eyebrow. “How did you learn about the Haute?”
Marta let out a puff of air and said dreamily, “I was in my first year at university. I was studying in a café for end-of-term exams. The café closed for the night, and I left to find a place where I could continue reading. I wandered the city and came across a drunk guy by the river. I was afraid he’d try to drown himself. He saw me calling to him and laughed. He said, ‘Can’t you see, pretty girl, that I’m walking on the water? Of course you can’t. Your eyes are closed. Here, my pretty. See.’ He raised the glamour and I saw him for what he was—a Royal. A minor count of the Minaret Court. That night, we sat on the riverbank and drank his wine and he told me about millennia of magic, of powerful spells, of passionate Royal affairs. I forgot about my exams. What did I care about school anymore after learning about the Haute? Screw the exams. Screw my degree. I wanted magic.”
“Didn’t he glamour you once the sun rose?” Anouk asked.
Marta grinned and shook her head. “He passed out. I’m not sure he ever remembered our conversation. Or me.” Her face grew serious, and she rested a hand on Anouk’s arm. “Do yourself a favor and stop torturing yourself with these texts. Try prayer, maybe?”
Anouk wrinkled her nose.
The antler clock in the great hall chimed three o’clock in the morning, the sound echoing through the entire abbey and reaching them in the library.
“Chores.” Marta sighed.
Anouk perked up. “Could we swap?”
“Me make breakfast? I can’t even boil water.”
“Just for today.”
Anouk didn’t say anything about Little Beau, but she didn’t have to. Marta seemed to understand. She reached into her pocket and set a piece of biscuit on the desk. “Just for today. Here. Give your dog this. I saved it from yesterday’s breakfast. We all like him, you know.”
Anouk briefly debated telling Marta that Little Beau was actually a boy with shaggy hair and a love of fast cars, but then she took the biscuit and closed her books. It wasn’t until she was halfway down the cellar stairs that it hit her: as soon as winter fell, just a few short weeks away, she or Marta or, most likely, both of them would be dead, as would Esme and Petra and all the other girls.
Her thoughts were dark as she descended the stairs.
“Sang vivik.”
Anouk shrieked and pressed a hand to her chest. She wasn’t alone. Frederika was lurking on the landing. Her hair was its usual wild black storm cloud. Her eyebrows shadowed her eyes into dark pools.
“Frederika!” Anouk swallowed. “What did you say?”
In the two weeks Anouk had been at the Cottage, Frederika hadn’t spoken a single word to her. She rarely spoke to anyone except Sam, who did the laundry, and then only to tell her that she’d torn another one of her dresses while exercising in the courtyard. Still, Anouk had felt Frederika’s glistening eyes fixed on her at every meal.
“Sang vivik,” Frederika repeated.
Anouk’s eyebrows rose. She glanced toward the top of the stairs, wondering if anyone else was within earshot. “Is that in the Selentium Vox? Something about blood? I don’t know that usage of vivik.”
“A witch took two of your toes. Esme says.”
Anouk glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. It was after three o’clock in the morning. Karla and Lise should be there, up early to start making the daily bread, but they were both notoriously deep sleepers, and they knew that Anouk, the head chef, wouldn’t scold them too severely. No sounds came from the kitchen.
“That’s right.” Anouk’s toes curled in her shoes.
Frederika lifted two fingers to her mouth and started gently gnawing on them, all the while staring at Anouk.
“Are you all right?” Anouk took a step down the stairs, away from her. Maybe Frederika was nervous about the delivery the previous day—just after breakfast, two enchanted Pretties had shown up leading a string of mules loaded down with firewood, having just barely survived the precarious mountain path. They carried in load after load until half the courtyard was filled with stacks of wood. It had shaken Anouk when she realized that preparations were already beginning for the Coal Baths. Tomorrow, Duke Karolinge would begin the grueling, four-week-long process of whispering the wood into coals that would form the basis of the trials. Then, the Coals would need the magic of the Royal Courts to convert them into blue flame. Rennar would be there. She’d confront him about why he hadn’t turned Luc back yet. She’d force a promise out of him—one sealed in magic this time.
Suddenly, Frederika pulled her fingers out of her mouth and dropped to the floor. She started doing pushups on the landing, counting out the numbers in German.
Anouk took another step away from her, then made her way down to the cellar as quickly as she could. When she got there, she closed herself up in the stall with Little Beau and swept him into a hug.
“Beau,” she breathed into his fur. “This place is getting to me. What’s my crux? I haven’t had any insight. Nothing’s called to me. If I learned anything from the Goblins, it’s that I’m not drawn to rats or cockroaches. I know it isn’t roses, like Mada Vittora’s crux. I like thyme, but that’s only because it reminds me of Luc.” She groaned. “This would be easy if I had my magic.”
Little Beau went to the stall corner, took her Faustine jacket in his mouth, and dragged it over to her. He nudged it into her lap and ran his bandaged paw over the winged creature on the back. He whined softly.
Anouk reached out and scratched his head. She pulled the jacket up over the both of them, and they lay in the straw and slept a dreamless sleep.