Chapter 18

 

 

“Anouk.”

“She’s still asleep.”

“Look—​her eyelids are twitching.”

“They’ve been twitching ever since the Black Forest. That’s what happens when you’re nearly torn apart by ancient magic. She’ll be lucky if muscle spasms are the worst thing she suffers.”

Voices faded in and out of Anouk’s ears. In her hazy state she wasn’t sure what was a dream and what was a memory. She remembered the blue of the Coal Baths and glass slicing at her palms. The clatter of a mirror and Rennar’s face—​or had that been a dream too?

Someone threw water on her face and she shot up with a gasp. Blinking, wiping water out of her eyes, she tried to focus, and in a moment, she was looking at two familiar faces.

“Luc! Viggo!”

They stood at the end of the bed she was in. Viggo’s cane rested against the footboard but he was standing without it, his arms crossed over his chest. There was a healthier color to his face. His dark eyes were bright and clear. Best of all, his slouchy hat was nowhere to be seen, replaced with a slick of hair gel and a trace of gold eyeliner. The Goblins must have gotten to him.

Viggo slapped Luc. “I told you she was awake!”

A sudden wave of nausea hit Anouk and she doubled over in the bed, clutching at her stomach.

Luc’s smiled faded. “Easy, Dust Bunny. You’ve been through a lot.”

The burning sensation reached Anouk’s temples but she dismissed it and tried to throw off the covers. “The Baths . . . I was burning . . . the whole forest was on fire . . .”

Her gaze fell on a basket of fruit on the nightstand. A bright yellow note told her to GET WELL SOON ALREADY! Next to it was a bouquet of lilies that looked more than a few days past their prime. She ran her fingers over the bed’s silk duvet, confused. The bed was monstrously luxurious, not at all like her simple cot in the Cottage room she shared with Petra. This bedroom was glittering with crystal lamps and golden wall sconces, mahogany furniture and paintings of regal-looking people on regal-looking horses.

“It’s clean in here. Too clean.” She tilted her head to the side. “This isn’t the Cottage, is it? Not even the guest quarters are this nice.”

“You’re in Paris,” Luc told her.

“Castle Ides,” Viggo added.

Anouk pressed a hand to her temple. The pain wasn’t going away. Hazy daylight came from a pair of windows. She shifted to look outside. A gray city skyline, rain falling. In the distance, the sloping point of the Eiffel Tower.

She collapsed back against the pillows with an exhale and kneaded her hands against her forehead. “This is all wrong. I should be in the Black Forest. The Coal Baths . . .” Her throat seemed to close up as she remembered the agonizing sensation of being torn apart. She had no idea what had happened after that.

Luc sank onto the edge of the bed, gently taking her hand between his. “You fell, Anouk. Into the flames. It was awful to see. You looked like you were screaming but I couldn’t hear you. I tried to run to help you but Duke Karolinge wouldn’t permit it. Petra kept yelling for you to get back up, but you didn’t. You couldn’t. Your robes burned off, and your skin started to burn. And then—” He cocked his head as though he was still uncertain about what occurred next. “And then Rennar started whispering. At first none of us understood what he was doing. Once the Royals realized what he was summoning, it was too late to stop him.”

She sucked in her breath. Rennar must have heard her call for help through the mirror. “What did he summon?”

“A storm,” Luc continued. “A black rain strong enough to put out the flames. I worried it was too late—​you were curled in a ball, looking for all the world like a charred scrap of toast. The Royals were furious that he’d interrupted the Baths. The rest of the acolytes weren’t able to undergo the trial. They’re still alive—​Lise and Jolie and Sam and Karla. In the chaos, Petra and I were able to pull you off the coals and get you back inside the Cottage. Duke Karolinge practically sent Rennar into exile. We barely made it back to Paris before the other Royals conjured up pitchforks. Metaphorically speaking.”

He gently placed the bell in her lap. Her pulse quickened.

“I found this.”

Her hands started shaking. It was melted and misshapen. One look told her there was no green orb of light trapped in the metal leaves anymore. The magic inside must have burned away in the flames. Now it was nothing more than a useless lump of metal. She wanted to grab it and throw it across the room. “It’s just a piece of junk.”

Her pulse was thundering now. Someone had dressed her in pajamas with long sleeves. She shoved up the sleeves, grimaced to find bruises and burn marks. Her skin should have been as preternaturally smooth as Petra’s. She shook her head fiercely. “It . . . it didn’t work. I’m not a witch. We have to go back, Luc. I have to try again!”

“We can’t. We’re banished from the Cottage. Anyway, the Royals couldn’t light the coals again. They won’t hold any Coal Bath trials until next year.”

She felt as though she were falling. She clutched the sheets. Banished from the Cottage? It was a cold, desolate place, and yet it had also been the one place where her wishes could be granted. And now she’d never set foot there again. She leaned forward so her hair curtained her face. The smell of rotting flowers turned her stomach. She glanced at the fading lilies. “How long have I been here?”

“A week.”

Her stomach twisted. Luc squeezed her hand. “It’s not all bad. I found those books you told me about in the Duke’s library. They reference plagues similar to what’s happening in London, just like you said they would. I was able to steal the books when we left the Cottage in such a hurry. I’m hopeful they’ll contain some answers.”

Books?

She stared down at her clasped hands. She felt hollowed out like a pumpkin, her insides gutted and tossed into the slop pile for goats. She was supposed to have been the most powerful creature in all of Europe right now, and instead they were telling her to be hopeful about some books?

She balled up her hands and stuffed them under her thighs in disgust. “I have to talk to Rennar. There must be some way I can fix this. I chose the wrong crux. But I could choose again . . .”

Choose what? she thought. She’d been so certain about the bell. The night of the firewalk, when Little Beau had barked up at Saint, she’d felt struck by lightning. What had she gotten so horribly wrong? She touched her side, which didn’t hurt now. Rennar must have healed the stab wound she’d gotten from Frederika.

“Rennar’s been working around the clock to win back the favor of the other Royals,” Luc continued. “Ever since the Coal Baths didn’t, ah, turn out as we hoped, he’s changed his strategy. If we can’t go to London and defeat the Coven through force, we can at least attempt to keep them out of the other realms. He wants to conjure a defense spell to prevent them from spreading beyond London, but for that he needs the other Royals’ cooperation. Their borders are intertwined; if one falls, they all fall. And after he wreaked havoc on the Coal Baths, more than a few of them are inclined never to speak to him again.”

She grimaced. “A border spell? That will slow the Coven down, but it won’t stop them. What about regaining the Goblins’ home city? And the Royals who disappeared? And all the Pretties who live there? We can’t cut off an entire city and leave it to fend for itself.”

Cities falling one by one . . .

White to Red, White to Red . . .

“I’m not sure we have a choice,” Luc said quietly.

All this heavy talk seemed to unnerve Viggo, who tore open the plastic wrap of the fruit basket and thrust a banana at her. “Eat something, Dust Mop. You’re skin and bones. The Goblins packed this for you.”

She pushed away the banana and he frowned.

“At least have a grape.”

“I don’t want fruit right now! I don’t want anything!” She grabbed the fruit basket and chucked it onto the floor. “Don’t you understand? I failed. I missed something. I thought I knew myself and my connection to magic. I was so sure. But it turns out I don’t know myself at all. All that time at the Cottage studying spells and reading about other witches and I still got it wrong. I had to beg Rennar for help.” She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut. “I want to go home.”

“Ah. Yes. About the townhouse . . .” Viggo started. Her eyes snapped open again. Viggo looked fairly sick. He turned to Luc for help, but Luc just stuffed a grape in his mouth, leaving Viggo to answer alone. Viggo grimaced. “It’s, ah, it’s gone.”

Anouk blinked, thinking she couldn’t have heard him correctly. “What?”

“Burned,” Viggo clarified in a nervous rush. “An awful accident. Just a few days after we left. You’d already gone to the Black Forest, and the Goblins and I packed up and moved to Castle Ides. December and I went back for my hat. The whole building was already on fire. Pretty fire trucks were on the scene, even some news reporters. But they couldn’t put it out. You can imagine my horror. I nearly choked on my own tongue. December practically had to perform the Heimlich.”

Anouk was speechless. The townhouse was gone? It didn’t feel possible that she would never again go back to her old turret bedroom with the playbills pasted on the walls and her collection of found objects from the Pretty World that Beau had brought her—​baby shoes, toupees. She’d never again set foot in Mada Vittora’s wondrous closet of shoes. Never whip up buttercream frosting in the kitchen and smack Beau with a wooden spoon when he tried to lick the bowl. Never curl up in a chair in the library to read tales of the world beyond the windows.

There was no going back now. There was nothing to go back to.

“How?” Her voice was hollow.

Viggo looked away, ashamed. “Turns out I’m not such a good Goblin babysitter after all. One of them must have left some toast on the stove.”

She narrowed her eyes. There was something Viggo wasn’t telling her. He’d always been a terrible liar. “There was no more bread left. The pantry was bare.” She turned to Luc. “What do you make of all this?”

Luc’s face was as serene as always. If she hadn’t known him so well, she would have missed the ripple of suspicion in his eyes. “Seems like too strange a coincidence for Rennar not to be behind it. I think he wanted you to have no home except his.”

Her mood turned even nastier. “Well, the joke is on him. He didn’t know that I’d fail in the Baths and be useless, townhouse or no townhouse.”

Viggo and Luc didn’t respond. Their silence might as well have been an accusation. Failure. Disappointment. What right had she had to think she could do anything grander than sweep the floors?

An awful idea took hold of her. “Beau! He’s still at the Cottage!” Before the Baths, she had left him in the stables in the Cottage basement, locked in the muddy stall with only a few ham scraps and her Faustine jacket, and that had been a week ago!

She pitched forward, tossing off the covers. “Shoes . . . I need shoes . . .”

“Calm down.” Luc pressed his palms gently against her shoulders, easing her back into bed. “Beau is okay. Petra has him. When she and I got you out of the Coal Baths, she promised to get the dog and bring him here as soon as she could.”

Anouk’s muscles relaxed slightly. Petra was a witch now. At least that was a ray of light in the darkness. If the Duke or anyone else tried to stop Petra from taking Little Beau, she’d be a force to reckon with. And then Anouk’s thoughts turned dark. She was supposed to be a witch too. She should have been able to free Little Beau herself, even turn him human again. He should have been in bed with her; they should have been whispering dreams and plans to each other and nibbling on the goodies in the fruit basket. “I’ve ruined everything.”

Viggo and Luc were silent. Rain pelted harder at the window, icy and loud, threatening to turn to snow. The city skyline was a growing smear of gray on the horizon.

“Get some rest,” Luc said at last. He nudged Viggo and motioned at the door. As soon as they’d left, a deafening silence filled the room, and Anouk wanted to call them back. The bedroom was too empty without them; the luxury gave her no comfort. Her thoughts bumped around the high ceilings and echoed back to her. She palmed the melted bell angrily. She lost track of time. She had no townhouse to return to. No magic sparking at her fingertips, not even the simplest tricks and whispers. No clue what she’d gotten wrong when she’d chosen her crux. No idea how to make it all right again.

At least she could rid herself of the bell. On an impulse, she ran to the window, preparing to hurl the bell to where she’d never have to see it again.

But she froze.

The last thing she’d expected to see, eight stories up, was a face. She nearly fell over. “Jak!”

He was crouched on the exterior sill. He tapped one long fingernail against the pane. “Let me in, lovely?”

She hesitated, then decided that things couldn’t get much worse. She twisted the brass lock and opened the window. He unfolded his nimble limbs, climbed in, and took a look around at the opulent décor. Though his eyes glittered with curiosity, he didn’t move more than a few feet from the window; he was bound to the cold.

Frigid air gusted in and she went back to the bed and tugged the blanket around her shoulders. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“We Snow Children travel where the snow goes.”

“Yes, but why did you come here, and why now? It must be snowing in hundreds of other places at this exact moment.”

“Only Paris has you.”

She gave him a hard look. She wasn’t in the mood for games. “Are you after more gin?”

He laughed. “That’s not why I’m here, though I wouldn’t say no to a dram. I saw what happened at the Coal Baths.”

Of course—​it had been snowing then, just a few flakes, but enough for Jak to spy on her. Her face warmed with shame and she turned to a cabinet with glasses set out on the top. Sure enough, when she dug through it, she found a bottle of gin. She filled a tumbler and gave it to Jak.

He drained the glass and wiped a finger along the rim for the last traces and then said slyly, “Poor girl. Not a Pretty. Not a witch. Not a thing of wings and feathers either.” He popped his finger in his mouth.

She stiffened. “How did you find out about that? The owl?” She had no memories of that time when she’d been an owl, nothing but a dim awareness of feeling hungry and frightened.

The Dark Thing. The Cold Place.

“As far as riddles go, it was not overly difficult to solve,” Jak said. “I told you, we Snow Children have been around since long before beasties, or Pretties, or witches. We’ve seen it all.” His black eyes glistened.

She rolled the melted bell in her hand. “Do you know what was wrong about my crux?”

“The crux is merely a symbol. The other girl, the one who lived, chose a crux that connected her to her past, to her tragedy, to other witches. Lavender ash.”

“This bell contained my own magic. How could I have found a stronger connection?”

“You weren’t looking in the right place.”

She groaned and slumped into the window seat. “Fine. Speak in riddles. But tell me this: If you’ve existed so long, have you heard of a time called the Noirceur?”

Jak froze, then lowered the glass in his hand. His eyes were still playful, but there was a hint of danger in them too. “What does a beastie know of the Noirceur?”

“Just tell me what you know,” she said, then jutted her chin toward his empty glass. “I’ll give you the whole bottle.”

He leaned in, the snow blowing in at his back. His icicle locks hung in his face. “The Noirceur. You’re wrong—​it wasn’t a time. It was a force. Chaos itself. It’s very old, perhaps the oldest thing there is, from before time, from before life, even. Only a small remnant of it remains: the vitae echo. The rest of it faded away over the ages.” He gave a mirthless smile. “Or so the Haute would have you believe.”

“It never faded, did it?” Her voice was hushed. She thought of the books in the Duke’s library that Luc had brought back, the ancient references to plagues that were happening all over again.

Jak shook his head slowly. “No. It was merely contained.”

“What do mean, contained? Where?”

Jak grinned devilishly. “Do you wish to know badly enough to give me a kiss?”

She scowled. “Your kisses bring death.”

“Very well.” The corners of his blue lips curled up. “I solved the riddle of your origin, and so now it is your turn to solve a riddle of mine. The Noirceur was contained in . . .”

“Yes? In what?”

“Ah, that’s the riddle.” He blew a breath of frost to cloud the window and traced a symbol there, a circle containing two small lines and broken rays, like an incomplete sun.

 

 

“That isn’t a riddle,” she said. “It’s a picture. And a nonsense one at that.”

Jak grinned. “The riddle is simple. Its portrayal is not.” He began to fade away with the lessening snow, and she thrust her head out the window, calling for him, but he didn’t return.

“Snow Children,” she muttered under her breath.

She still held the bell in her palm, but she no longer wanted to throw it out the window. What had Jak said? You weren’t looking in the right place. She found a gold chain in a drawer, strung the empty bell on it, then fastened it around her neck. A reminder to keep looking for the right place.

She jumped when a knock came at the door.

It was Countess Quine’s green-eyed daughter, carrying a large rectangular cardboard box.

“It’s you,” Anouk said in surprise.

“My name is Mia.”

Anouk’s fingers plucked uselessly at the chain around her neck. “Mia, listen, what happened in Montélimar to your mother—”

Mia shoved the box into her arms. It was heavier than Anouk had expected, bulky and flat, and tied with a cream-colored ribbon. “A package from Prince Rennar. With his most sincere hopes that you’re feeling better.” If the girl felt any anger over her mother’s murder, her face did not show it. She just drummed her black-clawed fingernails against her arms.

Anouk tried again. “You must hate me.”

The girl gave a sigh that conveyed annoyance. “Countess Quine wasn’t my mother. She was my twin sister.” Mia looked no older than ten, whereas Countess Quine had been in her thirties. Mia smiled flatly. “I took herbs to age more slowly. It was always a point of vicious jealousy for her. I’m not sorry she’s gone. One of these centuries, one of us would have killed the other. You just beat me to it.” She shrugged. The girl’s heart was even colder than her late sister’s.

With a tip of her small chin, Mia left, and Anouk, feeling even more lightheaded, tossed the package onto the bed. Her mind whipped in dizzying circles. How could she regain her magic? What was her crux? And what of the Noirceur? It seemed like blankness over the world, not unlike what she called the Dark Thing.

The Dark Thing . . .

The Noirceur . . .

Was it possible they were different terms for the same void?

Her bare toes—​all eight of them—​curled anxiously against the rug. She sat on the corner of the bed, twisting a strand of hair around one finger. Her eyes fell on the package. She tugged off the ribbon distractedly, threw aside the lid, and dug through what must have been a hundred layers of tissue paper.

“Oh!” She covered her mouth with one palm, but a small gasp escaped anyway. “Merde.”