“R ennar!”
She ran across Westminster Bridge toward the London Eye Ferris wheel, the city a blur from the wind stinging her eyes. She gritted her teeth and whispered a spell to give her feet greater speed. Her heart pounded. What did Rennar think he was doing? They’d stopped the Noirceur! The battle was over! London was rightfully back in the hands of the Goblins, as they’d always planned.
I’m tired, Anouk, he had said. For too long, power has been in the wrong hands.
She leaped over a chain onto the pier that housed the Ferris wheel, startling the Pretties who operated the ride. They shouted at her. She cast a quick whisper that made her invisible to them.
“Rennar!” she called up. “Stop this!”
On the Thames, the Goblins had commandeered a party boat that blasted out rock music. The boat was now rocking wildly back and forth, though the rest of the river was calm. The boat suddenly tipped far too much to one side and started taking on water. The Goblins screamed. The boat continued to take on water until it rolled over and began sinking. Giant air bubbles churned as it sank. Goblins were thrown into the roiling waves.
It had happened in seconds.
Anouk froze at the edge of the pier, watching in horror. Goblins were terrible swimmers. She didn’t know how to swim either, but what did that matter to a witch? She had to save them. With enough life-essence, she could drain the entire Thames. But as if sensing her line of thinking, the water began to spin like a funnel, sucking down the Goblins and the boat. She swallowed the last of her owl feathers and cast a spell to stop the water, but it was too late. Every one of the Goblins vanished beneath the surface. As fiercely as she whispered, none resurfaced.
She shook her head as though she hadn’t seen right. The Goblins in the water were . . . gone. How many of them? Twenty? Thirty? How many more had died on the buses and motorcycles Rennar had made crash?
Fury stormed in her chest until she felt it was going to erupt out of her. Power ached in her hands and feet. She spun toward the stopped Ferris wheel. He’d doubtlessly try to prevent anyone from climbing it. But she’d flown before. She uncorked the bottle that held the rest of Saint’s blood and sucked down a few hungry sips.
“Volart kael.”
She felt the thrill of her feet leaving solid ground. She held on to the bars of the Ferris wheel as she rose, not exactly flying but certainly climbing with ease, rising higher and higher until the city skyline fanned out on the horizon and then she was at the very top, and she grabbed the metal rim to keep from rising higher.
She was breathing hard. This high, the wind whipped at her, blowing her hair in her face. She pushed it away, steadying herself on the precarious bars of the Ferris wheel, and faced Rennar. He turned to her with a conflicted expression. The spell to capsize the party boat was still fresh on his lips.
The world was so far below them that it made her feel dizzy, and she clutched the bar harder.
“What are you doing?” she cried.
“What we always planned to do, you and I.”
She sputtered in surprise. “We agreed to turn over power to the lesser orders, not kill them! Tell me you didn’t lie to me, Rennar. Tell me this isn’t a trick.”
Hesitation wavered in his eyes. His brows knit together. “Anouk, you knew all along what I planned. The Court of Isles is gone. The Coven of Oxford is dead. London is free for the taking. I’m the ruler of the Haute, which extends as far as the sun shines. I’m taking back what belongs to me.”
She felt like she was going mad. “No. You said you were tired of ruling. You said that power had been in the wrong hands for too long. That being a Royal meant knowing when to hold on to power and when to give it up.”
He took a hesitant step toward her. “I am tired. Tired of usurpers like the Coven of Oxford trying to take what is mine.” He ran a hand over his face and then held it out pleadingly. “Whose wrong hands did you think I meant, if not theirs?”
“Yours! You hold too much power!”
His lips parted. He took another step forward. “Anouk. I thought you understood . . . when I said I had to make difficult decisions about whether to hold on to power or let it go, I meant that I had to hold on. At all costs. Power belongs to whoever takes it. That is the way of the Haute. That is the way of the Pretty World. That is the way of everything.” He licked his dry lips, his hair whipping in the wind. “And it’s yours too. You are one of us now, Anouk. Princess. We rule the Haute together. This is why I wanted you at my side, because you would temper my ambitions. Even your misunderstanding came from a good place. We’ll take London together, but you can show me how to rule it fairly. Damn the terms of our marriage—you can fall in love with that chauffeur if you must, but it won’t last. In the end, we’ll be faithful to each other, regardless of who else ends up in our beds.”
She gripped the rails of the Ferris wheel with white knuckles. Below, the Thames kept churning. She could still hear the lingering screams as the last Goblins drowned.
“This is never what I agreed to. You’re robbing this city from the Goblins.”
“The Goblins? They can’t be trusted to feed themselves at a reasonable hour! They’re barely more than children. It is our mandate to care for them. Show them what is right and wrong. We can do that together.”
Bile rose in her throat. “The Goblins survived being thrown out of their city. They built a new life in Paris. They didn’t have much, but what they had, they shared. So what if they make a few mistakes? What they do or don’t do isn’t any of our business, don’t you get that? They’re entitled to forge their own paths!”
There was longing in the way he looked at her. In a few steps he crossed the perilous framework of the Ferris wheel and crouched beside her. Impulsively, he touched her cheek.
His voice was a whisper. “This is why I need you. To show me the wisest course.”
She jerked her head away from his hand. “You’re killing Goblins who fought alongside you. You don’t need me to tell you that’s wrong.”
“I’ve lived centuries, Anouk. Do you know what that feels like? Of course you don’t. You’ve barely lived a single year.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And in that year I’ve learned more about the world than you have.” She paused. “Or maybe you knew once, but you’ve forgotten.”
His face turned grave. The wind whipped at their hair, threatening to push them off of the Ferris wheel. “Anouk.” His voice had changed. “Let’s drop these games once and for all. You are alive because of a spell I wrote, but you’ve proven yourself to be so much more than I ever envisioned. I don’t care what you started life as. I respect you all the more for how far you’ve come. You were never handed anything. You didn’t come from royalty, and yet here you are at the top of the world with me.”
He paused and then continued. “I’m no fool, like that bumbling chauffeur of yours. You think I married you because it would bring the other Royals in line? Of course not. I married you because I, too, have dreams late at night, dreams that I do not dare tell another living soul. Dreams of a girl with a broom in her hand who might one day touch me as she touches the ones she cares about, who might smile at me as she does those she loves. A girl who is capable of loving the witch who raised her, even if she was a monster. A girl whom I would fall to my knees for. Whom I would serve, as she has served others. Command me to sweep and I will sweep. Command me to cook and I will cook. How else can I tell you that I am yours, Anouk? Heart, soul, body, mind. All of it has been yours since the moment I saw you on the steps of Mada Vittora’s townhouse.”
Her palms were sweating. Below, the waves of the Thames rose and fell peacefully. It would be so easy to forget the boat he’d capsized. The bus he’d crashed. The innocent people he’d killed.
She closed her eyes. “It was you, wasn’t it? You burned down Mada Vittora’s townhouse. It wasn’t an accident.”
“And what if I did?” He spoke quietly.
She could imagine him standing on Rue des Amants, whispering a spark into the dry bushes in front of the house, blaming it on the Goblins and Viggo. He didn’t want her to have a home unless it was with him.
There’d been a time when she’d seen a possible future with him. Beau had still been a dog, would possibly never be human again, and Rennar had been by her side, telling her everything she’d ever wanted to hear. How easy it had been to overlook his ambition.
Below, Beau was standing on the bridge, waiting for her.
She jerked her head to the side. She knew what she had to do, but it didn’t make it any easier.
“Anouk.” Rennar whispered into her ear. “I’ve done so much to bring you into my world. To give you what you deserve: luxury, power, wealth.” He pulled back to meet her eyes. His were wide open, and for a second she saw the boy that he had been. “I’ll do anything you ask of me.”
But he wouldn’t. She knew it as well as she knew her own heart. He’d twist the truth; he’d find a way to install himself back on top, as he always had.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Drew in a deep breath, let it out, and then opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“I might have loved you, Rennar,” she said softly, “but you see, it’s wrong, all of it.”
Before he could process her words, she swallowed the last of Saint’s blood. It churned in her belly with the remains of the owl feathers, spreading power through her entire body. Blood and crux. Suddenly it didn’t matter that she was perched high up above the world on a wheel of matchsticks.
“I’m sorry,” she blurted out.
He cocked his head, a question on his lips, but he couldn’t get it out before she whispered, “Des forma humana, fiska ek skalla animaeux.”