Midnight Beauties

by Megan Shepherd

  A ripple of anxiety spread through the girls. As dazzling as the Royals’ glitz was, it heralded the next day’s deadly trials.

  “Today, however,” the Duke continued, “is just like every other day. There are chores. Responsibilities. Go.” He barked the command and the girls leaped to attention. “Do a final check of the guest rooms. Freshen the rose petals. Glasses of champagne waiting in each room. Anouk.” He rested a heavy hand on her shoulder. She flinched, all too aware of the bell hidden in her clasped palm. “They’ll expect perfection from tonight’s Eve Feast.”

  Her shoulders relaxed when she realized he was talking about her cooking. “They’ll have it.” Not that they deserve it.

  His black eyes held hers for a long second, and she felt her cheeks burning as brightly as the stolen bell. She threw herself into a long, sweat-soaked afternoon over the kitchen stove.Sam and Karla were abuzz with gossip as they helped her chop and peel. They discussed which Royal lady wore the loveliest dress, which had the most enviable shoes, which young men they’d sneak into a closet with. If anyone knew about Frederika’s attack that morning in the goat pen, it was forgotten, eclipsed by the Royals’ arrival.

  While preparing courses, Anouk stole glimpses out the kitchen windows, but she never caught sight of Rennar. He was likely in one of the elegant upper chambers with the other guests, sipping something sweet, speculating about which girl might survive the Baths. She wondered if he’d told the other Royals about her—​the beastie girl he’d bargained with—​or if their deal was a secret.

  While the soufflé was baking, she grabbed the leftover ham scraps and stole away to visit Little Beau. When she reached the bottom stair, she made out a figure kneeling in the mud in front of Little Beau’s stall. She slowed, uncertain, the memory of Frederika’s ambush that morning still fresh. She grabbed one of the shovels. But from the clothes, she could tell that the person was a Royal. He was whispering something too low for her to hear. She curled her fingers around the shovel handle. If he tried to hurt Little Beau . . .

  “Excuse me, monsieur.” Her words were hard.

  The man turned. She couldn’t see his face in the shadows, but she recognized the hat. It was the baron who’d arrived with Rennar. He took a step into the lamplight.

  Anouk’s throat went tight. It was a face she hadn’t expected. She was used to seeing his face dusted with potting soil, not rouge.

  “Luc?” Her voice was breathy, uncertain. She felt as though she were seeing a ghost. Then he grinned and the spell broke.

  “Dust Bunny.”

  “Luc!” She dropped the shovel, stumbled toward him, and tripped over a basket of eggs, but he caught her before she fell. Laughing, she ran her hands over his arms and the sides of his face. “You’re here! You’re . . . you!”

  “I came with Rennar from Paris.”

  “But you were—”

  “A mouse? Don’t remind me. He changed me back six weeks ago. I’ve been at Castle Ides with Viggo and the Goblins, keeping them company. Yesterday, Rennar handed me these pretty clothes and said we were taking a trip to the Black Forest. You can imagine my surprise. Which was even greater when he explained he’d made a deal with you and that my humanity was the prize.”

  Anouk shook her head, confused. “But I saw you just this morning in an enchanted mirror. You were still a mouse in a cage.”

  “Ah. What you saw was a different mouse, not me. Rennar changed me right away, but it seems the cat and the wolf had gotten used to having a mouse caged next to them. It kept them from wanting to kill each other. So Rennar had the idea of putting a regular mouse in the cage to distract them.”

  Anouk groaned. “He might have bothered to send me a message. I spent weeks thinking he’d backed out of our deal, thinking you were still trapped!”

  Luc rested his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m me. And I’ve missed you, Dust Bunny. I came down here as soon as I could slip away from the Royals because I knew that wherever Beau was, you’d be nearby. Anouk, you can’t seriously be considering undergoing the Coal Baths.”

  She lifted her chin. “I’m here, aren’t I? Of course I’m serious.”

  He muttered something under his breath. “You must have hit your head. You can’t trust the prince.”

  She dropped her voice. “He claims he’s tired of ruling. He’s agreed to give up his power and put it in the hands of the other orders, even to let the Pretties make some of their own decisions.”

  Luc gave her an odd look.

  “Look, I don’t trust him either, but we’re facing the same threat, and in a sense that makes us allies. Have you heard what’s happening in London?”

  Luc’s face turned grave. “Yes. It’s all the talk in Paris. As soon as Rennar turned me human, I heard it on the lips of every lesser Royal. It’s all over the scryboard wires too. Double moons. Black rainbows. Apparently, when it first happened, the Pretties in London panicked. The witches cast a spell to convince them it was only an optical illusion caused by low-lying pollution. Still, the Haute is worried. There’s never been anything like this before.”

  “That’s just it,” Anouk insisted, “there has been. I found something here in the Cottage library. The books are old, but the few pages I could salvage made reference to plagues that aren’t so different from the ones happening now. Gray rainbows instead of black ones. Three moons in the sky instead of two. Rainstorms of worms instead of toads. All of this happened five hundred years ago, across all of Europe, from Dublin to Prague. These plagues occur whenever the balance between technology and magic is upset. It’s referred to as the Noirceur, or the Darktime. Someone must have erased it from all the modern Royal records, but whoever it was overlooked the Cottage library. And the Duke has more books in his private collection, but I’m not allowed in.”

  “You’ve broken into locked libraries before. Why don’t you use a whisper?”

  She haltingly explained to him what had happened with her arrival and Saint’s bell. Luc’s face turned very grim. “Anouk, you’ve been here this whole time without your magic?”

  She nodded reluctantly, then thrust a hand in her fresh apron and pulled out the bell. She smiled. “A few days ago, I stole it back. I’m going to carry it into the flames with me.”

  “That’s your crux? Are you sure? The odds of survival are one out of—”

  “I know.” Her fingers closed over the bell as her smile disappeared. “Alors, don’t remind me.”

  The bell, her crux, would keep her alive, but she didn’t want to think about what that meant for the others. Petra. Esme. Marta. Jolie and Karla and Sam. Heida and Lise. Even Frederika. If she lived, odds were the others wouldn’t.

  “You have to be completely certain, Anouk. You aren’t a Pretty, and the flames are designed to test Pretties. Who knows what they’ll make of you.”

  She frowned at him. “Don’t make it sound like I’m spoiled cabbage, Luc. I’m a beastie and you are too. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Of course not, but is it enough to protect you from the fire?”

  She shoved the bell in her pocket. “I’m certain, Luc. I promise.”

  Music began playing in the great hall overhead. Luc didn’t move, but Anouk tipped her chin up, listening keenly. It was a dreary dirge on violin and viola, but hearing any music at all at the Cottage was like stumbling on a coconut-cream cake in a cemetery.

  “The Eve Feast is starting. Zut, I haven’t finished mulling the wine.” She eyed Luc’s baron’s crest more closely. “No one knows you’re a beastie?”

  He adjusted his hat. “Not a bad disguise, eh?”

  “We can use this. If the Royals think you’re one of them, you can listen in for any mentions of the Coven of Oxford or the plagues in London. For all we know, some of the Royals might be in league with the witches. Could you do that?”

  “Dust Bunny, I didn’t just water roses for Mada Vittora. I’ve been a spy longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “Go, then,” s
he said, giving him a gentle push toward the stairs.

  The music stopped and was replaced by the Duke’s muffled voice. He must have been introducing each of the delegations as part of his welcome speech. Luc reached the stairs but then raised a finger and circled back. “Ah. I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket. “I brought this for Beau. He loved cupcakes.” He produced a slightly smushed miniature cake with dark brown frosting.

  “Dogs can’t have chocolate, Luc.”

  Little Beau, on the other side of the bars, whined low and insistently. Anouk knelt down and scratched his head, then fed him the ham scraps she’d pilfered from the kitchen. He wagged his tail.

  Luc started for the stairs.

  “Hold on.” She snatched the cupcake out of Luc’s hand. “Give me that. There’s no rule that says I can’t have chocolate.” She took a hefty bite, and for a wondrous but too-brief second, she leaned against the stairwell and savored the taste.

  She finished it, then dusted off her hands. “Right. Now we can face the most powerful people in the world.”

  Chapter 15

  The Eve Feast transformed the normally bleak great hall into a banquet room from out of a fairy tale. In lieu of musicians, Royals summoned music from the elements: piano from the snow hitting the windows, timpani from the stones that made up the church walls, violin from the flames licking the hearth. Delicious smells rose from the serving dishes Anouk and Jolie and Karla brought out from the kitchen, cinnamon and pine­apple, orange and nutmeg. The twin dining tables, so rough-hewn that the girls got splinters while eating their porridge, were now draped in shimmering gold lace that caught the candlelight. The Royals’ soft chatter, flowing in and out of a dozen earthly and magical languages, was pierced by laughter. The antler clock in the nave had changed its carvings to show depictions of fir boughs and stags.

  The Parisian Court had the center of one of the tables, next to the Crimson Court princesses, one of whom kept purring in Rennar’s ear, her long red fingernails tracing small circles against the sleeve of his suit. On Rennar’s other side, Quine’s daughter sipped watered-down wine, looking bored, waving a black-clawed finger in and out of the candle flame before her.

  Luc was seated across from Rennar, next to a trio of empty places that should have belonged to the Court of Isles from London and that was marked with their crest of obsidian and diasporite.

  “This makes me think of your story,” Anouk whispered in Luc’s ear as she served him a fat slice of blackberry pie. “ ‘The Northland Maidens.’ ”

  He raised an eyebrow. “The Northland Maidens” was a tale of seven beautiful girls selected each year by the village priestess in a land where the sun never set. There was a grand feast in the girls’ honor with plum wine and venison steaks, the lion’s share of the village’s winter food stores. The girls’ cheeks and shoulders were dusted with tinted sugar, and they were draped in garlands of fir; the villagers took turns serving them. At the end of the feast, the seven girls were thrown into the sea to appease the ancient gods.

  Luc’s dessert fork hovered over the pie. “That’s a bleak comparison, Dust Bunny.”

  Anouk nodded toward the other acolytes, serving the Royals wine and dessert. “But accurate. Tonight a feast; tomorrow some of us will be dead.” Bitterness filled her mouth, and she swiped the fork from his hand and stole a bite of pie. The taste of dark berries and butter lingered on her tongue. “At least in the story, the maidens were the guests of honor at the feast; they didn’t have to be the servants.” She jerked her chin at the Crimson princess flirting with Rennar. “Do you think they suspect they’re dining with a beastie?”

  “You think they’d still be sitting here if they did?” He took the fork back from her pointedly and dropped his voice even more. “Listen, do you really believe Rennar will give all this up? This glamour? This power?”

  Across the table, the princess kept purring in Rennar’s ear. A drunken smile teased the corners of his lips, but it didn’t match the sober look in his eyes.

  “I think there could be more to the prince than we know,” she said noncommittally. In truth, the pie was sitting like a heavy stone in the pit of her stomach. The feast did feel eerily similar to the one for the ill-fated Northland Maidens. The end of the feast didn’t mean certain death in a watery grave to appease ancient gods, but still, her odds weren’t good. Then again, when had her odds ever been good? She’d defied the odds countless times. She’d survived Mada Zola’s machinations. She’d battled topiary soldiers and Marble Ladies. She’d faced a frozen death in the Black Forest and lived. She touched the outside of her dress, feeling the lump of the bell for reassurance.

  She became aware of a sense of being watched. Across the table, the Crimson princess with the red nails was entwining her fingers with Rennar’s, whispering something into his ear, but Rennar’s eyes were fixed on Anouk.

  She tipped up her chin, put plates and cutlery on a silver tray, and took it back to the kitchen. She could still feel his eyes on her back. Was he also thinking of the unlikely odds? Wondering if he’d placed his bet on a poor choice?

  Her mind was so absorbed with the story of the seven sacrificed girls that she didn’t register the sound of a shoe scuffing the ground as she passed the confectionery. She squeaked as two hands tugged her into the dark pantry and shut the door behind her. The silver tray slipped from her hands and she cringed, awaiting the crash of broken plates and cutlery, but—​

  There was only silence.

  Then: “Incendie flaim.”

  The voice was like crackling coals; a voice she knew. A flame sputtered to life in the palm of Prince Rennar’s hand. It threw back the shadows and lit up both of their faces as well as the shelves, normally bare but now laden with chocolate bars and flour sacks and tins of marzipan.

  She glanced down.

  The silver tray, with its spilled plates and cutlery, floated six inches from the floor.

  “Maigal doucie,” he whispered, and the silver objects rested themselves on the ground as quietly as an exhale. Anouk realized she’d been holding her breath.

  “That’s a pretty trick,” she said in a low enough voice that they wouldn’t be overheard. The flame lit up a smear of pastel blue on his bottom lip—​the powder he’d swallowed to cast the whisper. On instinct, she reached up and wiped it away.

  His head turned slightly, following her finger.

  She jerked back her hand. “You . . . had powder on your lips. It was bothering me.” She swallowed. “Always the maid, I guess.”

  Her cheeks were warming. She started to pick up the fallen tray but, to her surprise, he cupped her chin and smoothed his thumb over her own bottom lip.

  “And you have pie on yours.” He licked the smear of blackberry pie off his thumb. “It doesn’t bother me.”

  For a moment Anouk was caught in the spell of the aromas surrounding them—​spices and peppermint and warm flaky crusts, smells that she’d missed. Hard to believe that just steps away were the cold, dreary hallways of the abbey.

  She cleared her throat. “And why, exactly, have you abducted me to the dessert pantry?”

  His teasing eyebrow fell, and the look in his eyes grew serious. “Luc told me you found information about the Coven.”

  Curls of frigid air were drifting in from a crack in the door. Anouk shivered, wishing she could regain the spell of simpler times: warm, sugary delights. “Not about the Coven, exactly, but about the source of their magic. The Noirceur. Have you heard of it?”

  He shook his head, but then stopped, as if he were remembering something from centuries ago. “Maybe.”

  “It’s an ancient time, the Darktime. When plagues like what’s happening today were common, when the balance between magic and early forms of technology was even more unstable than it is now. The Duke has books about it in his private library. Tomorrow, everyone will be distracted during the Coal Bath trials. You and I can’t go missing—​our absence would be noticed. But not Luc’s. No one’s even
looked hard enough to realize he’s a beastie you dressed up as a baron. He can break into the Duke’s library and steal the other references to the Noirceur. If we can figure out the source of the Coven’s magic, maybe we can stop it.”

  Rennar nodded. “Good.” But he hovered near the jars of caramel, looking as though he had something else to say. He favored his right leg slightly.

  The cold air bit at Anouk’s bare heels. “What is it?”

  He tipped his head toward her and said quietly, “Luc said you lost your magic.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “It was taken.”

  “Regardless, it’s a problem. It changes things.” He paused and then confessed, “I don’t think you should undergo the Baths tomorrow. It’s too much of a risk.”

  “Don’t worry. I have it back—​in a sense. It’s my crux, in the form of a bell. I’m going to carry it into the flames in the morning.”

  He studied her carefully. “Are you sure?”

  She gave him a hard look. “Is this just you trying to get out of our deal? Luc in exchange for Viggo and the Goblins. Hunter Black when I become a witch. Cricket for marrying you. I’ve kept up my side so far. The other beasties—”

  “Anouk, forget the other beasties. You can have Hunter Black. You can have Cricket. Come back with me now and I’ll change them before your eyes. Our bargain is just a silly game—​don’t you see that? I’ll concede if it means you don’t risk killing yourself.” When she stared at him blankly, he added, “Every girl thinks she’s found her crux. Every girl has some vision or dream. Every girl steps into the flames thinking she’ll be the one to walk out the other side. You say you’re sure, but you can’t truly know.”

  The smell of cinnamon was starting to burn her throat. She rested a hand on her chest, taking slow, deep breaths. “What about the Coven of Oxford? I can’t defeat them without strong magic. Witch magic. Otherwise, what does it matter if Cricket and Hunter Black and Luc and Beau are human or not? We won’t be human or animal or anything if the Coven takes over Paris.”