Midnight Beauties

by Megan Shepherd

  Eight paces!

  “Keep going,” she whispered. “Just a few more steps . . .”

  Petra faltered. Karla cried out, but Petra caught herself before falling. Her robes were entirely burned away; only the red sash remained, hugging her narrow hips.

  Nine paces through the coals and still going. Her fists were balled fiercely at her side. Her mouth twisted in a grimace. But she was still going! One more step and—​

  Anouk held her breath.

  With a final lurch, Petra made it through.

  Anouk cried out in shock and awe. How many nights had she and Petra lain in their room and discussed this moment? Even prepared for the end? And yet Petra had survived. She’d found her true crux. There were gasps from Lise and Sam and Karla and Jolie as Petra fell out of the Baths, naked. The impossible had happened! Her bare feet touched the grass on the other side and she crumpled into a heap in the snow. She curled into a fetal position, letting out small gasps as though she were still on fire. But there wasn’t a speck of soot on her. She was still Petra, but somehow more beautiful. The bruises were gone from her knees; the perpetual shadows under her eyes had brightened. Her face looked fuller, her hair glossier. Even though she and Mada Zola hadn’t been related by blood, there was now a resemblance, that certain something that united all the witches.

  The Royals clapped with the first true enthusiasm of the whole day. A new witch was a valuable thing. New blood in the Haute. At the Witchery Feast tonight, they would all be vying to win the loyalty of the new witch, promising her every luxury in return for her service in their Court. Petra was French, but that didn’t mean she’d be bound to serve Rennar in the Parisian Court. Already the Crimson Queen was arguing with a count from the Court of the Woods.

  The Duke whispered something to Saint, who took off and vanished over the northern mountains, bearing the news.

  Anouk felt herself grinning. It was miraculous to witness the birth of a witch. And Petra! She was so fiercely proud. But the other remaining acolytes around her now wore stony faces. Anouk’s own smile fell as she remembered why.

  Petra had survived, so what were the odds for the rest of them?

  Anouk suddenly felt like she might throw up.

  After the Pretty servants had draped a cloak around Petra and helped her hobble to a bench to recover, the Duke calmly turned toward the rest of them.

  The remaining acolytes were staring in apprehension at the pyre. No—​at Anouk. She touched her face and hair, wondering if she’d somehow smeared soot on herself. It took her a moment to realize that Duke Karolinge had called out a name.

  Her name.

  “Anouk,” he repeated. “You are next to burn.”

  Her stomach plunged. The pain in her side flared.

  I’m going to die.

  She knew it like she knew the sun rose in the east. She dropped the twist of Little Beau’s fur. Fear roared in her head, deafening her. Lise wasn’t smirking now. None of the girls were. They all looked as pale as Anouk knew she was. The odds were now equally poor for all of them. Dimly, Anouk became aware of someone calling her name from across the courtyard. Rennar was shouting, but her senses had gone numb. And then he was standing, pushing through the other Royals to speak to Duke Karolinge, his limp far more pronounced in his rush. He was pointing to Anouk, saying something to the Duke that Anouk couldn’t hear, something about an unfair wound. Somehow, he’d figured out what had happened to her. But the Duke kept shaking his head. A man of honor, but not a man of sentiment. The kind of man who could spend a year patiently, even kindly, training a girl and then not blink as he watched her burn.

  “Anouk.” The voice came from the bench by the rectory. Petra, still shivering in the blanket, met Anouk’s eyes. “Damn the odds, Anouk. Do it. I know you can.”

  Anouk started to protest. There hadn’t been two witches in the Coal Baths in decades.

  Petra jerked her chin toward the coals. “Girl, go.”

  Her feet started to move as though someone else inhabited her body. With a shaking hand, she took Saint’s bell out of her pocket and pressed it between her palms. Rennar watched with an intense look of dread, but then, as she stepped into the flames, he vanished. Everything vanished. The courtyard. The Royals. The Duke. Petra. Lise and Sam and Jolie and Karla. Her world had suddenly become nothing more than blue, blue as far as she could see, blue in hundreds of different shades, and no one had ever told her that as painful as the Baths would be, they would also be heartbreakingly beautiful. But then pain sliced up her leg and she let out a cry. The coals underfoot were sharp as glass. The heat seared up her legs, and she felt as though the soles of her feet were charring, but when she looked down, she was untouched.

  Take a step, she told herself.

  Now one more.

  How many paces had she taken? Shrouded in the blue flames, she lost a sense of time and place. All she felt was pain. It felt as though each cell in her body were being ripped apart, as if a child had broken her up like a puzzle and was trying to put it back together again to form a completely different image even though the pieces wouldn’t fit. Her skin itched and burned. Beneath it, the muscle rippled as though someone was tearing it from her bone.

  Another step.

  Was this what it felt like to be reborn as something else? But she had already been reborn as something else. Suddenly she was back on the floor of Mada Vittora’s attic in a puddle of blood with the other beasties standing around her. She’d gone from owl to girl. Now from girl to witch.

  Another step.

  The pain was almost unbearable. Her hands were shaking. She wasn’t even certain she was still clutching the bell. The audience outside the Baths couldn’t hear her screaming, but she could. Her own screams pierced her ears. The flames were pulling her apart, remaking her. Testing her blood and her bone. Determining whether she’d found her crux. If it was possible for a beastie to become a witch.

  Another step. She lost her footing and barely caught herself. The pain in her side flared. The flames were too strong. The wound had weakened her too much for her to take another step. Where was her bell? There, on the coals. Just a useless piece of metal. What if a beastie couldn’t become a witch? What if she was what they said she was—​an animal? A base, lowly thing? Rennar had believed in her. So had Petra. But they didn’t make the decision.

  And the flames were turning.

  She fell to all fours, wincing against the pain. The flames no longer felt like they were trying to put her back together into something new. They were only tearing her apart. Piece by piece, burned so cleanly not even ash remained. Her vision wavered. The world turned darker. She sucked in smoke. And then an odd image appeared before her.

  Black smoke covered the ground. A group of what looked like witches in black robes were chanting. The smoke obscured them so that they were only hazy outlines, and Anouk couldn’t tell if there were five or ten or twenty of them. Their faces were nothing more than blurry ovals of various skin tones, but they were all crying black tears. The smoke rose higher and higher. It looked like they were summoning the smoke. Commanding it. And then, out of nowhere, an owl skimmed over the darkness. It twisted its head, cawing into the void, and she gasped. It had no eyes.

  A fluttering of wings erupted in her heart and the vision of witches and smoke shattered. Suddenly she was back in the Coal Baths. On her hands and knees. The pain in her side unbearable.

  And she knew.

  She knew.

  Her crux wasn’t the bell.

  The flames burned away the last of her robes. Something clattered onto the coals in front of her. The blue world was fading away, but with her last ounce of strength, she managed to reach out a hand and grab the object.

  The round mirror.

  A face looked back at her. Not her own, but Rennar’s.

  She whispered.

  The last thing she felt was a drenching rain like a late-fall shower, but if it was rain, it was thick and heavy as tar, coating her skin and her e
yes until everything was black.

  Part II

  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.”