Midnight Beauties

by Megan Shepherd

  Rennar lowered himself to one knee beside Prince Aleksi, who still clutched his chest. Queen Violante knelt at his other side. They helped Aleksi stand.

  “You see?” Rennar yelled to the crowd. “The Coven of Oxford is upon us. They’ve even found their way into our midst. There can be no more doubt about the threat they represent.” His face grew serious as he looked to Aleksi and Violante. “We must cast them out, them and their poison smoke. A kindred spell.”

  They nodded.

  The three of them began whispering in unison. Anouk had heard of kindred spells—​the kind that took two or more magic handlers working in unison—​though Mada Vittora had always preferred to work alone.

  As they cast the spell, the smoke seemed to tremble and flow toward their voices. The possessed king shot out more light from his mouth but the Crimson Queen cast a spell to cloud the light while Rennar and Aleksi worked spells to cast out the witches. Powerful energy surrounded them and the king, making the few remaining dishes shatter. A marquesa from the Minaret Court stepped forward and joined in the kindred spell. Baron Winter joined next.

  The king’s body began to jerk and twist in mid-air. The ribbons of smoke curled tightly, constricting around his body.

  “It’s working,” Petra said as she finally managed to shimmy out of her tablecloth bindings. She shoved herself to her feet and cast her own whisper into the mix.

  Anouk’s arms hung at her sides. She’d never felt so helpless. Petra fought alongside the others. Luc and Viggo were helping Hunter Black, who was still disoriented from his transformation. Even the Goblins were spitting whispers to keep the witches’ magic at bay.

  But Anouk could do nothing.

  She felt hollow inside. She turned her hands palms up and then curled them into fists. Her nails dug painfully into her palms. Useless!

  Someone cried out behind her. She spun around. The Royals had managed to surround the possessed king with a sphere of glass cobbled together from broken pieces of crystal and stemware. It trapped the bursts of light, but a thin thread of smoke still snaked out and oozed around the room in the direction of the Goblins. The king continued to cry black tears, which now pooled in the bottom of the glass sphere. Rennar, Violante, and Aleksi redoubled their efforts, but their brows were heavy with sweat. Violante looked on the verge of passing out. The vitae echo prevented them from outright killing the witches or the king; the best they could hope for was to banish the witches’ astral projection from the king’s body, but even that was proving to be an impossible feat.

  Anouk let out a frustrated cry. She could kill a witch. She wasn’t bound by the vitae echo. If only she hadn’t lost her magic! But was she totally helpless? A line of black smoke snaked toward her, drawn to her cry, and she flinched and moved away. It came from a small hole in the glass orb. The Royals had enchanted the glass shards to melt together with no gaps or cracks, but the tip of the king’s little finger was caught in the glass, leaving the tiniest opening for smoke to escape.

  Here, at least, was something she could do that didn’t take an ounce of magic.

  She grabbed a butter knife.

  In a few strides, she was at the glass sphere. It took three slashes to sever the king’s little finger. The finger fell with a gush of blood. With a flash of light, the barrier was sealed, the glass sphere complete, the smoke trapped inside where it couldn’t poison anyone.

  Rennar threw a look over his shoulder and gave her a nod of gratitude.

  The sphere started to glow. The king began screaming, his voice as contorted as his body, and with a flash of light, the glass barrier shattered. Shards of crystal rained down. Rennar, closest, took the brunt of it. It carved deep gashes into his face and chest. He threw out whispers to seal his wounds but smoke, now freed from the orb, was snaking into his body.

  When the last of the smoke dissipated, slithering out through the window or into Rennar’s cuts, all signs of the witches were gone.

  So was the king.

  Chapter 23

  Prince Aleksi knelt by the fallen shards of glass where the king had vanished. “Father!”

  “He’s gone,” Luc muttered under his breath. “Dead. You don’t come back from something like that.”

  “I guess we know what happened to the Court of Isles,” Viggo murmured.

  Rennar remained on the ground, groaning as his body convulsed. The ballroom was in terrible shape. Shards of crystal and broken plates littered the place. Chairs had been overturned in the commotion. Tables were upended. The floor was slick with spilled champagne.

  “You see?” Queen Violante twisted toward the other Royals. “There is no denying now that we are under attack.”

  Anxious grumbles came from the few remaining Royals. Aleksi, eyes rimmed in angry red, pushed himself to his feet. “It’s true,” he spat. “This is the Coven of Oxford’s work. This is why we must come together. Only then can we protect our borders and ensure what happened to my father doesn’t happen to any of you.”

  “You mean protect your borders,” a prince from the Barren Court replied. “Your borders are closest to the Court of Isles. If the witches spread, they’ll spread to your territories first.”

  “They’ll be your problem soon enough, Sorin,” Violante hissed.

  Anouk leaned close to Luc. “Did you learn anything else from the Minaret Court princess?”

  He shook his head. “We were interrupted. I’ll try again. I know she’s frightened by this King Kaspar business—​she was sobbing on my shoulder. I’ll see if I can’t take advantage of that.”

  Anouk nodded. “Find out what you can, then meet us. We need someplace safe. Someplace private.”

  “There’s a billiard room down the hall,” Viggo offered in a whisper, overhearing them. “I’ve never seen it used. The Royals hate games—​they find them utterly dull.”

  “Meet us there as soon as you can, Luc,” Anouk said.

  Luc nodded and disappeared into the crowd, looking like just another rattled Royal in velvet and silk.

  Anouk knelt by Rennar’s side. His breathing was labored. His eyes were glassy. His muscles twitched involuntarily, threatening to convulse. Anouk touched a shard of glass that was buried deep in his chest. Black blood pooled over his skin and she hissed and pulled her hand back. If she tried to remove the glass, he might bleed to death.

  “Petra,” she whispered loudly, motioning her over. “Can you help me carry Rennar out of here?”

  “Are you sure it’s safe to move him? I could cast a trick. Enchant that table to grow wheels like a hospital stretcher.”

  Remnants of smoke were still rising toward the ceiling. Anouk eyed them warily. She hadn’t liked how the smoke seemed to respond to the sound of their voices. “Save your magic until we’re farther from that smoke, and keep your voice down too. Who knows how the Coven got in here. We’ll just carry him. I’ll take his arms. You get his feet. Careful, one leg is made of stone.”

  A few feet away, near the wreckage of the engagement cake, Viggo rested a hand on Hunter Black’s shoulder and said gallantly, “And you lean on me, my friend.”

  Hunter Black swatted away Viggo’s hand with a growl. “I don’t need rest.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re made of piss and steel. But humor me.” He dragged Hunter Black’s arm around his shoulder despite the assassin’s protests.

  As Anouk prepared to stand, the Crimson Queen met her gaze, her eyes filled with mistrust. Anouk froze. The queen squeezed the vial around her neck and took a step toward Anouk, but then one of her sisters started coughing and the other sister screamed, afraid she was possessed, and Violante’s attention was dragged back to the other Royals.

  “Now. Hurry.” Anouk and Petra slowly made their way through the ballroom and into the hall, grunting under Rennar’s weight. Viggo followed closely, Hunter Black leaning on him for support. They all stopped at a massive grandfather clock that sat where the corridor forked.

  “Which way?” Anouk asked.


  “Take a left. It’s almost always a left after midnight. Here, let me go first. I told you I’d be good for something.” Viggo led the way, counting doorways as he supported Hunter Black, and then toed open a blue door that was slightly ajar. “Aha! I told you. Smell that. Cigars. Whiskey. Cue chalk.”

  The curtains were drawn, casting the furniture in shadows. Petra whispered the gaslights on, and they flickered to life one at a time, illuminating twin billiard tables lined with black felt, a fireplace flanked by massive leather chairs, and a wall of shelves laden with chessboards from every corner of the globe.

  “There. Lay him on that billiard table.” Anouk nodded toward the closest one. Groaning, she and Petra hoisted him onto the felt and rolled him onto his back. His eyes were closed, but he was whispering feverish things in a language Anouk didn’t know. She pulled up one of his eyelids and her breath stilled—​his irises were black with swirling smoke. She swallowed back her panic. Fingers shaking, she focused on easing open the buttons of his shirt to reveal the worst of the cuts. He smelled of sweat and that citrus-vanilla-pine aftershave. It did something to her, smelling that. She felt a tug in the pit of her stomach.

  She couldn’t afford to lose him.

  She toyed with one of his buttons, uncertain whether she wanted to touch his skin. Black smoke marbleized the blood dripping down his side. She fought the urge to wipe it away with her hand. “Petra, the smoke got into his cuts.”

  Petra leaned in to inspect the poisoned blood and then cursed. “I’ll need a potion to draw it out.” She looked helplessly around the room. “There’s nothing alive in here. Just chessboards and cue sticks.” She grabbed a cue from the rack, sniffed it, then recoiled. “The wood’s been treated too much. What’s wrong with these people? Don’t they keep ingredients around the house? Mada Zola stuffed acorns in every spare drawer and hung herbs from every rafter.”

  “They keep their life-essence in vials around their necks.”

  Petra bit hard on her lip. She turned to Anouk. “We need Luc. He knows potions better than anyone.”

  “I’ll find him.” Anouk started for the door, then returned to the billiard table and rested her fingers gently on Rennar’s brow. “Stay strong, you idiot.”

  She went into the hall and followed the dizzying maze of corridors back to the ballroom. When she found no sign of Luc, she checked the salon, then a washroom, and she eventually found him hidden in a coat closet with a blond count from the Court of the Woods. Luc was murmuring reassurances that the count would never be possessed like King Kaspar. The boy’s blue-tinted powder streaked Luc’s cheeks.

  “Luc! Er, Baron von . . . um . . . we need you.” Anouk ignored the surprised look on the count’s face as she tugged Luc out of the closet by his shirt cuff. “Hurry, please,” she hissed. “If the clock changes, we’ll never find our way back.”

  He wiped the blue kisses off his cheeks with the back of his hand. He smelled of rosewater cologne. She gave him a hard look. “I thought you were interrogating a member of the Minaret Court.”

  “I . . . interrogated her too.”

  “Ugh—​boys. Zip up your trousers and come on.”

  They raced back to the billiard room, where Luc finished straightening his clothes and then set about inspecting Rennar’s wounds. “I need something for expelling smoke,” he muttered. “Petra, fetch me that arrangement of fresh hydrangeas in the hallway. And try to be quiet, everyone. The smoke looked like it was responding to vibrations from sound.”

  While Petra went after the flowers, Luc started rifling through the supplies on a bar cart. “Mint . . . lime . . . it’s for cocktails, not spells, but one must do what one must do.” He pulled out bundled mint and cherries and citrus rind, snatched a pawn from one of the chess sets, used it as a pestle to grind everything together, then emptied the concoction into a cocktail shaker. The sound of rattling ice jangled Anouk’s nerves.

  She combed her fingers softly through Rennar’s sweat-soaked hair. “Hang on. You’ve survived centuries. You can pull through another few hours.”

  He coughed, and the gashes wept more black-streaked blood. She ripped off a scrap of his cloak and dabbed it around the glass shards. Rennar couldn’t die. She needed him. She rested a hand gently on his chest, felt his heart struggling to beat beneath her palm.

  Luc peered into the cocktail shaker and muttered a prayer. “This is either a delicious potion or a terrible martini. Here.” He thrust the shaker at Petra, who sipped it hesitantly.

  Her eyes lit up. “Delicious potion, definitely. Do I detect a trace of amaretto—”

  Anouk smacked the empty shaker out of Petra’s hand, and the room filled with the smell of mint and cherry. “Petra, cast the spell! He’s dying!”

  “And we’re certain we need him alive?”

  “Petra!”

  Petra rolled her eyes but set to work. She rested a hand a few inches above Rennar’s heart and whispered. There was a gravitas to her movements that hadn’t been there before the Coal Baths.

  Rennar suddenly let out a sharp cry. His eyes moved rapidly back and forth beneath closed eyelids, but he didn’t wake.

  Petra frowned. “The smoke is tangled up with some kind of dark magic I’m not familiar with. I can’t expel it.”

  “But you’re a witch now,” Anouk said.

  She rubbed the back of her neck uneasily. “For less than a week! Give a girl a break. I just figured out what I want my moniker to be. I don’t even have an oubliette yet. That leather bag is on loan.”

  Anouk tried not to let her frustration show. It wasn’t Petra’s fault that Rennar was dying amid the billiard balls. And yet, if Rennar died, she’d never be able to keep her promise to the Goblins, and the Coven would spread . . .

  “Silly little things,” said a voice at the doorway. Queen Violante strode into the billiard room with that easy grace, eyeing Rennar on the table.

  “Violante!” Anouk exclaimed. “The smoke . . . it’s in his body. It’s poisoning him. Can you—”

  “Of course I can.” The queen gave a pensive frown. There was arrogance there, as Anouk was used to from the Royals, but also a wrinkle of concern. Rennar had alluded to a history between them. Anouk could only imagine. Decades traveling the world together, enchanting waves to rise and fall at their beckoning.

  Anouk ran her finger over her lips. She still tasted the champagne Rennar had served her.

  “Move aside,” the queen said emphatically.

  Anouk, Luc, and Petra took several steps backward. From the leather seats, Hunter Black and Viggo watched. Anouk tossed a billiard ball from one hand to the other anxiously. Violante picked up the spilled cocktail shaker and sniffed at it.

  “Who made this?”

  Luc’s hand snaked toward the ceiling.

  “It’s good,” she said begrudgingly. She eyed his baron’s crest and then let out a harsh laugh. “For a beastie, you pass well as a Royal. Was that you who absconded to the coat closet with the Minaret girl?”

  Luc thrust his thumbs through his belt loops, turning a little red.

  Queen Violante tipped up the glass to drain the remnants. She considered the taste, supplemented Luc’s elixir with her own powder, and then began to whisper. She sang, more than spoke, the Selentium Vox. The billiard ball went still in Anouk’s hand. She’d never heard anyone pronounce the Silent Tongue like that. She knew what an opera was but had never heard one; Beau sometimes sang show tunes while he washed cars, but angelic wasn’t exactly the word to describe his voice.

  The smoke began to work itself out of Rennar. His skin rippled and his body buckled, convulsing until Anouk was afraid he’d break the table, and then he suddenly eased back with a strange sigh as ribbons of smoke curled from his ears and mouth. Queen Violante pitched her voice upward and the smoke pooled itself tidily into the empty cocktail shaker, then she quickly screwed on the lid, trapping it. She leaned over Rennar’s body and traced a long fingernail over the bridge of his nose, inspected his eyes and gums for
any lingering trace of smoke. Her fingers seemed to know every dip and rise of his face.

  “He’ll live.” She signaled to Luc. “You. Potion-smith. When he wakes, he’s going to be weak. Give him fresh blood from that one.” She jabbed a long fingernail in Viggo’s direction; he rested a hand on his hip and snorted. “Oh, sure, drain the witch’s boy.”

  But if he thought he’d get sympathy, he was wrong. Luc started digging through the bar cart for a sharp knife.

  Anouk pressed her hands together and stepped toward the queen. “I don’t know how to thank you—”

  Violante cut her off with a sharp look, but then it softened. “Ah, it’s you. A shame, what happened at the Baths. You could have been great.”

  Could have been. Three little words like three little daggers to her heart. Could have been a witch. Could have been strong. Could have been more than a maid.

  Her cheeks flushed with shame. She cleared her throat. “Now that the other Royals saw what happened, will they help us?”

  The queen sneered. “You are a hopeful thing, aren’t you? No, little beastie. The attack on King Kaspar has only driven a wedge further between the realms. Now that the Court of the Woods and the Barren Court have witnessed the Coven’s power firsthand, they’re even less inclined to risk their lives to protect other realms. But I suppose they won’t have a choice when you and our prince marry. Not even the Barren Court would dare defy the Nochte Pax.” Violante’s gaze roamed over Anouk and she mused, “Perhaps you’ll be good to him.” Then she laughed. “Better than I was, in any case. I was a monster to him.”

  Anouk ran her hand over Rennar’s forehead, hoping for a sign of recovery. His skin was cold. His lips were pale.

  By the fireplace, Viggo tried to press a glass of water on Hunter Black, urging him to rehydrate. The assassin pushed it away. Hunter Black’s cheeks burned crimson. “You should have left me as a wolf, Viggo. I failed you.”