Midnight Beauties

by Megan Shepherd

  Anouk pressed her palm against her mouth.“Pas possible.”

  Big Ben stood tall, the clock hands still moving, the only thing that wasn’t caught up in the chaos around it. The Royals and Goblins below desperately hurled spells at the encroaching time slips, but their magic only vanished into the chaos.

  “The city’s going to fall apart.” Cricket spun away from the windows, pacing. “Space and time are literally fracturing. We’ll be lucky to have five minutes left before it all ends. Anouk, you have to get down there. Prince Aleksi can heal your jaw. You have to stop the Noirceur.”

  Anouk felt like a kettle left too long on the stove, burning and boiling and then ruined and empty. Wincing through the pain, she muttered, “If we . . . trap the Noirceur, it’ll kill . . . Hunter Black!”

  “Not if he isn’t possessed anymore,” Viggo said quietly.

  She’d almost forgotten about Viggo. During the whole fight with Hunter Black and Saint and December, he’d been a distraction at best, an encumbrance at worse, managing only to throw a few shoes as he cowered behind the cash register. But there was an odd look on his face now. His eyes shone like he was drunk, but for once he hadn’t had a sip.

  His eyes shifted to Hunter Black, still pinned to the railing by Prince Rennar’s steady whisper. He took a few quick steps toward the balcony. No one realized what he was thinking until it was too late. He ripped the last glass button off Hunter Black’s shirt. An awful hiss emerged from somewhere deep in Hunter Black’s throat. Smoke poured out of his mouth. His body began to convulse. His eyes began to clear.

  Viggo palmed the button. “Rennar, unfreeze another time slip!”

  But Rennar was whispering with all his focus. Petra cried out, “There aren’t any up here, you idiot! Only the one downstairs, and you’ll never make it in time.”

  Viggo went pale. His hand curled around the button. Quietly, as though reciting something from a dream, he said, “Where you go, I go, my friend. But where I go, you can’t follow. Not this time.” In a quick movement, he swallowed it. All the smoke started pouring into him instead, into his eyes, his ears, his throat. Cricket’s mouth fell open. The spell froze on Rennar’s lips.

  Anouk took a halting step forward. “Viggo . . . don’t!”

  It was too late. Hunter Black, free of the possession, blinked, dazed and disoriented. He cleared his throat. His eyes narrowed, confused. “Viggo?”

  Viggo rested a hand on his shoulder. His face had gone completely white. “I’m sorry. It’s horrid. But this is the only way.”

  Hunter Black couldn’t stop Viggo in time. None of them could. A second before the possession fully consumed Viggo, when he was still himself enough to think straight, he tipped himself over the balcony railing and plunged five stories down.

  Chapter 46

  Other than Hunter Black, Cricket was closest to the balcony. She rushed to the railing and leaned over to grab Viggo, but for once she wasn’t fast enough. Her fingers closed over air.

  Anouk clamped a palm over her mouth. Her other hand was still extended in warning. Her fingers started to tremble. “Viggo!” The words came out garbled through her broken jaw. She took a halting step toward the railing. Cricket spun around with a face like stone. She jumped in front of Anouk, blocking her from getting any closer.

  “Don’t,” Cricket ordered sharply. “Don’t look.”

  Her voice broke on the final word. For all the death that Cricket had seen, it had never been one of their own. And Viggo, the fool, was their fool.

  Anouk’s mind was hazy and muffled. “Viggo. He . . .”

  Cricket clamped her arms around Anouk. Her arms were protective, but they were shaking a little too. “He saved our skin,” Cricket hissed fiercely. “That’s what he’s done. He’s saved Hunter Black and he’s given us what we need to save this entire city.” Cricket pulled back. Her eyes were damp but she didn’t cry. She swiped a hand under her nose, then gave Anouk a sharp shove. “Go, Anouk. Time’s almost up.”

  Anouk stumbled toward the broken staircase. Hunter Black was standing between her and the detached stairs. He looked as stunned as she felt. He, too, was staring at the balcony with wide eyes.

  Rennar touched Anouk’s shoulder, making her jump. “We have to go.”

  She stepped forward jerkily. Hunter Black didn’t flinch as she passed him. She wanted to comfort him, but what could she do? What could she say?

  “Hunter Black . . .” Her jaw ached with the effort to speak.

  “Go.”

  It was a sharp bark, and he turned away before tears spilled out of his eyes. Anouk’s heart ached. She couldn’t seem to get her feet to move until Petra came up behind her and shepherded her toward the broken staircase. The ground began to rumble. Shoes were tumbling off displays to the ground. The chandelier overhead danced wildly. It took her a second to realize the quakes were coming from the city being ripped apart outside. If they didn’t hurry, there would be no London anymore.

  Wincing at the pain, she managed to order, “Beau. Stay here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Princess.”

  Anouk, Petra, Prince Rennar, and Cricket ran toward the detached stairs. With a whisper, Rennar commanded the stairs to rejoin the fifth floor, and they clambered down the newly intact staircase, flight after flight, until they reached the ground floor, with its tables bursting with flowers and chocolates. December, who’d been recovering on a bench, pushed herself to her feet, wobbling a little on her skates. Her eyes were still glassy but no longer streaked with black.

  December said quietly, “I saw Viggo fall. I’ll . . . I’ll take care of the body. Go.”

  Anouk gave her a grateful nod. They ran across the marble floor and pushed through the revolving door until it spat them out in the city. Anouk stifled a moan. It was even worse than it had looked from above. The ground was slick with fallen toads, and more rained down, smacking against the pavement with sickening thuds. The time slips were moving unpredictably, catching parts of Pretties, sending a foot or an elbow or half a head into another time. Foam and vomit and blood bubbled up from the mouths of those who still had them. The rest of the Pretties screamed and ran to take cover in doorways, but as the ground shook, pieces of stone and brick broke off and hurtled down, crushing anyone below. Great fissures opened in the street, pouring out smoke that no amount of rock music would ever defeat. Any second, the city would fracture completely and be swallowed by the chaos, and then it would spread beyond London, to other cities and countries throughout the world, to realms that the Pretties didn’t even know existed.

  Cities falling one by one

  White to Red

  White to Red . . .

  “Anouk! Rennar! Where the hell have you been?” Queen Violante’s face was uncharacteristically splotched with red. “This city is barely holding itself together!”

  Prince Aleksi caught sight of how Anouk was cradling her jaw and, with a few whispers, reset the bones so that she could speak.

  The Royals and Goblins formed an uneven circle around the base of Big Ben, struggling to dodge falling debris and yawning cracks in the streets. Their kindred whisper was spoken as loudly as they could, but even so, it was barely audible amid the chaos. Flashes of purple and red and orange crackled within the clock pyre as they isolated and held the Noirceur. The ticking clocks began to explode, flinging out glass and metal. Rennar grabbed Anouk’s hand. They clasped hands with the circle of Royals and joined the chant.

  Their voices came together in a mesmerizing and strange harmony:

  Omni terra das royale oscura

  omni figuras das visine etan absconsia

  Voc, voc eta commandet suma suspiras

  Pozua ek vijik

  Congred, congred,

  Ut element terik.

  Omni terra das royale oscura

  omni figuras das visine etan absconsia

  Voc, voc eta commandet suma suspiras

  Des tempo de novej arca

  Resid, resid,

&nb
sp; Ut element terik.

  Omni terra das royale oscura

  omni figuras das visine etan absconsia

  Voc, voc eta commandet suma suspiras.

  The flashes of color intensified. Anouk felt the sensation of wind rushing past her face, though the air was perfectly still. The colored flashes began to draw in the remaining few wisps of smoke. It swirled into a miniature tornado of ticking clocks.

  “Do you have the Heart of Alexandrite?” Prince Aleksi yelled above the roar.

  Cricket took it out of her pocket. It was the size of a macaron, glittering in its heart-shaped cut, flashing purple and green and pink depending on the angle. She passed the jewel to Anouk.

  “We must finish the entrapment spell!” Violante yelled. “Any moment this will all break apart. Every clock within the city is here. We’ve done as much as we can.”

  Rennar faced Anouk. “Lead us in the final verse.”

  The city rumbled again. The quake grew until entire buildings cracked and shattered, raining debris down into the street, and a tsunami rose up from the Thames and began hurtling toward them.

  She drew in a deep breath.

  A maid who had become a princess. A princess who had become a witch. A beastie who had promised the world that she was better than the dark purposes she’d been created for.

  She closed her eyes.

  All around her, the plagues were tearing the city apart. Trapped in their loops, Pretties howled and screeched. The air was filled with the sounds of crashing cars and tearing metal. The clocks in the pyre chimed wildly.

  This was the moment.

  This was why she’d gone to the Black Forest. Why she’d picked herself up after failure. Why she’d risked everything to try again and, this time, to succeed. She was the Gargoyle. Part beast and part girl, part wings and talons, part monster and part savior, and all of her destined to be a legend.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Cricket, who silently nodded.

  Anouk stood within the circle of Royals, clutching the jewel in both hands. She drew in a deep breath. Closed her eyes again. Stilled her mind. And whispered:

  Omni terra das royale oscura

  omni figuras das visine etan absconsia

  Voc, voc eta commandet suma suspiras

  Capik tu foris

  capik tu intur.

  The Royals echoed her whisper. She opened her eyes. For a second she saw the city on the brink of annihilation. A swirl of death and destruction swathed with smoke, two moons overhead flickering in and out of reality. And the tornado of clocks and smoke spinning faster and faster.

  Then the storm burst apart.

  Blinding lights flashed across the sky.

  Anouk cried out, shading her eyes. Royals and Goblins around her did the same. The ground beneath their feet rumbled again but not like the devastating quakes from seconds before. This felt more like sliding plates straightening and realigning. When Anouk blinked at the city, it looked as though she was seeing the whole world through the glass of a kaleidoscope; fractured pieces of color and light filling the air around them like the northern lights. She felt the Heart of Alexandrite in her hands burning. The dancing lights sparked and crackled around the gem. She held it out, chanting low under her breath. Felt the energy shift from the jewel to her voice. She smelled her skin burning but she didn’t dare let go. The light was so bright that she could no longer see London. Only blisteringly vivid yellows and reds and greens. She kept chanting. The light blinded her, reached into her, painted her words with wild energy that shot straight to her throat and bumped around inside her like a pinball machine all the way to her toes, her head, her fingers, until every word she spoke was a live coal too.

  Almost as soon as it started, it stopped.

  Anouk felt sun on her face.

  Daylight poured over every inch of the city, chasing away shadows, warming the last of the frost and ice. It shone on the heads of the Royals and Goblins, who were all blinking into the sun in a daze. Buildings that had fallen were standing again. The chasms that had opened in the street were closed, and there were no slick bodies of toads smeared on the pavement. The waters of the Thames flowed as calmly as always. Pretties went about their business as though nothing had happened, though some seemed a bit puzzled to find that it was the middle of the day, as though they thought they might have had too much to drink the night before and lost track of time.

  A taxi slammed on its brakes and blared its horn.

  Anouk stared at it until she realized she was standing in the middle of a busy street with the world’s most priceless gemstone outstretched in her hands.

  Cricket held open the paper bag from the museum gift shop and cleared her throat.

  “It’s done?” Cricket said quietly.

  Anouk gave her a long, steady look. “It’s done.”

  Anouk dropped the Heart of Alexandrite into the bag and Cricket wrapped it up, stowed it in her pocket. “That’s it, toute le monde!” she announced. “Time to get this sparkly thing back to its jail cell. It doesn’t matter if every creature in the Haute knows that this is where we’ve placed the Noirceur. We’ll have every trick and whisper aimed at protecting it. I wish them luck.”

  The taxi honked again. Anouk gave the driver what she hoped passed for a smile and, still in a daze, moved onto the sidewalk. The taxi driver yelled something out the window and sped past.

  A Pretty in a suit and tie, chatting into his phone, stopped abruptly in front of the three sisters of the Crimson Court. He stopped talking. Slowly lifted his sunglasses.

  “Rennar,” Queen Violante said, staring in contempt at the Pretty, “they are noticing us.”

  Several Pretties had stopped in the street and were eyeing the crowd of finely dressed Royals and witches and Goblins, perhaps wondering if some strange and glittering new circus had come to town.

  Rennar rolled his eyes and cast his hand over the surrounding area. “Non avis nos.”

  The Pretties who’d been eyeing them turned instead to fix their gazes on pigeons, and if any of them still noticed the magic handlers, they walked by with a huff as though fighting to pass a slow tour group.

  Anouk turned to Big Ben. The tower stood as it always had, limestone and iron. She’d trapped the force within it but not destroyed the tower itself. The giant pyre of clocks at the base ticked away steadily. A group of Pretties dodged around a fallen grandfather clock as though—​thanks to Rennar’s whisper—​nothing were amiss in the existence of a small mountain of tens of thousands of clocks.

  “Well.” Violante beat the remnants of soot from her silk gown. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need a drink.” She lifted the hem of her dress and stomped off on teetering heels (which looked suspiciously like the fireball Louboutins from Pickwick and Rue’s) toward the pub on the corner.

  Prince Aleksi’s shadow loomed over Anouk. The handsome prince nodded solemnly at her before he and the other members of the Lunar Court followed Violante to the pub. Anouk rolled her eyes. For all their bravado, she had the feeling that they’d rarely been tested like that in all their centuries of life. Every bottle of wine would be drained tonight in the penthouse of Castle Ides, she imagined. Would they toast her? Their princess, their savior, their beastie?

  Probably not.

  The Goblins were dancing in the streets. London was their home city; expelled by the witches, they finally were back. December came roller-skating up to Anouk; she grabbed her arm to wheel herself to a stop. “Anouk! I’m so sorry about trying to kill you. My mistake. Come on, we’re throwing a party and the whole city is our club.”

  Anouk steadied the wobbly Goblin. “Save me some champagne, okay? I’ll join you when I can. There are a few things I have to do first.”

  December skated away to join a group of Goblin revelers.

  Anouk turned to Pickwick and Rue’s and looked up at the window, hoping to see a figure standing there, tall and handsome with a sandy mop of hair, looking down at her with eyes that could once
more see.

  Her smile disappeared. No one stood at the window.

  “There!” Cricket pointed to the revolving door. It was turning, and in the next partition, Hunter Black appeared with Beau by his side. He was holding Beau by the upper arm, guiding him out. When Beau felt the sunlight on his face, he tilted his chin up.

  Anouk ran up to them breathlessly. Beau turned at the sound of her footsteps, but his eyes didn’t track her face. She threw her arms around him. “Beau. Oh, Beau. I should have known better than to trust their promises.” She spun toward Rennar. “Why can’t he see? His vision should have returned.”

  Rennar held out his hands. “The ways of magic are mysterious. We played with forces using methods we’ve never used before. No one knew exactly what would happen.”

  She scowled at him, but then Beau pulled her close. “A small price to pay,” he said, “for a lifetime together in a world that’s no longer broken.”

  She pressed her cheek against his. “We’ll get your vision back. Someone will have the answer. I’ll find it.”

  “I know you will, Princess.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Now get me someplace where we can eat and drink and sleep and kiss. And kiss. And kiss.”

  She smiled and pressed her lips to his.

  When she broke away, she caught sight of Hunter Black standing a few paces off, head turned so that his charcoal hair obscured his face.

  “Hunter Black . . .”

  He turned his head slowly, as though wounded.

  Anouk rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Hunter Black. He did it to save you.”

  He swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. “He shouldn’t have. Mada Vittora made me to be his protector, not the other way around.”