“Don’t I get an ‘Amazing work, Cricket, congratulations on doing magic’?”
Anouk granted her a nod. “Amazing work, Cricket. Now, as soon as the doors open, everyone keep your heads down, your eyes low. Viggo, you distract the escorts so that Cricket and I can slip away and join the other servants.”
“Yes, but first, my love, a kiss before we take this risk.”
He leaned in with lips pursed and she sputtered and pushed him away. “Viggo, gross! We don’t have time for this.”
“I must have one—”
“You heard her,” Cricket roared. “Hands off.” She shoved Viggo, and he fell back against the wall. A low ding sounded. Everyone froze.
“What was that?” Hunter Black snapped.
Viggo’s face went slack. He straightened, fixing his knit cap sheepishly, and turned toward the elevator controls.
The fourth-floor button was lit.
“Merde,” he cursed. “It’s Cricket’s fault. She pushed me, and you get only one try, only one floor, you can’t just bounce around from one floor to another.”
“What do you mean?” Anouk said.
“Wrong button,” Viggo said. “We wanted the penthouse.”
The round button for the fourth floor glowed brightly.
“What’s on the fourth floor?” Anouk asked with dread.
The elevator stopped. Another ding sounded, and the fourth-floor light turned off, indicating that they had arrived.
“The fourth floor?” Viggo said. “That’s London.”
“Oh, va te faire foutre,” Cricket cursed. “London? That means Goblins.”
Chapter 23
Ten Hours of Enchantment Remain
Even before the doors opened, Anouk heard music. It was a blaring mix of heavy metal and accordion and English lyrics, and the tempo kept slowing down and then rapidly speeding up, making Anouk’s head spin.
The elevator opened.
The fourth floor of Castle Ides was a boardroom with twenty-foot-high ceilings and vast windows along the southern side; chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and tall bookshelves spanned the walls. It was filled with overstuffed antique furniture, mahogany tables, and velvet fainting couches in front of roaring fireplaces. But the richness of the room was eclipsed by the apparent circus happening within. One Goblin, dressed in a three-piece suit with a magenta bowler hat, was hanging upside down from a chandelier, his hat knotted to his head with a necktie to keep it from falling off. Expensive-looking furniture was stacked haphazardly around the room, and two Goblins were using chairs as tables and tables as chairs, with a hodgepodge of teacups between them. Another Goblin very seriously chased moths with a butterfly net. He had a cup of tea in one hand that he seemed reluctant to set down, which made catching the moths nearly impossible and sent tea sloshing everywhere.
“Wrong floor,” Cricket said. “Definitely wrong floor.”
Anouk heard a bus honking. On the other side of the tall windows, a double-decker red bus circled Piccadilly Circus. London was just a single magical breath away. London was where the Goblins had consolidated what remained of their society centuries ago, when witches had launched a bloody campaign to round up the good-natured creatures and force them into servitude. Those few Goblins left had hunkered down in London basements and sewers and other places where it came in handy that they could see in the dark. Even the Goblins Anouk had known in Paris, who likely had never set foot in England, had been almost violently Anglophilic in their devotion to London. She’d seen Goblin girls with their fingernails painted like the British flag, and Goblin boys wearing neon cravats with patterns of Big Ben, and every time a David Bowie song came on the radio, they all stopped and saluted.
“We shouldn’t be here,” Hunter Black warned.
He banged on the penthouse button, but the elevator didn’t budge. Cricket pounded on the other buttons uselessly.
“There must be an emergency staircase, right?” Anouk said.
“If there was,” Cricket muttered, “I’d be afraid it would lead to Antarctica.”
“They’ve noticed us,” Viggo announced, seemingly amused.
Anouk whirled back toward the boardroom. Two Goblins in velvet armchairs were looking up now, teacups poised mid-sip. Even the Goblin hanging upside down from the chandelier watched them. A pair of Goblins leaning over a table glanced up; each wore a monocle, making one eye look twice as big as the other. Their pointed ears wiggled slightly. With a start, Anouk realized they were sorting dead insects: grasshoppers, flies, spiders, and moths, like the ones the Goblin with the butterfly net was trying to catch. They were filling glass jars with their wings. Anouk looked down at her feet. A spider inched toward her oxford shoe. She used her broom to nudge it away.
Abruptly, the music stopped.
A particularly colorful Goblin appeared seemingly out of nowhere, grinning. He was short, with light brown skin that had a golden undertone and eyes that seemed too big, and he was wearing a maroon three-piece suit with a blue cravat. Fastened to his belt loop were at least a dozen brass pocket-watch chains attached to various objects tucked in pockets.
He sipped from a teacup that was also secured by a chain to his belt. He had a broken-heart tattoo on the back of his hand, and Anouk thought she remembered seeing that somewhere before.
“Lost, are we?”
He had a British accent, a diabolical grin, and a pet rat perched on his shoulder.
“Y-yes,” she stuttered, clutching her broom. “We meant to get out at the penthouse.”
He took another slow sip of tea, mouth curled in a knowing smile. “A witch’s boy, an assassin, and a pair of maids get out at the wrong floor.” Another sip. “That’s the start to a good joke, don’t you think? Or maybe a bad one.”
Behind him, the Goblin hanging upside down from the chandelier let out a high-pitched giggle.
“We were . . . requested,” Anouk sputtered, thinking fast. “A . . . big mess. Something about an accident in the kitchen. Soup everywhere. Lots of extra hands needed to clean it up.”
“A soup explosion! My, how dire.”
Anouk gripped the broom tighter. One word from the Goblins could sound the alarm. Their plans could be ruined. Cricket’s hands were flexing; she was ready to reach for her knives if needed.
“Perhaps I may be of assistance.” The Goblin drained his teacup, then produced another object from his pocket that was also fastened by a chain to his vest.
A golden key.
The Goblin leaned into the elevator, slipped his key in an upper slot, twisted it, and pressed the button for the penthouse. He replaced the key in one of his many pockets. The doors began to close, and Anouk felt a flutter of uncertain relief—had it really been that easy?—until the doors were nearly shut and the Goblin in the blue cravat shot out a hand to hold them open.
He pressed his face to the narrow crack.
“The name’s Tenpenny, by the way. I run the London Room. Stop by on your way out. We’re having a party. All are invited.”
A fly landed on Tenpenny’s cheek and his bulging eyes slid to it. He smiled, his makeup giving him a somewhat maniacal look, and petted the rat on his shoulder. He stepped back and offered them a little toodle-oo wave as the doors shut.
The elevator jerked and then started to rise.
Cricket let out a breath. “Is it just me, or did that feel too easy? Like, they’re-sounding-the-alarm-right-now too easy?” She shuddered like she’d walked through a cobweb.
It wasn’t just Cricket. And something about the Goblin had seemed familiar—had he visited the townhouse? Anouk ran a hand over her hair and the veil, straightened her dress, tried to look normal.
“Don’t worry, my love,” Viggo breathed in her ear. “Goblins don’t care for inserting themselves in politics.” He tried to put his arms around her, but she swatted him away.
“Cricket, what’s the time looking like?”
“Nine hours till midnight.”
“And seven hours
to drive back to Montélimar. We have to hurry. I don’t trust that those Goblins aren’t going to give us away.”
In that moment, she yearned for the simplicity of Mada Zola’s estate. Rich soil and lavender. The hallways in need of a good dusting. She smiled to herself, thinking of it. All those open country roads for Beau to race his cars on, and endless shiny objects for Cricket to pilfer, and Luc—when they found him—such a beautiful garden for Luc to work in. And for her? She wanted all of it. The kitchen, where she could cook whatever she wanted, or not cook at all. The library, with its books. The fields, where she could spend all day in the sun, all night beneath the stars.
Her hands were sweating on the broom.
“My love,” Viggo purred in her ear. “Before we reach the top, I must declare that I love you as the grass loves rain, as the birds love the wind—”
“Can it, Viggo!”
The elevator stopped.
They all went silent. For a second, no one moved. The elevator’s mirrored walls reflected the faces of misfits and nobodies.
The doors opened onto an eerily calm foyer.
Anouk could hear voices and footsteps in distant rooms. Mahogany panels lined the walls, along with chandeliers and fine sconces, nothing electric, just like in the townhouse. The floor was made of intricately inlaid wood, and everything was spotless, not a single cobweb or speck of dust.
Cricket rolled up her sleeve to reveal the map she’d penned on her forearm. “We’re here.” She pointed to a place at her inner elbow. “The elevator foyer. It’s near the start of the hour, so the floor plan won’t change for about another fifty minutes.”
“The Royals will be in the west salons,” Viggo said. “They retire there after lunch.” Out of all of them, he was the only one who didn’t look terrified, though his eyes held that feverish, enchanted sheen. His life wasn’t at risk, despite all the protestations and promises he’d made Anouk. He wasn’t in danger of turning into anything but what he already was: a spoiled boy, richer than a king, who’d never had to do a true day’s work his entire life. “I think the salons are that way, if I have the time right.”
He jerked his head toward the opposite hallway.
Cricket rolled down her sleeve as another maid approached the elevator, but the enchanted Pretty girl didn’t look up, her head cast down, eyes half hidden by the lace veil.
“I’m to take you to your escort,” she said quietly.
“Go,” Anouk said to Viggo and Hunter Black, but she muttered quietly to Hunter Black, “Make sure Viggo doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“If he doesn’t, they’ll know for certain that something is wrong,” Cricket added under her breath.
Viggo opened his lips, probably to recite some love poem to Anouk, but Hunter Black slammed a hand over his mouth. He gave Anouk and Cricket a grudging nod. “Be careful.”
“Aw, it’s almost like you care,” Cricket said.
He scowled and dragged Viggo down the east hallway after the maid. They disappeared around a bust of Prince Rennar.
“Right,” Cricket said. “Let’s get the spell before the two of them screw everything up, as they inevitably will.”
They hurried down the west hallway, past more marble busts of bygone Royals with plaster eyes that seemed to follow them. They turned at the corner and entered a hallway that was lined with glass cases holding treasures. Cricket’s fingers twitched as they passed by golden robes and jewels and oddly mundane objects too: a threadbare stuffed rabbit, an empty soda bottle, a dented watering can.
“What are they?” Anouk whispered.
“Artifacts,” Cricket replied, her eyes gleaming. “This was how the Royals took power over the great Pretty leaders, not with wars or jewels, but with regular objects imbued with magic. Objects no one suspected. That pair of scissors—it was slipped into Napoleon’s suitcase and inspired him to wage war against Russia.”
They passed more objects: a postcard from Egypt, a bird’s nest, a pair of red socks. A butler came down the hall and Cricket feigned cleaning the cases with her feather duster, but she needn’t have bothered; the enchanted butler paid them no attention, his lips moving in silent whispers to himself.
Cricket consulted the map on her arm again. “Merde—I’m sweating and it’s making the ink run. It looks like the library’s down this hall on the left. On the right here, these big doors, this is . . .” She blanched. “Prince Rennar’s private apartments.”
Anouk felt a wave of apprehension, but it was mixed with curiosity. There, through those ancient doors, not gilded like the others, was where Prince Rennar laid his head at night, where he looked over his city, where he hung the scrying portraits through which he watched his private world and maybe had even watched her dusting . . .
She tripped on her shoes and bumped into one of the glass cases. It didn’t topple, but the gardening wire she’d used on her uniform snagged and tore. Part of her apron ripped and she cursed. The costume needed to last only a few more minutes, just long enough to—
“This door,” Cricket said. “Wait, no, that’s a freckle. That one.”
She pointed to an opulent gilded door with rich blue trim. Anouk gave a fleeting final glance at the opposite doors, the ones to Rennar’s apartments, and then slipped her hand into her apron pocket and clutched Mada Zola’s jar with the dragonfly. The finding spell’s whisper was poised on her lips. Trouva, trouva, incantatio bestia. The dragonfly would lead them along the shelves, past folios of love spells and healing whispers, of potion recipes and invisibility chants, right to the very folio, one of ten thousand, that was the means of their existence.
“This is going to be a theft for the ages,” Cricket said, rubbing her hands together in delight. She started to push the door open, but a voice spoke at their backs.
“You two. Turn around.”
Anouk froze.
She knew that voice. The deep tone that was both casually unassuming and undeniably powerful. A voice that had once whispered into her ear that she wasn’t made for sweeping floors, didn’t she know that?
Her lips parted. She gripped the broom hard.
Prince Rennar had given an order, and no one disobeyed the prince.
Chapter 24
Nine Hours of Enchantment Remain
He wasn’t dressed in jeans and a scarf this time. He looked as though he had stepped straight out of the portrait hanging above Mada Vittora’s mantel; he was wearing a frost-gray suit with threads as fine as spider’s silk. A crown of golden briars circled his head, the points catching the hallway lights as though he’d managed to ensnare little pieces of the stars themselves. And those eyes that had seemed to follow her as she had cleaned—not flat chips of paint now but the blue-gray shade of the sea where it dropped into unknowable depths. Impossible to capture with a paintbrush.
His hair, though, was still the slightest bit mussed.
Cricket lowered her face so that the lace veil hid her features and nudged Anouk, who quickly did the same. “Your Majesty,” Anouk whispered.
She clutched the broom close to her chest. Cricket, never an adept actress, halfheartedly fanned the feather duster over the doorway as though sweeping for cobwebs, but the way it flopped in her hand made it clear she’d never used one before. Anouk thought it impossible that the prince wouldn’t notice such a glaring detail, but he only brushed a wrinkle out of his suit distractedly.
“We’ve guests,” he said offhandedly. “A witch’s boy and his associate. Fetch a tray of tea and éclairs and bring it to the east salon.”
Another second passed before Anouk moved. She loosened her grip on the broom, her palms slippery with sweat. Cricket fanned the duster too hard and sneezed.
The prince leaned closer. “Be certain there’s a sharp knife on the tray.” He paused. “For the éclairs. They can be difficult to slice.”
It took every ounce of Anouk’s concentration not to shoot a look at Cricket.
A sharp knife?
She dared
the slightest peek at the prince from beneath the veil, and for a second, he met her eyes. A dangerous thrill went through her. She should have looked away to keep her identity safe, but for this one instant, though it was incredibly foolish, some part of her wanted him to see beyond her apron. She yearned for him to recognize her, to tell her once more that she was made for greater things.
And for the briefest second, she thought he did recognize her. But then he looked away, bored and distracted, and the moment was gone. “You understand?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “A sharp knife.”
His footsteps echoed down the hallway as he left, reverberating off the glass cases. She didn’t dare breathe until he had disappeared around the corner.
Cricket touched her shoulder and she jumped.
“That was close. I was afraid he’d recognize us, even with our veils.”
Anouk folded up her lace veil. “All men like him ever see are aprons. I could be Mada Vittora risen from the dead, but if I had a mop in my hand he’d still just ask for tea.”
Her voice was bitter.
Bitter because it was true. She’d had it in her head ever since the night of the party that the handsome prince was different, that he judged the worth of a person not by his or her clothes but by something deeper. And to admit that he was just like all the others—the witches and the Royals whose gazes skimmed over her like she was a forgotten old lamp—sharpened her anger.
“He asked for a knife,” she said. “What do you think that means? It’s not for éclairs, I can promise you that.”
Cricket’s fingers involuntarily went to the folds of her uniform as she checked her own blades. “It means their top witch is dead and they want answers from her witch’s boy. And that they aren’t going to waste the energy to use magic when knives will do.”
Anouk drew in a sharp breath. “You think they’re going to torture Viggo?”
“I hope so.”
The thought sat with Anouk uneasily, like she’d eaten too much sticky icing. Viggo and Hunter Black had just walked into a room full of the most dangerous magic casters in Paris—no, she’d sent them into the room—and the handful of defensive skills between the two of them would mean nothing against the Royals’ tricks and whispers.
Grim Lovelies Page 18
