Anouk had never heard Cricket’s story. She looked away. “She might have given it to you if you’d asked for it.”
Cricket snorted. “Not likely. And anyway, what did you ever do to earn her ire?” She bent over and grabbed Anouk’s foot, tugged off the oxford shoe, and rolled down the sock. She held up Anouk’s foot with its four toes, pointing to the scar. “Look at what she did. Look! She cut off your toes on a whim, just so your feet would fit in her shoes. So she could play dress-up! You didn’t make any mistakes. You didn’t steal from her, didn’t disobey her.” Cricket’s face went grim. “She was a monster.”
Anouk jerked her foot back, quickly rolled up the sock, and laced the shoe. Bunny ears. Crossed in an x. Tied in a bow.
Cricket bit her lip. “I’m sorry.” She took Anouk’s hands. “Listen. We only have each other now. It’s the four of us against the world. You, me, Beau, and Luc. No one else understands us; no one else loves us.”
Anouk looked out the window anxiously. “Five of us.”
Cricket’s gaze wavered. “You mean Hunter Black? You know how he clings to Viggo’s shadow. If his loyalty was ever challenged, I wouldn’t bet on him siding with us.”
“But he’s still one of us.”
“I’m not sure he remembers that.” Cricket tucked a lock of Anouk’s hair tenderly behind her ear. “We’ll stick together. We’ll find Luc. And who knows? Maybe we don’t need a master at all. Maybe we don’t need a witch or a Royal. Maybe we could just be . . . human.”
Guilt crawled up Anouk’s neck. If Mada Vittora had ever heard them talk about not needing a master, she’d have had Hunter Black take their tongues. Her eyes drifted to the desk, to the collection of wires and rubber cables and silver ports. Electronics. She hadn’t a clue what any of them were for. And a notebook, too, with words in no Pretty language, and illustrations of hand symbols. They made her feel uneasy, like eyes watching from shadows. Anouk slid the notebook around.
“Cricket? These look like—”
“They’re nothing.”
Cricket grabbed the notebook. That warm feeling spread on Anouk’s neck. She realized where she’d seen those hand symbols. They were gestures Mada Vittora used for a fire trick to extinguish candles. And the writing had been in the Selentium Vox. Cutting spells and rotting spells and fire tricks. What was Cricket doing studying spells—let alone violent ones—when beasties couldn’t do magic?
“Never mind that.” Cricket slammed the notebook closed. She dragged Anouk by the wrist to the kitchenette. “That’s nothing. Try this. You must. I’ve only just discovered it and it’s marvelous.”
She dug through a glass fishbowl of candy and took out a small paper packet. She poured neon-colored crystals into her palm. Half she tossed in her mouth, and half she gave to Anouk. Anouk sniffed—sweet and artificial. She touched one to her tongue. Cherry. And then it suddenly fizzed on her tongue and went pop, and she jumped.
“The Pretties call them Pop Rocks,” Cricket said, eyes glinting.
The door opened, interrupting them.
Beau carried the bag of pelts slung over one shoulder to the dining table. Cricket swept the plates onto the floor, and Beau pulled out the pelts one at a time. A musty smell spread throughout the room. They were all different sizes, some the size of small rugs, the fur still matted, others no bigger than dinner plates, and one that fluttered with white feathers. Mada Vittora hadn’t bothered to wash the creatures before she’d peeled off their fur or feathers or scales and made them human.
Anouk turned away, feeling sick. She went to the window and focused on the fresh air. Cricket had a dying mint plant on the ledge, and she broke off a few leaves, chewed on one anxiously, hoping it would soothe her stomach, and stuffed the rest in her pocket.
Cricket pawed through the pelts almost hungrily. The one on top, large, with chocolate-brown fur. Below it, a tiny one with gray fur and a ropy, bald pink tail. And the one with gray and white feathers, larger than Anouk had thought at first.
“Looks like a dog,” Cricket said, “and a mouse. And what’s this one? A swan?”
Cricket rattled out creatures like she was reading from a magazine. Which had been Anouk’s? She watched out of the corner of her eye as Cricket examined them one by one. She didn’t feel drawn to any. None of them pulled at her stomach; she had no fierce pangs of recognition. She felt something more like revulsion—she had once been one of these things.
“An owl, I think,” Beau said. “What exactly are you looking for?” He too stood back from the pile of fur and feathers as though they made him fearful.
“Luc had a theory.” Cricket ran her hand over the owl’s feathered pelt and then tossed it aside. “That maybe Mada Vittora didn’t use only domesticated animals.”
Anouk looked up sharply. “What else would she have used?” Her teasing with Beau came back to her, that he was half monkey and she three-quarters dust bunny.
Cricket inspected the next pelt. It was the size of a small sweater with angel-soft white fur like cashmere. “This one’s a cat, I think. Anyway, Luc wasn’t certain. It was something he’d overheard Viggo saying to one of the Royals. Viggo was there since the beginning, you know. He was twelve when Luc was made. And then me, and Hunter Black, and the two of you. He saw it all happen. And he said that one of us was a . . .”
She reached the last pelt and stopped.
A different smell permeated the room. More earthy, like the samples of moss in the townhouse’s solarium.
Beau eyed the pelt on the table cautiously.
Cricket slowly reached out a hand and touched it. Anouk stepped forward, her breath coming in odd bursts. This last pelt was different from the others. Not a dog, a mouse, a cat, or an owl. It was much larger, bigger even than the dog’s, and the fur was gray and wiry.
Too thick. Too heavy. Too dark.
“Luc was right,” Cricket breathed. “One of us is a wolf.”
Chapter 9
Anouk’s fingers sank into the thick pelt while the others argued.
“That’s impossible,” Beau said. “Where did Mada Vittora find a wolf in Paris?”
“I don’t know. The zoo? She was a witch. She could have walked through the portal elevator in Castle Ides straight into the Black Forest and trapped one there.”
“So what does it mean that one of us is a wolf?”
“What’s a wolf if not a traitor? You know what Mada Vittora used to say about wolves: Wolves in the wood together are good; wolf on its own, expect blood and bone. It means we can’t trust one of us.”
“Yes, but which one?” Anouk said.
Beau and Cricket looked at her as though they’d almost forgotten she was there.
“Well, it’s Hunter Black, of course,” Cricket said. “Isn’t it obvious?”
But Anouk kept eyeing the different pelts uneasily. It was impossible to tell. None had Beau’s tan skin or Cricket’s curly hair. Any of the pelts could have belonged to any of them.
“I guess so,” Anouk said.
But it didn’t feel right. Hunter Black was decidedly detached, yes—the very picture of a lone wolf. Except for his fierce devotion to Viggo. Wasn’t that more like a loyal hound clinging to his master’s heels?