“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You have to stay here. It isn’t safe otherwise.”
His big dark eyes swallowed her. He plunged his nose into her side, hungry for her familiar scent. On a whim, she set aside the stack of muslin dresses and shrugged out of the Faustine jacket. She straightened her bulky sweater underneath, pulled the collar high around her neck to keep out the chill, and gently tucked the jacket into the corner of the stall.
“Here. For you. A little piece of me so that you aren’t all alone.” Anouk leaned forward and planted a kiss on the dog’s head. He tried to follow her when she left, but she closed the stall door. He whined softly. “I’ll visit you whenever I can, Beau. I’ll bring you treats.” She turned away with tears in her eyes. Suddenly she felt so trapped. Cold all the way to her bones. Her fingers skimmed over the bare place at her throat.
She’d lost her magic.
She’d lost her friends.
She was separated from Beau.
Little Beau started scratching at the door and she pressed a hand to her heart and hurried to the steps. Esme followed silently. When Anouk stopped at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall and breathing hard, Esme touched her shoulder.
“I’ll take you to your room. It’s late. You can get some rest.”
“Just tell me which one it is.”
“Last on the left. The corner one.”
Anouk wanted to thank her for showing a glimmer of kindness in such a dreary place, but it was all she could do to race up the stairs to the dormitory floor. She ran past open doors. They were small monastic cells, built as a solitary room for each of the original monks, though now two beds had been squeezed into each room.
Her chest felt tight. She kept thinking of Beau trapped below, all alone. And of girls dead in the woods, and girls dead in fires. She was tired of living in a world where girls were so expendable.
On the verge of panic, she threw herself into the last room on the left and slammed the door behind her. The cell was empty and identical to the others except that since it was on a corner, it had two high, tiny windows instead of just one. There were two wooden beds with a trunk at the foot of each one, and it was so cramped that Anouk could barely turn around. There was little to tell her about her roommate other than a pink sock peeking out from the sheets and a vase of dried lavender on the nightstand.
She leaned back against the door, wondering if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. Why had she ever dared to dream of stepping beyond thresholds? What had that gotten her? Maybe she should return to Paris. Listen to Duke Karolinge and throw herself out. How could she possibly find her crux when it had taken the other girls months and they were still filled with doubt?
In six weeks Rennar would arrive in an expensive car with servants at his bidding and clothes cut for a god. He’d take one look at her and know that she’d lost her magic. Would he still want her as his princess then? Would he claim that their deal was invalid since she’d lost the one thing he cared about?
She dug through her pants pocket until she found Rennar’s mirror. She cleaned it with her sleeve. Her vision was blurry from tears, which she wiped away angrily.
The mirror showed the three cages.
A white cat.
A bandaged wolf.
A small gray mouse.
No!
Anouk was so mad, she wanted to hurl the mirror across the room. He hadn’t changed Luc back! That was their deal, wasn’t it? What was Rennar waiting for? Was this all a game to him? Was it a trick?
She opened the door, planning to throw the blasted mirror down the length of the hall, but then froze. Someone was there, a girl who ducked and shrieked in surprise at Anouk’s raised arm. The girl had strawberry hair pulled back into a messy bun and angular features.
Anouk gaped. “Petra?”
Chapter 10
Anouk glanced briefly at the lavender on the nightstand. “Petra, you’re the other new girl?”
Petra straightened, still shaken from the sight of Anouk ready to smash a mirror in her face. “I wouldn’t say new. I’ve been here two months. That’s two months of gruel. Two months of this hideous dress. It’s been an eternity.”
“They said my roommate’s name was Lala!”
Petra snorted. “That’s just a nickname that Esme gave me. I sing in the bathhouse. La-la-la.” She shoved past Anouk and into the room, then whirled around. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe the Duke let you stay.”
“I offered to cook.”
“Ah! All men put their stomachs over their heads.”
Anouk sank onto one of the beds, glancing at Petra’s hands on her hips. “And he let you stay? Did he ask you about your past? Does he know?”
“That I’m transgender? Yes, he knows. They all do. My first night, one of the girls said it wasn’t right for me to be here, that only women can undergo the Baths, not men. I said that I didn’t see what the problem was.” She pulled her hair out of her bun and gave her strawberry-blond locks a flip. “The Duke agreed. He said they’d never had a transgender acolyte but that I was as welcome as any other girl.”
“Do you think it will make a difference?”
Petra shook her head. “I know who I am.” She put her hair back up in a bun and sat on the bed opposite Anouk. She lowered her voice. “You’re the one I’m worried about. It was foolish for you to come with only weeks before the Coal Baths.”
Anouk let out a sigh. It must have been past midnight. Her limbs were so heavy. Without her magic, she felt like she was still wandering in the woods, lost and frozen.
“I didn’t have a choice.” She explained about the growing plagues in London and the unlikely bargain she’d stuck with Prince Rennar, her trip to Bavaria and the awful moment when Duke Karolinge had drawn the magic out of her. She pressed a hand to her throat, wincing at how frigid her skin felt. Then she glanced at the door and lowered her voice. “What happened to Cricket and Luc and Hunter Black? You said you’d watch out for them, but Rennar has them caged in Castle Ides.”
Petra ran a hand slowly over her face. “I tried to help them, I promise. But it wasn’t that simple. After you fled the château with the Goblins, Rennar rounded up your friends and caged them. It wasn’t like I could walk up to him and demand that he free them. He’d just murdered my mother.”
“Is that why you’re here? You want to become a witch so you can get revenge against the Royals?”
Petra snorted. “Give me more credit. I have loftier aims than revenge.” Her eyes sparked as she leaned forward and said conspiratorially, “I have to know what magic feels like. I know that you understand. You had magic, even if it’s gone now. Look at you—you look sick without it, like someone’s ripped your heart out. That’s because no one can live her life on the edge of a magical world and not want to be a part of it. No one can walk away from tricks and whispers, from Goblins and spells. I want it all, Anouk. Everything Mada Zola had and more.”
Anouk’s fingers fluttered over the base of her throat as she remembered the warm champagne fizz that was gone now. “Can the Duke be trusted?”
Petra gave a wavering head tilt. “I don’t know about trust. Most of the girls here have only heard rumors about the Haute. They’ve never met a witch, let alone a Royal, so they have their Pretty little heads in the clouds. When I first arrived, the Duke invited me to his study and kept me up all night droning on about the long history of girls burned alive, trying to frighten me off. I told him what he could do with his scare tactics. Ever since then, he hasn’t offered to advise me again.”