Cities falling one by one
White to Red
White to Red . . .
A cold nose pressed against her and she felt her tension melt away. She turned from the window and knelt down so she could gaze into Little Beau’s face. “Beau, are you in there?” she whispered.
Little Beau cocked his head and looked as though he might miraculously answer, but then he only scratched an itch on his side with his back leg.
Anouk sighed.
Viggo folded his arms testily across his chest. “If you and that dog have finished your heart-to-heart, do you mind sharing your decision?”
She hesitated.
“Tell me you aren’t going to go through with a deal with that imbécile, Anouk.”
“Um . . .”
“Tell me you aren’t complètement fou.”
“Well . . .”
He groaned toward the ceiling and muttered a curse that would have made even a witch blush. “You’re going to get yourself killed and leave me alone with the Goblins.”
* * *
That evening Anouk took a step back to examine the supplies she’d gathered on the bed. The maps. A hooded fur coat. A knife from the kitchen. Some hard cheese and sausage the Goblins hadn’t yet discovered. Most of it went into the pockets of her Faustine jacket. Once she was a witch, she would enchant the pockets to serve as her oubliette—her magic bag—but for now, they were simply pockets, and they bulged with the bulk of everything.
“You are going to say goodbye, aren’t you?” Viggo asked from behind her.
She turned. “To the Goblins? No, they say that goodbyes are bad luck. To you?” She smiled. “Of course.”
Viggo returned a half smile. Although they had lived in the same house and considered the same woman a mother, they’d never been friends. In a million years, she’d never imagined that she’d find a new sort of family with Viggo, and yet here they were. Her heart tightened. “You’ll look out for them?” she said, nodding toward the Goblins’ rock music coming from downstairs. “They’ll need someone at Castle Ides to keep them safe.”
“I should think I can babysit some Goblins. At least until you return.” He paused. “You are coming back.”
“I’m coming back,” she promised.
She wrapped her arms around him. His knit hat scratched her skin, but she didn’t mind. Viggo would always be like that hat of his—a little irritating, a little silly, but also a little endearing.
He gave her a curt but warm hug in return. “Watch out for the other girls at the Cottage. It isn’t a tra-la-la kind of place. Are you certain you can find it?”
She dug around in her pocket and eventually produced a small piece of carved antler with a broken tip. “I have this. It’s a piece of a clock that’s imbued with magic. Duke Karolinge gave this portion of it to Mada Vittora, who kept it hidden in a dresser drawer. I found it once while putting away her laundry. It’s made of antler from elk in the Black Forest, and the rest of the clock is still there, in the Cottage. If Beau is any good at being a dog, he’ll be able to track its scent back to the rest of the clock—to the Cottage.”
She slipped the piece of antler in her jacket pocket, next to Rennar’s mirror, which brushed against her fingers like ice.
“Good luck, Dust Bunny,” Viggo said.
“Stay alive, okay?” she answered. “And try not to do anything stupid.”
“Me? Never.”
They went downstairs. She opened the door. Little Beau followed at her heels, silent and loyal, as, for the first time in weeks, they both stepped beyond the protection spell and into the city.
Chapter 4
When it came to trains, the magic was the easy part for Anouk—with a few whispers, she was able to cloak Little Beau in a shroud of shadows that let her get around the strict “no dogs” policy. Figuring out timetables and ticket booths wasn’t nearly as simple. By the time she’d found the right train and plunked down on a second-class seat across from two German tourists, she was frazzled.
The tourists were hunched over a guidebook with a castle on the cover. If they noticed the perpetual shadow at her side, they didn’t comment on it. The train carried them across countries that the Pretties called France and Germany (the Royals just called them “ours”). Fields bled into mountains with their heads in the clouds, and then the world turned dark as the stars came out. The rumbling of the train took the edge off Anouk’s worries, even as she knew the calm would never last. She got off at a small station outside of Baiersbronn and was immediately glad she’d worn one of Mada Vittora’s fur coats over her jacket. It was past midnight and the promise of snow hung in the air. Wind bit at her cheeks as she turned down an alley and whispered into the shadows: “Egrex et forma veritum.”
Little Beau shook off the shadows cloaking him as if he were flicking off water. Anouk consulted her map. The chances of getting a ride by hitchhiking were slim so late at night, so they set out along the road on foot. Trees grew taller and houses became more spaced out, and soon there were no more homes or even roads, only forest.
Her feet ached by the time they reached the entrance marked on her map. Dawn was just breaking, and sunlight illuminated a well-trod path with a sign telling her she’d reached the Schwarzwald, the Black Forest.
But there were two Black Forests.
There was the one written about in guidebooks like the one the tourists had on the train, the Black Forest with quaint woodland trails and mountain lodges and squirrels and grouse—that one was a pleasant illusion created for the Pretties.
The real Black Forest had no well-marked paths. It was a place of perpetual snow and eternal winter, where trees grew tall enough to block out the sun and where monstrously huge wolves and boar stalked smaller creatures in the murky dark.
Anouk took out the broken piece of antler and knelt down.
“Take us there, Beau,” she whispered.
Little Beau sniffed it thoroughly, then lifted his nose and bounded toward the untamed forest.
“Little Beau, wait!”
He’d taken off over tree roots and brambles. She scrambled to follow. There was nothing to indicate this was a path. No markings. No signs. The ground was damp with autumn leaves. Little Beau tracked the scent in short bursts—pausing to sniff the air, bounding in a new direction, then doubling back and herding Anouk forward when she was too slow. After an hour of the two of them trudging through thick forest, the topography grew steeper. The temperature dropped as they entered a valley. The ground here was dusted with a light snow. More flakes floated amid the trees, growing heavier and thicker the farther they walked. Her boots started to sink into snowdrifts. When she turned around to check her footprints, they were already hidden by fresh snow.
The tips of the trees glistened like knife blades. Everything appeared in shades of white and green. The pine boughs were thick with ice. Except for the falling snow, it was perfectly still.
Too still.
She slipped on mittens and pulled up her hood. She couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, someone was watching her.
“Luc told stories about these woods,” she said into the eerie quiet for the comfort of hearing her own voice. “Magic is concentrated here, which leads to strange things.”