Wicked After Midnight

Right up till I saw the blond girl, I had one of the greatest nights of my life. Even though I hadn’t had a drop of bloodwine, I still felt half-drunk and free and easy, and I was leaning on Louis’s shoulder and giggling over a gendarme’s misbuttoned pants when a flash of light blond caught my attention. The girl passed under a gas lamp at a fast clip, trailing a cloak, and I knew instantly that it was Cherie.



“Excuse me, monsieur.” I untangled my arm from Louis’s and bolted off the walk and across the green, my boot heels sinking into the soil. “Cherie!”



She didn’t turn, and I didn’t stop running. All around me, female heads shot up—of course, because chérie was the most common name men in Franchia used to address women they were sweet on. I twisted through the crowd, my breath short in the spring night, hoping I could catch her before she disappeared. I didn’t know why she would run from me, but I was damned well going to find out.



Her heels clicked onto the cobbles as she ducked down an alley. A human or a daimon would have stopped, but not me. Bludrats scattered with Franchian disdain as she stopped at a narrow door, knocking frantically. But I was faster than whoever was inside, and with talons dug into her shoulder, I spun her around. She lurched back, banging her head against the door.



“Cherie?”



She was already sobbing. “Please, mademoiselle. Please let me go.”



It wasn’t Cherie; I knew that the second I saw her face. But she was the closest thing I’d seen to my friend, and the disappointment hit harder than a fist in the gut. This girl was a human, and a sickly one at that. I could smell her, but she evoked more pity than hunger, as if there wasn’t enough of a meal to bother breaking the skin.



I let go of her shoulders and took a step back. The door opened, revealing an indigo-skinned daimon, her cheeks drawn and her hair braided back tightly. Behind her, colorful ribbons hung from hooks along with sausages and strips of meat. The scent of magic was just as heavy on the air as the copper tang of bloody meat.



“Zis is not ze place for you,” she said with a heavy Franchian accent, ushering in the human girl. The door slammed in my face. I looked up, curious about what the building was, if perhaps it was a beggar’s house or a soup kitchen or a hospital, some place that took in pitiful, fleshless wretches. There was no sign, no daimon code like at the inn. I walked around to the front and found only a butcher shop, with lank pink meat hanging in the window and a pig’s face staring at me, the eyes flat and bulging. The Parisians seemed to favor fanciful door knockers; this one was a cow’s behind, the clapper a long, curled tail. Perhaps the girl was a servant here, a pig girl or some such. In any case, she wasn’t my business; Cherie was. And that meant I had to get back to Louis and feed my way into his good graces, if need be. His pockets were surely full of secrets.



I hurried back toward the laughter and music of the Tuileries, which reminded me more than a little of Criminy’s caravan—the way the light drew you forward and each new act within seemed more magical and colorful than the last. Perhaps the daimons used some of the same spells as my clever godfather. In any case, I felt at home here, more than I had since leaving my wagon.



As I entered the crowd, hand after hand landed on my arm. Whether they knew who I was or were simply drawn to a pretty girl without a man by her side, I didn’t know. But I shrugged them off, one after the other, telling them with a fake smile to come to Paradis and see me. It was exhausting, or maybe I was just coming down from the elation and adrenaline of thinking I’d finally found Cherie. By the time I found Louis, deep in his cups by the donkeys, all I wanted was to drag him back to the pachyderm and drain him half dry for the contact high.



“You’re the first woman who’s run from my charms,” he said with a slur. But he was smiling.



“I wasn’t running from your charms, cher. I thought I saw an old friend and wanted to introduce you.” I sat in the chair by his side, draping an arm over his shoulders, and he melted against me. I’d long ago struck his name from my mental spreadsheet of suspects. There wasn’t an evil bone in his body.



“Shall we head back to the pachyderm, then? You must be exhausted. I don’t know how you girls do it, putting on such an energetic show and then entertaining the lads until dawn.”



I nodded, finally understanding completely why the halls were always empty when I returned from the elephant. I guess I’d already known—had been told repeatedly but hadn’t really internalized—that the girls sold their bodies to the clients of Paradis. I hadn’t fully explored the entire cabaret, but there had to be other apartments somewhere, places far more sumptuous than the tiny, threadbare rooms where they slept. Mel and Bea and the rest . . . they were prostitutes.



It didn’t sit right with me. But again, it wasn’t my business. I’d seen in Sangland that women were in every way less free than they were on Earth, but I hated to think that the beautiful, talented, kind girls I knew here had turned to bartering their bodies for their livelihood.



Louis stood, wobbling, and held out a hand. Arms around each other’s shoulders, I half dragged him back to Paradis. I had to help him up the winding stairs and onto the plushy couch, where he collapsed in a lanky, boneless heap, wrapped in his wool coat like a very wealthy and elegant burrito.



“I’ve heard you don’t do . . . what the other girls do.” He blinked at me through glowing ginger eyelashes.



“Well, monsieur—” I pursed my lips, but he waved his arms to stop me.



“No, I’m saying that’s why I chose you. I have . . . other tastes. But I’ve never met a Bludman before, and it’s very rare that I find something to pique my interest. Is it true you drink from your paramours?”



I cocked my head at him. What a peculiar man. “It’s true.”



“I’m told it feels rather pleasant. That some men find independent release in your arms.”



“That is also true.”



“Then will you drink from me? I’ll probably make you drunk, at this rate. But I like new experiences.”



And so, taking him in my arms, I gently tipped back his head and pierced the tender skin of his neck.



I couldn’t help grinning. I had studied history along with art, and after an evening on his arm, I knew what I was doing.



I was feeding on the future king of Franchia.



* * *



It was a pleasure to root around the rich fabrics of his costume, looking for clues that I knew weren’t there. All I found were bits of horrible poetry, licorice pastilles, a tight roll of silvers, and some mustache wax in an adorable tin. Louis looked so sweet, innocently sucking his thumb in untroubled sleep. But I left him there as I left all of them, hurrying through the courtyard and back to my room. I didn’t stop at the door to Paradis to listen for footsteps; either they were elsewhere doing their work or asleep, exhausted, in their beds. And I didn’t see Vale, either.



As I brushed out my hair and prepared for bed, all I could think about was how much easier life would have been if I’d never left the caravan. Safe under Criminy’s wing, I’d resented the endless, marching army of dull nights and duller days. But now, on an adventure and facing challenges that definitely seemed insurmountable, I missed knowing exactly where I stood. My heart was buffeted on all sides by feelings I didn’t want to have. One minute, I was dragged down by sorrow and loss and hopelessness over Cherie. Moments later, I was buoyed by determination and confidence regarding my career and talent. And then my skin and belly swirled with confusion and lust whenever Vale came near, as if my brain completely shut off. And just now, I was overcome by an odd, floaty, tipsy sensation that made me dream of dancing.



I didn’t feel like myself. But I didn’t know who I was anymore, either.



Besides the future king’s wine-drenched blood, what had gotten into me?



* * *



The next morning, I arrived on Lenoir’s doorstep a few moments too late, late enough that he gave me a cold, disapproving stare.



“Cavorting with princes is no excuse.”



Instead of answering him, I stared him down. I didn’t owe him anything, and if he thought I did, he’d spent too much time around weak-willed humans and emotionally dependent daimons. He snorted and jerked his chin toward the stairs. With grace and without hurrying, I walked the stairs to the attic studio and went directly to the screen to change. When I emerged, a glass of bloodwine with the strange, plum-sparkly hint of absinthe sat beside my chair, and Lenoir stood behind his easel. The cats appraised me coldly from their chaise, their green eyes the color of Limone’s skin.



“Monsieur, I told you, I don’t care for absinthe.”



He chuckled, a dark and humorless sound that made my eyes stray to his lips. “Your empty glass from yesterday says differently. Whether or not you care for it, you enjoyed it. Now, sit. Drink. I have work to do, and I need your limbs to be pliant.”



I took a step toward his easel, curious about what his furious brushstrokes had accomplished yesterday. A paint-stained cloth hung over the canvas, blocking my view entirely.



He shook his head and tsked at me. “No one sees my paintings until they are complete.”



“Not even a peek?”



“Don’t even try.”



With a melodramatic sigh, I flopped into the chair and tried to find my pose. As I adjusted the pillow under my leg, I watched him through my bangs. He whipped off the cloth, his eyes shining with love and fervor as he looked at his work. Damn, but the man was sexy, and without really trying. Every heterosexual gentleman I’d met in Sang had fawned over me like an overanxious puppy, but Lenoir treated me as if I was the poorly trained dog. The suave elegance of his every movement, the sharp cut of his mustache and beard, the perfectly tousled and European way his hair was swept back, just the tiniest bit overlong—this must be how my mom had felt about Sean Connery. When I was around him, I felt his pull like gravity.



“Drink, Demi.”



The glass was to my lips before I realized I’d picked it up. The liquid washed over my tongue like a symphony, welcome and nourishing and dizzying all at once. I drank half the goblet before setting it down and settling into my pose. As the liquor spread, I could feel my heartbeat slowing, my limbs lengthening, and my spine going soft and loose as I all but melted into the chair. Squinting my eyes, I looked again for the sunbeam fairies. They danced in time with Lenoir’s brush, and time fell away into ribbons of gold.