“What did you think would happen once we’d found Cherie?” I asked.
He stepped close, so close I could feel the heat of his chest against my back. “More truth? As you like. I did not expect to find her. We’ve never found a girl after the slavers took her, at least not whole and undamaged. But I was willing to do anything to find her. For you. And if we did and she was beyond help, I would hold you until you were done crying and help you move on. Give you a reason to move on.”
I clasped my hands against my heart. In a tiny voice that was more human than anything I’d said in years, I said one word: “Why?”
“Oh, bébé.” His arms wrapped around me with the same silken warmth as his sigh, and I leaned back into him. “Biggest star in Mortmartre, and do you not even know your own worth? You’re an adventure. A beautiful, wild, strange, intelligent, rebellious journey of a woman. No cookfires for you, no bookkeeping or weaving or collecting of ribbons. You’re the kind of woman who would leap onto the back of a strange bludmare behind a stranger, gallop for hours without complaint, and plunge into the sewers without a second thought. The kind of woman who willingly walks into a trap to save someone she loves. The women of my tribe are fierce but not as fierce as you.” He planted a little kiss behind my ear. “And you make me laugh. I dearly love to laugh.” His hips pressed against me, a quick brush that was more a statement than a question. “And I like to do other things, too.”
“Stop, Vale. Be serious.”
“And you don’t think sex is serious? It’s the driving force of nature, bébé. Everything a man does is for love or sex.” He chuckled. “Power is about sex. Fame is about sex. Food keeps you alive so you can have more sex. Clothes make people want to look at you, think seriously about bedding you. Not that I generally take anything seriously. But still. You are a fool if you discount what really motivates every single person and creature in Sang.” He paused, sighed in my ear. “You turned me into a poet, bébé. Even the best songs and books are about love.”
“Which one are you talking about? Sex or love?”
He swayed against me, making my hips move. I didn’t fight it; I felt liquid and dizzy. “Maybe both,” he said, and he spun me around to face him, catching my face in his hands and pulling me in with delicious slowness for a deep, lapping kiss that melted my hips into his.
A knock on the door made me jump guiltily away from him, my teeth bared at the innocent rectangle of wood. My door at the caravan had been mostly left alone, and I’d grown to find all the knocking and demands of Paradis as vexing as the spam e-mails I’d received back on Earth.
“What?” I barked, and the door opened just enough to admit Blaise. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and his big, dark eyes trembled with fear.
I beckoned him in, smiling. “Don’t worry, chou-chou. I’m not annoyed with you.”
He perked up and placed a sharp envelope in my hands, the paper thick and heavy with portent. I turned it over, noting that the blood-red wax seal featured crossed paintbrushes and the letter L. Forgetting that I wasn’t alone, I ripped the flap with no panache and pulled a creamy folded sheet from within. The impeccable script in dark purple ink matched the flecks of flower petals embedded in the paper.
La Demitasse, ma chérie,
I must request one final sitting to complete the masterpiece. It shall soon be ready for display at the Louvre, where all may gaze upon your beauty and tremble. Come to me one last time, my star. Tomorrow.
L.
Pride and a strange sort of hunger-lust bloomed in my chest. One more taste of that amazing, delirious draught. One more golden afternoon under Lenoir’s dark and delicious gaze.
The postscript was messier than the rest of the letter, as if he’d lost just a bit of that tight control. “I shall miss our quarrels, ma chérie,” it said. “But I shall enjoy more than words one final toast to your fame.”
“You’re not going,” Vale said, and I spun away from his prying eyes.
“Reading over my shoulder? That’s low, even for you.”
He made a strangled noise, half groan, half growl. “Bébé, please. We both know that’s a fancy invitation to fuck you on the canvas.”
We stood just a few feet apart, but suddenly, a wide and uncrossable gulf opened between us. As if he could see it, too, Blaise backed away and darted out the door.
“For your information, Monsieur Hildebrand, I’ve only fucked one person since I arrived in Paris.”
“That is the past.” He pointed at the letter still in my hand. “While this is an obvious offer for something in the future.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Of course, I trust you! Otherwise, I wouldn’t leave you alone in this glorified whorehouse long enough to hunt teeth and secrets in Darkside. It’s him I don’t trust. Lenoir.” He wrapped a hand around the bedpost, his knuckles white. “Do you even remember last night? You were beyond drunk, as open and easy as a flower. Anyone could have done anything to you, and you would have just lain there, laughing, smiling.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because I want you awake and looking into my eyes while I tell you with every stroke that you’re mine. Not insensible and silly. Any man who wants that . . .” He set his forehead against the wooden post and sighed. “He’s a coward. And a villain.”
“And what makes you think I won’t sit for the portrait one last time, raise a glass of champagne, and leave with a kiss on the back of my hand? He’s never touched me, Vale. He’s never tried.”
“That’s the thing about absinthe, bébé. When the time comes, he won’t have to try at all.”
I opened my mouth to say a million more things, but then I remembered that I alone knew Lenoir’s secret. That he was a Bludman, like me, and that I needed that fellow feeling in a foreign place, surrounded by strangers. Something told me that if Vale ever learned anything about that, the smile would finally drop off his face forever.
One more trip to Lenoir’s studio, and then it would be over.
One more sip of absinthe, and then I would be done.
Then I would be good.
Then I would be a star.
And Vale didn’t need to know that.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said.
His eyes were wary as I walked to the fire and tossed in the note and the envelope, but as the paper caught and burned, he relaxed and finally let go of the bedpost. He came to stand by my side, sliding an arm around my waist with comfortable ease and pulling me against him.
I watched the paper curl, breathing in the smoke that rose from the cherry-red edges. I tasted violets and anise and something darker, woven into the paper along with the dried flowers. I wondered, briefly, what might have grown from the letter had I planted the paper in some dark place and watered it and kept it warm.
* * *
I was so lost in my reverie that I’d almost forgotten Vale was there, difficult as that was. Something about the smoke, about Lenoir’s letter . . . I finally blinked back to reality when he said, “Changing the subject, bébé: You never answered. Were you licking the coat?”
In his hands, the elephant pilot’s tailcoat seemed limp and harmless, and I walked over to finger the place on the collar that should have held the tailor’s tag.
“He removed the tags. And the buttons are completely average. And I wasn’t licking it; I was smelling the sleeve. He’s been near Cherie. I think. It’s hard to tell with all the clockwork grease.”
“From running the pachyderm, I suppose?” He held out the arms, inspected the fabric between two fingers. “It’s been there since Paradis opened. I don’t think anyone knew it could move, that it was useful for anything but . . .”
I raised one eyebrow, daring him to finish it.
“I didn’t even know you could go into the head,” he finished with a smirk.
“Me, neither. But then again, I spend as little time in there as possible.”
“I know.”
We glared at each other for a few moments, just until I noticed him staring hungrily at my lips.
“And you never told me why you broke in through my window.”
“What, is it not enough to crave your company?”
“Oh, it’s enough.” I dragged a finger up the dark stubble on his throat just to watch him swallow. “But that’s not why you’re here.”
He laughed with his usual good humor before shaking his head and clearing his throat, uneasy as a dancing horse. “Right as always, bébé. Two things, both disturbing. First of all, I found another fang and put it into the hands of a glancer. All she could glean is that the Bludman in question is somewhere deep underground and miserable. So if the fang did come from Cherie, we know she is not a concubine in a cabaret or a servant in a duke’s palace.”
“But she’s underground and miserable! And we don’t even know where to start looking or if she’s underground in another city . . .” I broke away from his orbit and paced the room. I’d always felt it was better to know the truth than to wonder, but now his news had killed my foolish hope.
“And here is the other thing—also bad news but a clue nevertheless.”
The item he pulled from his waistcoat pocket was small and heavy and cold in my palm. I pushed the curtain aside to let sunlight fall on the oil-smudged metal of a tie tack. “Is that a skull? With wings?”
He nodded. “A raven skull with bat wings. And a top hat.”
“Where did it come from?”
Vale pointed to the jacket on my bed. “From his cravat.”
“How did you get it?”
Vale shrugged. “I have my ways.” I stared harder. “I am a brigand, bébé. Had you forgotten?”
“I remember. I just haven’t seen you do many . . . brigandly things.”
He grinned. “That just shows you what an excellent brigand I am.”