Delilah Dawson - Wicked After Midnight

“Go on, then. They’ll be expecting you backstage.” I perked up, and she added, “To sweep up feathers, probably, or act as a pretty net for the high fliers. Don’t get excited yet.”

“At least my feet will be on the stage.”

“That’s the spirit, kid.”

I stood and stared at the open door. It stared right back.

“Thanks for your help and advice . . .”

“They just call me Blue.”

“Thanks, Blue.”

“Be careful out there, kid. You will never be the most dangerous predator in Paradis.”

I nodded, one hand on the doorjamb. I really didn’t want to go out there. I was far more terrified of being backstage than I was of feeling the spotlight and a thousand eyes. I already knew how to perform. I didn’t know how to fit in with my new coworkers, especially without Cherie at my side. In the past six years, I’d come to rely on her, for her knowledge, friendship, and understanding. Now I was alone. And I couldn’t get through the door.

Until I heard a certain familiar voice on the other side.

“ Bonjour, bébé .”

Vale’s voice pulledme through the door, grinning in anticipation.

The grin died when I saw that he hadn’t been talking to me.

“ Bonjour , Monsieur Hildebrand,” trilled a daimon girl in a tutu. She put her hands on his shoulders and went up on pointe to kiss him on both cheeks, a gesture he returned. In the process, her skin shivered over to a warm caramel that matched his, which contrasted oddly with her maroon hair. Vale hadn’t noticed me yet, but if the heat I felt in my cheeks was any indication, I was turning as red as a daimon myself.

“You haven’t been around lately.” The daimon girl pretended to pout, pooching out her lips and sucking in her cheeks.

“I’m a busy man.”

“Mm. I know how you like to get . . . busy.”

As she stepped closer to him, he saw me over her shoulder and took a step away from her reaching hands. She stumbled on her toe shoes and caught herself against the wall with a muttered, “What’s wrong with you?”

His eyes didn’t leave mine as he stepped around her.

“Told you. Busy. Later, Jess.”

She did her best to storm away, but it’s awfully difficult to stomp successfully in toe shoes and a tutu.

“ Bonjour , Monsieur Hildebrand,” I said, mimicking her exaggerated Franchian accent as soon as she was out of hearing range.

“What can I say? The girls love me.”

“I can guess why.”

“You would guess wrong.”

I raised one eyebrow.

“Fine. Half wrong.”

“What else do you give ze mademoiselles besides ze kisses?”

“Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you. How is your first day at the cabaret?”

I sighed. “I thought I would be a star tonight. Instead, I’m an errand girl. Or something. They dressed me like a servant and told me to go backstage. Not cool.”

He snatched my hand and twirled me around. “Looks fine to me, bébé . We all have to wear costumes in Mortmartre.”

And it was true. He’d traded in his all-black outfit for clothes that would blend in with the crowds I’d seen at the caravan recently. Criminy had never let me into the cities, and the papers we got were often out of date or missing the pertinent bits on fashion, so the only comparison I had for menswear came from noticing the customers while balancing upside down on top of my wagon. Tight, striped trousers, waistcoat and shirt, cravat, pointed boots. And yet he gave Parisian normalcy a dangerous edge.

“Aw. You’re trying to look respectable.”

“Trying?” He clutched his chest and staggered backward. “ Bébé , you wound me. I am very respectable.”

“Today.”

He grinned. “Today, yes.”

“Have you heard anything about Cherie? Or the slavers?”

He shook his head. “Such things take time. I can’t just appear in the streets with a poster, shouting. In Paris, especially in the dangerous parts, the more they know you want something, the higher they set the price. And if they know you cannot afford it, the more locks they put on the door that hides it. So I’m making my usual rounds, taking my usual orders, dropping hints nonchalantly over a glass of bad wine. I’ve only hit three cabarets.”

“Only three?”

“The three biggest ones, bébé .” He put a hand on my shoulder, and little thrills sang through me. I’d grown so accustomed to the touch of gloves that there was a new intimacy to the warmth of a man’s hand felt through my jacket. “I will go out again this evening. I told you we would not find your friend overnight.”

“So no one’s seen anything? At all?”

He let go of my shoulder and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms and smoldering at me. “What am I going to say? ‘Oh, bonjour . Been buying any illegal slaves? Because I would like to take one back. Without paying. And I won’t tell anyone about the butchering slavers who kidnapped her. Brigand’s honor.’ ” One finger crossed an X over his heart and then went to his lips to mime silence, and I giggled despite my instant depression.

“I guess not. But there has to be something I can do.”

His eyes skittered away, uneasy. “Besides rise to stardom and get kidnapped yourself?” He shook his head bitterly. “I still do not like this idea. Are you sure you have nothing of value to sell?”

I crossed my arms and leaned back, shrugging my shoulders against the brick wall. I wouldn’t give him my only coins. I wasn’t even sure I could trust him. “Nothing.”

“You have no money. I don’t have much. If we had more, I could grease some palms, open some doors. And you could drink fresh blood and sleep on a pillow. Oui ?”

“Somewhat tentative oui .”

“But if you have nothing to sell, we are at an impasse.” He reached out to tug a curl that had fallen from my updo. “I would offer to sell your hair to the apothecary, but I think you will need it to become a star.” Leaning closer, he whispered, “Also, I like the way it curls.”

I shook my head and slipped the curl behind my ear, grateful that he’d given me an out . . . and a compliment. I would sell my hair for Cherie, if that was what it took. But I agreed with him; short hair didn’t suit me, and it definitely wasn’t the fashion in Paris. The way Vale was looking at me, though, as if weighing me—there was something he wasn’t telling me.

“What?” I asked.

Shrugging it off with a falsely bright laugh, he patted my shoulder. I immediately felt I’d failed Cherie with my fear.

“Don’t worry about it, bébé . You won’t start earning until you’re onstage, so you’ll just have to put on a brave face until then. Oh.” Vale reached into his vest pocket. “It’s not much. But I thought this might make it easier.” As he curled my fingers around something hard wrapped in a handkerchief, voices came down the hall, and he whispered, “Keep it hidden.”

I felt around my new costume for a place to hide the mysterious package, and he stepped away to a less personal distance as a group of daimons appeared.

“Allo, new girl! Mademoiselle Charline is looking for you.” I didn’t recognize any of the arms, but I nodded and thanked the pink-skinned daimon.

“Why, Vale Hildebrand,” she cooed, catching sight of him. “Brought us anything good today?”

The girls circled him, and his grin slid from me to them. I snorted and turned, doing my best not to storm off to the stage, considering how quickly his attention had shifted.

“Wait, bébé !”

I just held up a glove, wondering what was the Franchian equivalent of talk to the hand ’cause the face don’t wanna hear it . He didn’t call to me again, and even though I slowed down a little to give him the chance to catch up, no hand landed on my shoulder. It made me feel rejected, even though it was childish and ridiculous. I had grown used to Criminy’s brand of brigandry, in which he held the utmost loyalty to his people and especially to his wife but gave the world the face of an outlaw. Even though we’d barely shared a few hours of each other’s company and one kiss almost gone deadly, I had no real reason to feel that Vale owed me anything, much less loyalty. His relationships with the daimons appeared long-standing, warm, and real. Who was I, one desperate Bludwoman, to suddenly show up and turn the world on its head?