Delilah Dawson - Wicked After Midnight

“Long have I awaited this moment,” he breathed. The bells on the curly toes of his stupid harem shoes jingled as he crossed the carpets toward where I waited, one hand on the windowsill.

“Me, too,” I murmured.

With trembling hands, I undid the soft leather straps, turned my back to him, and let the angel wings flutter to the ground, revealing my naked back.

“Is my beautiful angel ready to fall?”

Instead of answering, I parted the curtains and jumped out the window.

Or at least,he thought I did. Instead, I hooked a hand on the sill and swung over to the side, rushing along the ledge with a Bludman’s speed and grace to scurry down the drain spout, the toga flapping around me in the wild night wind.

“My angel!”

Prince Seti’s stupid beard poked out the window as he stared down at the empty street in confusion. Then he looked to the side and saw me clinging to the gargoyle heads like a mad squirrel, climbing away from him as fast as my claws could carry me. His face went dark, his voice changing entirely. “I will see you drained for this.” His head disappeared as I landed on the cobbles and hailed the first closed conveyance that would stop.

“To Lenoir’s studio,” I called, wishing that I could go to wherever Vale stayed, when he wasn’t climbing in my window. But I didn’t know anything about his life in Paris, and I couldn’t linger where the prince could find me.

The driver muttered, “An address?” and I racked my brain before spitting out the number from the painter’s door. “ Oui, mademoiselle. ” He revved the engine, hurtling us into the street. I held back the curtain and looked up to my old room.

So that was the end of my time at Paradis.

I would miss Mel and Bea, especially, and Blue and Blaise and the other girls I hadn’t gotten to know. I would miss the hot lights of the stage and the feel of the ladder under my feet as I ascended to the catwalk. But there were other cabarets and other cities, and I refused to believe that Blue’s five scarred fingers represented every option I had. Hell, at the very least, I could always walk back to Callais, busking to pay for a quick air trip across the Channel. Criminy would take me back. He’d very likely dock my pay—which he’d basically been holding hostage, anyway. But maybe I could persuade him to use his money, his reach, and his magic to find Cherie. I just had to survive long enough.

The streets glowed with gas lamps, the traffic still lively even after midnight. It was Mortmartre, after all, and I passed open carriages that left echoing laughter and billowing feathers and glitter in their wake, the scent of lust heavy on the air. Every cabaret spewed its own brand of color and light and music, while windows lit with red bulbs beckoned lonely fellows upstairs for a treat, if they had the francs. We passed a gendarme on the corner, his arm taut as a giant bludhound strained at the end of its chain, the ridiculous poof of hair on the thing’s head at odds with the silver muzzle cap tightly squeezing its mouth shut but revealing its madly twitching nose. We locked eyes, and it shivered all over and lunged for my carriage until the gendarme yanked it back.

Finally, we stopped in front of the familiar town house, and relief flooded me. The invitation had merely named the date, not the time, so technically, I was here by request, even if many hours early and half-dressed. Lenoir would understand. He always understood. And a drop of bloodwine and absinthe wouldn’t go amiss, shaken as I was.

I hopped out of the carriage before the driver could help me and tossed my golden hoop earrings into his lap.

“Jewelry is not accepted currency,” he said with a Franchian sniff.

“What about blood?” I smiled, showing my fangs. He drove off in a hell of a hurry.

While the cabaret districts had been lively, this was a residential area, and my knock rang loud in the shadowy night. I shivered on the doorstep. Not from the cold, because it wasn’t a cold night and I was a Bludman. But because I was just a half-naked girl in a strange city, reduced to begging from a benefactor. And I hated it.

After a long while, a light went on upstairs, and the door opened to reveal Lenoir. He was fully dressed, not a hair out of place and eyes bright and amused as ever despite his stern mouth. And he seemed entirely unsurprised to see me.

“My dear mademoiselle . You’ve the date right, but your clock appears to be incorrect.”

I almost apologized and then thought better of it. I was a Bludman and a star. Not a lost little girl, even if that’s exactly what I’d felt like right up till he’d opened the door.

“It would appear my living arrangements have changed, monsieur . Do you perhaps have a guest bedroom where I could freshen up?”

His lip quirked up, just the barest bit. “Thrown out of a cabaret? Good heavens. I can’t imagine what sort of shenanigans you’ve perpetrated.”

He stood in the doorway a fraction longer than he needed to, and I understood that he was letting me know who was in charge. That he could still slam the door, ruin my reputation, or toss me out on my bustle. But luckily, he stepped back, gave a slight bow, and held the door open.

“Of course, my dear. You know my home is open to you. But I take it this means the prince has lost his bet?”

I stepped inside, where the air was still and cold, the lamps unlit.

“What bet?”

He locked the door, turned to the stairs, and motioned for me to follow. I briefly wondered if I’d gone from the frying pan into the fire, if his price for sanctuary was as high as what I’d been expected to give to the prince. Scurrying in his wake, I was glad that this time, he led. With my back exposed, I felt vulnerable and breathless in the chill of the shadows, and I didn’t wish the great painter to see the goose bumps rising over my spine.

“Surely you knew. You’re on the books. Any new and interesting girl is. There are numbers for who will bed her first, whether she’s a virgin, if she’ll moan or cry or claw his back. Your odds were terribly high, but the prince eclipsed every other bet. A very confident man, Seti.”

“He said he would have me drained.”

“Then you definitely turned him down.” I thought he would stop on the second level, where I had assumed the bedrooms were, but he continued to the attic. As he twisted the gaslights on and flicked the switches of a few electric lamps, he kept his back to me. “Thank you for that. I was betting rather heavily against him.”

“I can’t imagine you need money, monsieur .” I glanced around at the subtle trappings of his wealth, scattered around the atelier. The marble statues and urns of hothouse flowers and little salt dishes filled with jewels, not to mention the rich paints and soft sable brushes.

“It’s not about money, ma chérie . It’s about prestige. Pride. A man’s reputation is a precious thing, you see.”

“How much did you win?” I asked, but he ignored me and gestured toward the changing screen with an open arm.

With the window showing cloudy darkness and the sconces burning orange, the room didn’t carry its usual haze of golden sunshine, but he went about his paint preparations as if it were a normal afternoon, as if he’d been expecting me. With a shrug at the oddness of it all, I gladly changed out of the scrap of a toga and into the chocolate-plum dress. It felt deliciously heavy and cool against my skin, and I sighed as I hurled the toga into the fire already burning in the grate. Stretching until my back popped, I walked around the screen in bare feet and melted into my usual chair.

The goblet was in my hand before I’d noticed Lenoir at my side, and I sipped it gladly, anxious for a taste of dreamy oblivion, for the strange passage of time that made me feel like a butterfly caught in amber. I felt as if I couldn’t exhale, as if all the anger and fear and worry were bottled up inside my chest and the drink would help it unwind like pulling a bit of yarn to unravel a sweater. As the liqueur slid down my throat and into my belly, a strange feeling overcame me. Instead of making everything warm and fuzzy and glittering, it seeped into me with cold tendrils like liquid ice. I licked my lips.