Delilah Dawson - The Damsel and the Daggerman

Demi saw it, too, and her voice took on a tinge of resentment. “I mean, there aren’t even any guys here. All the good ones get taken. And Criminy makes sure I never get to talk to anyone in the crowd.”

“Don’t forget the daimon boys.” Jacinda winked.

“And Luc is looking right at you,” Cherie began, tossing her hair and surreptitiously glancing to the other end of the wagon, where a lanky, good-looking boy with red skin joked with Marco by the drink dispenser.

Demi’s eyes flicked to Marco and Luc. “I don’t know. Daimons?”

Jacinda leaned close with a conspiratorial grin. “I had a daimon lover in Paris. His name was Gael, and he was a dealer in rare books and antiquities. He looked quite calm until the spectacles came off. And then, ooh la la. Highly recommended. Since they feed off emotions, let’s just say they’re . . . highly motivated to keep you happy.”

Demi’s lips twisted up as she watched the boy laugh and turn around, tail waving. He caught her eye and winked with a daredevil smile, and Cherie giggled and hid her face.

“Hmm. Maybe you’re right. I hadn’t really considered it before, but I guess a Bludman being prejudiced against daimons is just as bad as Pinkies being prejudiced against me.”

“And he’ll speak Franchian, too. Such a sensual language,” Jacinda added.

Cherie giggled again, and when the daimon boy passed by them with a backward glance, Demi met it and nodded, just a little. Good for her. Jacinda loved an adventure, and the thought that the bright, pretty girl could be depressed in the caravan hurt the journalist’s heart. It would do the girl good to have a fling with a daimon, one as giving and energetic as Gael had been. Just thinking about it brought her thoughts back to Marco and the night before, and she watched him contemplatively as he loaded up his tray.

Even though his back was to her, she felt as if he knew she was watching, as if he could sense her eyes brushing over his shoulders, the small of his back where his shirt tucked into his breeches, a place she’d barely begun to explore. What else might have happened, had she kept her hands on the door last night? Damn the man! He was under her skin now, and she craved what she’d barely tasted. But she wasn’t about to admit it. She looked down at her notebook, where she had doodled the exact curve of where his back met his ass when she was supposed to be sketching Demi’s face.

Turning to a new page, she asked, “What about you, Cherie? Where are you from?”

The girl blushed and looked down. “Oh, I’m from Freesia. We were once a great family, but the tsarina argued with my mother, and we lost everything. Six of us lived in a wagon smaller than the one I share with Demi, all pulled by a pair of gray dappled bludmares named Snow and Ice. I fought a bludbear once . . .”

As Cherie talked, Jacinda made the appropriate noises of surprise and assent, scribbling down the details of a life that would read like a fairy tale to the city girls. Festivals, balls, bludbears, wild unicorns, and bloodthirsty peacocks. To Cherie and Demi, it was boring, but to everyone else in the world, it was a beautiful dream.

Although Jacinda’s mind was halfway on the story and aware of how valuable the tale would be, she couldn’t stop glancing at Marco in between words. It slowly dawned on her that he was purposefully taking his time, giving her ideal views of his physique as he collected food and talked to Criminy by the cauldron of vials. His mouth was quirked up as if he knew his very existence teased her, as if he was more than pleased about it. Therefore, she wasn’t surprised when he slid into the booth directly behind her. He leaned back, letting his hair brush her neck, and she went still like a dog on point, positive she could feel the warmth of his body through the wood between their backs.

It was hard to respond appropriately to Cherie with him so close, and she wondered that the girl couldn’t feel the tension, the hot and cold running through her body. But no, Cherie just prattled, innocent as the girl she seemed. Demi stared contemplatively at Luc where he sat with his slightly less handsome brother at a far booth, sipping a daimon drink and staring right back. When Cherie reached what seemed like a stopping point, Jacinda closed her notebook with a satisfied nod.

“Thank you so much for sharing your stories with me, both of you. I may not be able to crack the toughest nut in the caravan, but this is just as satisfying. It’ll be good to keep my hands busy with something worthwhile instead of sitting around, twiddling my thumbs, and doing nothing.”

Behind her, Marco stifled a chuckle and cleared his throat. Demi and Cherie shared a look of bemused doubt.

“Um, you’re welcome?” Demi said. “And you should definitely talk to Veruca and Eblick. They don’t talk much, but I think they’ve got pretty good origin stories.”

With a nod, the contortionists stood, and Jacinda rose to let Cherie out of the booth, purposefully stepping back just enough to allow her bustle to brush Marco’s sleeve. As Demi and Cherie left to deposit their bloody teacups in the washing cube, Jacinda was sure she felt a hand slip into the pocket of her skirt, but it was so stealthy and quick that she might have imagined it. She paused a moment, rolling up her notebook, but the sensation didn’t come again. Although she had planned on visiting with more of the carnivalleros this morning for research purposes, she changed plans and headed outside without a word or a look for the man behind her.

In her pocket, she found a bit of parchment hastily scribbled with pencil.

Find me later. I have something to keep your hands busy. M.

She smiled to herself, fingering the paper.

Oh, I bet you do, Marco. I bet you do.

She made him wait.

Back in her conveyance, she refilled Brutus’s tank with clockwork oil, added to her caravan notes and stored them in a new pigeonhole, and, much to her own annoyance, primped in front of the mirror, making sure she looked ravishing but not as if she were trying too hard. She’d put on her fancier corset that morning, along with the new style of stockings she’d picked up in Paris. Even if it was wishful thinking, she’d found over the years that wearing fancy underpinnings gave her the confidence she needed to face up to anything from roaring bludmares to charging warriors in buffalo chariots.

With an odd little twinge of surprise, she realized that she had abandoned completely the idea that he might be guilty. Even without hearing his side of it, even knowing him only a few short days, she felt, bone deep, that he had not committed the crime for which he’d been accused. With renewed determination, she set out for his wagon and the answers she kept forgetting she needed.

She knocked on the door of his trailer first, but he didn’t answer, and she wasn’t willing to break in again, especially during daylight. Slipping past the clockwork bird was no problem, and she was soon exchanging pleasantries around the circled wagons, caught between wanting to win over the carnivalleros and wanting to get close enough to Marco to feel the ripple of acknowledgment her body seemed to experience every time he was near.

She found him by the target, throwing the knives with his usual offhand brand of lazy concentration. Waiting a respectful distance away, she admired his perfectly coordinated movements and the snap of his forearm that sent each silver missile thudding into the target. He didn’t acknowledge her until he’d thrown his last knife.

“Found something better to keep your hands occupied?” His playful smirk was back, so full of promise that she cocked her hips and licked her lips on instinct.