At lunchtime, I redid the tear-smudged kohl around my eyes and walked to the dining car. Even without a Bludman’s keen hearing and nose, I would have known that a party waited within. It wasn’t often someone left the caravan—and if they did, they disappeared after dark or were dragged off, shackled in the custody of the Coppers. With a deep breath, I smoothed my bangs and opened the door.
The entire caravan was there, shouting, “Surprise!”
I put on my most professional smile and pretended that I wasn’t going to miss them. The jerks.
I was awake and ready before dawn the next morning, prodding Cherie with a foot until she tumbled from the top bunk and landed in a Bludman’s crouch. She hissed at me like an angry cat, and I just poked her in the nose with my toe. With a sigh of resignation, she stood and yawned.
“Is it too late to back out? I like sleeping late. You can do that in the caravan but not at university. And clearly not on the day that I’m forced to dress up like a terrified human and leave my home.”
“You’re just grouchy because you’re excited,” I said.
She rubbed her eyes and fluffed her hair, giving me a stare that would have knocked down a bludstag. “You’re giving me your vial at breakfast, foul thing.”
I just nodded. I was too anxious to eat, anyway.
Together we dragged our trunk down the steps to the front of our car and left it there while we went to the costumer’s wagon for our disguises. Antonin was polite and distant as ever, offering us each a selection of slightly out-of-date but decent enough Pinky outfits. No one knew where the tailor obtained his cache of dresses and costumes, but I was glad enough to slip on the billowing taffeta dress over the slim-fit trousers made for me by the previous costumer. When many of your best tricks involve handstands or being upside down and you live in a world without underwear, it’s smart to plan ahead.
My dress was bright teal, and Cherie’s was a salmon pink that would have seemed frivolous on anyone else. But it just made her look like a fresh-faced country girl, especially when I helped her lace up the cuffs and button the neck tightly. When she laced me into mine, I wanted to claw the cloth away from my throat.
“Jesus Christ. Being eaten by bludrats has to be better than suffocating to death,” I growled.
Antonin pulled my hands away and loosened the collar by one button. “Suffocating is better than draining, which is what the Pinkies will do if they discover you. So get used to it, and fast. The humans of the cities get crazy when they’re scared. Remember what happened to the last costumer?”
I nodded. I’d watched the Coppers drag her away, kicking and clawing and tied to the back of a galloping bludmare. She hadn’t returned.
Antonin brought us gloves and hats and handkerchiefs and sent us along to the dining car. Which I dreaded, because there’s nothing more awkward than walking into a room full of people who had all drunkenly told you good-bye the day before. I couldn’t tell if Crim and Tish were there, as they usually dined in their private booth with the curtains drawn, and there were too many smells to pick them out. Crim had avoided me since our fight the day before, but I wanted to leave on good terms. I really did love the uppity bastard, probably more than my real dad.
Luc fidgeted in his usual corner booth with his brother, and I steered Cherie in the opposite direction, toward the cauldron that held the blood vials. I’d managed to avoid Luc all last night, and I didn’t want to deal with his lovesick-puppy routine this morning, not with my stomach in upheaval and my heart telling my head not to have second thoughts. After grabbing a vial at random, I sat in an empty booth so that I wouldn’t have to make small talk or choose whom to sit with for the last time.
I rolled my vial across the table to Cherie, who struggled to pop the cork with her talons covered in kid gloves.
“Eat fast, ma chérie. I can’t wait to allez-hop out of here.”
She just stuck her tongue out at me, then sucked it right back in with a blush.
I looked up to find Luc’s mother, Mademoiselle Caprice, standing over us, her black hair tightly braided and her red-skinned hands on her hips, black nails tapping. She normally wore flamenco-style dresses that accentuated her dance moves and flowed like an extension of her skin. But today she had on a traveling gown just as stylishly constricting as mine. She raised an eyebrow at me and waited expectantly.
Cherie’s eyes met mine. Neither of us knew the haughty daimon well. She was probably glad to get rid of me so her son would stop staring and writing horrible poetry to slip under my door.
“Don’t worry. We’ll go soon,” I said, and she nodded and left the dining car without a word to her sons.
Cherie gulped down both vials quickly and then looked as if she might lose them to nerves. The moment she was done, we both stood and hurried to the door. Being on the road would be better than dealing with this awkwardness a moment longer.
A small party waited outside our wagon. Tish kept dashing tears away, while Criminy did his best to maintain his usual smirk.
“Mr. Murdoch put this together for you, honey.” Tish handed me a train case that was unusually warm, and inside I found a dozen vials of blood nestled in little holes. It felt like an incubator.
“This, too.” I was surprised to see the reclusive Mr. Murdoch himself. He’d ventured outside his car more frequently since Imogen had come along, but I couldn’t recall if he had ever spoken directly to me before, not in all my years of traveling with the carnival. Imogen and I got along fine, though, and I’d spent some rainy afternoons reading beside her fire while a butterfly flapped lazily on my shoulder; there was a swallowtail in her butterfly circus that seemed to favor me.
The reclusive artificer stepped back to reveal our trunk raised up on a small conveyance, almost like a wagon, with a steering wheel and a clockwork winding box on the back.
“Wind the key, and as long as you’re on the road or flat ground, at least one of you can ride. Sell it in Dover for traveling money.” His gloved hand lingered on the key as if he were adopting out a puppy of which he had grown fond.
“Thank you so much,” I said, and Imogen stepped forward.
“It was my idea, you know. But Henry’s design.”
“Good Lord, woman. What isn’t?” He sounded gruff, but he pulled her close and kissed her hair with a fondness that made my lonely heart ache.
Jacinda Harville stepped up next, handing me a knife in a leather sheath. “One of Marco’s. Stay lively so I can read about you in the Franchian papers, yes?”
I’d liked the journalist ever since she’d drawn a flattering picture of me for her book on the caravan, and although her beloved knife thrower was a man of few words, he winked and nodded. Funny to think I’d crushed on him once. It felt as if it was a million years ago that I’d watched him across the fire, dreaming of passion and adventure that I still hadn’t found.
“Maybe we’ll see you there soon,” Jacinda added. “Lots of juicy stories in Franchia.”
“Lass is getting restless for adventure,” Marco said, and I would’ve sworn he goosed her.
All the smiling faces were making me feel wobbly inside. Criminy and Tish, Mr. Murdoch and Imogen, Jacinda and her daggerman. They all had what I longed for: someone to love and a place to belong. I fought back tears and was about to launch into a big speech when Mademoiselle Caprice appeared, a valise in her hand.
“Allons-y,” she said with great fanfare.