The image of Limone didn’t look like Lenoir’s work, and the brass plaque on the frame was blank. In my world, this masterpiece by Toulouse Lautrec showed the Moulin Rouge, so this evil twin most likely showed the inside of the Moulin Bleu of Sang. In the bottom right corner, lit in lurid absinthe-green, was an image of Limone so true to life that I could feel hatred and disgust radiating from it in waves. I stepped closer, but Vale threw an arm out to hold me back.
“When was the last time someone saw Limone?” I asked.
“The day after she pushed you.”
“She went to the Moulin Bleu, didn’t she?”
He nodded. “There’s dark magic at work here,” he said, and I gulped and shivered but didn’t move forward again.
I could feel Limone’s cold presence in the room with me, and I spun suddenly, certain that I would feel her hard hands pushing me off into space. But the gallery was empty, peopled only with whispering shadows. I looked from portrait to portrait, trying to sense if perhaps it was only my history with Limone and the perfection of her likeness that was freaking me out. I saw faces I half recognized, a maroon girl stretching in a tutu and a pink-skinned girl laughing. But I couldn’t remember their names or when I’d seen them last.
I pointed with a trembling finger. “I know those girls . . .”
“Jess and Edwige. They went missing from Paradis. Together.” His voice was dark, torn between anger and sadness. “Neither painting shows the artist’s name, but at least it was not Lenoir.” His fists clenched at his sides.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.
Vale put an arm around my waist, and I shuddered as he pulled me close and led me from the room. “The words on that ticket were directions to this gallery. There was something here the duke wanted to see.”
“Ugh. I don’t know why. I feel like I need to go wash in boiling water or something. Like that painting is still staring at me.” I shivered all over like a dog throwing water, trying to get back to normal. “Do you know who painted it?”
The hall outside felt ten degrees warmer and much less haunted, and Vale clicked off the lighter and pulled me into a desperate hug, his hand cupping the back of my head.
“I do not know, bébé. Many are by Lenoir but not that one. He takes on protégés and students sometimes. I will try to find out. Do you feel . . .”
He trailed off, and I wrapped my arms around him, too. If he felt half as shaken as I did, then I was glad to give him my warmth. I couldn’t believe a painting had inspired such horror in my heart.
“That painting hates us,” I whispered, and he nodded as he rubbed my back.
“I did promise you romance, but I didn’t wish to frighten you into closeness.” He pulled away and held my face for a brief, bright moment. “How easily one forgets the hunt when one is hunted.”
“Wait.” I wanted to look through the door again but couldn’t bring myself to do so. “Did you see any paintings of Cherie? Of a Bludman or a human with long blond hair and gray eyes?”
“So far as I know, there are no humans in the cabarets, and if there were another Bludman, everyone would know. I saw no such painting.”
I sighed heavily and slumped over. “Then this whole trip was a waste of time.”
“Not so, ma chère.” He slipped his hand into mine, walking backward and pulling me after him. “We tried. And trying is worth something. We also know that there is something strange about that painting. I will come back during the day, ask around. See who painted it, and the ones of Jess and Edwige, too. Some ideas take more time to bear fruit, but you must not lose hope.”
My steps were shuffling and coy. I felt more than a little like a princess in a palace, surrounded by the dripping gilt and excess of the grand museum. The farther we got from the painting, the better I felt. “You’re right. It’s not like Cherie was going to be here and we were just going to walk in and find her. And it’s not a wasted trip.” I blushed and looked down, tracing the marble in the floor. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to see the Louvre.”
He stopped walking backward and smirked as if he knew exactly what I wasn’t brave enough to say. “Oh, you have always wished to see the Louvre? I think perhaps I can help with that.”
Before I could protest, he’d swept me off my feet and tossed me over his shoulder, taking off down the grand hall at a run. I started to shriek but slapped a hand over my own mouth. Vale ran through the Louvre like a little boy chasing a soccer ball, pointing out unhelpful things such as “Here’s a statue of a naked man with an unfortunate nose,” or “I think those are the king’s petticoats.” I laughed so hard that my stomach hurt, and when he finally stopped and placed me on my feet, we were both out of breath and far enough away from the portrait gallery that the malevolent tension was gone.
“Did you see everything?” he asked.
Without thinking, probably because of the lack of blud in my brain, I blurted, “I mostly watched your butt.”
That got his attention. He was instantly focused on me, his light eyes shining in the darkness. “Did you now, bébé?”
“Oh, well, I . . .” I looked down and fidgeted, very un-Bludman-like.
Light hands settled on my hips as he stepped into my personal space. “What is it you fear, Demi? You walk right up to the line and kick dirt over it and laugh, yet you won’t step over. Do you think a man minds being admired?”
“Of course not. I just . . .”
“Are you ashamed of me, then? Do you not find my backside pleasing?”
“What? No! Vale, come on.” My cheeks were red, my insides all twisted up. “Your butt is . . . awesome. I just . . . I didn’t break into the Louvre with you to talk about . . . this.”
“This?”
“Us.”
“And yet here we are. All alone in the greatest museum in Franchia. Think of all the things we could be doing here, and yet we stand arguing in a hall. You could always kiss me to into silence.”
For a brief moment, I let myself think of all the things we could be doing—against this very wall, on one of the velvet couches, upstairs in the Sun King’s old bed. And yet . . . I couldn’t.
“My life is really complicated right now, Vale.”
“Yes, and that is why it’s good to have someone on your side.”
“You’re already on my side.”
“But I could be on your inside, too.”
A fire burst into life in my belly and radiated outward. I knew what he meant, but it was the double entendre that really caught me. And maybe it would have been easy to give in. But I knew how relationships happened in Sang, and no matter what I had thought about romance from the confines of the caravan, I wasn’t ready to give up my autonomy and start letting him call the shots. Especially when his first demand would be that I stop seeing Lenoir and drinking absinthe.
But I couldn’t tell him that, so I chickened out and went for the cheap shot.
“Maybe once I’ve found Cherie. But until then . . .”
“Until then, you dance on your side of the line.” He dug tight fists into his eyes. “And I dance along with you. From the other side.”
“I have responsibilities.”
“You keep saying that. As if I don’t know. Mon dieu, bébé, do you hear yourself?” He rubbed his head as he paced back and forth, more agitated than I’d yet seen him. “I have halted my life to help you. I have not been back to my tribe since I found you. I haven’t seen my horse. Do you think I am a boy playing a game?”