“Quite the fighter, your man,” Cherie murmured.
I reached for her as she stood there, pink tears streaking down her cheeks. She looked a hundred times better than the last time I’d seen her. She took my weak hand in both of hers, and I tried not to look at her broken talons.
“Pretty good blood, right?” I asked.
“Better than they gave us at the caravan.” She grinned, showing an all-too-human smile, with her fangs gone. “And my bed here is a lot bigger, too. I could get used to Paradis.”
“And Paradis would be glad to have you, ma chèrie. Demi has told us that you two are partners.” Madame Sylvie must have been listening at the open door to pop through like that at just the right moment. She put a flesh-colored hand on Cherie’s shoulder, and I would have slapped it away had I yet figured out how to move again. The smile Charline leveled at Cherie as she sashayed in beside her sister was so empty, so hungry, so obviously manipulative that I couldn’t believe I had ever fallen for a single word either daimon had said.
I shook my head. “No way. We’re out of here tomorrow. I expect my wages delivered in francs by morning.”
Charline flew to my side, batting her feathered eyelashes and tsking. “Oh la la, my dear. You’re weak. And even with Lenoir and the most wealthy gentlemen gone, you’re still the brightest star in Mortmartre. Take a week off. See the city. And then we’ll build a new show for you and your Cherie.” She tried to touch me, and my fangs snapped the air by her fingers.
“Oh, hell, no. If Vale has to carry me on his back, we’re gone.”
“I beg you to reconsider. The Malediction Club is destroyed. Mortmartre has never been safer.” Madame Sylvie dismissed my words with the flap of a powdery hand. “You’ll make your fortune!”
“I already made one.” She looked away, a little muscle by her eye twitching. “And just because we put an end to the Malediction Club doesn’t mean that suddenly the audience is filled with kind-hearted gentlemen who just want a good show. There will always be predators in Mortmartre.” All three of us glared at her meaningfully, and she cleared her throat. “This place is like a Venus flytrap. And I’m done.”
“How much is she owed?” Vale asked.
Charline tapped a foot and studied the ceiling, and Madame Sylvie waved a hand. “Not as much as you would guess. We must deduct the costumes, the board, the laundry, the elephant she destroyed, the blood—which was a very fine vintage and not easy to procure.”
“They talked about you, you know.” Everyone turned in surprise to focus on Cherie. She spoke quietly, as if her throat was still bruised from what had passed in that laboratory underground. “I heard the gentlemen talk about how Charline kept the best girls, how Sylvie knew just what the club wanted and always delivered on time.” Even without her fangs, she looked like a murderous doll, the way she bared her teeth at the daimon sisters. “What do you think they meant about delivering?”
Sylvie’s color slipped, the human flesh rippling briefly with dark spots like thumbprints. “Bah.” She turned and sashayed out the door in disgust. “You’ll have your francs tonight, and you’ll leave before show time, before you poison the others with your lies. I’m a businesswoman, not a nun.”
Charline just shook her head. “Such promise,” she said. “All lost.”
“It’s not lost.” I smiled, showing fangs. “It’s just getting the hell out of here.”
I spent the rest of the day in bed, mostly sleeping. Vale and Cherie stayed with me, but a rainbow of anxious faces came and went, hands touching my forehead or pushing hair out of my eyes or just briefly stroking my arm. I heard the word merci so much that it chased me in my dreams.
Vale woke me at dusk, one hand gentle on my shoulder. “Bébé, it’s time.”
I was able to sit up, at least, and I found Cherie waiting on a steamer trunk by the door, where Blaise’s blue face peeked curiously through the crack. When I smiled at him, he ran up with a grain sack dragging behind him and heaved it onto the bed.
“What is this?”
“From Madame Sylvie. Your wages.”
I opened the bag and bit my tongue. They weren’t just francs; they were mostly silvers. She must have been terrified that we would spread the truth about her or exact our own vengeance. Truth be told, it wasn’t sitting well with me, just letting Sylvie and Charline go on at Paradis. If they could find another way to line their pockets, they would.
“All this is mine?”
Blaise nodded. “You’re the most famous act in Mortmartre, mademoiselle.”
“Not anymore.”
Mel stepped into the room, with Bea just behind her. “So it’s true, then? You’re leaving tonight?”
They were both in full costume and makeup, so very different from how they had looked in their fighting clothes and natural skins, painted with blood. These daimons, they never gave up.
“I can’t stay here.” I hefted the bag of coins; it took two hands. “And I don’t have to.”
It was still so strange and wonderful to hear Bea’s voice. “But where will you go?”
I opened the bag and stared at the pile of glinting metal. When I glanced up at Vale, he looked as if he was about to burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“I’m waiting for your answer, bébé. You can do anything you want, and I can’t wait to hear what it is.”
I plucked a silver from the pile and flicked it at Blaise, who caught it neatly.
“I want to go back to Sangland.” They all stared at me, waiting, not breathing. I let the moment go on a little long, just to see who inhaled first. It was Vale. “And start a cabaret.”
“But Demi, there are no cabarets in London,” Cherie said, her usual know-it-all self.
“Not yet there aren’t. But just think of it—a theater in London, daimon girls who wouldn’t have to sleep with the audience if they didn’t want to. Performers honing their craft. We could even trade carnivalleros back and forth with Criminy’s caravan, if anyone got bored.” I reached for Vale’s hand and squeezed it. “You up for it?”
He rubbed his stubble with his other hand. “A disgraced Brigand of Ruin in Sangland, working at a Bludman’s cabaret.” He threw back his head and laughed. “It would appear I finally found a way to make my father angry and yet stay far enough out of his reach that he cannot strangle me.”
Mel and Bea signed quickly; they would always have their secret language. Then Bea took a big breath. “Can we come with you?”
Mel nodded. “We’re good workers, and—”
“And Blaise is a good boy, willing to learn a trade—”
“And there is no greater costumer than Blue—”
I realized I could finally move, and I held up wobbling hands to sign Yes.
Mel squealed, and they hugged and kissed, Bea’s arm around Blaise’s shoulders.
“What’s going on in here?”
Lexie appeared in the doorway, and then all the daimon girls were crowding in, dressed in their cabaret finest. I couldn’t help recalling how hard they’d fought, how strong and faithful they had been, as they worked to free their friends. And I was just supposed to leave them here in Mortmartre, under the greedy eyes and empty hearts of a pair of evil tiger bitches like Sylvie and Charline?
Hell, no.
“Y’all want to come to Sangland and work in my new cabaret?”