“It’s weeks away.” And I wasn’t sure I’d last that long without progress. I felt as though I was being consumed from the inside out.
“Barely enough time to prepare,” she said, staring blindly at her book. “But the date is set.”
I scowled at her, though she wasn’t paying any attention. She was obsessed with this stupid performance. “Any longer and I might throw myself off a bridge,” I muttered.
Her eyes flicked my direction. “Don’t be morbid.”
“Says the person trying to kill me.”
Julian snickered from where he sat perched on a chair. My mother shot him a withering glance, but it didn’t seem to affect him in the least. The spell remained in effect, the contempt he used to hold for me replaced by his wholehearted enthusiasm for my rise to lead soprano. He might well have fallen out of love into logic, but that was not the same as falling into intelligence. If he didn’t learn to mind his tongue, I suspected he might find himself cut from the coming season entirely. For his sake, I hoped it wore off soon. “I’m bored,” he announced. “I want to go out.”
“Then go,” my mother said.
“I’ve no one to go with.”
An idea crossed through my mind. “I could go out with you, Julian. It would be a fine thing for people to start seeing us together before the start of next season, wouldn’t you agree?”
His eyes brightened at the idea.
Genevieve set down her book. “You’re not going anywhere without me until after the masque is over. I’ll not have you ruining everything.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Julian beat me to it. “Don’t you trust me to keep an eye on her?” he asked. “After all, I know how important the masque is” – his eyes went to me and then back to my mother – “to both of us.”
I silently applauded his tactic while watching my mother’s profile for any sign of what she might be thinking. But her face was as smooth and unreadable as a troll’s. “Back by midnight,” she said, and snapped her book open again.
I grinned at Julian and he winked.
While he went outside to hail a hackney cab, I changed into a dark blue dress, braided my hair so that it hung over one shoulder, and shoved what I needed into a satchel. Kissing my mother on the cheek, I hurried out into the chill air where my co-star was waiting. Taking his arm, I scrambled up into the carriage.
“Le Chat?” Julian asked.
I shook my head. “After. There’s somewhere we need to go first.”
One dark eyebrow cocked. “Oh? Where’s that?”
“Pigalle.”
His other eyebrow shot up to join the first. “Pigalle? Curses, why would you want to go there?”
“There’s something I need,” I said, waiting for him to argue, but he only shrugged and gave the instruction to the driver.
“You won’t tell her where we went, will you?” I asked as the horse started trotting down the street. “She’ll lock me up for the rest of my life if she finds out.”
Julian tilted his head from side to side in a parody of extreme thought. “I suppose not. It wouldn’t really do for me to have a prisoner for a co-star. But in exchange for my deception, I expect you to pay for all my libations tonight.”
“As much as you can drink.”
“Then off to Pigalle we go.” He clapped his hands together. “Which isn’t something I’d ever thought I’d say.”
* * *
“Wait here,” I said to Julian as I slipped out of the hack. “I won’t be very long.”
It was very dark in Pigalle, the moon little more than a sliver in the night sky, but I still looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching, before going to the door and knocking. Moments later, I heard footsteps, and the door opened.
“I told you never to come back!”
Catherine tried to shut the door to her shop in my face, but I threw my shoulder against it, forcing my way in before Julian could take notice. “I have questions that need answering.”
“I don’t care. You need to leave.” The sticky scent of absinthe was heavy on her breath, and she was unsteady on her feet.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what I need to know.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Pulling her grimoire out of my satchel, I held it up. “I think you do.”
Catherine’s eyes bulged as she recognized the book. “Thief!” she shrieked, lunging at me as though to claw my eyes out.
I dodged her drunken swipe at my face easily, but prudence made me retreat a few paces lest she try again. “Here,” I said, holding the book out at arm’s length. “I’m giving it back.”
She snatched it out of my hand and clutched it against her chest. “You’re going to get me killed.”
“That isn’t my plan,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone about those spells, and I have no intention of doing so. If you help me.”
“Is that a threat?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to – her imagination would do my dirty work.