“I haven’t seen him if he is. I am merely on the lookout for him since clearly you are too busy to worry about your safety.” He motioned to the dress, a single eyebrow quirked.
“I need this gown. Madame Marineaux wants me to have a stunning gown for the ball tomorrow night—”
“Who?”
The dressmaker spun me around, so I had to look over my shoulder to keep talking.
“Madame Marineaux. She’s the most fascinating woman I have ever met, Oliver. She’s been to all sorts of places and . . .” I trailed off. His eyes were cold. “Wh-what?”
“You have enough time to gallivant with Parisian ladies yet stopping les Morts or dealing with
Marcus is entirely too much to ask.”
I pulled free of the dressmaker and whirled around to face him. “Are you angry at me?” I asked incredulously.
“Egads, yes! If you’re going to gallivant, El, I would like you to bloody well gallivant with me.”
He scratched the bridge of his nose, his face set in a scowl . . . and looking so much like Elijah.
I sighed through my nose, glad I hadn’t mentioned Laure’s surprise visit to Paris—or my time spent with her. It would only serve to make him more jealous. “What do you propose we do together then?”
“Search for les Morts, read through your letters so we can figure out what Marcus is after, train your powers . . .” His words faded and he fixed his yellow eyes on me. “Any preference?”
I swallowed, suddenly breathing fast. Train my powers—I wanted that. My whole body wanted that. But I made myself ignore it and heed Joseph’s warnings. “We should deal with les Morts. If I want the Spirit-Hunters to help me with Marcus, I first need to stop les Morts.”
“Or,” Oliver said, inspecting his fingernails, “you could simply build up your power and then stop les Morts and Marcus with magic. You could learn to fight.”
The hairs on my arms pricked up. Learn to fight. Oh, how I needed it. Needed to use this energy inside me. To use it to fight. To use it to hurt . . .
“No!” I snapped. The dressmaker flinched, and Oliver’s brows drew together. I waved for the dressmaker to continue, and then, with a deep breath, I fixed my eyes on Oliver. “No. I will not train.”
Oliver didn’t react, though I could have sworn his yellow eyes almost glowed. “And may I inquire why not?” he asked calmly.
“Because I promised Joseph—”
“Oh, did you now?” He clasped his hands behind his back and ambled two steps toward me.
“Because I distinctly recall a promise you made to me. A binding one. So unless this promise you gave to Joseph is on the same . . .” He glanced off, as if searching for the word. Then his eyes shot to mine—and the irises were definitely a brighter gold than usual. “On the same scale as our promise, then I urge you to forget the one you made to him.”
I swallowed. “You mean my death.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” He sighed, and all of his poise vanished. “Bloody hell, Eleanor, you have only two months to free me, and it’s not some simple spell. It requires a great deal of training to master.”
My stomach knotted, and I gazed down at my right hand. I’m sorry, Joseph, I thought.
But the truth was, I wasn’t sorry. I wanted this—and judging by Oliver’s growing smile, he knew precisely how much my body craved more magic.
“All right, Oliver.” I squeezed my fingers into a fist. “You win.”
Chapter Thirteen
A half an hour later, with the dressmaker and her assistant gone, I made my way to the front of the burned Tuileries Palace, where Oliver had told me to meet him. The day had turned dreary—overcast and damp—and now that the balloon was gone, there was little to draw visitors to the gardens.
“We have to be careful,” he said as I approached the palace’s crumbling grand front doorway. His head swiveled as he checked for any observers. “The police don’t like people in here—though they really only patrol at night, when the bummers crawl in. I don’t see anyone now.” He motioned for me to follow, and together we crept inside.
The charred floors were laden with weed carpets, and shimmers flickered in the shadows.
Gooseflesh rippled down my body.
“There are a lot of ghosts here,” I murmured as we picked our way over a toppled wall.
“It was a big fire,” Oliver answered, guiding me down a hallway. Our feet crunched over the rubble.
“Can we talk to them?” I waved to the shadows. “To the spirits?”
“No. I told you that.”
“You said I couldn’t talk to spirits on the other side of the curtain. You never said I couldn’t reach ghosts on this side.”
He grunted and tugged me through a shattered window into an open courtyard. “These aren’t spirits. They’re merely pieces of souls. Stuck here. They have no voice, no memories. The Hell
Hounds don’t even bother them.”
“Oh. That’s rather sad.”
“Death is always sad business to the living.” He exhaled loudly. “Why else would people want the
Black Pullet?”