“You need help, chérie?” Mel asked, and Bea sat down beside her on the bed, their hands clasping unconsciously and merging Bea’s blue with Mel’s green for a beautiful teal that made me smile.
“Are you sure—?” I started, and Vale nodded.
“What do you know about the Malediction Club?” I asked.
The color drained out of Bea, leaving her a sickly grayish-white, her eyelids fluttering as if she might faint.
Mel wrapped an arm around her and drew her close, giving me a reproachful look. “Nothing,” she said. “Nothing more than anyone. It’s a rumor, something whispered in the dark. Wealthy men who do horrible things. But no one’s ever seen it.”
“Do you recognize this, then?” Vale held out the button, and Mel took it, examining it.
With sudden violence, Bea dashed it to the ground, where it skittered across the room.
“What’s come over you, darling?” Mel asked. “Do you know more?”
Bea shook her head and hid behind her hair but wouldn’t lift her hands to sign.
“I’ve seen that symbol before,” Mel said slowly. “On a cravat, here or there. Figured it was just something the Pinkies enjoyed.”
“Do you remember any of the men who wore them?” Vale asked.
Mel shrugged and gave a small, defiant smile. “Oh, la. All the Pinkies look alike to me. But it is always fancy gents—I remember that much.”
“What about the fellow who tried to kidnap Demi? Did you know anything about him?”
Mel shook her head. “We couldn’t see him, with the pachyderm fallen and the gendarmes all around. Did they find that pin on his body? How wretched.”
Bea’s fingers twitched in her lap, and one hand rose, shaking, to make signs. I recognized a few of the letters as she spelled something out. After the last one, her hand fell limply back to her lap, and she slumped over, drained and defeated.
“Charmant? Darling, I don’t think it’s charming at all.” Mel drew her close, stroking her hair and her back and kissing her forehead as Bea shuddered, eyes closed.
“Monsieur Charmant?” Vale asked quietly, and Bea shook with a sob.
“That’s enough,” Mel said, eyebrows drawn down defiantly. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but she hasn’t been this bad in years. I think you need to leave now.”
“Bea, I’m so sorry—” I started.
“We’re going.” Vale took my hand and dragged me out, leaving the gold button winking on a threadbare rug.
The last thing I saw was Bea sobbing violently, silently, in Mel’s arms.
25
Back in my room, Vale made straight for the window.
“Who is this Monsieur Charmant?” I asked, rushing to catch his sleeve before he could slip away.
“A dark daimon. An apothecary. He’s the one who buys the tails.”
“What tails?”
He paused, one leg on either side of the sill, and sat on it like a pawing stallion. “Demi, bébé, stop playing dumb. You saw, just now. I watched it reach your eyes. When the daimons come to work in cabarets, they must have their tails amputated. The human men won’t touch them otherwise. Their magic comes from their tails; their poison, too. They go to a daimon chirurgeon to have it done and sell their tails by the pound to Monsieur Charmant.”
“What the hell does anyone want with a tail?”
He shook his head in disgust. “Magical properties. They powder it for use in potions and draughts. Use the leather to make grimoires or charms or boots. Sell the meat as a delicacy.”
I stared at him, jaw dropped. A fly actually, literally, seriously landed on my tongue, and I coughed and hacked and danced around until I’d spit it back out. “Are you shitting me?”
“Oh, bébé. You’ve only seen the sweet side of Mortmartre, and how sweet has it been? If this is Paradis, how do you imagine life goes in Enfer? Have you ever walked through the mouth of hell? There are daimons and humans with far darker desires than you could ever dream, and if they have the coppers, they can get whatever they need to find satisfaction.”
I dragged my feet to the bed and sat down heavily. All these beautiful, seemingly carefree girls around me, and they’d all basically given up a limb to be here. From the outside, they were as pretty and bright as songbirds, but on the inside, they were crippled things, their smiles as fake as the feathers they glued to their eyelashes. I had wanted so badly to taste fame that I had ignored their suffering and simply stepped among them and sometimes on them on my way to the top. A blud tear fell on my taffeta skirt, then another and another. Vale hurried from the window to put an arm around me.