“Don’t, bébé. We all choose our paths. This is a safer place than most.”
“But Paris seems so . . . sweet and simple. So clean. You would think that when the people don’t have to eat, there wouldn’t be so much wretchedness.”
“The humans still have to eat, and the daimons need the humans. But daimons have other needs, too. Some turn to drink and gambling and get addicted to absinthe and dark magic. Every creature walking has a fire burning inside that demands to be fed. And for many of the girls here, a few pounds of flesh and magic was a small price to pay for freedom.”
“Are they paid for their tails, at least?”
“They’re paid very well. And their clients pay them. And Madame Sylvie pays them. The girls who do well will eventually have enough to leave and find new lives.”
“Promise?”
A genuine laugh surprised me. “Bébé, in just a few moments, we’re going to pass by a dollmaker’s shop, a dressmaker, a stationer. You’ll see dancing schools and open-air painting studios and tiny daimons with swishing tails carrying books wrapped with leather belts. A few years of hard work in the cabaret can buy a lifetime of comfort for an entire family, if a girl is savvy. Outside of Mortmartre, real life gets lived in Paris, I promise you.”
I sniffled and wiped my nose on the handkerchief he handed me. “In a few moments?”
“You have several hours before tonight’s show. We’re going to go talk to Monsieur Charmant. See if we can’t learn more about that button. I want to know who tried to kidnap you. And if he has friends who have been stealing innocent girls, I want to find them.” His hand curled around mine, the limp handkerchief dangling between us. “And we will end this together, you and I.”
* * *
Since arriving via the sewers, I’d seen many different doors to my cabaret home. I’d hurried out the back door of Paradis. I’d been paraded out the front door with movie-star pomp. But I’d never hitched up my voluminous skirts and clambered out the window, as Vale did. Now that I knew there was a convenient ledge that led to an easily climbed drain spout appointed with handy gargoyles, I might take this route more often. In fact, it was so easy to climb into and out of my window into a dark, anonymous alley that I couldn’t help wondering if the building had been designed for just that purpose.
Vale shimmied down the drain spout first, and when he looked up, I was more glad than ever for my bloomers. Just because he’d seen me en déshabillé in a dark room didn’t mean I wanted to give him the usual cabaret girl’s view from the street. As soon as I’d stepped off the last gargoyle, he offered me his arm and led me down the streets of Paris at a quick pace.
And he was right about the charming shops and studios we passed. In between the cabarets, with their gaudy signs and lights, I saw a ballet class for little girl daimons, a toy shop of handmade puppets, and an atelier filled with paint-splattered artists arrayed in a circle around a live and angry bludmare stamping against the wooden floors to which it had been tethered with bell-covered ropes. Banners and pennants were strung between the tall buildings, and bright posters fluttered against brick walls. A red daimon who reminded me of Luc from the caravan strolled by playing a violin, and I checked to see if his tail was intact, which it was. Of course. It was the women who had to give up their limbs for art and sustenance.
We passed Enfer, the darker twin of Paradis, and I gaped at the lurid mouth carved around the deep-set door. A shiver ran over me. I didn’t want to see how horrible Mortmartre could be. Unless Cherie was involved. But surely, if she was in Enfer, we would know?
As if reading my mind, Vale said, “I checked. She’s not down there. It’s dark, but it is not that dark.”
Around the corner, I saw more doppelgänger cabarets from my art history books. Le Chat Noir and even Moulin Bleu, which was oddly small and cramped-looking. As we turned down another alley, I recognized the narrowing brick walls and increasing shadows that signaled every city’s Darkside. I’d only seen two such entrances, with Criminy’s red-gloved hand clamped firmly around my wrist. He had wanted me to see what horrors the cities held for our kind, and I had only entered the spiked gates of two pathetic little towns before I chose to sit out his errands to the Bludman’s district of magic shops and bloodsellers.
Vale hurried under the sign, but I had to stop and look up. This arch was stone and resembled the gates of a cemetery, with black-streaked gryphons flanking the sides of a rusted iron gate. All were designed to intimidate.