“So you’re just going to take her place?” I sputtered. “That’s going to be your life’s work?”
Ruby patted my cheek, not gently. “It’s a gift, Tish. She gave me youth, strength, power, life, a real purpose. I’m going to enjoy this.”
“No! Criminy did that. Criminy gave you that gift. The witch poisoned you!”
“Her poison was her gift. He was just the conduit.”
Rage sang through me, and I snatched my changeling grandmother by her cravat. “So you’re abandoning me in order to become an evil witch?”
She untangled my fingers from the fabric. “Baby birds got to leave the nest sometime, sugar.” Then, teeth clenched, she growled, “And don’t grab me again unless you want to snatch back a nub.”
Beside me, Criminy chuckled softly. “I see where you get it, love.”
“What? The ability to be annoying?”
“Your power.”
The only noise was the crackling of the fire and the slow drip of the witch’s blood.
“I might understand why you did what you did,” I finally said, “and I guess I’m happy for you. But I don’t forgive you. You’re not welcome in the caravan.”
“But my strong man!” Criminy protested.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
I started the long walk out of the tunnel, back to whatever sunshine London could provide.
By the time we returned to Demi’s cabaret, it was late at night. More than one person had passed closer to me on the street, concerned for my health and safety until they saw my teeth . . . and then ran away for dear life. For the first time, I was the scary thing haunting the cobbles, and I didn’t care. As if sensing my mood, Criminy followed at a safe distance, close enough to help me if I faltered or got lost but far enough to avoid provoking my rage. Ruby and Torno had simply stood there as we left, saying nothing. Tears coursed down my cheeks, and I dashed them away. I’d lost my friend, my grandmother, and my last real tie to my life on Earth. The woman who’d bandaged my wounds as a child and protected me from Jeff as an adult had become a stranger—and a cruel, dangerous one at that. As Criminy had always warned me, Hepzibah’s magic came with a steep price.
Still, something about being a Bludman now just made me shrug at how things had ended. My Nana—Ruby—had made her choice. Even if it had been influenced by an evil witch’s potion, the choice had to be hers. That was the risk I’d taken, bringing her here. My conscience, at least, was clear. But I already missed the hell out of her. Criminy and I were alive, and that was the most important thing. That and the flutter I imagined in my belly.
I was so hungry we had to stop twice for blood on the way back to the cabaret. We chose far nicer sip shops, this time.
As it was now nighttime, the front doors of the Demimonde were thrown open, flanked by beautiful daimons in resplendent costumes. Their professional masks faltered for only a moment as I dragged my sorry carcass into the foyer and darted through the door behind the Employees Only sign. I met no one, thank goodness, and undressed woodenly before crawling into bed, clumsy and pathetic as a salt-sprinkled slug. Our room upstairs was less posh than the one where Criminy had lain, near death, sprawled among Tsarina Ahnastasia’s fur pillows. I didn’t care. I needed time alone in the darkness to process all I’d been through.
No. That wasn’t what I needed at all.
“Criminy?” I whispered, and the door opened quietly as he slipped in.
“What do you wish, love?” His voice was a sweet whisper in the dark, a tenderness backed by the frantic orchestra and the pounding feet of the dancers below.
“Just hold me,” I said. “Make it right again.”
A low chuckle was followed by the grunt of him pulling off his boots and the thunk of them on the floor, followed by the soft whump of his coat and the thump of his hat, all the little noises I knew so well from six happy years in a train car by his side. He exhaled as he always did when untying his cravat; we both preferred it worn loose and rakish, as I’d seen him for the very first time in a locket in my own world. That locket was a charred chunk of nothing now, back in the caravan, its limning of Criminy all burned away. But who needed a palm-sized painting when the man himself was lifting the covers and sliding in beside me, his arms curling possessively around me and drawing me close so I could settle, like a panicked horse, to the steady thump of his sweetly beating heart?
“Everything is right, love,” he said into my ear. He smelled of victory after a bloody fight, of rage and a predator’s musk mixed with red wine and crushed vines and copper. I exhaled and snuggled back against him, matching my breathing to his. One of his hands found my belly and settled there, soft as a bird.