Susan Dennard - A Darkness Strange and Lovely

A female squeal burst out behind me. “Monsieur Sheridan!”

I whirled around, and my stomach flew into my throat. Rushing toward us, all smiles and perfect couture, was beautiful girl after beautiful girl. Their lashes batted so wildly I thought they might be having conniptions.

Daniel stood, clearly bewildered as the array of silly girls came nearer and nearer. And though this was easily the worst nightmare I could ever conjure, it was also an opportunity to escape Daniel’s temper.

So as fast as humanly possible, I fled for the restaurant. Yet I was almost immediately intercepted —by Joseph and Jie.

“Eleanor,” Joseph said, beckoning for me to follow him out of the lobby and into the relative quiet of the main stairwell. He and Jie paused at the bottom step, and then he turned a hard eye on me. “You did not come to the lab last night.”

“I’m sorry,” I said tiredly. “I did not get in until quite late.”

“Did you have a nice time?” Jie asked, sliding her hands into her pockets. “Was the Madame’s house really—”

“You could have come this morning,” Joseph cut in. “It is imperative that we fix your magic as soon as possible.”

“Fix it?” I repeated. “It’s not as if it is broken.”

He dipped his chin, watching me from the tops of his eyes. “That is precisely the problem, Eleanor. It is broken, and yet you act as if what you did yesterday was of no consequence.”

“What are you talking about?” I glanced at Jie, but she merely shrugged—and looked incredibly uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. “What did I do yesterday?”

“You used your necromancy.” Joseph’s voice was curt. “You used your own power to stop that corpse.”

“But I stopped the corpse, didn’t I?”

“Not properly, non.”

“Properly?” My voice came out shrill with annoyance. “What should I have done, pray tell?”

“Not relied on self-power.”

“Joseph,” Jie said, pleading, “you’re being a little rough on her, don’t you think?”

“She knows the dangers of self-power,” Joseph replied, not taking his eyes off mine. “We had discussed it only moments before the Dead alarm rang.” He leaned toward me, his voice low.

“Eleanor, your body is so accustomed to using its own magic, you are automatically reacting with spells. Your body wants to use its power, and this is very dangerous. If this is how you respond when a single corpse is present, I shudder to imagine what will happen when we finally face Marcus. You must resist your magic. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I snapped, my temper flaring to life. “Though it might help if you would teach me how to actually do that, wouldn’t it?”

“And I will—as soon as I return from this assembly.”

I bit back a groan. “Fine. Let me know when you have returned from your assembly. Now, if you will excuse me, I have breakfast to finish.” Then, with nothing more than an apologetic smile for Jie, I stomped off to the restaurant—and found Laure ordering a fresh pot of coffee.

“Where ’ave you been?” she demanded.

I ignored the question, shifting from foot to foot as I asked, “Would you care to see my room?” I wanted something—anything—to distract me from the last twenty minutes. “We can have the rest of our meal sent up. I have a lovely balcony.”

Laure hesitated. “Is this to escape that young man—”

“No.” I moaned.

Her lips pursed with disbelief.

“All right, perhaps it is. Now come with me. Please?”

With a smug grin, she complied, and soon enough, we had escaped the first floor.

Yet of course, as my luck would have it, taking breakfast on the balcony proved to be a colossal mistake. For an inhumanly long hour I was not only cursed with a perfect view of Joseph as he left the hotel, but with all the Parisians who came to see the enormous balloon.

And worse—far worse—all the Parisian ladies who came to see its pilot.

At the first tap against my bedroom door that afternoon—hours after Laure had left—I swung the door wide, already saying “Land sakes, I thought the world had forgotten about . . .” I let the words die, for it was only the dressmaker with a frazzled assistant and a wealth of fabric in tow. My shoulders dropped. Had I alienated Jie by snapping at Joseph? I had searched for her after Laure left, but according to the man at the hotel’s front desk, she was away “on business.”

The dressmaker and her assistant bustled inside, and without even asking, they dragged me to the center of the room and began to undress me down to my petticoats. Once my gown was off, they set me atop a stool and then subjected me to a tirade of pins, needles, and lace. Madame Marineaux—true to her word—wanted me to have a magnificent ball gown in an eye-catching scarlet. The Marquis had already paid for everything: the silk, the gown, and the hard work.

I couldn’t help but love it. It was neither a color nor a cut I would have selected for myself, yet the low neckline accentuated my feminine figure, and the scarlet made my skin positively glow.

“That dress suits you,” a man drawled.

Oliver.

I spun on my stool, startling the assistant, and found the spry demon dressed in his usual charcoal suit, his stolen top hat clasped in his hands and his yellow eyes shining with mischief.

“How did you get in?”

“The door wasn’t locked, and”—he bared his teeth in a grin—“I’m quite stealthy.”

“Well, you cannot be here,” I said over the annoyed clucking of the dressmaker. “I’m half dressed

—”

“Yet fully covered.”

“—and you’re a man—”

“Some might argue otherwise.”

“—in a lady’s bedroom.”

“Though obviously these women don’t care.” He motioned to the dressmaker and assistant, who were far more concerned with the effects of my unexpected twirl than with the pretty-faced young man lounging in my doorway.

“You should have knocked,” I added with a glare. “And where have you been for the last two days?”

“It’s barely been more than a day, El. Stop being dramatic.”

I growled as the dressmaker tapped my ribs. I flung up my arms so she could mercilessly stab me with more pins.

“I’ve been working, as agreed.” Oliver draped his hands behind his head. “Gathering clues, keeping an eye out for Marcus . . .”

“Marcus?” Fear—and hope—awoke inside me. “Is he here?”

“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.