“So how do I nail this job interview?”
Vale turned, looking me up and down with a critical eye that seemed more for his personal enjoyment than any professional critique. “Beauty won’t be the issue. Neither will temperament or skill. What you must do is make Madame Sylvie feel that she can’t do without you. That if she doesn’t hire you, you will run along to the next cabaret and bring in such a crowd that she’ll stand in her office and weep.” He put a finger under my chin and tilted my head up, and I jerked my face away and snapped at his fingers in faux annoyance. He grinned. “That. That, right there. Dance the line between dangerous and desirous, and she won’t be able to turn you away.”
“And don’t kill anyone.”
“Well, obviously, ma petite. Professionals rarely eat their customers.”
Vale snatched another glass of wine from the tray of a passing daimon man dressed as a waiter. With a shouted “Merci!” he flipped a franc onto the platter as he led me away. I walked backward, watching the coin twirl for a moment, and my hand clamped down on Vale’s wrist and drew him to a halt.
“Wait, I thought you said you didn’t have any silvers.”
Vale grinned, light eyes dancing above the wine like footlights. “I don’t have any silvers. I do, however, have a limited supply of francs.”
“But you said . . .”
“I said if you delved too deeply into my business, I would gladly toss you into the sewer.” He looked around the room, posh and sensuous down to the carvings in the scarred bar. “Although I suppose up here, I’d have to settle for dumping some third-tier gin on your pretty head. Rest assured I don’t have enough for a third glass. Yet. Come, now. Madame Sylvie should be in her office, counting her own silvers. Let’s catch her while she’s still optimistic, yes?”
He reached for my hand, and if he felt the same strange chemistry I did at the touch, he didn’t show it. In moments, I understood that it was a utilitarian gesture, that it was the only way to stay connected as the crowd pressed dangerously close. We wove in and out among tuxedo-clad, overexcited gentlemen, and I pinched my nose closed against their extreme edibility. When I felt a hand caress my bustle, I had to bite back a snarl. Getting into a fight and throwing hot, tempting blood into the mix of posh black and white was no way to get a job.
Vale twitched a damask curtain aside and pulled me into the plush darkness of a hidden hallway. For just a moment, it was like being in the bowels of a great, velvety beast, and then another curtain moved aside to show a simple brick wall that looked like the backdrop for a mass murder by confetti cannon. Glitter, ribbons, and feathers littered the dusty boards, and a slender young daimon boy with bright blue skin hurried by, his arms laden with the biggest hoop skirts I’d ever seen.
We halted before an unmarked door.
“Any last words of encouragement?” I asked.
Vale squeezed my hand and let go. “Don’t fail.”
7
Vale knocked on the door, three quick raps. An annoyed sigh echoed within, followed by the sound of a heavy bag filled with metal clanking on wood.
“Entrez!”
He squeezed my shoulder briefly and opened the door, holding out an arm to usher me inside. A large, heavy desk dominated the elegant office, framed by thick velvet curtains and a window of opaque black glass. The aging daimon sitting at the desk reminded me of a ballerina in slow decline. Her erect posture, swanlike neck, slender carriage, and studied grace marked her instantly as a past performer, and I relaxed just a bit. Someone who knew what it was like to be onstage would be far easier to deal with than someone whose only skills lay in managing artists as if they were as foolish as wayward kittens.
Still, the well-powdered and stern lines around her mouth spoke of discipline and snobbery and a woman who didn’t take rebellion lightly. To almost anyone else, she might have appeared human, with her dark hair and milk-and-roses complexion. But I could smell her, and she was daimon through and through.
Vale tilted his head. “Bonsoir, Madame Sylvie.”
She tilted her head in almost mocking return. Even though she was seated, she still seemed to regard us from on high over the top of her half-moon glasses.
“Bonsoir, Monsieur Hildebrand. What have you brought me?”
Her voice was cultured, careful, and sultry. Madame Sylvie must have been an unstoppable force of nature when she was younger. Even now, she was in total command of the room. I couldn’t help imagining what would happen if she and Criminy were to meet. Would the cabaret explode?
“Madame, this is Demi Ward, recently of Sangland. She wishes to secure a place in your cabaret.”
“We don’t take Bludmen, fool. You know that. Why are you wasting my time?”
Dipping a hand into the bag sitting on her desk, she rattled the coins within and raised an eyebrow at us. Vale looked at me expectantly and mouthed, “Your turn.”
I took a deep breath to center myself. In one smooth leap, I landed on top of Madame Sylvie’s desk, balancing on my toes and fluidly transitioning into a backbend. Walking my hands under my skirts as I had for Vale, I lifted each leg into the air with practiced sureness until I held a perfect handstand. Balancing on just one hand, legs spread and skirts aflutter, I plucked Madame Sylvie’s quill from its stand, dipped it into her ink, and wrote, “Contortionist extraordinaire, at your service.”
“How fascinating.” She snatched the quill from my hand and stuck it back in place. “But this is a daimon cabaret. Try Darkside instead.”
“I’m the most tame Bludman you’ll ever meet. I dare you to test it.”
“She did walk through your crowd without so much as a drop of drool, Sylvie.”