for my deception, I expect you to pay for all my libations tonight.”
“As much as you can drink.”
“Then off to Pigalle we go.” He clapped his hands together. “Which isn’t something I’d ever thought I’d say.”
* * *
“Wait here,” I said to Julian as I slipped out of the hack. “I won’t be very long.”
It was very dark in Pigalle, the moon little more than a sliver in the night sky, but I still looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching, before going to the door and knocking. Moments later, I heard footsteps, and the door opened.
“I told you never to come back!”
Catherine tried to shut the door to her shop in my face, but I threw my shoulder against it, forcing my way in before Julian could take notice. “I have questions that need answering.”
“I don’t care. You need to leave.” The sticky scent of absinthe was heavy on her breath, and she was unsteady on her feet.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what I need to know.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Pulling her grimoire out of my satchel, I held it up. “I think you do.”
Catherine’s eyes bulged as she recognized the book. “Thief!” she shrieked, lunging at me as though to claw my eyes out.
I dodged her drunken swipe at my face easily, but prudence made me retreat a few paces lest she try again. “Here,” I said, holding the book out at arm’s length. “I’m giving it back.”
She snatched it out of my hand and clutched it against her chest. “You’re going to get me killed.”
“That isn’t my plan,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone about those spells, and I have no intention of doing so. If you help me.”
“Is that a threat?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to – her imagination would do my dirty work.
She glared at me for a long time, then the heat left her eyes and her shoulders slumped. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore. They know I’ve consorted with you.”
She was talking about the Regency. I wanted to press her for details, but my time was limited and I needed to extract everything she knew about the masked woman. Wary of another attack, I gently took her by the arm and led her to the back table. When I had her seated with the dog on her lap, I took the chair across from her.
“There’s a spell in that book for the making of a cream that wipes away age. I know you made it for a woman who at least once appeared to you hooded and wearing a mask, and that you perhaps cast other spells for her as well.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There is no point in denying it, Catherine. I pulled the memory from your own thoughts.”
I braced myself, expecting my admission to elicit another attack, but no anger flowed into her eyes. Only resignation. “I had no choice but to help her.”
“Who was she?” I asked.
Catherine shook her head. “I don’t know. She always appeared in some sort of disguise, and she took steps to alter her voice so that I couldn’t identify her.”
I swore silently. “Do know anything about her? Any clues to who she might be?”
“No.” The other witch gently stroked her dog’s back. “She approached me the first time nearly ten years ago – had heard I could make creams and lotions that would wipe the years off a woman’s face. She had the money to pay, and there was no harm in it. The spells I was using at the time were harmless combinations of herbs and earth. But they only worked so well. And they most certainly could not stop the passage of time.”
“So you turned to the dark arts?”
“I had no choice.” Her mouth twisted. “She told me that if I did not do what she wanted, she’d arrange for the Regent to discover I was a witch. That she’d see me burn. So I did it.” A single tear ran down her face. “It was difficult procuring the… the sacrifices I needed. And difficult disposing of the bodies. I was terrified I’d be caught, and I could feel myself changing. I felt corrupted, as though some insidious substance had got into my veins and was slowly working its way through my body. I can only imagine what they were doing to her mind with the quantities in which she used them.”