A Darkness Strangeand Lovely

by Susan Dennard

  “Um . . .” I gulped, searching my brain for any topic that wasn’t Marcus. I only needed a few minutes to get a solid story in order. A story that carefully avoided any mention of Oliver. I cleared my throat. “Can we possibly order dinner first?”

  “Right!” She scooted off the bed. “I promised you a baguette. I’ll get you some food, and then you can tell me what’s going on. And then”—she waved to my enormous yawn—“I’d say it’s time for bed.”

  I patted my mouth until the yawn passed. “That sounds absolutely perfect.”

  She grinned, her eyes crinkling. “I’m glad you’re here, Eleanor.”

  I grinned back. “And I’m glad to be here.”

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, Jie woke me with her usual finesse.

  “Up!” She jabbed my ribs. “The sun has been high for hours, yeah?”

  I cracked open an eyelid. “How do you have so much energy?”

  “’Cos it’s the middle of the day!” She pushed her face in mine. “Joseph and I have already fought one Dead—”

  I bolted upright, almost hitting her chin. “The Dead? Les Morts have returned?” I glanced out the window; the sun was not high. “What time is it?”

  “Eight.” Jie snickered at my stricken face. “Early for you, but les Morts wait for no one.”

  Jie assisted me with dressing, and as she buttoned my gown, I couldn’t help but wonder where Oliver might be—though I supposed he had managed this long by himself. One night alone in Paris wouldn’t kill him.

  Once Jie and I had pinned up my hair, we marched into the lab. A tall man with skin the color of hazelnuts stood over the middle worktable. He looked as handsome as always—no hair out of place, no wrinkle in sight.

  “Joseph!” I leaped toward him.

  He spun around, his face splitting with the biggest grin I’d ever seen the Creole wear. “Miss Fitt.” He swooped into a bow.

  “Now, now,” I scolded, “call me Eleanor.”

  He lifted, his eyes twinkling. “It is so wonderful to see you, Eleanor. The last time I saw you, you saved my life.” His hand moved to his left cheek, where jagged white scars puckered—scars that could only be the remnants of Marcus’s attack. “I must say you look as lovely as ever.”

  Heat flooded my face. “Joseph, I had no idea you could be so charming.”

  He spread his hands, laughing. “It is this Paris air. La joie de vivre.” He hooked his foot around a stool and slid it out. “Sit. Talk!”

  My stomach twisted hollowly. “As long as I can still eat after . . .”

  Jie snorted. “Breakfast’ll still be there.”

  I gave her a playful glower, but as I moved to sit, the view outside caught my eye. “Paris!” I darted to the window, my mouth falling open. “Look, it’s Paris! In the sunlight! And oh, it does look exactly like the prints.”

  Joseph chuckled and joined me at the window. “We have a lovely view, non? Here”—he unlatched the window and pushed it wide—“lean out and take a look.”

  I bent halfway out and gawked at all that lay before me. Directly below was a cobblestone street packed with carriages and carts and people—so many people. Smells of horse and sweat wafted up; and for a moment, like last night, I was briefly struck by how similar it was to a Philadelphia street except . . .

  I strained to push myself farther out, to hear the rolling rhythm of the language. It floated over the clopping horses and rattling wheels, and that wasn’t like Philadelphia.

  Nor was that breeze whipping over the city and tugging me out. Come, it seemed to say. Come see the city.

  Jie stepped beside me. “Those are the gardens I told you about.” She pointed to an iron fence across the street. Beyond its bars were red-tipped maples and chestnuts swaying in that playful wind. “If you look that way,” she went on, directing me to look left, “you can see all the flowers and hedges, yeah?”

  I followed her finger until my eyes met manicured bushes and perfectly organized rows of flowers. “Yes,” I breathed. “And what is that beyond it?”

  At the far end of the garden was an enormous, hollowed-out structure. Its roof was missing and its walls charred.

  “That,” Joseph said, “is the Tuileries Palace. It was destroyed in a fire several years ago.”

  “And that?” I pointed right, to the other end of the gardens, where a giant, needle-like column poked up toward the sky.

  “That is the Place de la Concorde,” Joseph answered. “It is an Egyptian obelisk . . .” His words faded off, so I glanced back at him—and found his eyes locked on my right hand.

  I slowly drew back through the window. “You can ask about it.”

  Rose patches appeared on Joseph’s cheeks. “May I see it?”

  “Of course.” As I slid off my glove and extended my hand toward him, I prayed he didn’t have many questions. My reluctance to share the truth was somehow even greater this morning than it had been last night. Why muddy the clear waters? Things were going so well.

  And heavens, how I had missed Joseph and Jie. Missed having friends who liked me exactly as I was . . . Besides, I told myself, you are making it easier for them too. No need to worry the Spirit-Hunters when they had an entire city of people to protect.

  “Kaptivan,” Joseph breathed. He inspected my palm like a fortune-teller at the fair. “How did you make this, Eleanor?”

  I licked my lips. “I-I’m not sure how. It was bothering me . . . hurting when spirits were near, so I just, um . . . called to it. And it came.”

  He squinted almost imperceptibly. “Surely it was not so simple.”

  “Perhaps not, but I . . . I can’t really remember the details.”

  A flicker of something passed over his face. Anger, perhaps, except that I’d never seen Joseph angry—at least not with me. “I urge you to remember the details, Eleanor. It is very important.”

  “I-I’ll think about it.” I glanced off to the right and withdrew my hand. “Maybe I can remember something.”

  “Hey,” Jie said, fidgeting with her hair clasp. “I’m gonna go down and order breakfast, yeah?”

  Joseph nodded, and I took the opportunity to bolt to the table and waiting stool. “Jie told me you battled a corpse today.”

  “Wi.” Joseph closed the window and followed me to the worktable. Sharp lines puckered his brow, and I noticed new creases around his eyes. He looked so very tired.

  “This corpse was our first in quite some time,” he continued. “It was one of the Hungry, as they always seem to be. She was a baker’s wife, and the poor man . . . his son died a few weeks ago, and now he must deal with this too. Needless to say, he is devastated.”

  “Jie only told me the basics about les Morts.” I pretended to focus very hard on adjusting my skirts around my stool. “What exactly is happening?”

  He eased onto the stool beside me. “Before we came, there had been forty-eight walking corpses. This was why we were called in, and within the first week of our arrival, we encountered twenty-two more. Seventy Dead in all. Then . . . nothing for the past three weeks—until this morning, that is.”

  “And they’ve all been murdered?”

  “Yes.” He sighed, and his shoulders sank a few inches. “We are at a loss for who might be responsible, though. Not a single corpse has appeared in the same place. From the rich to the poor, no class has been untouched—and there is no way of predicting when or where the next person will vanish. Nor when or where that person will reappear as one of the Dead—or the Hungry, rather, for they are not attached to a necromancer. Recall that a corpse not controlled by a necromancer is free and desperate only for its next meal of soul.”

  My gut twisted and I fidgeted with my gloves. “Well, what if you kept track of all missing persons? Would that help you predict the next victim?”

  “The police do provide us with a new list each week, but there are over two million people in Paris. Most missing people are completely unrelated to our murders. . . .” His voice trailed o
ff, and I realized his attention was focused back on my phantom hand. And the wrinkles in his brow were even deeper.

  So before he could direct the conversation to my magic, I blurted, “Oh, Joseph, I almost forgot about Marcus!”

  His eyes leaped to my face. “What about him?”

  “He came to Philadelphia. That’s why I left—why I’m here. Marcus wants the pages from Le Dragon Noir and the letters Elijah left inside.” I went on to explain how I’d seen yellow eyes, how Mama had thought she’d seen Elijah, and how I’d been forced to flee on the next steamer bound for France.

  I however did not mention Oliver. “Then I came here,” I finished at last. “To you, for I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “It was right for you to come.” Joseph massaged the scars on his cheek, his back stiff and straight. “Do you believe that Marcus will follow you? Will he come to Paris?”

  “I . . . I think so. He must know I have the letters, and . . .” I bit my lip. By omitting Oliver, I’d had to omit the Hell Hounds, and that meant I was going to have to tell a lie now. But only a little one—one I could take back later. “I believe . . . that is to say, I’m rather certain Marcus saw me board the steamer. He knows I have left Philadelphia.”

  “Good.” Joseph dropped his hand. His scars were tinged with pink from rubbing. “I hope Marcus comes. Is it possible he might have boarded with you?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “If Marcus had been on the steamer, I would have known. He would have sought me out.”

  “True.” His gaze shifted to the window. “Do you perhaps know when the next steamer departs?”

  I frowned, trying to remember what the ticket clerk in Philadelphia had said. “The next direct boat won’t leave for another few days. As for an indirect boat, I haven’t any idea.”

  “Nonetheless, he will be at least a week behind you. At best.” His lips twisted up in a slight, private smile. “But when he comes, I will destroy him. This time, Eleanor, I will be prepared.”

  Chills slid down my body, and a fresh wave of desire—of hunger to face Marcus once and for all—clawed at my insides. And with it came the faintest flicker of magic, warm in my chest. I almost smiled.

  But then a thought occurred to me, something I hadn’t considered yet was possible. “What if Marcus does not follow? What if he stays in Philadelphia, Joseph?” And uses more magic and spells to reach me from afar.

  “If Marcus does not follow,” Joseph answered, his voice barely audible, “then there is only one solution, Eleanor.”

  “What?”

  “We will go to him.”

  The moment Joseph and I reached the bottom of the hotel’s main stairwell on our way to breakfast, a high-pitched squeal broke out.

  I jolted, yet before I could calm my heart, we were set upon by a flock of brightly clad girls in all manner of flounce and lace.

  “Monsieur Boyer! Monsieur Boyer!”

  Pastels and curls swarmed around us, and with no warning, Joseph was yanked away from me. Two breaths later and I was left standing alone, mouth agape.

  “Aha!” exclaimed a male voice. “Finally we have found you!”

  I jerked my gaze to the foyer. The speaker was an expensively dressed gentleman. He moved down the stairs with the aid of a cane and the stooped posture of an old man—though he couldn’t have been any older than my mother. His dark mustache shone so brightly in the electric lamps that I was certain oil would drip off the long hairs and splatter on his white collar.

  On his arm walked a petite, middle-aged woman. She was a full foot shorter than the man, yet if you took into account her enormous coiffure of onyx-black hair, she almost reached his crooked height.

  The couple entered into the foyer, and the man bowed gingerly before me.

  “I am Monsieur Frédéric LeJeunes, Marquis du Bazillac. And you, Mademoiselle, must be Eleanor Fitt.” He took my hand and dropped a kiss on the air above it. “Enchanté.”

  “It i-is a pleasure,” I stammered, thrown off by the realization that this was the Spirit-Hunters’ generous benefactor. The exact man I had to woo if I wanted a place to stay.

  “Zis is Madame Renée Marineaux,” the Marquis added, nodding to the woman.

  She beamed at me, making her angular face almost pretty and her hazel eyes almost golden. It was quite a stunning effect on a woman who seemed unimposing—perhaps even plain—at first glance. “How do you do?” she murmured.

  I bobbed a polite curtsy.

  “I was told,” the Marquis began, “by Mademoiselle Chen that you are taking breakfast now, non?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Then you must—how do you say?—join us. It is right zis way.” He motioned happily to a set of open doors beyond the foyer, and I couldn’t help but notice how odd his cane was. And beautiful. The handle was made of ivory and carved into the shape of an open hand.

  Dragging my eyes from it, I bared a polite smile. “Thank you, sir. Breakfast would be perfect—I cannot wait to try all the French delicacies.”

  He barked delightedly and set off toward the restaurant. I glanced back at Joseph, but all I could see was a top hat floating above a sea of feathery bonnets. So I moved after the Marquis. I suppose those are the girls Jie mentioned. . . .

  “Where are you residing?” the Marquis asked, cutting into my thoughts.

  “To be honest, sir, I stayed with Miss Chen last night.” I fluttered my lashes in what I hoped was a sweet and helpless way. “I came here quite suddenly and have nowhere else to stay.”

  “Then you must take a room here,” said Madame Marineaux, moving to my side. She spoke with a faint accent—though it did not sound French. “The Marquis is friends with the owner, you see, and he is taking care of these amazing Spirit-Hunters. You must allow him the privilege of hosting you as well.” She shot the Marquis a raised eyebrow. “Surely that can be arranged, Monsieur?”

  “Mais oui!” The Marquis stomped his cane against the floor. “I will take care of everyzing.”

  “Thank you very much.” I gave them both a grateful grin. “Merci beaucoup.”

  Moments later, we entered the restaurant. Pistachio-colored curtains lay over ceiling-high windows, and crystal chandeliers hung like icicles. A navy-uniformed waiter with a rigid posture and even stiffer mustache helped me sit as the Marquis assisted Madame Marineaux. Then, after taking a flurry of orders from the Marquis, the waiter glided off.

  The Marquis set his strange cane against the table, allowing me full view of the gnarled ivory fingers, and I could not help but stare. The detail that met my eyes was amazing: the fingers were tipped with long, sharp fingernails, and the lines carved into the palm were astonishingly lifelike. But it was the fingernails that held my attention. They seemed dangerous, yet alluring. Exotic, I thought.

  “Ah, you are admiring my cane?” LeJeunes tugged at his mustache, grinning. “It is magnifique, non?”

  “Yes,” I said warmly. “I have never seen anything like it. Where did you get it?”

  “From me,” Madame Marineaux answered, a pleased flush spotting her cheeks. “I am glad you like it. I found it on my travels. When I was in India, I visited a small village for which this symbol”—she dipped her head to the cane—“is considered good luck. And it has certainly brought the Marquis luck.” Her gaze landed on LeJeunes with fondness.

  “Oui, oui. It has.” He clapped his hands. “Such success in zee Senat elections, and I hope”—he winked in my direction—“I will have the same success in zee presidential elections. All thanks to my Madame and my . . . what is zee word? Good luck charm.” He placed a gloved hand tenderly over Madame Marineaux’s.

  I shifted in my seat, intrigued by the Madame. “You have done much traveling?”

  “Oh yes.” She smiled, her hazel eyes crinkling. “All over the world.” She angled her head to one side. “But surely that is of no interest to a young girl such as yourself.” She gave a tinkling laugh. “Usually all the girls I meet wish to speak of parties and fashion!
”

  “Oh no!” I cried, shaking my head. “Your travels sound fascinating. My dream is to do just that, actually—to see the world.”

  “You have made a good start!” The Marquis tapped the table, his smile spreading beyond the edges of his mustache. “You are in the City of Light. The best conversation and the finest parties are to be found here. La joie de vivre, Mademoiselle! Society and museums and lovely sights. You must see all of it while you are visiting your friends.”

  At that moment our waiter strutted back into the room, pushing a trolley laden with breads, pastries, and richly scented coffee. As he laid out plate after plate, the Marquis motioned for me to serve myself. So I did, grabbing two croissants, a tart drizzled in chocolate, and a generous helping of butter.

  After the Marquis had filled his own plate—it would seem he had a fondness for anything with cherries—he turned his eyes to me. “I have an idea, Mademoiselle! We are hosting a ball to celebrate all zee success our Spirit-Hunters have had.”

  I froze in the middle of slathering butter on my first croissant. A ball? It seemed a dreadful time for a ball if les Morts roamed the streets.

  “You must attend,” the Marquis urged. “Everyone who is anyone will go.”

  Somehow, I grew even stiffer. It was bad enough that the Spirit-Hunters would have to take time off to go to the ball, but me as well? I couldn’t possibly attend such a gala when I had only one dress in my possession. Yet before I could protest, Madame Marineaux clapped excitedly. “That is a grand idea, Monsieur!” She turned to me. “You absolutely must come, Mademoiselle Fitt! It is in two nights.”

  I set down my croissant and wiped my hands on my napkin. “I-I would love to, but I fear I have brought nothing suitable to wear to such an affair.”

  Madame Marineaux clucked her tongue. “Do not be silly. Such a minor inconvenience. Why, I know a dressmaker with premade creations. She can tailor something for your, eh . . .” Her eyes dropped to my ample waist and then to my crammed plate. “For your needs.”

  Heat flooded my face, and I realized that the Madame had nothing more than half—only half—a pastry on her own plate.