“Outside?”
She spits the word as if it’s poison.
I incline my head in the direction of the street. “Oui. Outside these walls. I have a surprise for you.”
“I cannot leave. The place doesn’t run without me.”
“Everyone here is too afraid of you to mess up while you’re gone.” I tug her towards the velvet curtain. “You can leave for one night.”
Her mouth settles in a prim line. I’m certain that she’s going to say no, but then she flashes me one of her rare, dazzling smiles. She slips her arm beneath mine.
“Very well. Let’s get this over with.”
I practically sprint outside, dragging Arabella behind me before she can change her mind. The night is clear, the sky a brilliant lapis blue, matching the jewels on her necklace. Without the cloud of opium smoke and the acrid, aniseed scent of free-flowing absinthe, fresh smells assault me. Warm bread and sweet pastries from street sellers, the cloying perfume of a gaggle of dandies heading into one of the other Montmartre cabarets, the crisp tang of dew-soaked flowers from crowded window boxes.
And sewage. Always sewage.
This is Paris, after all – a city of romance tinged with harsh reality.
We stroll along the Seine. Here, in the working-class immigrant heart of Paris, few people give a second glance to a white man strolling with a Black woman. Arabella relaxes a little. She tells me about fishing with her father in the village where she grew up. She doesn’t say where that village is located, but she describes fierce, warm sunlight and a river so wide and deep that it felt like an ocean. “I was hopeless. I only ever caught one fish. It was about the size of my pinkie finger. My father fed it to a sweet ginger cat who used to hang around his market stall. The cat got violently sick the next day.” She laughs. “I miss that cat.”
The further we walk from La Petite Mort, the more she smiles. The moonlight kisses her ebony skin, making it shimmer. The jewels at her neck sparkle so brightly that heads turn on the street to bask in their brilliance, but to me, they are dull and pale when compared to the sparkle in her eyes.
“Why did you agree to come out with me tonight?” I ask, emboldened by the stars.
She looks out across the water to the glittering lights of the city. “Today is my… birthday.” There’s an odd hesitation in her voice.
“Bon anniversaire, ma chérie.”
“It’s not a happy day for me. Some years ago, a terrible thing happened to me on this day.” Her voice is cold, emotionless. She doesn’t look away from the water. “I cannot dance on my birthday. The music leaves me. I did not wish to sit in the dark and think of sad and evil things, so instead, I’m here with you.”
She turns to me then, and the gold ring around her dark eyes is ablaze.
I tug her to me, pulling her against my body. My muscles burn with the desire to reach back through time and fix this.
“If I ever find out who hurt you,” I growl, my lips against her hair. “I willburnthem.”
“I have nothing to fear from them anymore,” she says, but her shoulders shake all the same.
We stay like that, my lips pressed to her soft, curly hair, the scarab beetle at the centre of her collar thrumming against my throat. Our hearts beat together through our ribs – mine races ahead of hers, spurred on by my rage and impotency.
I wish I could be the villain she needs.
She pulls away, breaking the spell that holds us, and drags me along the riverbank. Arabella stops to admire a painter as he works, hunched, shivering beneath a threadbare wool coat. When she realises it’s Claude Monet painting scenes of people along the river, she plants a kiss on his cheek and orders me to buy him a loaf of bread and some cheese.
“Look.” Claude shows us his work – a river scene rendered in dabs of colour, like prisms of light trapped in the paint. “I’m doing as you suggested, Gideon. I’m creating the impressionist movement. But still, no one will buy my paintings.”
Looking at his work, I can kind of see why. Certainly, the colours are vivid and the composition dynamic, capturing a sense of fleeting movement…
But will people want to hang these childish daubs of light in their homes?
Arabella stands in front of the canvas for many moments, and I wish I could take every cent in Lucien’s purse and buy her all of Monet’s paintings. “You are a painter of enchantments, Monsieur,” she says, her voice choked with emotion. “Don’t ever hide your magic away.”
“I won’t, Mademoiselle Macquart.” He winks at me as he returns to his work. “You two enjoy your evening. It’s good to see you both outen plein air.”
It’s good to be out with her, to know that Arabella exists outside the walls of La Petite Mort, and she isn’t merely a dream conjured by my weary, desperate mind. But dream creature or real woman, she has caught the eye of Lucien Vega. I do not know whether Lucien believes the stories of the collar’s magic or whether he simply wants to possess the jewels, but the why doesn’t matter. Lucien requires his prize, or else he’ll take it from her flesh, and he’ll make me watch as he carves her up like apoulet rôti.
I can only hope that if I pull this off, Arabella won’t need to know I’m the one who stole her jewels.
