It was unlike her mother not to say more about spiritual matters, rarer still that Ree actuallywantedto know more. “Maman,” she said quietly. “Are we…are we in danger?”
“Ree, my love, we are two black women endeavoring to live free in New Orleans.” Marie sighed deeply. “We are always in danger.”
Chapter Four
Ree
That night, Ree slipped unseen into the cool dark of the Laveau hairdressing parlor. Although she knew her mother was asleep at home, she couldn’t help but hurry through the shadowed space, her only source of light the faint blushing glow of Marie’s love potions on the far shelf.
Ree let herself into the back room and began searching through the little chest tucked beneath her mother’s maple desk. The brass clasp had been left undone, which meant her mother had every intention of returning to it. Although she had her task for Marcel, Ree couldn’t help but remember that unease she’d felt earlier when she’d mentioned the Harbinger to her mother.The spirits play riddles on us for sport and will sooner make fools of us if we allow them the chance.But as Ree searched the chest and sifted through Marie’s belongings, she knew if she were caught, she could not blame the spirits now for being a fool for a friend. Her mother would blame only her.
Finally, Ree found what she was searching for—a small vial with a gray cork. There was less than an ounce of aurum in the vial, little more than a sprinkle of salt. The aurum itself could be mistaken for powdered pewter but had the strangest touch of gold under the firelight. In New Orleans, the aurum trade was rivaled only by theslave trade, both of which came from the far-off shores of Africa. It was the single greatest irony she knew—that both were stolen from their homeland, and that aurum helped keep it that way.
But Ree’s attention had turned from the aurum to something else. She stared at the Quarter Queen’s grimoire, carefully tucked beneath a long white gown and a matching white-owl-feathered mask. That book contained power more forbidden than the likes of aurum. Ree tore her eyes away. It was power she had no need of.Not yet,a voice sang in her thoughts.
Ree pocketed the aurum and quietly left the parlor. She pulled on her hood as she stepped out into the moonlit streets, careful to navigate the muck and grime that clung to the Quarter’s cobbled walkways like clotted honey. Under the cover of nightfall, the city took on its second life. On Bourbon Street, she passed performers dancing in garish masks made to look like the characters of Mardi Gras season—the crowned Carnival King, the mad-eyed Jester who’d gladly play the fool for a coin or two—and many faux mystics: seers in spangled headdresses, necks and arms bedazzled in counterfeit silver, plying their trades on wooden tables covered in weathered tarot cards; false rootworkers who sold bottled dirt masquerading as magical fertilizer to plantation men. But they were not Les Magiques. Not one drop of real magical blood. Ree knew that. The police knew that. But the wide-eyed tourists did not. What did a white lie matter if the coin was real? The police were much obliged to turn away so long as their cut was accounted for.
It was nearly curfew time, and any act of magic in the matter of performance, barter, or spectacle would be illegal and a punishable offense. A row of lawmen circled the road on horseback, nagging a group of black mystics for their freedom papers. Free Les Magiques within New Orleans were exceptionally rare. What owner would want to part with that kind of power under their thumb?Fools,Ree thought.Back roads exist for a reason.She crossed the road, pulling her hood tight in a ripple of indigo velvet.
She passed a group of giggling girls who—judging from their accents—had come downriver from Alabama, Mobile or possibly Blakeley. They stumbled drunkenly by Ree, their lacy gloved fingersswinging white severed hand trinkets that burned with the silverish glow of alchemical spellfire. The Brotherhood called them Lumen Manus, though everyone else in the Quarter called them for what they were: counterfeit Hands of Glory.
Tourists bought them as souvenirs at the market stalls along Bourbon Street at night instead of the mundane standard fare of lanterns or gas lamps. Ree curled her lip. By principle alone she was above such useless novelties. She had to be. Brotherhood magic wasn’t meant for her kind. In a city such as New Orleans, alchemy had never been used to help black hands, only to shackle them.
The pale glow of the Lumen Manus bobbed ahead, ghostly and wafting, casting a gauzy haze over the various shop windows and signposts that swung in the night breeze. Ree followed in their light until she reached the House of Flowers. A sickly-sweet stench swarmed her. Roses blanketed its gallery, threaded along the black scrollwork, enchanted by the madame to grow as big as pumpkins. The roses’ razor-sharp thorns kept rowdy and unpaying men from climbing inside for their pleasure and stopped the girls from climbing down and escaping. Ree ducked beneath the flower-laced gallery, stepping onto the wooden banquette and into the pleasure house.
The parlor was unusually sparse tonight, outside of a few courtesans who giggled and ogled Ree over the rims of their golden chalices as she entered. The interior was dim, the lanterns turned low. A grand chandelier hung in the center of the room, fashioned like a multicolored bouquet, its dangling crystals set with orchids and red roses, the brass bars shaped into twisting vines. A faux wisteria tree towered to the ceiling, its long branches like beckoning arms, its purple blossoms floating down into the parlor, where they had been enchanted to fall every hour.
The girl at the desk blushed at the sight of Ree. “Mademoiselle Laveau,” she said, sweet as sugared tea, the way Madame Monet had so carefully instructed for treasured patrons. “Anabelle is indisposed for the night.”
Ree sighed, plucking a glass of champagne from a gilded tray. “I didn’t come for pleasure tonight, Florence.” She tried to ignore thebitter pang in her chest at that magical little word.Indisposed.Caring for a girl in Anabelle’s profession hurt worse than any hex. “I came for business. I have a meeting in the garden.”
“Of course, right this way, Mademoiselle Laveau,” said Florence.
Ree followed the girl down the hall, past countless doors with placards readingOccupéwhere curious noises and sighs could be heard, through a bronzed archway draped in long, waifish threads of gray Spanish moss, and into a private parlor, the part of Madame Monet’s house she liked to call “the garden.” True to its namesake, every inch of the garden’s walls was filled with wallpaper patterned with twisting branches and gaudy red roses, and a floral scent rose from the floorboards, the smell of a spring garden after a soft spell of rain. Ree found that public presence in the garden was blessedly meager, glimpsing only a few moneyed men lingering on the emerald-upholstered canapés scattered about the room, pretty girls in their laps mewling sweet nothings in their ears.
Ree easily found Marcel waiting at a candlelit table facing the street. Although there was a dark pane of glass enchanted to look like it was perpetually misted with rain that separated the garden from the rest of the commotion and clamor of Bourbon Street, you could still hear the music, the cries of revelry and senseless fun. But that was part of the thrill for most patrons: one foot still in the chaos outside, another planted in the pleasures that could be found only in private. By the time Ree seated herself across from Marcel, he was already downing his third scotch, by the look of him.
“You’re actually on time,” Marcel said. He slid a glass across the table to her.
“Don’t try to look so surprised, mon chéri,” Ree said as she easily caught the glass and downed the whole of it in onego.
The burn of Madame Monet’s scotch was certainly better fare than the clouded lagers they served in dusty flagons at the Pint & Pea. A lovely courtesan glided by in the hall, pink petals spilling from her carnation headdress. She batted thick eyelashes at Ree, who winked at her.
Marcel half turned, slyly considering Ree over the rim of his scotch. “Are you set on bedding all of Monet’s whores, Ree?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
“And Anabelle? I suppose you are simplybeddingher too?”
“I suppose that’s none of your business.”
“You know something? It’s fine by me whatever business the two of y’all get up to in your spare time. Don’t bother me none. But you need to remember something, Ree. It’s still a game in the end.”
Why did that sound like a warning? What reason did Marcel have to warn her about a girl like Anabelle?
“Don’t worry, I know the rules.”
“Do you?” Silence passed between them. For a moment, there was only the sound of the parlor, the tinkle of laughter and glasses, the soft swell of rain that never fell. “Did you know them with Henryk?”
