Marie tugged at the long black-latticed veil over her face. The veil’s thin fabric did nothing to keep the water’s spray from her cheeks, the subtle hiss from La Sirene that something was amiss in her waters. Through its netting she glimpsed the moon in a gauzy blur, glowing and full, a lone white eye peering down at them from a starless sky. Although Jon hadn’t explained himself when he handed her the long black gown and matching veil, Marie found something painfully familiar about the cool silk that clung to her, forming a strange second skin that felt heavier than it should. They were mourning garments, the costume one might expect of a grief-stricken widow. It was a part she had played before, after all.
As Nonc Croc steered them away from the Quarter, red and green and gold lights shone in the distance, cutting through the fog like flames dancing on their wicks. As their rowboat drew nearer, Marie could hear music, and if she strained hard enough, she could make out the barest traces of other sounds beneath those bright notes. A peal of maddening laughter. The dull echo of what might have been a scream in the dark.
“Where are we going, Jon? Is this supposed to be another lesson?” demanded Marie. She hadn’t meant to sound so wary, but she found his silence made her more uneasy than the shadowy waters that surrounded them.
“No lessons,” said Jon as his gaze slid toward her. For a moment, that spark of mirth dimmed, a golden candle snuffed out. He was utterly serious. “Only a story. And you, my lovely student, will decide how it ends.”
Jon’s voice was low and rhythmic as he began to speak over the rolling fog.
“They say the ancient Greeks had many a god stranger than ours,hungrierthan ours,” began Jon. “When a band of slaves ran away into the wilderness, they stumbled upon a tall man dancing right over a bed of ivy and bloodied animal skins, the glittering white bone of a bull’s head pulled over his face. The slaves froze, seeing too late that this was no man at all. At least nomortalone. He was the one they called the mad god Dionysus, lord of ritual and theater. The mad god was eager for a show.” His gaze found Marie’s, held it steadfast in the dark, his eyes bright as torches. “And one does not refuse the gods.”
Nonc Croc stopped playing. Even he was listening. The only sound that remained was the soft creaking of their boat as it cut across the river’s face.
“ ‘Fear not, mortals,’ ” continued Jon, “Dionysus declared as he rose to meet them at once, arms wide open as if they were very old friends reunited at last. ‘For I am as gracious as the gods come. I seek only to be entertained.’ Overjoyed to be embraced so easily by the divine, the men desperately entreated Dionysus to lift their chains. And free them he did.”
The story sprang from his tongue like a dark spell, conjured before them in the air like smoke. But Marie heard something else simmering beneath his words, something crueler. Jon wasn’t just telling a story of violence. He was remembering one. “One man let out a bloodcurdling howl, a sound that could wake the dead. Another grew teeth as long as a wolf’s fangs. One by one, the men shredded the clothes from their bodies and tore the chains from their feet and hands. As free as Dionysus had promised. But when Dionysus held up his mirror, laughing all the while, they saw only their own reflections as they were. Asmen.Confused, they looked amongst themselves, seeing only yellow-eyed beasts, deformed beyond all recognition. Driven mad, the men ripped one another limb from limb as Dionysus eagerly clapped along, pleased at last.”
Marie suppressed a shiver. What an odd story, and what terrible gods the Greeks served. “So, what were they in the end? Beasts or men?”
Jon considered her question in silence. For a moment, his expression was dark, frustratingly unreadable. Then it was gone, andthe corners of his eyes crinkled pleasantly as his lips crooked into that wry grin she’d come to relish. “Who could say? Suppose it’s just as well, ’cause the truth is, love, folks are what they believe they are.”
Jon’s story made it easy to imagine that Nonc Croc was not a tide-turner at all, that the mist-laden Mississippi River had transfigured into the dour, shuddering waters of the River Styx, that her guide was now the silent ferryman who carried them across the threshold of the living into the barren dark of the underworld. But it was not the shores of the underworld their rowboat slowly approached.
It was a steamboat.
They called herLa Danse de la Lune—La Lune,as she was known to most in the city. She was the boat that glided down the river by day but whose magic truly danced only at night. It was less a steamboat, Marie had heard, and more a glorious theater cast adrift, a nest of decadence so wild that not even the likes of the French Quarter could contain her.
Her body rose silently from the still black waters like a great-bellied beast, glistening and wide. The steamboat’s three decks were gracefully layered, each tier encircled by golden railings strung with spherical ornaments that burned with a strange alchemical light, the color pulsing between red, green, and gold. Twin smokestacks jutted from the crown, gently breathing ashen plumes against the night. At the prow was the figurehead of a maiden in a wreathed headdress angled out over the dark water, a carving of the moon in her hands. The moon glowed a dark, smoldering red, and she held it tenderly to her chest, as if cradling her own bleeding heart.
They reached the rear of the steamboat, where the paddle wheel turned noiselessly, lapping at the bluish-black water beneath. Nonc Croc’s fingers glided through the air, and a strip of the river rose, as if being conducted. It churned and spun, forming itself into a foaming staircase to the steamboat’s second deck. He waved them on. “Get on, now. Only goin’ to wait ’til half past the hour. Not a second more, y’all hear?” When Jon cast him a look, the tide-turner blanched, his grin turning lopsided. “No trouble, Conjurer-man. No trouble at all.”
Nonc Croc started back up on his harmonica. Marie heard it still even after she ascended the churning staircase onto thesteamboat’s second deck, the notes chasing her from the roiling mist. At the last step, Jon hoisted her onto the steamboat’s second landing. Marie gripped the golden railing, then slowly lifted her eyes to Jon’s waiting face.
In one perfect movement, he slid on a mask: a dark, sleek thing shaped into the taut lines of a panther’s face. Marie felt the veil gently lift from her face, acutely aware of Jon’s eyes on her. He allowed his gaze to linger for a moment longer, then slowly pulled the veil back down. He offered his arm, and together they made their way across the barren deck. There was a dim pulse of music on the wind that grew louder and louder as they approached a set of gold-plated doors guarded by a bald white man draped in a deep wine-colored garment that folded over his shoulder.
As they neared, Jon suddenly squeezed Marie’s hand, the barest of touches. Lightning coursed through her. “You should know one thing,” he whispered under his breath. She saw the tawny glint of his eyes behind the panther mask, the only tell that it was him at all. “The moment we cross that threshold, we will be in…differentterritory. Our magic will not be highest here. Remember that.”
Marie remained silent, unsure of what to make of this warning. Though she could not be certain of the occasion of their visit, she was quite sure they were on a steamboat full of rich folks, not one riddled with monsters and enemies. What need would they have for Voodoo tonight?
At the door, the man bowed his head a little, acknowledging their presence. The bronze-leafed circlet on his brow shone against the boat’s dangling lights. When he spoke, it was with the leaden inflection of an actor made to say their lines until all manner of feeling had been dulled down to nothing at all. “What spills first on the altar of gods in gift? A chalice to toast, or the blade that tears flesh and bone in rift?”
“Wine before blood,” Jon answered at once.
The doorman’s eyes were steady on Jon, then slowly flicked to Marie, silently gauging. Then his lips lifted into something like a smile but not quite. “Welcome, revelers. May your thirst be quenched, your appetites sated at last.” He stepped aside like a curtain beingdrawn back just as the golden doors swung open. And with that, Marie and Jon stepped inside.
Marie was met with a sight that left her breathless with confusion. In the spectacle before her, she saw none of the old French or Spanish influence that ran through the French Quarter. This was something older, stranger.
It was as if they’d stepped into a different world, a different time altogether.
La Lune’s entrance hall had been transformed into a temple of some kind, the air choked with sweet, swirling incense, sweat, and something unmistakably metallic. Something alchemical. But there was no Brotherhood here, only the city’s elite dressed in garish Grecian costume. Musicians plucked on harps and lyres, their strings like shining threads. Men passed her draped in white and bright red, their heads encircled in gleaming laurels, halos wrought in gold. The women in black were veiled widows, like herself, and the red-cheeked maidens were almost entirely nude, their sweat-glistened flesh wreathed in holly and hyacinth that coiled over their arms and breasts. They were maenads, those mad-eyed worshippers of Dionysus, the horned god of Jon’s tale.
Jon guided Marie through the crowd, beneath pillars of white marble twisted with ivy, his hand pressed upon her lower back, the part where the folds of her black gown revealed a tantalizing square of flesh. Strange as this place was, she felt assured at Jon’s side in a way she had never felt before.Not even with Jacques.The dark thought rose from within her. The truth was, least of all with him. She had always felt fragile at her husband’s side, even when she knew her magic was stronger than his, than that of most in New Orleans, and he had never failed to remind her in a thousand small ways. But not with Jon. At his side, she felt…his equal.
Marie could not help but admire the opulence around her: Men in jarringly angular panther-shaped masks, white-faced bulls, horned stags—beasts favored by the mad god. They danced and drank wine as she had never seen before—too dark, thick as syrup, heavily spiced with a scent that stung the air. Fat grapes and olives piled high and glistening as pyramids, fire burning in goldendishes. But something seemed wrong about it, like she was watching a mirage take hold, and the people moved in a stilted sort of rhythm, their smiles too wooden, their endless laughter crackling the smoked air. She couldn’t help but feel Jon’s story in the rowboat had been no mere myth.
The widows veiled in black watched her. As Jon led her on through the crowd, their eyes all seemed to be fixed on Marie, as if they could sense her kindred grief. Although her own veil hid her face well, Marie could not help but think of what they must be whispering amongst themselves:There goes the Widow Paris.Women watched Jon too, their eyes hungrily latching on to him. Disguised or not, Jon the Conjurer moved like a man with power—real power—and that drew women in like a honey trap. Marie’s tongue burned, the words she suddenly wanted to say trapped inside her, hot grease against her throat. Envy would do her no good. It was a sin she had no right to, none at all. And yet…Marie bristled. She wanted to be through with this task, with these strange people and whatever business Jon thought he might have in a wild place such as this.
As if sensing her mood, Jon leaned over, his whisper a cool breath at her ear. A shiver coursed through her. “You’re beautiful when you’re impatient, Marie. But you’ll still have to wait, my dark sun.”
