Requests the honor of your presence
On Tuesday evening, February 28th
At eight o’clock
Théâtre des Lys
New Orleans
1786 Royal Street
“Then I will not go.” She didn’t have time for silly celebrations. The magic of Mardi Gras was useless to her tonight.
“Don’t be a fool. You can’t refuse him. Not after you were caught raising the dead.”
“What if it’s a trap? You want me to walk directly into it?”
“That isexactlywhat I would have you do, child.” She shuffled the shiny silver-and-plum cards with a loud flourish. “You will go to him in a pretty dress. You will drink wine like the rest of the city. You must distract him. Make him believe all the world comes to him. And then, you will slip away while he is preoccupied. Refuse him, and I guarantee he will send officers to every door you’ve ever walked through in a matter of hours.”
Ree had to concede she made a point. But then she looked at her meager dress, which would not do for Corbin’s illustrious bal masqué. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
“Never mind that,” Claudette said with a smirk. “Let me work my magic. We shall ask the cards what character you may become.”
With a quick flash of her hands, she began shuffling, the golden bangles on her arms tinkling. One card leapt from the bunch, and she turned it over and tapped its glossy surface with a long painted nail.The High Priestess.
After Claudette had finished the long task of dressing her, Ree adjusted her mask, checking her reflection in the large gilded looking glass. The irony was not lost on her that this was the mirror Marie had once gazed into while Sanite prepared her for Mardi Gras night, for her fateful meeting with the Conjurer. But it was not her mother she saw. It was the High Priestess who stared back at her now, dark eyes enigmatic beneath the thin slip of golden lace set with tiny diamond specks she’d worn as her mask, the long shimmering black veil that had been carefully picked to accentuate the dark waves of her hair. Claudette had interwoven the gold cloth of her mother’s tignon beneath the lace, something that made Ree nervous. The tignon was her mother’s. It washercrown, after all. But tonight, the piece of fabric was just that—a piece of fabric. It would become the crown only on its chosen successor.
The top of the lace was adorned in a pointed tiara of golden metalwork, the jutting ends fixed with tiny silver stars set at the tips. The gown was sewn in a mixture of copper, gold, and black lace, the shoulders left bare. She could be the Madonna, some gaudy version of the holy mother.Or,a dark voice sang at her ear,you could be as you are meant to.You could be a queen.
Ree pushed her way through the madness of Mardi Gras. The crowd of revelers had grown thick on this end of Royal Street, people choking her from all sides. She was tempted to use magic to force her way through, but eventually she gave up on the notion entirely. She thought it best to preserve her energy for the ball. She didn’t exactly expect Corbin to be up to his best behavior. In fact, she was expecting that she might very well be walking into a trap.
Golden and silver beads fell into the darkened streets from the balconies above, where masked faces jeered down at her, their voices and laughter blending into indistinguishable debauchery.Light posts glistened where elaborate gold, purple, and green bows had been tied. The gambling parlors, taverns, alehouses, and hotels had all thrown open their doors, the arches well lit in flickering sconces enchanted with purple and gold flames.
The crowd pressed around her, a carousel of faces, each more terrible and beautiful than the last. Sailors and tourists, whores, dancers, magicians, fancy well-to-dos, trumpet-carrying musicians, children, and simple local folks transfigured into vampires and ghouls, phantoms, fairies, and all manner of folktale beasts. Men with horns protruding from their foreheads, masks with long beaks over the noses, white-lacquered disguises, others crafted entirely of plumed feathers. Ree passed lovers locked in searing kisses. Pretty women who’d adorned their bare breasts in jewels and danced along the banquettes. A blond woman sheathed in a glistening white bridal veil, on her knees in an alley, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand. All manner of sin allowed, no pleasure spared.No saints and no sinners.
Ree was tempted to snatch a fat piece of beignet from a sweet stand manned by an old fellow donning a feathered disguise, but she thought better of it—the powdered dust would ruin the rouge along her cheeks and lips, the face Claudette had so carefully painted upon her. Ree slid her mask into place and started up the gilded steps that led toward the Théâtre des Lys’s double doors, grateful for the disguise. She stepped inside to see the theater had been transformed.
It was a masquerade ball, after all, so she should have expected nothing less than pure transfiguration. Corbin ran his annual bal masqué without fail, sparing no expense. Still, her breath hitched. Shut away from the raucous music and mannerless behavior that had overtaken most of the Quarter’s main streets, the theater seemed a city all its own. The floor was a sea of twirling gowns and tinkling laughter. Dignified dandies and refined women with pale-beaded gloves and piles of pearls at their necks, wigs tiered like white-frosted cakes, gowns that moved like La Sirene’s water in the candlelight, opulent masks woven with delicate lace and gemstones.
Ree spied endless casks of champagne and honeyed mead.Tables laden with towering king cakes iced in yellow and purple and green as big as her head, their multicolored insides filled with raspberry jam and cream. Steaming pots of spiced coffee that smelled of chicory. Mountains of glistening oysters, scarlet-bellied crabs that had been stewed in butter and garlic, braided sweetbread, little golden dishes of sugared sauces and jams. An old black woman in an apron ladled scalding cupfuls of red jambalaya onto dishes of rice and cornbread.
She spotted Corbin at one end of the chamber, lounging on a long golden settee. She was reminded of the man on the steamboat who’d sanctioned the torture of runaways for his own pleasure and sport. Now here he was, pretending he was the picture of diplomatic grandeur, the Carnival King before his court. Another mask. Another illusion. Ree squared her shoulders, plucked a glass of champagne from a tray beside her, and went to him.
“Marie Laveau the Second,” Corbin said as she neared. He stood, brandishing his cup. The scarred half of his face was hidden beneath a shiny copper disguise, the other half left bare. That half was smiling at her. “I don’t believe we’ve ever had the chance to be properly acquainted.” They hadn’t until now. “I don’t think I ever got the chance to thank you for saving my life, sweet girl.”
He could hold his praises. It hadn’t been to save him, not really, and he knew that. It had been to spare the Voodoos of the consequences Anabelle’s killing of the mayor would bring. “You could start by lifting this newest curfew on the Voodoos,” said Ree.
“Let us not be hasty. Certain precautions were needed after that day in Congo Square. But your magic was magnificent, I must say. I’ve seen your mother at work, in glimpses and flashes at her little moonlit rituals in Bayou St. John or the square. But she is so controlled.” Corbin waved a gloved hand. “You, on the other hand…you showed me pure instinct. Wild power.”
“Is that truly what you want in a witch in your city, Mayor?” She’d meant to goad him, but his eyes flashed, and she instantly regrettedit.
He’d transformed before her eyes. The man they called the Collector stared back at her, the monster who plucked and preened his careful crop of slaves like treasured dolls, trinkets he could admireand polish then stow away into his war chest. The man who owned Marcel.
“If they are under my control,” he murmured. He reached out, stroked a piece of dark hair along her shoulder. “You would be surprised what manner of pleasures and freedoms I allow in my house, Mademoiselle.”
“Hmph. I suppose my great-grandmother simply made up her terrible time.”
“You are a sassy one.” He pursed his lips, thinking on it. “The Vatican has made their intentions known through High Inquisitor Broussard. If a second Inquisition were to come to New Orleans, you would need protection, would you not? Your mother cannot protect you, not from that.”
