Page 55
Lazarus steps beside me, his voice softening into something darker. Lethal. “You will apologize to the lady in violet.”
The man swallows.
“You will apologize to the staff,” I continue.
“And then,” Lazarus says, “you will leave.”
The man tries to laugh. It dies quickly when Lazarus’s sickle appears from beneath his coat. Not fully drawn, only enough for the curve of the blade to catch the light. The man’s eyes widen.
“Preferably,” Lazarus adds, “while all of your limbs remain attached.”
I click my tongue. “That was nearly subtle.”
“I am improving.” Lazarus shrugs.
“You are not,” I retort.
The man nods frantically, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead.
We return him to the hall just long enough for him to mumble apologies to the dancer, the steward, and the nearest offended table. Then Lazarus and I deposit him outside in the alley behind La Sirene, where the night air smells of rain, smoke, and bad, bad decisions. He scrambles backward across the cobblestones.
“You’re mad,” he spits.
Lazarus tilts his head. “Possibly.”
“Dangerous,” I correct.
The man staggers to his feet and runs. For a moment, Lazarus and I stand in companionable silence. Then he looks at me, “See, that was restrained.”
I nod. “Very.”
“We did not kill him.”
“No.”
“Olive would be proud.”
I consider his words, then frown, “Olive would ask why we let him leave with his tongue.”
Lazarus points at me, his eyes bright and filled with murderous wonder. “True.”
The thought pleases me more than it should. We re-enter La Sirene through the side door, smoothing our coats as though nothing has happened. No one stops us, nor questions us.
By the time we return to our seats, the next act has begun. The stage is empty except for one chair, and my pulse changes before she appears. Lazarus feels it too. I know because his posture stills. The music lowers into something slow and wicked. Then Olive steps through the curtains.
The room belongs to her at once.
She wears wine-dark silk tonight, fitted close through the waist before falling around her legs in soft, deliberate layers. Black lace climbs over her throat and wrists, elegant as mourning, dangerous as a promise. Her hair is pinned low, but several curls have escaped to brush the side of her face.
She carries a cane in one gloved hand. The first tap against the floor echoes through the theater.
Click.
Every conversation dies. Olive does not smile, she just moves toward the chair with the calm certainty of a queen approaching a throne. One hand slides along the backrest. Her body follows the rhythm.
The mirrored walls catch every single angle of her. One Olive becomes ten. Ten becomes a hundred. Wine silk with black lace, a pale hand, her beautiful tilted chin. Then a flash of her dark eyes. Beside me, Lazarus forgets his drink, and moves forward in his seat, enraptured with the view. I forget, briefly, how to mock him for it.
She lowers herself into the chair and crosses one leg over the other with slow precision. The motion is simple, devastating. A lesser woman would perform seduction. Olive performs control. She lets the audience believe they are watching her, when in truth she is the one measuring every breath in the room. Her gaze sweeps the crowd, past the bored husbands, the men pretending not to be transfixed, and then our girl sees us.
