Yvette focused her attention on the locked door at the end of the catwalk. For a witch, she’d always been piss-poor at reciting spells, but she wasn’t completely without guile. Ignorant, maybe, but even she’d picked up a trick or two from the gutter mages who worked the cabaret district looking to shake a little luck loose from rich men’s wallets. She would never have survived the streets of the city as a girl if she hadn’t.
The metal lock was cold to the touch. She rubbed her hands together to create some heat, then pressed her palm over the mechanism. She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration and spoke the burglar’s charm. “You keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine. Open for me, and we’ll get along fine.” The bolt quietly slid in its track, and she opened the door, a smug smile perched on her lips. “Much obliged,” she said and skipped down the corkscrew metal steps to the street below.
With a little clever arranging, she wrapped the curtain around her shoulders so it resembled one of the fashionable cocoon coats so popular with the city elite on their way to the Palais Opéra. Never mind it was a warm autumn evening; the dictates of fashion gave a woman ample permission to wear whatever outrageous confection she liked if the sky foretold of a chance of rain, which it did. The overlords of fashion encouraged it, even. And, at any rate, it covered the dreary workaday skirt and blouse she’d stolen from the laundress, though not the shabby acrobat shoes she still wore, even though the soles were as thin as newspaper.
It had been three years since she’d had to survive on these streets, yet the only thing that appeared to have changed, as she refamiliarized herself with the city’s charms and aversions, was the number of people. They were everywhere—gaggles of women in feathered hats stepping out of taxicabs, men in frock coats and spats jumping nimbly out of the way of motorized automobiles as the streetlights flickered on one by one. On the sidewalks and in the public squares, vendors selling glaces et sorbets, hawkers offering pairs of lovebirds in brass cages, and flower girls carting bouquets of zinnias and dahlias clamored for the day’s last customers amid the hiss of trains running along electrified rails on the overhead bridges.
A pickpocket’s dream.
Her fingers itched with the old habit. After a few short years working the carnival circuit, she’d forgotten what it was like to sit in the shadows and watch the city’s wealthy step out under the streetlights, eyeing the pocket watches and diamond earrings, the purses and dropped coins. Waiting for the bump, the distraction, the apology, quietly slipping a month’s worth of food and rent in the shape of a gold ring into a hidden pocket, while the mark shook off the unfortunate encounter with a member of the working class as one more dastardly disappointment of the day. One smart grab could set her up for a week in the city. She might even earn a few nights’ rent at a flophouse. And bread! An entire loaf all to herself. Her stomach rumbled from the thought.
A fair number of the bon chic class were headed to the ballet, judging by their impressive satins and silks. Predictable as ever, a dinner of escargot and cognac at Maurice’s would follow. Her mouth salivated as she spotted the outline of a fat wallet beneath an older man’s breast pocket. Returning to the streets on an empty stomach was turning the lure of the easy snatch-and-run into a serious temptress.
But she was done with that life, wasn’t she? Hadn’t she accidentally stolen a wish because she yearned to be a proper witch? As light-fingered as she’d always been, there had to be a less conspicuous way of earning a living in the city than exploring men’s pockets when they weren’t looking. Especially for a witch on the run from the law. Elena might have been innocent, and good for her for trying to find a way to prove it, but that wasn’t going to happen here. Not for this girl. She couldn’t risk losing the little scrap of freedom she’d stolen with her escape, albeit a tenuous one that threatened to unravel at every opportunity.
Merde. Why did she have to lose the safety of the Palace Cinema? It had been a rare warm space with good protection. Plus she’d liked pretending to be a phantom haunting the old place. Now, if she didn’t wish to go back to life as a thief by relieving the portly gentleman waddling toward her of his wallet, she’d have to find another means of staying dry and fed.
There was, of course, another theater she could head to for the night if she wanted to eat, though it wasn’t the sort of ritzy establishment women in grand hats and genuine mink stoles patronized. No, it was the place their husbands scuttled off to in horse-drawn black fiacres after the dinner conversation with the family was over. And where a girl wrapped in stolen velvet wouldn’t garner a second look. All part of the grand illusion of life imitating art imitating life.
“Spare a coin for the homeless?” she asked the portly gentleman on impulse, hoping for one last, honest reprieve.
The man’s nose flared in disgust as he noted the scar on her jawline, then ignored her as he walked up the steps and disappeared behind the great mahogany doors of the Palais Opéra. Their decorative windows glared like sigils, warning those who didn’t belong to stay away.
Yvette cursed her grumbling stomach, but she had no choice but to journey down one of the many darkened streets that radiated out from the center of the city. It was something she’d done a hundred times before. Proper magic had always evaded her, but since she was old enough to remember, she felt she had a secret ability to make herself invisible, to fade into shadow and not be seen. Not truly invisible, but a street sweeper could pass right in front of her with his broom and dustbin and not pick her out among the cobblestones if she willed it. It was a talent that had served her well in her years working the streets as well as on her last day inside the city three years earlier. After she’d washed the blood from her hands.
An hour later, footsore and weak with hunger, she stood under a shedding elm tree, staring at les escaliers leading to the top of the butte. A string of streetlamps ran up the center of the stairway, their globes aglow with orbs of soft white light that seemed to float in the air. A sudden breeze whooshed down from the top, sending a rustle of warning through the leaves in the trees. A sliver of doubt burrowed under her skin. The jinni had been right. More than right, really, about her stolen wish. She had wanted to come back to the city. But it wasn’t just about finding her mother’s magic. There was something else riding on the currents in the ether. One wish sewn to the other. A wisp of hope that she, too, could somehow clear her name and start her life over.
Oh, she was guilty of killing the man, no question. But there was murder and then there was murder.
Yvette stood contemplating whether she should turn around and give up when a black cat slunk by with his tail in the air. She couldn’t remember if it was a good omen or a bad one for a witch to have a cat cross her path. One more thing she ought to know but didn’t. She twitched her finger at the cat to see if he would tell her which sign to obey. The animal paused, green eyes narrowing as he apparently recognized her for what she was. He dropped his head and trotted off without a second glance.
Even the cats knew her for a failed witch. But the snub only made her want to know even more what was wrong with her and why she’d been abandoned to fend for herself in a world of mortals. The pain she normally stuffed deep in her psyche ballooned to the surface, fueling her legs forward toward an answer one way or another.