The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(17)
She was still thumbing through the booklet and considering her options when the same black cat from earlier found her in the cathedral, only this time she noticed the animal was wearing a silvery collar around his neck. “Monsieur Whiskers?” she whispered. “What are you doing here?” She lifted her head to see if he’d come inside with anyone, perhaps the woman in the shawl, but no one accompanied him. Though a tad suspicious of his sudden fondness for her, she was grateful for the animal’s company. “You looking for a warm place to hide too?” The cat blinked up at her with stoic green eyes that neither confirmed nor denied the animal understood what she’d said. At least he seemed to accept she was a witch worth his attention. “Well, lucky for you I have a little something for both of us.”
Yvette slipped the booklet back inside the paper cover and stuffed it under her blouse for safekeeping. Then she reached beneath the velvet curtain turned blanket and brought out a small wedge of cheese wrapped in a wine-stained napkin. “It’s from Tante,” she whispered to the cat. “She’s not always as hard as she likes to pretend.” None of us are, she thought, and pinched a finger full of the cheese and held it out. The cat accepted the offering, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, then swallowed with what looked like disappointment. Yvette unwrapped a portion for herself and took a bite.
“Leftovers that would have been thrown out,” she said with her mouth full, “but not so bad compared to an empty stomach. Would be better if we had some of that altar wine to wash it down with, but such is life for those on the run, eh, monsieur?” The cat meowed, and she held her finger to her lips. “Shhh, you’ll get us tossed out of here with your complaining.” She patted her hand against her thigh. “Come lie down.”
The cat yawned and needled her velvet cover with his sharp claws. She slid over enough so that he could curl up in the space behind her knees. He really was a scraggly, wretched thing, but his small presence, no matter how transient, made her feel less alone. She gave him a scratch behind his ear, and he purred with his head resting against her leg.
Yvette put her head down knowing she didn’t have a centime to her name. She was also wanted for a murder she most definitely committed and forced to take shelter inside the belly of a bloated beast that could spit her onto the street at any moment. But between the humming of the booklet against her heart, the promise of the jinni’s fire prophecy, and the comfort of the tiny windup motor purring inside the cat beside her, she fell asleep to the vibrating thrum of hope for perhaps the first time in her life.
CHAPTER SIX
The wet asphalt glinted in the morning sunlight. Marion made a remark about the swirling colors on the wet pavement being like a work of one of the impressionist masters. Elena politely agreed, though she rather thought the effect was more like a mushroom-based jinx that caused light and color to dance in the eyes.
The overnight rain had deterred them from getting an earlier start, but Marion had promised a surprise worth venturing to the other side of the city. Now that they rocked from side to side atop the northbound omnibus, the trio greeted the outing with the spirit of joie de vivre it deserved. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and summer’s impending death hung in the air.
Of course, they were cut off at nearly every turn by one of the myriad two-seater automobiles that seemed to have reproduced like rabbits on the streets since Elena’s last visit.
“To think your father nearly bought one of those disasters of human progress.” Marion waved her handkerchief in the general direction of the traffic below.
“Maman, it was a race car. He meant to sponsor a driver in Le Concours Ville à Campagne.”
“Oh, pish, it was always something to try and stir the blood with that man.”
Elena recognized the look on her fiancé’s face, knowing he felt strongly that the vigor of a man’s blood should not be taken lightly. Left to pool, it had the tendency to congeal into a sort of sticky mud that left the heart choking from a lack of ambition. From a witch’s perspective she wholeheartedly concurred with his assessment. The nurturing of one’s well-being was of utmost importance, pleasing the All Knowing. Which is why she had to question the peculiar murmur that had fluttered beneath her solar plexus since she’d awoken that morning. It was small at first, like the beat of a butterfly wing against her heart, but the farther north they traveled the more distinct the rhythm became until she feared her fellow passengers might hear the knock of a raptor’s wing against her rib cage, her intuition banging on the door of her third-eye perception.
“Everything all right, dear?”
She’d noticed. Marion was no witch, but she had a keen eye for a mortal. Not many details slipped past her powers of observation when it came to matters of etiquette and fashion. Earlier that morning she had asked Elena if her suit was from the House of Enrique. It was, but from the father, not the son. She had one new ensemble to wear on this trip—store-bought from a mortal—and she meant to wear that on their outing to Maurice’s later in the week. Almost everything else was at least ten years old, dating back to the time before she’d succumbed to the curse that had taken seven years of her life. Her clothes were dreadfully out of style, judging by the sea of beautiful women walking past on the streets below with their feathered tricorn hats, shapely skirts, and velvet cocoon wraps.