The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(80)
Cleo Marchand, famous dancer, socialite, and runaway fairy mother, stood on the museum floor in full flesh and blood and magic. Her gown was made of blue taffeta and silk the color of a summer sky, with silver thread woven throughout so that it caught the light from every angle, no matter how bright or dim. She acknowledged those in the room with a greeting of hello.
“I must have seen her dance at the Palais Opéra a dozen times,” Marion gasped, unable to contain her awe.
Tulane followed, stepping out of the frame and leaving behind the fanciful multicolored robe depicted in the painting. He emerged instead wearing a tailored black jacket and a pair of pressed trousers, white shirt buttoned up to the collar, and a tie that matched the blue sky of Cleo’s gown. At the sight of him, the cat mewed and jumped into his arms, purring as he rubbed his head against the man’s neatly trimmed beard.
Henri hugged his satchel to his chest, amazed into silence at the sight of his idol.
“I see you’ve met my cat, Minuit,” Tulane said to Yvette. “I sent him back to watch for you. I knew he wouldn’t let me down.”
“You sent him to find me?” When her father nodded, she reached up and scratched the cat behind the ear. “Is he some kind of fairy cat?”
“He’s a matagot.”
That got Alexandre’s attention. He approached and looked again at the cat through his pince-nez. “I suspected as much,” he said, taking a closer look at the space above the cat’s head. “They’ve a reputation for graciousness once they’re offered hospitality.”
Yvette recalled all the times she’d found a stray coin right when she needed it, and her heart opened just enough to let a crack of hope in. She didn’t know how to feel toward the couple standing before her in their fine clothes and their shining charisma. They’d left her behind, so why come back now? Her curiosity proved stronger than her anger, and so, while Elena directed the others to take a seat on the velvet bench, she agreed to listen when her mother offered again to explain.
“I was a foolish girl playing a dangerous game when I first came to this world,” she began. “We shine here too brightly for most mortals. They stare wide-eyed without knowing what it is that draws them to us. The glamour befuddles the average human quite easily.”
Her mother touched a finger to the line on Yvette’s jaw where the étouffer had stifled her magic. Yvette’s skin warmed immediately, as if her cheek had been sun-kissed.
“They removed the scar,” she said, pointing at Elena and Alexandre.
“It was done to protect her,” Cleo said with a nod to the witches. “To hide her. I couldn’t have her shining in this world without anyone to teach her how to control her power.”
“Why didn’t you take me with you?” Yvette asked.
Her mother’s hand trailed from Yvette’s cheek to the burn mark on her arm. “I see you’ve already met with his particular brutality.”
Yvette rubbed her arm, chilled at the recollection of the iron band around her body. Her mother mimicked the gesture on her own arm as if in sympathy.
“Some men are born with the seed for cruelty in their hearts,” she said. “It only grows with the passing of time, the roots reaching out to ensnare every part of their soul. But one can’t always tell the extent a man’s heart has been compromised until after they’ve been hopelessly trapped within his grip.”
Cleo explained how she’d been allowed to travel freely between worlds since she was a girl, the privilege of a daughter of the fairy court. A weakness, she knew, but she’d grown enamored of the mortal world and the way she shimmered in it. The way men stared. The way women smiled in curiosity. How children laughed with joy when she patted them on the head. And how her body moved here, dancing and thrilling audiences with her fairy lightness. So she’d decided to stay, mimicking the mortal ways as best she could, accepting the attentions and support of an abonné while a young dancer at the ballet. She felt herself lucky that she’d attracted a witch who might at least understand her strange, luminous manner.
“It was only after he insisted that we marry that I glimpsed the sinister forest growing inside his heart.”
As she spoke, Cleo walked around the room, breathing in the museum air, letting her fingertips linger on the frames of the paintings and the velvet ropes, as if reacquainting herself with the scents and tactile sensations of the mundane world.
“He despised mortals,” she said, casting a brief apologetic glance toward Jean-Paul and his mother. “Especially any that had attained more than his family had. He resented the rules that prevented the magically endowed from profiting off their abilities. When his family’s money ran out, he devised a spell that allowed him to steal from wealthy mortal families without leaving a trace for the authorities to track. Duplicity has always come naturally to him.”
She stopped in front of Henri, taking in his appearance—the cut on his head, the bloodstain on his shirt, the familiar, protective glance he made toward Yvette. “He used a gang of street thieves to steal jewelry, cash, coin collections. And paintings,” she said, shifting her gaze briefly back to Jean-Paul’s mother. “He empowered them with a sort of urban camouflage so they could easily slip in and out of the upscale residences of his acquaintances unseen. Taught them how to open locks with a few cleverly crafted words. He needed the money to keep up appearances with his fellow bon chic, you see. But more than that, he enjoyed taking from mortals.”