The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(9)
The smell of damp wood and mildew permeated the upper chamber of the cinema where the outdated spotlights and pulley ropes dangled from the narrow walkway over the stage. There’d been a distinct shimmy to the suspended bridge as she tiptoed across it. The men working backstage had heard the noise and now were on the prowl, investigating. So much for stupid mortals being afraid of ghost stories and haunted theaters. She’d hoped to stay hidden inside the cinema for at least three more nights and perhaps watch a midnight showing of Le Voyage dans la Lune one more time. Alas, she had only enough time to snatch the red velvet curtain she’d been using for a bedcover before running for the exit. Au revoir, man in the moon!
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.