“I can think of few things worse than being forced into my first performance this close to London. Can we stall?”
He hung his head, stroking her hand. “Again, I’m sorry. I informed Criminy this morning that you would be ready for your grand unveiling this very evening. I believe he has taken the liberty of printing new posters and having them hung up in town.”
“I should have told him the truth.”
“There’s a lot of that going around. But when I told him that you had concerns, he didn’t bat an eyelash. He’s determined that everything will be fine. Hell of a will on that fellow.”
“So there is no escape for me?”
“Not unless you care to face the bludbadgers again.”
“It might be easier than facing the crowd,” she grumbled.
* * *
Back in her wagon, she found her armoire open. Her new costume hung carefully within, a pinned note sending the regards of Master Scabrous. Still trailing the blood-splattered hem of her badger-ruined skirt, she ran a hand along the costume’s coppery brown jacket, beautifully embroidered in black. Turning the sleeve, she smiled. He had outdone himself, and if she found her proper end tonight, she would do so in the greatest style of her life.
She sat on the edge of her bed, kicking off her lone boot and imagining bludbunnies savaging its mate on the moor, freckled with the blud of the badgers. Perhaps it would have been easier if they had just taken her then. It was all going to end badly—she was sure of it. She had knocked on the ringmaster’s door, looking as pitiful as possible. But Master Stain had said simply that the show must go on, and Letitia had held her hands and assured her that everything happened for a reason.
Henry had promised her that he would be nearby, but if Beauregard had finally tracked her to the caravan, there was no hope. Weapons were strictly forbidden to the carnivalleros except for certain families that held long-standing dispensations, and Criminy wasn’t in one of them. Even Veruca’s swords couldn’t cut butter. Criminy couldn’t endanger his caravan by intervening on Imogen’s behalf, and the Coppers were always in attendance. And if Henry employed his killer cheetah, the Coppers would definitely have questions to ask, and she wasn’t willing to trade her freedom for his.
She would perform, and if Beauregard was there, she would hang.
But she would give an unforgettable show beforehand, something even Master Stain had never seen. Imogen had considered running away, asking Henry to come with her. But she now knew exactly how far they would get on the moors on foot, and she wasn’t ready to live her life on the run, two convicts without a home. She could never go back to a quiet, drab life behind city walls, not after her days with the caravan. She stroked the brooch, a single tear slipping down her face. When her eyes wandered to the door, she saw the freshly stuck poster there showing an elegant lady in silhouette with butterflies flying on strings like balloons.
SEE! The Mysterious Madam Morpho and her Butterfly Circus! it cried.
Such a pity that her first show would probably be her last.
* * *
The sun was setting, and she rose to dress.
Solemn and silent, she laced her boots and tightened the new corset from the front. She had requested one that would require no outside help, for she had ever been a solitary creature. With a grunt, she tested her ankle, which was still sore from the bludbadger’s assault but supported her well enough. Next, she slipped on the tight-fitting black dress, whispery slim against her skin, a fashion that Londoners would consider outrageously revealing. Then she tied the skeletal dome of hoop skirts around her waist, arranging them just so around her legs, like a birdcage. Tiny paper butterflies swung from strings within, swaying with every step. Then long black gloves. Then the swallowtail jacket, a shimmering copper with black designs to mimic the Monarch butterfly. It buttoned carefully up to the neck, as it should, but she touched the hidden panels of it, smiling to herself. Master Scabrous had been more than willing to indulge her when she offered sketches for its design. She figured that what she lacked in showmanship would be more than made up for by the brilliance of her costume and the magnificence of her butterflies.
There was a knock on her door, and she unlocked it listlessly.
“The reclusive Mr. Murdoch sends this gift as a token of ’is esteem,” Emerlie read off a card before rolling her eyes and stuffing a box into Imogen’s hands. “Let’s see, then. Open her up.”
Imogen slammed the door in her face, the corner of her mouth lifting slightly when Emerlie called her a very dirty word on the other side of the door. What did it matter if she was well liked? It would all be over soon enough.
Imogen placed the box on her bed and lifted the lid. Resting gently on a nest of crumpled book pages was a mask nearly too beautiful to contemplate. She had heard of such things used by the daimons in Franchia for performances and celebrations, but she had never seen one before, much less touched the thin, flexible leather. It was contoured to fit her face, painted to match her coat in shimmering copper and black. Cupping it in both hands, she held it over her eyes and pulled back the long silk strings to tie them behind her head. With her hair coiled low on the nape of her neck and her small hat sporting long antennalike feathers, she very much resembled one of her uncanny charges.
She hadn’t told Henry, but she loved them just as much dead as if they had been alive. They had a special bond now—she was the only one who could give the butterflies back the breath of life, their fairy wings dancing on air. They couldn’t speak, couldn’t communicate. And yet they were drawn to her, as if they knew that she alone held the magic to call them. Whatever happened tonight, she was glad she had freed them from that dark, moldy attic, where they had sat, unloved and unnoticed, for decades. And she was glad Henry had thought of this beautiful mask to help hide her from Beauregard and the Coppers. She would have a chance to thank him later, she hoped.
With one last look in the mirror and her hand on the brooch pinned over her heart, Imogen stepped out and closed the door to the wagon, unsure if she would ever see it again.
15
Henry waited for her outside, lurking near the clockwork flamingos. Even if no one else in the caravan could tell him apart from Vil, she knew him instantly. The way he carried himself, the breadth of his shoulders—or, much more simply, the fact that he wasn’t constantly hiccuping. He held out his arm, and she laid the black silk of her glove against the worn leather, feeling dainty and beautiful for the first time in her life.
“I have everything prepared,” he whispered to her. “Never fear.”
“I have never not feared,” she murmured back. “It’s a pretty enough way to go, I suppose.”
“You’re not going anywhere, fool woman. Over my dead body. And Letitia doesn’t seem worried, so you shouldn’t be, either.”
“It rankles, being ever dependent on the kindness of strangers.”
“We’re all strange, darling. But you must have faith.”
She could see it then, waiting in the last red light of the setting sun. A low, round pedestal painted velvet black with a curved backdrop like the set of a Greek tragedy, the better to show off the soft grays and vibrant blues and sunlight-spangled oranges of the butterflies. Everything they’d designed together waited, perfectly staged, and she smiled to see the golden leashes glinting under globe lanterns. If only it had been ready earlier. As it was, she had never even touched it, much less practiced with her performers.
Criminy’s Clockwork Carnival was in full swing. The air danced with magic, waves of warmth carrying the scent of caramel and chocolate and exotic spices. The hurdy-gurdy from Mademoiselle Caprice’s dancing lessons twinkled on the breeze, rising and falling merrily. It would have been perfect and beautiful, just the place to finish falling in love properly. She wished she and Henry could turn and stroll in a different direction, play games of chance and laugh at the sights. But she had a job to do. There her act sat, awaiting only her magic charm.
And there he waited, just another face in the crowd.
Professor Beauregard.
His sallow complexion stood out almost yellow against the navy top hat and cape of his professorship. His sharp nose curved downward, and his cruel smile curved up to meet it. Imogen shuddered to think how many times she had let this foul excuse for a human being touch her in her most private places with clinically painful indifference.
“Well, if it isn’t Jane Bumble,” he said as she passed. She held her chin up, her eyes staring straight through the holes of the mask, straight through him, toward the proscenium where the butterflies waited, lying dead as wisps of paper.
“Her name is Madam Morpho,” Henry said sharply. “And she doesn’t speak to the riff-raff.”
She stepped up onto the pedestal, the paper butterflies swaying in the cage of her hoop skirts. With a deep breath, she faced the gathered crowd, noting the Coppers jammed in among the city folk and a few of the carnivalleros, who, like Emerlie, couldn’t miss a first act. Swallowing down her fear, Imogen bowed at the waist, throwing her arms out in a theatrical bow. The fake wings engineered by Master Scabrous sprang outward and unfurled, the brilliant blue of a Morpho butterfly’s wings shimmering behind her. The crowd gasped, and she stood, chin up, resplendent.
She twirled and bowed, moving behind the arch to bend her face close to the butterflies. Through the holes of her mask, she saw Beauregard tense and begin to shoulder forward through the crowd, and she muttered the charm as quietly as she could.
And nothing happened.
She whispered it again, slightly louder, and the butterflies suddenly jolted to life. A spotlight shot through the darkness, landing on the stage in the center. The folded wings of the butterflies flicked up, vertical, to flutter a few times.
“Take up the baton and conduct,” Henry whispered from the shadows.
A slender golden rod that resembled a magic wand waited beside the stage. She remembered seeing it among his sketches, but it was so cleverly constructed that she couldn’t see the strings that had to be hidden, somewhere, to drive the mechanisms. With a dramatic sweep, she raised the baton and brought it down as she had seen Mademoiselle Caprice conduct her dancers.