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I didn’t show up for rehearsal--and why should I have? I’d never lehere, with the country’s most influential painter and taste, somehow ended up in the conveyance back to Paradis, albeit upside down, and went straight to Mel and Bea’s roouste avoided my eyes and didn’t say a word I had barely arrived in time for the show

"What is he like?" Mel asked, as she attached extra-long eyelashes to ned so, and after several days in her company, I didn’t need a translation

"He scares you, Bea? Why?"

In response, she just shivered and shook her head, her skin quivering into a lacier She didn’t know Or she wouldn’t say

"H on the flutter of false lashes made of bits of feather "What’s Lenoir like? Austere A little scary Stern But a genius, so you put up with it"

Mel heldcoed "I have no idea He keeps it covered Won’t let rand unveiling at the Louvre, a big party I’ll see it then, when everyone else does"

Mel sighed with longing "Painted by Lenoir Every cabaret girl’s dream He started one of Limone, you know, but she made him so mad he never finished it That’s why she never really becae but never quite arrived"

I tucked that bit away for later: so it was possible to anger Lenoir to the point of no return Every day, I felt as if I’d co on his last nerve But I also left his studio feeling as if I’d beeninstead of a person And yet I wanted to go back and didn’t want to lose his approval I needed to know exactly where the boundary between spirited and destroyed ht lie

Mel ducked her head close to ive you absinthe?"

I felt cagey answering, and I felt even worse for lying "I told hienius is fueled by the Green Fairy"

"Such is the price of greatness, I suppose"

Bea shook her head and signed " ‘Not worth it,’ " Mel translated for me

"Just be careful, yes?" Mel squeezed erous, outside of Paradis"

I squeezed her back "Is it dangerousinside Paradis?" My eyes flitted to the bed

She looked atdark green "Oh, la Not like you think It’s different for daimons You do what you must to feed, and so do we There’s no shae of spirit, of e?"

She looked up, caughtto be ashaht I’ to learn"

Bea patted ned

" ‘There is much to fear, much darkness,’ " Mel translated slowly " ‘Especially outside the cabaret’ "

"I’ave h," Mel said

That night’s gentleman caller arrived in the copper pachyderm with a bouquet of flowers that sly, he was another shy but do old man I flirted with hiled a little, and drank enough blood for us both to feel satisfied I left hi he wouldn’t have a heart attack and die With the absinthe still echoing in my blood, I skipped downstairs and across the courtyard But considering that I wasn’t sleepy at all and it was relatively early, I decided that it was high tie

There was a brick hallway, then the backstage of the theater, and then another brick hallway mirrored on the other side Aside from Blue’s costume room, Madame Sylvie’s room, and the secret tunnel Bea had shown ht lie behind any of the other doors along either passage I felt a little giddy, a little wicked, as I slipped off my red boots and tiptoed down the wooden boards to discover the secrets of Paradis

The first door I opened was filled floor-to-ceiling with dusty, broken things Bits of stage, old doors, steah that I couldn’t even step inside Seeing that the dust lay undisturbed, I closed the door gently