I opened my mouth to argue, but Julian beat me to it. “Don’t you trust me to keep an eye on her?” he asked. “After all, I know how important the masque is”—his eyes went to me and then back to my mother—“to both of us.”
I silently applauded his tactic while watching my mother’s profile for any sign of what she might be thinking. But her face was as smooth and unreadable as a troll’s. “Back by midnight,” she said, and snapped her book open again.
I grinned at Julian and he winked.
While he went outside to hail a hackney cab, I changed into a dark blue dress, braided my hair so that it hung over one shoulder, and shoved what I needed into a satchel. Kissing my mother on the cheek, I hurried out into the chill air where my co-star was waiting. Taking his arm, I scrambled up into the carriage.
“Le Chat?” Julian asked.
I shook my head. “After. There’s somewhere we need to go first.”
One dark eyebrow cocked. “Oh? Where’s that?”
“Pigalle.”
His other eyebrow shot up to join the first. “Pigalle? Curses, why would you want to go there?”
“There’s something I need,” I said, waiting for him to argue, but he only shrugged and gave the instruction to the driver.
“You won’t tell her where we went, will you?” I asked as the horse started trotting down the street. “She’ll lock me up for the rest of my life if she finds out.”
Julian tilted his head from side to side in a parody of extreme thought. “I suppose not. It wouldn’t really do for me to have a prisoner for a co-star. But in exchange for my deception, I expect you to pay for all my libations tonight.”
“As much as you can drink.”
“Then off to Pigalle we go.” He clapped his hands together. “Which isn’t something I’d ever thought I’d say.”
“Wait here,” I said to Julian as I slipped out of the hack. “I won’t be very long.”
It was very dark in Pigalle, the moon little more than a sliver in the night sky, but I still looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching, before going to the door and knocking. Moments later, I heard footsteps, and the door opened.
“I told you never to come back!”
Catherine tried to shut the door to her shop in my face, but I threw my shoulder against it, forcing my way in before Julian could take notice. “I have questions that need answering.”
“I don’t care. You need to leave.” The sticky scent of absinthe was heavy on her breath, and she was unsteady on her feet.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what I need to know.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
Pulling her grimoire out of my satchel, I held it up. “I think you do.”
Catherine’s eyes bulged as she recognized the book. “Thief!” she shrieked, lunging at me as though to claw my eyes out.
I dodged her drunken swipe at my face easily, but prudence made me retreat a few paces lest she try again. “Here,” I said, holding the book out at arm’s length. “I’m giving it back.”
She snatched it out of my hand and clutched it against her chest. “You’re going to get me killed.”
“That isn’t my plan,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone about those spells, and I have no intention of doing so. If you help me.”
“Is that a threat?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to—her imagination would do my dirty work.
She glared at me for a long time, then the heat left her eyes and her shoulders slumped. “I suppose it doesn’t really matter anymore. They know I’ve consorted with you.”
She was talking about the Regency. I wanted to press her for details, but my time was limited and I needed to extract everything she knew about the masked woman. Wary of another attack, I gently took her by the arm and led her to the back table. When I had her seated with the dog on her lap, I took the chair across from her.
“There’s a spell in that book for the making of a cream that wipes away age. I know you made it for a woman who at least once appeared to you hooded and wearing a mask, and that you perhaps cast other spells for her as well.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There is no point in denying it, Catherine. I pulled the memory from your own thoughts.”
I braced myself, expecting my admission to elicit another attack, but no anger flowed into her eyes. Only resignation. “I had no choice but to help her.”
“Who was she?” I asked.
Catherine shook her head. “I don’t know. She always appeared in some sort of disguise, and she took steps to alter her voice so that I couldn’t identify her.”
I swore silently. “Do know anything about her? Any clues to who she might be?”
“No.” The other witch gently stroked her dog’s back. “She approached me the first time nearly ten years ago—had heard I could make creams and lotions that would wipe the years off a woman’s face. She had the money to pay, and there was no harm in it. The spells I was using at the time were harmless combinations of herbs and earth. But they only worked so well. And they most certainly could not stop the passage of time.”
“So you turned to the dark arts?”
“I had no choice.” Her mouth twisted. “She told me that if I did not do what she wanted, she’d arrange for the Regent to discover I was a witch. That she’d see me burn. So I did it.” A single tear ran down her face. “It was difficult procuring the… the sacrifices I needed. And difficult disposing of the bodies. I was terrified I’d be caught, and I could feel myself changing. I felt corrupted, as though some insidious substance had got into my veins and was slowly working its way through my body. I can only imagine what they were doing to her mind with the quantities in which she used them.”
“Did she ask you to make any other potions? Perform other spells?” It was a struggle to keep the anticipation from my voice.
“Only the creams.”
My anticipation burned away leaving disappointment in its wake. I’d been so sure there’d be others—spells to somehow prolong Anushka’s life. Was my theory entirely wrong? Clearing my throat, I said, “So you stopped. Told her you wouldn’t make her potions any longer?”
“I tried.” She scrubbed a hand across her red-rimmed eyes. “But she wouldn’t hear of it, and I was afraid to cross her. Nor could I go to Marie, because she would never have forgiven me for abusing my position.”
“You said before that she knew you were a witch?”
Catherine nodded. “Her son, Aiden, was a sickly child. She approached me and brought me into her household as his nurse at great risk to herself, given the Regent’s views on witchcraft. I involved her in my spells to help him, because the bond of blood between parent and child holds an intense amount of power. No one but Marie knew I was a witch until…” She broke off.
“Until?” I leaned forward in anticipation.
“Some four years ago, the masked woman left me a note asking for me to meet her. Of course I went, but instead of her usual request, she asked for something different.”