Chapter 10
The Magical Heirloom of Mademoiselle Cake
Of all the foes Honoré had ever envisioned fighting—Prussian soldiers, rival gangs, Terreur, always Terreur—she hadn’t thought to imagine a literal dragon.
The sculpture was the size of a stallion, so Honoré figured it had to be even heavier. A single bronze paw could crush her chest. Its fangs could slice her open. There were other sharp edges: Spikes jutted out of the wings and out of the creature’s… stomach? There was even a pincer-type claw at the end of its tail.
By comparison, the knife in Honoré’s own hand was laughable.
She dodged when the dragon leapt. Her blade struck hard enough to summon sparks, but it didn’t so much as scratch the beast. Ha, fucking ha! What else was there to fight with? Rémy’s revolver… The gun was folded tight in Honoré’s pocket. When she went to reach for it, her finger met the cool bite of her father’s ring instead.
It felt far bigger than she remembered.
“Oh!” Sylvie was wringing her hands by the fountain. “Please don’t fight!”
Honoré wasn’t entirely sure if the kid was speaking to her or the dragon. The statue was getting ready to lunge again, and there was no time to grab the gun.
She threw up her palms to defend herself.
Her ring was bigger; it was the most peculiar thing. The band’s silver dragon had grown. Metal pooled out over Honoré’s hand and the rest of her fingers so that they looked liquid beneath the moonlight. The jewelry’s finer details—its ears and snout, its sharp eyes and sharper fangs—were moving. They gathered over her fist, growing and growing, until her ring met its bronze counterpart in midair. There was a magnificent twist of metal as the two dragons tangled together, and Honoré, standing below, felt the fight like she never had before. It wasn’t like wielding a knife at all. The way the silver shifted was more like a limb, responding to Honoré’s instincts by smashing the bronze statue into its own fountain.
Sylvie shrieked as water sprayed across the plaza. She seemed to be the only person who noticed that Honoré had a giant metallic dragon fused to her fist. The rest of the street was strangely complacent. Couples strolled past. Students too. Honoré recognized the boy who’d accepted her moustache. He took no further note of her or the shiny new addition to the Fontaine Saint-Michel. Honoré’s dragon loomed over the water. The other statue was half-submerged, completely still again.
Sylvie crept to the fountain’s edge. “What did you do, Honoré?”
A fair question. The strangeness of it all was starting to sink in. A statue had attacked her, and she’d used her ring to retaliate. Somehow. The silver was already shrinking back into the slim band she’d always known.
“You never told me you owned a magic ring!” Sylvie said, her tone accusatory.
“I—It’s not—” Honoré faltered.
How could she say the ring wasn’t magic, after what they’d both seen? All the younger girl’s stories suddenly sounded plausible. Cats talked. Green birds haunted the midnight skies… Honoré realized, with a start, that she could now see them. There were dozens alighting on nearby trees and the fountain’s remaining statues.
“Then how did it just come alive?” wondered Sylvie.
“You tell me!” Honoré waved at the fountain. “You’re the one who led us here!”
“I was shadowing Céleste!” the girl informed her. “She and Rafe were following the green birds too! I just didn’t want to say so because I knew you’d tell me I was being childish!”
Honoré’s cheeks burned. She glared back at the birds, as if it were their fault she hadn’t seen them to begin with. “Where’s our friend?” she shouted at them. “Did you attack her too?”
“Goodness no.”
The answer came from behind them. The dragon on Honoré’s middle finger hissed back to life as she spun around—prepared for a fight.
Instead, she found herself face-to-face with the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
Her dress was green, and the surrounding streetlamps turned the color into something electric. The woman herself was glowing too. It looked as if there were sunbeams coming from her brow, gold filigree that pulsed and faded. Her eyes were a curious shade of amber, and instead of insects, they trapped time. She might have been twenty years old or twenty times that; Honoré had no idea. She only knew that her own insides flared wherever this other woman’s gaze landed.
The ring closed its jaws when the newcomer paused to study it. “Are your thoughts always so violent?” she asked.
Her voice was like biting into a honeycomb, or seeing sunlight break through a storm, or smelling the first leaves of spring after endless winter.
It was enough to make a poet out of Honoré.
And render her speechless.
“Most of the time,” Sylvie offered unhelpfully. “But Honoré’s never made her ring move before!”
“I’ve never been attacked by a fountain before!” Honoré mumbled.
The green woman walked to the water and placed a palm on the overturned dragon. It began to stir. “My guard is more vigilant, these days. We thought you were one of his pawns.” She looked over her shoulder at Honoré. “But you’re not, are you?”
Honoré had no idea what this woman was talking about, but she felt compelled to shake her head.
Sylvie snorted. “Honoré would rather swallow a sword than work for a man.”
The dragon of the Fontaine Saint-Michel shook water from its wings and climbed back onto its original pedestal as if nothing had happened. The woman turned and regarded Sylvie with something of a smile. “Is that so?”
“Of course! It’s why we founded the Enchantresses. But up until now, we’ve never done any real magic.” Sylvie tilted her head, taking in the newcomer’s searing eyes, her very large folded wings. “Are you a sorceress?”
“Of sorts. The people call me ‘La Fée Verte.’”
“I’m Sylvie! And this is Honoré!”
The other woman nodded. “A good name. One of my favorites, in fact. It comes from the patron saint of pastry chefs.”
“Really?” Sylvie’s grin turned impish as she looked at Honoré. “From now on I will call you ‘Mademoiselle Cake’!”
La Fée Verte was watching too, and it was everything Honoré could do to hold her gaze. It felt too warm. To be fair, she’d never looked terribly long into reflections either. “Tell me, Honoré, what is it you are afraid of?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
“Cats,” Sylvie said.
“I’m not afraid of cats!”
“Then why do you hate them so much?” the girl asked.
“I don’t hate them—I—” Honoré swallowed, thinking of the vision she’d had in the Belleville alley, when she’d mistaken Sylvie for her own innocent ghost. “I had a kitten, once. When I was your age. It—it didn’t end well.”
Sylvie opened her mouth, then shut it again. “Oh,” she said, finally. “You never told me that.”
La Fée Verte’s gaze slid between the Enchantresses. Back and forth. Honoré wasn’t quite sure what this magical woman was seeing, much less what it was that made her smile. “I can work with cats. They can be quite useful if you manage to earn their trust. I’d like to work with you too, Honoré. Would you do me the honor of attending my salon this evening?”
Honoré held her breath. Her insides wavered. She’d just slammed this woman’s enchanted statue into the ground. It didn’t make sense that such a thing would merit an invitation, much less a job offer. This had to be a trap, somehow.
“I will!” Sylvie had no such misgivings. “Can you teach us how to do more spells, Madame Verte? Can we be sorceresses of sorts too? Oh! If I learn how to make statues move, I can make the lobster on Notre-Dame dance!”
La Fée Verte’s smile faded then. “I’m not in the habit of inviting children to my salon, but I suppose I can make an exception if Honoré agrees to accompany me.”
Sylvie clasped her hands together. “Oh, please, Honoré! Can we go? I swear I will never talk about talking to cats in front of you again. And I’ll never again steal your cheese and blame it on rats when you ask.”
“Why would you want to work with me?” Honoré wondered.
“Why wouldn’t she?” Sylvie said. “You turned your ring into a dragon!”
“Fighting like that is a lost art.” La Fée Verte swept an arm back to the fountain. “My guard here has served me well for the past thirty years, but shadows are starting to circle Paris once more. I’ll soon need more than painters and statues to answer my call.”
“You need a soldier?” Honoré asked.
“That’s one word for it.”
“She needs a knight!” Sylvie chirped. “Oh, Honoré, please say yes! Please, please, please?”
Birds rustled above the fountain’s centerpiece. Its statues suddenly seemed much more urgent: The Archangel Michael hadn’t moved, nor had the devil, yet Honoré wanted them to. She wanted the sword to plunge.
She wanted to feel her dragon’s silver wings again.
The ring glimmered as Honoré held it up. “You can show me how to use this?”
La Fée Verte nodded. The beast seemed to be nodding too—its small ears flicked, and its tiny fangs sank shut.
“Well,” Honoré relented, “I suppose one late evening couldn’t hurt—”
“YAY!”
La Fée Verte smiled when the youngest Enchantress cheered. The birds around the plaza took off in unison, their emerald wings stirring the night air like the velvet insides of a magician’s cape or the opening curtains of such an act.
Across the street, an alleyway appeared.
La Fée Verte’s flock flew through.
“Welcome to the Quartier Secret,” she said.
In the Quartier Secret, the smoke did not choke. The lamps were cheerfully bright. There were no incriminating bloodstains on the bar top—only a drink that turned silver when Honoré touched the glass. It smelled sharp: like frost on grass. She wasn’t brave enough to taste it.
Sylvie’s drink was a pink so bright, it made your eyes ache. La Fée Verte plucked the flute from the girl’s grasp before she had a chance to gulp it down.
“This isn’t for children.” The skin around her eyes flashed an extra degree brighter. The glass in her hand vanished. “Perhaps when you’re older, you can imbibe.”
Sylvie sighed. “That’s what Céleste always says.”
Céleste. Honoré had been so caught up in this fever dream of a woman, she’d forgotten that this entire endeavor had been in pursuit of their friend. The first room in the salon was filled with similar distractions. A group of gentlemen played cards that kept changing suits—a game that proved impossible to win. A woman nearby was wearing a fur that turned out to be a living fox. She was feeding it bonbons.
But the third Enchantress was nowhere to be seen.
“Does this place go on?” Honoré nodded at the thick curtains around the room.
“The only borders here are your own imagination,” La Fée Verte told her. “So, Sylvie of a Single Name, if you wish to drink something else, I suggest you conjure it for yourself.”
“I can do that?”
“You can do anything you set your mind to in my salon.”
The girl squeezed her eyes shut. “I’d like an elephant to pour me a cup of smoky cocoa so that I can drink it and make some fun smoke-ring shapes too.”
Honoré glanced back at the card players—just now noticing the armada of ships and flying squid that swirled up from their cigarettes. No, this salon was nothing like her father’s den of sins. She supposed she shouldn’t worry about Céleste wandering off in such a wondrous place.
“Is it working?” Sylvie squeaked. “Did I create an elephant?”
There was no visible change on or around the girl. Her tunic was streaked with grave dirt and icing. It should have looked out of place with the room’s gilded finishes, but Sylvie blended in here as well as she had on the outside streets.
One of the birds landed on La Fée Verte’s arm, handing her a glowing string. She knotted this around her wrist. “I might suggest starting with something smaller,” she told Sylvie.
“You said space wasn’t an issue!” the girl protested.
“It isn’t. But bringing an imagining out of your head takes faith on your part. You might find it easier to believe in a single cup of cocoa without the large land mammal serving it.”
Sylvie set her shoulders back. The entirety of her tiny form shook with effort, and Honoré knew without a doubt she was still trying to summon an elephant. The girl hated to be told no. It was the only sure way to make her do something.
The bird on La Fée Verte’s arm watched with interest, its jade head tilting back and forth. Honoré had seen nonmagical birds do the same after rain showers, while they hunted for worms.
A taut moment passed.
Sylvie scrunched her nose.
A single wild curl of her hair started to shine.
“There!” La Fée Verte exclaimed.
Sylvie opened one eye. “Where?”
The songbird swooped over her head, plucking the hair with its beak. Instead of flying back to La Fée Verte, the animal landed on Sylvie’s shoulder, presenting the girl with her own idea. She cradled the glowing string in her palms. Her eyes burned bright with it.
“They grow from your head, of course. You can bring it to life by breaking it in half or you can save—”
The CRACK was almost as loud as the gunshots Honoré had heard earlier that evening. Only it wasn’t a beer glass breaking. Sylvie had snapped her own imagining in two, and now there was a full-grown elephant spilling out. Honoré stumbled back, but the salon seemed compensate for the creature’s presence, adding extra floorboards and growing the glass ceiling several more feet. The elephant’s ears brushed a chandelier made of fireflies, scattering the insects like shooting stars. Beneath their light, Honoré could see that the animal wasn’t gray but blue.
There was a teacup clasped in its trunk.
The cocoa inside was indeed smoking. These tendrils took the shape of tiny elephants who held even smaller teacups with similar steamy shapes. A picture inside a picture inside a picture. It was exquisitely detailed and dizzying to look at, but this didn’t stop the entire room from staring.
“See!” There was triumph in Sylvie’s voice as she accepted the hot drink. “I have faith.”
A smile lit La Fée Verte’s already-radiant face—so bright that Honoré couldn’t help but smile too. Only, her cheeks weren’t so used to the motion, and they immediately began to ache. So did the cut on her chin. “Try not to overexert yourself. The more dreams you wake here, the longer you’ll sleep tomorrow.”
It made sense now, why Céleste spent her mornings in a crumpled heap, white hair in disarray. Honoré wondered what sorts of things the other Enchantress pulled from her head. Sylvie’s elephant, meanwhile, had gone on to wedge itself behind the bar and was making drinks for the salon’s other guests. The girl was grinning so wildly, she could barely swallow her cocoa. Yes, she fit in well here.
Honoré couldn’t say the same. She’d caught a glimpse of herself in a dress made of mirrors. The reflection was fast and fragmented, but enough to show exactly how much Rémy had sliced up her face.
Obviously, she wasn’t expected to imagine elephants.
“What would you like me to do?” She turned to La Fée Verte, then thought of the first thing she always did, when she settled into a new place. “I could secure the perimeter.”
“Honoré makes very good booby traps,” Sylvie said, between sips of cocoa. Smoke poured out of her nostrils and ears, looking as swirly as a van Gogh painting. “I’ll bet she can make them even better with magic.”
Honoré glanced down at her ring. The dragon was back to its original size, but it was still awake. Blinking and yawning and flicking its silver ears.
“I don’t think my salon needs any booby traps.” The air around La Fée Verte hummed with birds as she fanned her wings. A fresh breeze caressed Honoré’s face. “But there is something I’d like to show you.”