Wicked as She Wants Read online

  “Ha!” She held up more than three feet of my pride and joy, a hunting trophy. It was shiny, beautiful, and the color of buttermilk, if slightly dusty and blood-streaked buttermilk. The color was unusual in Freesia and had been my trademark. I grabbed for it, but she danced back, winding it around her hand and stuffing it neatly into a bag. She pocketed the pins, too.

  “It’s mine,” I said menacingly.

  “It’s going to buy your disguise. Which we can’t get until we cut off even more.”

  “No.” I felt for the cruelly snagged ends of my remaining locks. They fell just below my shoulders. It was a tragedy. My fingers played with the rough curls, and I glared at Keen, imagining her head next to Casper’s on a platter.

  “Look, lady. It’s simple. Do you want to live, or do you want to die? Somebody wants you to lie down and stuff it, and you don’t strike me as the sort of bitch that’s going to oblige. So let’s get on with it before the shops close and your type fills the streets, eh? Short hair ain’t so bad. And you’re less likely to get the nits.”

  I shuddered. Common folk and their filth had never been a consideration before. Did I see things moving in her dull, mud-brown hair, or was that just my imagination?

  She took a step toward me, scissors held out. I slapped her arm away, and quick as a snake, she slapped my arm with her free hand. It fell to my side, limp. I had never been struck before. The little beast took advantage of my shock to shove me onto Casper’s stool. I tried to stand, but her foot pinned my skirts.

  “I don’t mind stabbing you,” she said in a businesslike manner, “but you’ll look nicer if you just let me take care of it.”

  In the end, I sat there, stunned and already grieving my youth and beauty. Each snippet of ice-white hair that fluttered to the ground felt like a year of my life. Instead of feeling lighter, my head felt weighed down by all the sorrow in the world. I was weak. I was lost. And now I was ugly.

  “There we go,” Keen said at last. “And a lovely job it is, if I do say so myself.”

  I thought about scooping up another shard of mirror to see the damage she’d done, but I knew that I was too distraught to stop myself from stabbing her, and then Casper would never help me. What was done was done.

  “Put this on.”

  Keen shoved something green and smelly into my hands. I dumped it onto the floor, where Tommy Pain batted it about.

  “You’re going to want that hat, you know,” Keen said. “Your hair stands out. You’ve got to cover it, at least until we can get some dye.”

  At the end of my emotional rope and badly in need of blood and non-Keen company, I shoved the hat onto my head. It was large and floppy and made of the itchiest substance I’d ever touched, the sort of thing an old servant man would wear to keep the rain off.

  “Couldn’t you find anything smaller than this monstrosity?” I tried to arrange it so it wouldn’t itch. “I could fit Tommy Pain in here and still have room for—”

  I looked at her, eyes wide. She grinned her evil grin again, the one that transformed her face into something beatific. And something that I wanted to destroy. I threw the hat at her instead. She caught it neatly and twirled it around a finger. Anger bubbled up in my chest.

  “I could have stuffed all my hair in here, you brat. We didn’t have to cut it off yet, or so badly. It didn’t have to hurt.”

  “Nope. We didn’t. But I think it was more fun this way. Don’t you?”

  “I’m going to see your head—”

  “On a platter. Yeah, the Maestro told me about that. Why would you even want someone’s head on a platter? It would just wobble around and leak and make a mess, and they’d be all staring at you with their dead eyes. A pike would be so much more dramatic. Or a fishbowl full of whiskey.”

  “Seems like you’ve been giving it some thought,” I snapped.

  “You’re not the only one with enemies.”

  While we bantered, my traitorous hands crept up to what was left of my curls. My talons caught on the tangled ends, and my breath hitched. People could see my ears. It was the worst disaster since the last blood famine.

  She snickered and patted the bag. “Going to get a good price for it, you know. Bloody idiots will think it’s a unicorn tail with magical properties, make it into good-luck watch fobs. You should be proud.”

  “Magical properties? You’ve obviously never met a unicorn.”

  “Haven’t met a sea monster or hellbear, either.”

  Now it was my turn to grin and flash my pointed teeth. “Then you haven’t been to Freesia.”

  “Save the fairy tales for the kiddies, princess.” But I had seen her tough façade falter, just for a moment. I was guessing she’d never been out of London and was scared of travel. She had reason to be, if she thought she was coming with us to Freesia. And now I had a little something to hold over her. Excellent.

  “They’re not fairy tales, ragamuffin.”

  “Well, we’re still in London, and we’re running late. So let’s go.”

  I took my time tightening my corset and lacing my old boots back on. Four years ago, they had been as soft as a baby’s cheek, perfectly tanned bludelk leather dyed to a deep gold. Now they were cracked with age and disuse, the laces hard and bent. As for my dress, there was nothing I could do about it, and I didn’t want her filthy little paws on my person anyway. I snatched the hat back and draped it over my head, hiding my face under the sagging brim.

  “You look like a drunk grandmother,” Keen said with a laugh. “Just stagger about a bit and burp every now and then. They’ll just assume you’re blitzed on bludwine.”

  “On what?”

  “Nothing. Let’s go. Don’t speak to anyone. Try to hunch over a bit like there ain’t a red-hot poker up your bum. Don’t say anything about heads on platters.” She yanked a faded plaid blanket from Casper’s bed and tossed it over my shoulders. It smelled like him, good and bad at the same time. “And keep this around your shoulders and neck. Hide your hands. They ain’t so nice to Bluddies where we’re going.”

  I arranged the pathetic little scrap of fabric the way I’d seen our old Pinky cook wear her shawl while making bloodcakes or mixing the potion for my baths. I hunched over, letting my head slump forward and bending my knees. It went against everything in my blud, pretending to be something less than I was. But I’d heard wild rumors of the Pinkies of Sangland, who held sway over the Bludmen in a blasphemous sort of power struggle that went against nature itself. I wasn’t ready to be drained again or hit in the face with a moldy bit of vegetable.

  Without a word, she led me out the door and down the rickety stairs. I was pleased to discover that I could walk, but I was still exhausted. It was like the dreamy ache of falling asleep beside the fire after a daylong hunt, but without the pleasant floaty feeling of a belly full of fresh blood.

  We passed several open doors, one showing the empty music hall where I’d first found Casper and woken in the darkness. A jumble of crates, valises, and flotsam sat in the corner, and I thought I spotted the flap of leather from my own suitcase.

  “Wait,” I whispered, and Keen grunted. Before she could stop me, I darted over to the suitcase and scrabbled inside, feeling for some remnant of my old life, some clue to the last four years. The lights were low, since there were no windows, and even with my excellent night vision, I couldn’t see much. I had nearly given up when my talon caught in the fabric lining, tearing it. I felt around between the ragged silk and the leather until something cool scraped my fingertips.

  I pulled out my prize and sighed. I wasn’t sure whether it was contentment or sadness. In my hand was the necklace I’d been wearing that day by the fish pond, the day that, to the best of my memory, was the day of my abduction. White diamonds and blue sapphires winked in a collar that made me look like a glacier carved of ice. It had been a gift from my father for my fifteenth birthday in those beautiful, dancing days before Ravenna had begun to insinuate herself into our family and our state.

&n
bsp; “You find anything?” Keen called from the doorway.

  I slipped the necklace down the front of my corset and called back, “No, nothing here.”

  But for some reason, I wasn’t ready to leave the suitcase yet. It had been an unwitting prison, but it was the only clue to my apparent kidnapping. I pushed it over to investigate. Scuffed tan leather, thick and cheaply stitched. On one side, the curved flap I’d carved with my claws. On the other side, a host of odd stickers with strange names I had to squint to read. Stockhelm. Constantinoble. Kyro. Places I’d seen in my books and on the ornate, gemstone-dappled globe in my father’s study. I had apparently been to those faraway places, unconscious and on the verge of death. I had missed the mountains, the sunrises, those abominations called camels that spit blud when angry. So much time and so many opportunities, lost forever.

  And on the top, another sticker had been torn just enough to obscure the recipient’s name. Written in dark red ink, the remaining words read, “-seinist, -uby Lane, -ontown, land.”

  They had shipped me, whoever they were. Like luggage. Less than chattel. Dumped in a case and passed along, hand to hand, never to reach my final destination. And now I knew, at least partially, to whom. And I wasn’t leaving London until I’d learned why.

  6

  I was so busy fighting my way through the streets of London that I barely had time to register the details in the chaos. Head down and shawl-sheltered, I mostly saw Keen’s back, the bag full of my hair bouncing against her grungy jacket. Every time I tried to look up and soak in the shops, the filth in the streets, the mouthwatering children plucking my skirts with innocent grins and handfuls of violets, I would nearly lose my guide. So instead, I focused on the spot between her shoulder blades, thinking about how pleasant it would be to plant a knife there.

  She ducked down an alley, and I followed. We tiptoed over piles of rotten Pinky fodder, past drunks and fallen women, and through the lairs of the biggest bludlemmings I’d ever seen, their maroon fur bristling as they hissed at me. At last, Keen held open a nondescript door, and I stepped into darkness.

  “Gods of ice, I’m sick of squalor,” I muttered under my breath. We were in an antechamber, a sad little closet barely big enough for the two of us and the giant black cat that had apparently chased us all the way from the Seven Scars, bludlemmings be damned. I began to see why they called him Tommy Pain, because he certainly was a pain.

  Keen knocked on the inner door, and locks clicked within.

  “It’s about time,” Casper said through the crack before Keen shoved me through.

  The room beyond was nothing like what I had expected from the dismal antechamber and Casper’s room under the eaves. Bright red walls, a salmon-pink ceiling, and a wooden floor painted with giant swirls made my eyes hurt after the grim dullness of everything else I’d seen in London so far. Perhaps these people weren’t as depressing and deadened as I had assumed.

  “So here’s ze little princess,” mused a cultured lady’s voice with a Franchian accent.

  The tall woman at Casper’s side was mostly uncovered, her skin shimmering with color, red and deep orange and violet like a sunset. Her eyes were black all around, and I would have sworn that feathers were somehow glued to her eyelashes, making them seem as long as fingers. A daimon. I’d never seen one outside of books or paintings.

  I knew I was staring, and I knew it was rude. I forced myself to look down.

  “Forgive me, madam. I’ve been out of the world for a long time and have forgotten myself.”

  It was the most polite I’d been in London, mainly because I could sense some common feeling in the proud carriage of this odd lady. If she wasn’t royalty where she came from, she was something close.

  “I understand what it is like to be alone among ze barbarians,” she answered with a coy smile. “And I offer my condolences on the loss of your hair. I remember from ze broadsheets that it was quite beautiful.”

  My hand went to the heinous hat. I removed it and dropped it right on Tommy Pain’s head. He shook it off and glared at me with his bright green eye. I almost smiled.

  “I am Madamoiselle Beaureve, but here they call me Reve. If you will allow, I will help you to bathe and dress in a disguise, so that you may travel unimpeded. The price, as you know, is your hair. Do you accept this arrangement?”

  Keen handed her the bag, and Reve opened it with a look of awe. Her skin shivered in feathery patterns of violet and indigo.

  “It is very fine. It will be a joy to work with such beautiful hair.”

  “What will you do with it?” I asked.

  “Truly, you don’t want to know, princess.”

  “There’s some sick bastards in this town,” Keen muttered under her breath. Judging by her bitterness, maybe she was older than she looked.

  “It seems I have no choice but to accept.”

  My eyes met Casper’s. I couldn’t read what I saw there, a stormy mixture of determination and surrender, like a man being sucked into darkness and welcoming the maelstrom. He closed his eyes as if in pain and slipped out the door without a word.

  Reve pooled my golden curls reverently on a work-table with a farewell pat. I told myself that my hair would grow back, that it would one day regain and surpass its former beauty, but I wasn’t sure if I believed it.

  The daimon walked around me, her long tail waving as she plucked my sleeves and felt the stuff of my skirt and tilted my head up with a hot-skinned magenta finger under my chin.

  “This will be fun,” she murmured.

  She bowed me through another door. I was soon alone, soaking in a copper tub, the water from the steam pipes nearly boiling my skin. Once I got over my inbred fear of water and accepted that there wasn’t a grain of salt in the sweet-smelling bubbles, I was able to finally relax. I hadn’t realized how dusty and tightly wound I had been. The bathtub, clearly selected for Reve, dwarfed my petite form, and I stretched in ecstasy. In the workshop, the daimon would be plucking out the gold thread and burning my old dress, or maybe cutting it into ragged skirts for the less-picky whores. So it was done, then. I was ready to begin the next chapter of my life.

  The water was soon cloudy with the filth of years, and it was delicious to scrub my short hair and feel the water running down my scalp. By the time I exited the steam-filled bathroom wrapped in a skimpy cotton robe, I was almost looking forward to life on the road. I’d never undertaken a journey before, and even if my main companion was an unpleasant ruffian like Casper, at least I wasn’t half-drained in a valise.

  Reve was waiting for me in the workroom, surrounded by heaps of fabric and ribbons.

  “Oh la, chérie. You are ready? Good. We begin.” She led me to a tall chair, and I sat, mesmerized by my image in the mirror.

  She fluffed my damp hair with her fingers, which were now green. It curled loosely around my head in a pretty cloud of lightest blond, and I sighed.

  “I know, I know. Sangland is a bland place, and you are accustomed to standing out. Brown dye will seem cruel to you, but it’s the only way to avoid detection.”

  “Artifice,” I said. “I don’t like it.”

  She laughed, her voice like water over rocks. “You are Freesian royalty. You drank artifice with your mother’s milk and blud. This is just a little paint.”

  With quick fingers, she mixed a strange concoction from bottles and powders and coated my hair with dull brown. Without a word and with an ease that suggested prior dealings with Bludmen, she clipped and filed my talons to the exactly proper length. When she finally washed the muck from my hair, I looked like a drowned bludlemming.

  I was accustomed to being primped and dressed, and honestly, I wouldn’t have known how to do half of it. I was more than content to let myself be manipulated as I meditated on my various plans. Heads on platters. Or spikes. Travel by coach or elegant airship, velvet couches, a parasol at my side. Sinking my teeth into Ravenna’s throat and being welcomed back into the embrace of my country. Raising monuments to my p
arents and moving into the royal chamber.

  I patted the robe’s pocket, feeling the weight of my jeweled necklace there. I still had riches. It would be a piece of bludcake.

  Reve helped me step into the bulky undergarments favored in London, frilly petticoats that would make my skirt stand out round as a bell.

  “Now for your dress,” she said, and I inspected the rich fabrics and trims draped everywhere.

  My smile crumbled when she held out the dullest thing in the room.

  “A sack?” I asked, acid in my voice.

  “Oh, la, little princess. What you see here are costumes for performers. The dancers, the acrobats, the whores. They all come to me for the brightest, the lowest-cut, the most daring. But you must do your best not to stand out. You must escape notice. Eyes must travel over you and never remember that you existed. That scarlet satin would drop wagging jaws, and then you would find yourself in another suitcase.”

  I poked the dull brown thing draped over her arms. Then I wiped my fingers off on my robe.

  “Tell yourself it is a costume. Call the color bronze or palomino. And don’t give up yet—there is more to do.”

  With daggers of distaste in my eyes, I let her dump me into the dress. The rough, canvas-like fabric grated against my wrists and neck. I’d never dressed as a Pinky, never had my throat covered up to my chin, and I wanted to gag with the intimacy of the garment.

  “This next bit is special,” Reve said, interrupting my sulk. She held something heavy and leathery out to me, and I sneered at it.

  “A saddle?”

  “There are no stirrups, chérie.”

  She winked and lifted my arms to buckle the thing around me. It was a leather corset. And it had to weigh at least twenty pounds.