Kill Me Softly (26 page)

“That would be me,” Blue said. “Just meet us back here after the show. Or wait by the door if you get kicked out early for brawling.”

“That's probably what will happen,” Mira said.

“I figured,” Blue said. “Just don't run off, okay?” He was buckling his belt, but he looked up at her very seriously. “Make sure I see you.”

“I will,” she said. “Go ahead and get ready. I'll see you guys later! Don't screw up!”

She hurried out of the greenroom to join the audience, feeling lighter than she had in days.

The club was as dark as a pit, an abyss with a single spotlight. Stage lights illuminated the band, but only faintly. Most of the glow was on Jewel, who glistened with sweat, glittering like the gems that fell from her lips: sharp and raw and gorgeous.

The music was violent, explosive—like it wanted to make people bleed, or inspire them to break things. The crowd writhed to Rafe's snarly bass line, smashed into each other, screamed along. And when the song ended, and Jewel dropped to her knees and let a stream of pearls spill from her mouth to the stage, the audience shrieked with pleasure, hands scrabbling to claim a handful of the pearls that had touched her lips.

Magic was what they came for.

Mira felt light-headed, dizzy from the noise, overwhelmed by the crowd. She didn't want to be nicked by a sharp piece of jewelry or a safety pin—on the odd chance it would trigger sleep. She needed to find Delilah, and find out about her curse. This not knowing was no good.

Elbows out for protection, Mira pushed through the crowd: past girls in red capes, girls who smelled of the sea; past boys with vine tattoos and ash-smeared fireplace princesses. She shoved past one body only to be confronted with another. She practically had to swim through them to escape.

Once she'd broken free, she rubbed her hands over her bare arms. Still perfectly intact.

At the edge of the room, Wills and Caspian Knight leaned against the wall with the air of college guys back in town for a high school dance. Viv was with them, rhinestone stars sparkling in her black hair. They beckoned her over, but Mira declined. She had a mission she wouldn't be swayed from. A darker destination.

She had secrets to uncover.

The corridor leading to the rear of the club was crammed with overaccessorized girls and guys flicking lighters in the dark. She turned at a fork in the path and picked her way down an unlit hall—one none of the club kids dared venture into—until she reached Delilah's office. A strip of acid green light showed under the door.

Mira knocked. Her ears were ringing from the music; her breaths came with effort and she was shaking. In a moment, she'd know what to be afraid of. She'd know what could hurt her most.

Delilah's ogre henchman opened the door, his gray face wrinkling at the sudden onslaught of noise, then gripped her shoulder and hauled her inside. The scent of garlic and boiled meat rose from his pores. Mira held her breath and tugged free, but she could still feel the pressure of his palm as she moved away, as if his hand were clamped on her skin.

With the door shut, the office was surprisingly quiet. The bass thumped despite the soundproofing, but it was low enough that she could hear the ogre's breathing, could hear Delilah's long black nails scraping papers off her desk.

Delilah glanced up, her eyes gleaming a pale gold like ginger ale.

“Mirabelle Lively,” she said. “You came seeking your trigger. And I have it, as promised.” With a smile, the fairy drew a slender gauze bundle from a drawer, about the size of a small cocoon, hanging from a silver chain. “Come closer.”

“Don't be frightened,” the fairy said. “There will be no accidents here.”

Tentatively, her ears still ringing, Mira approached her. Delilah held the bundled pendant by its chain, her long fingers unwinding the gauze wrapping until a razor blade shined in the greenish light. A hole had been punched through the blade, and the chain threaded through it, to turn the razor blade into a necklace.

Mira let out a gasp. This tiny thing. This everyday object. All she had to do was press the tip of her finger to the sharp edge.

One drop of blood. One bite of pain.

And that would be it.

“Your predecessors are many,” Delilah mused, letting the razor blade sway at the end of the chain. “Talia, who fell victim to a splinter of flax and slept, even as a king claimed her, and only awoke when her children were born.
la belle au bois dormant
, who pricked her finger on a spindle and slept for one hundred years, until her prince arrived to rouse her. Brünnhilde the Valkyrie, sent into slumber by a prick from a sleep-thorn, and trapped within a ring of fire until she was freed by a fearless mortal. Briar Rose, plunged into enchanted sleep by the spindle, but awakened by true love's kiss.

“And now you join them, Mirabelle. Just one prick of a razor blade,” the fairy continued, “and you'll succumb to an enchanted slumber for however long it takes your prince to find you. Assuming he still wants to find you,” she added with a thin smile. “Men are fickle. Never fear, the curses will keep making princes. I'm sure that in the next hundred years, one of them will release you. But better to be safe. Don't you think?”

Mira nodded. So she would avoid razors—she'd been doing that anyway; they fell on her godmothers' do-not-touch list, along with nearly everything normal people used: scissors, earrings, matches.

Her godmothers hadn't left anything to chance. They'd forbidden so many things it had never occurred to her to single out one of their prohibitions and question it. No one forbidden activity had seemed so tempting that she'd be driven mad if she didn't try it just once.

Her godmothers had underestimated only one of her desires: to see her parents. It had been the one rule she'd been desperate—or maybe destined—to break.

Delilah rewrapped the razor blade, dulling the sharp edge with layers of gauze, until it was as harmless as the cotton that covered it. Delilah ran it across the flesh of her own wrist to demonstrate. “There. Perfectly safe. It's yours to do with as you wish.”

“I don't want it,” Mira said, taken aback.

Delilah held her gaze. Her pale gold eyes flickered like candle flames. “But it belongs to you. How can you refuse it?”

Without asking permission, the fairy draped the chain around Mira's neck.

The gauze-wrapped razor blade settled against her chest.

Its presence made her heart beat faster, as if the blade would somehow escape its bindings—and seal her fate.

“Now that you know your trigger, you can keep yourself safe,” Delilah said. “It's the secrets that hurt us most.”

The metal felt cold against Mira's chest—though she knew she was imagining it. There was nothing to feel. Just the innocuous softness of the gauze. It was her imagination, her old talent for daydreams, working against her now.

“You never know what people are hiding—that's the problem. Once you know, you can find a way to deal with anything. But so long as you're kept ignorant, the situation is hopeless. Poor thing.” Delilah clucked her tongue. “That's been your lot since you arrived, hasn't it? Everyone hinting at secrets, talking over your head—that must be miserable. You're so strong to have endured it. But you have practice, I suppose—having the truth hidden from you. It probably doesn't even bother you anymore.” She pursed her lips, lemon-sour. “Poor thing.”

Heat was rising at the back of Mira's neck, creeping up her cheeks like a stain. She didn't like the way Delilah was looking at her, full of pity, as if she were a child content to go on knowing nothing.

“It does bother me,” she said. “For your information.”

“Nonsense,” Delilah said. “If it did, you'd have done something about it. All the answers are within your reach. You just have to look for them. Don't you know the first thing about fairy tales, Mirabelle?
No one
”—the fairy leaned in, her breath smelling of green apples—“is going to spoon-feed you the answers. A curse is as much about courage as it is about growth. They're one and the same.”

“I have looked. I've asked Blue about our marks. I've asked Layla about our roles; she showed me the book that explains them. But there are certain things no one is allowed to tell me, because it's part of the curse, which
you
should know—”

Delilah held up a hand to silence her. “You already have the key to answer all your questions about the Valentines. And I'm not being mysterious when I say that. You have the actual, physical key, Mirabelle. If you desire answers, you simply have to open the door.”

Mira knew Felix had secrets. A past that was too painful for him to talk about, flaws he didn't want to reveal. And she'd accepted that. She hadn't liked it—she wanted to know him inside and out—but she'd backed down, because that was what he wanted. Because she was happy—and she wanted him to be happy, too.

But how long could they last if she didn't really know him?

Maybe he was afraid she'd change her mind if she knew his secrets, if he let her down. And it was true that she wanted him to be perfect. She didn't want to believe he was dangerous. Whatever Blue and his friends said about Felix, it wasn't true when he was with
her
.

And yet …

He'd never told her the truth. Never warned her what a Romantic could do, though it was within his power to tell her. And she had to admit … that her willingness to overlook the danger didn't mean it wasn't there.

Mira had spent her whole life daydreaming things into being, existing in a fantasy world to escape a reality she found painful. But there was a real world she wanted to be a part of now. And if she were ever going to belong, she needed to see every side of it. The good and the bad.

The safe parts … and the dangerous parts.

In the main arena of the club, Curses & Kisses was playing harder than ever. The stage was littered with gems. Jewel's husky-sweet voice had gone almost hoarse. Blue pounded away at his drums like he wanted to break them.

Too impatient to be controlled by the flow of the crowd, Mira shoved through with fresh determination, until she reached the vacant greenroom. Blue's street clothes lay in a jumble on the floor. She rifled through his pockets until she found his wallet, and the passkey he'd stolen from her—and she reclaimed it. Curled her fingers around the plastic card like it was her lifeline.

Felix had written in a note to her:

And she'd obeyed. She was a good girl, used to being told
don't do this, don't touch that
.

But following the rules, sweeping questions under the rug, and pretending everything was fine didn't get you anywhere. You had to be bold.
Bold, but not too bold,
she thought. There was a balance.

There was one thing Felix had denied her. One prohibition he'd set down—which made it something to fixate on and wonder about.

What was so secret about suite 3013?

He'd said it was private. That he wanted it left alone.

And if he'd told her about it … he'd told her for a reason.

Maybe, like the razor blade, the prohibition was for her own good.

Or maybe, like her godmothers' forbidding her to visit Beau Rivage, it was keeping her from learning something she desperately needed to know.

You couldn't hide from bad things and pretend they didn't exist—that left you with a dream world, and dream worlds eventually crumbled. You had to face the truth. And then decide what you wanted.

Perfume and fancy clothes were wonderful. But she needed more than that.

This last broken rule, she decided … would be her birthday gift to herself.

M
IRA LEFT THE CLUB AFTER MIDNIGHT
, while Curses & Kisses was still playing. Boys in wolf fur–lined jackets loitered outside, the tips of their cigarettes glowing like fireflies. Trails of smoke made her cough; the humidity made her skin feel liquid. She ran in her red-rose high heels, clacking through the streets, too fast and frantic to care what lurked in the shadows around her. Nothing could be worse than the uncertainty, the shadows that lurked in her heart.

By the time she reached the Dream, sweat ran down her sides, her thighs, her throat. Her feet were throbbing because she'd been running in boutique heels, not dance heels. These shoes weren't meant for action; they were meant for someone who stood still and looked pretty. Someone who fell asleep and dreamed.

But Mira refused to be trapped in a daydream. It was time to face the raw things. Not her fantasy of Felix—the best parts of him, the parts he wanted her to see—but all of him.

He didn't have to be perfect. Life didn't have to be perfect to be wonderful.

It just had to be real.

The Dream was buzzing with life—the dinging of slot machines, the cheering at the craps tables, dealers slapping down cards with practiced speed, cocktail waitresses parting the crowd. It was a party, an all-night, glittering party.

Felix would be in the pit, supervising, checking in with and charming VIPs. Nights weren't time for quiet work, or whatever went on in suite 3013. She could be in and out in ten minutes, see what there was to see, and if she didn't like it—if Felix was as bad, as dangerous as everyone seemed to think—she could disappear and never come back. If all was well, she'd slip out, and Felix would never know.

Her heart pounded painfully as she stepped up to the suite elevators and pushed the call button, watching her reflection in the polished metal doors until they split apart and took her image with them.

Mira had the elevator to herself. The air-conditioning had dried the sweat on her skin but not her dress, and the damp chiffon felt slick and dirty. Soft music played as she rose to the thirtieth floor, where she stepped out into a corridor that was an exact copy of every other corridor in the hotel. Except this floor was empty. Dead silent, no people—it might as well have been a ghost town.

Following the signs, Mira hurried all the way to the end of the hall, where she found suite 3013. The door was plain, marked only with a gold placard engraved with the room number. It was tucked away near the fire exit, in about the most unpleasant place in the entire hall.

Taking one last look around her, Mira slid the passkey into the lock, waited for the green light to flicker and signal
open
, then turned the lever and stepped into the forbidden room.

In the dark, suite 3013 smelled like Felix's cologne. It smelled icy, like frigid air.

And it smelled like roses.

It was the roses that gave Mira the courage to turn on the light. Because that was his theme for her birthday: roses for Sleeping Beauty. Maybe he'd kept her away from this room because he'd been planning a surprise here—for just the two of them.

As the light came on and the room blinked into view, Mira saw that the suite was different from the other rooms in the hotel. The sea blue color scheme had given way to white. White couch. White carpet. Shimmering white wallpaper, etched with ivory swirls. There were potted red rosebushes on the end tables, and a vase of red roses on the desk, along with a list of the birthday presents Felix planned to give her—all delivered, all crossed out except for
Dinner at Rampion
and the word
Dancing
.

Mira smiled. So this was his secret. This was where he plotted romance.

The walls were hung with art, like in a gallery. It wasn't the collection of mass-produced seascapes found in the rest of the rooms; these were originals, some too rough and strange to be anything else. The largest piece was a misty spring landscape, with a castle in the distance, all purples and greens. There were smaller, less accomplished paintings, too, along with framed pencil drawings that looked like they'd been torn out of sketch-books—even a sketch of a boy looking down, flipping a poker chip between his fingers … a boy who looked like Felix.

Mira checked for a signature on the drawings, but couldn't find one.

Moving to his desk, Mira opened all the drawers, sifted through blank pages of monogrammed stationery, souvenir postcards from around the world (all signed by his father), scattered trinkets, and an old, tarnished key. At the bottom of one of the drawers, she found a photograph lying facedown. Someone had written
Felix 6, Blue 2
on the back in blue ink.

Mira pried the photo out carefully, expecting to see a snapshot of the two brothers. But the boys weren't alone. There was a young woman in the picture.

All three were posed on a bench, in front of a cluster of bushes and a dusty elephant exhibit—the zoo? Felix had a big, guileless smile on his face. He was hanging on the woman like a monkey, his arms around her neck, hugging her. Blue sat on her lap, looking pouty and chubby and confused, clutching a bag of cotton candy. The woman had an arm around each of them, and there was enough of a resemblance that Mira was sure this was their mother.

She was pretty, reed slender, a little gangly, and a little chic. Her straight black hair was half gathered on her head in a messy bun, while the rest hung loose. Her smile—amused and exasperated—reached all the way to her eyes.

She looked like she loved them. She also looked pale, and tired. Like someone who'd been sick. Only, Mira didn't think that was it. …

She remembered the way she used to throw herself at Elsa and Bliss when she was little, how clingy and affectionate she'd been. And she imagined, if you were a Romantic, the toll that affection would take on someone who loved you more than anything in the world.

Felix and Blue wouldn't have had any control back then. They probably hadn't even known what they were. They'd just loved her. And they were dangerous.

That was why their mother had left. Not because she was afraid of getting attached, like Felix had said. Not exactly.

Mira swallowed. She put the picture back in the drawer. She felt like she'd disturbed something precious, blown dust off a secret she wasn't meant to see. A loss Felix wanted to hide even from himself.

There were no warning signs here, no boxes full of mementoes from old girlfriends, no red flags. Felix was just private. He spent so much time being available to the public, attending to the Dream's guests, that he wanted a room for himself, and only himself. A room he didn't have to see every day.

Mira felt a little guilty disturbing that privacy—but glimpsing these pieces of his private life, and the small things he valued enough to save, only made her love him more. So she felt like it was worth it. Even if he ended up getting mad at her.

Her last stop was the bedroom. The door was ajar, darkness showing through the opening—and the fresh rose scent seemed stronger here. She pressed the door open with one finger, her heart pounding nervously as she wondered whether the bedroom would be specially decorated—maybe even with rose petals scattered across the bed. Because he
had
said he had another surprise for her. And she wasn't sure if she was ready for that. …

A triangle of light crept in as the door eased open. Just enough for her to make out a figure in the dark.

Her heartbeat flooded her ears, pounded around her head like a fist. “Felix?” she called. “Are you there? Did you know I would—?”

But there was no answer. No movement. Whoever it was remained as still as a statue.

“Felix?”

She pushed the door open farther—until it thumped against an obstruction. Light flowed over the rest of the room. And she saw.

It was a girl.

A perfectly still, glassy-eyed girl.

And there wasn't just one.

Cora, the girl Mira had seen with Felix that first night, was slumped in a chair, her wide eyes on the door, staring at whoever had the gall to enter. Her brown hair was a mess, and she wore the same green dress she'd worn when Mira met her. One arm hung limply over the side of the chair. Her head was propped against the headrest. Red lipstick clung to the edges of her lips.

Barely a week ago, Cora had sauntered through the lobby and spotted Mira in the garden. She'd had a sure look about her, sharp but lovely. And now she was blank. She stared and stared but there was nothing in her expression. No life. Her eyes were as empty as marbles.

“Cora?” Mira's throat constricted; she blinked away tears, her hand trembling on the knob. “It's me—Mira. Please say something….”

But even as she spoke, she knew the girl wouldn't answer. Because Cora wasn't just one girl coldly holding court over the bedroom. She was part of a whole menagerie of lifeless girls.

A blonde in a slinky nightgown was curled up on the floor beside the bed. A dark-haired girl, dressed in pants and a thin T-shirt, lay with her head tipped back like she was waiting to be resuscitated, or kissed. She had bruises on her wrists.

Girls lay on couches. On the floor. Some were elegantly arranged, limbs posed to capture their beauty. Others were crammed wherever they would fit, like the room was a too-small suitcase someone had grown tired of packing. They wore evening gowns, tank tops and jeans, pajamas, blouses that had been torn open.

And at the center of the room stood the bed, neatly made with a thick white coverlet. Potted rosebushes stood sentinel on each bedside table, giving off a rich, morbid fragrance. Scattered across the bed were loose pages from an old book. They were yellowed, curling at the corners. And left there deliberately, like bread crumbs: pieces of a secret that could finally be revealed.

Shaking, Mira gathered the pages. This was his tale. The curse they hid from her.

The first page bore an illustration: a well-dressed man in a richly appointed mansion, presenting a ring of keys to an eager young girl. Mira's breath left her at the sight of the man's blue hair, his sharply pointed blue beard. He looked like a devil and a king both.

The next page featured the title.

Bluebeard

She didn't know this fairy tale.

Her eyes hurried down the page, missing entire lines, like the frantic beating of her heart had swallowed them—and she had to go back. Breath hard in her chest, she read.

In the tale, a man with a blue beard sought a wife. Women found his strange coloring repulsive, but he was wealthy, and eventually, the girl he was wooing was won over by his gifts and his attention, and agreed to marry him.

About a month into their marriage, Bluebeard was called away on business. Before he left, he gave his young bride a ring of keys that gave her access to everything in his mansion. Every door, every chest of jewels. They were the keys to his wealth, and more.

But there was one door his bride was forbidden to open: a little closet at the end of the great gallery.

“Open them all; go into all and every one of them, except that little closet, which I forbid you, and forbid it in such a manner that, if you happen to open it, there's nothing but what you may expect from my just anger and resentment.”

His wife promised she would never enter the forbidden room, and Bluebeard embraced her and bid her farewell.

But as soon as Bluebeard had gone, his young wife rushed to the forbidden room, so rapidly that she nearly stumbled and broke her neck.

She unlocked the door and stepped inside—and there, in the forbidden chamber, were all the bodies of Bluebeard's former wives, the floor covered with their clotted blood. The young wife fled in horror, but not before dropping the little key on the ground, whereupon it was stained with blood, as if by magic, and no amount of scrubbing or scouring would remove the stain.

The rest of the tale unfolded as fairy tales did: Bluebeard returned home early and discovered his wife's trespass. He vowed to punish her, and took out his sword to cut off her head. There would be no mercy.

“You were resolved to go into the closet, were you not? Mighty well, madam; you shall go in, and take your place among the ladies you saw there.”

In the end, the young wife was saved. Her brothers arrived just in time to interrupt the murder, and to slay Bluebeard.

But there was a room full of women who didn't have anyone to save them. Who had heard the words
you shall take your place among them
from Bluebeard's lips, and been cruelly murdered for their discovery.

Mira didn't want to believe it.

There was no blood on the floor, no blood anywhere. She crept toward Cora and touched the girl's shoulder, wincing as she did. Maybe it was an enchantment.
Please let it be an enchantment
. …

The girl's skin was cold.

Mira pushed harder, as if to force her awake, and Cora toppled off the chair. Mira cried out; she stumbled back to keep the girl from falling on her.