“Well, sure. You kept telling me I belonged to you. So rude.”
“But I was right.”
“But I had to come to my own conclusions.”
He left dancing kisses along my ear and neck. “Took you long enough.”
I settled my butt more firmly into the crook of his body. “Well, as a wise man once told me, easy things are worth nothing. I had to make you work for it.”
“Oh, I’ve had my work cut out for me. Wooing you, running a caravan, fighting off journalists and pianists and equestrienne necromancers. And soon my work will double.”
“Why’s that?”
In response, he rubbed my belly, his warm palm making slow, gentle circles. “Because little Bludmen are incorrigible. And we can only assume our progeny will have your stubbornness and my wiles.”
I swallowed hard and put my hand over his. “How do we know for sure? Maybe Ruby’s glance was wrong, or maybe something happened when Merissa stabbed me, or maybe I’ll . . .” I trailed off, remembering the first hard pains of my miscarriage all those years ago. Since I’d been in Sang, countless people had tried to murder me, but nothing had hurt me so hard, physically and emotionally, as the process of losing a baby. I’d thought the scars would be permanent, but apparently a Bludman’s body could heal more than just age and dire wounds. I still couldn’t quite let myself believe that what I wanted most was possible.
“Can I tell you a secret, love?” It was a worried whisper, a rare thing from him, which set me on edge.
“Yeah, but I can’t promise I won’t get angry. I’m still mad about that hat you gave to the elk.”
“I’ve known since practically the moment it happened. Right after you were turned. There’s a scent Bludwomen give off when they’re . . . quickened. I just assumed that the damage you’d sustained from your world was still affecting you. But I had hope. And once it happened, your odor changed. Can you feel any difference?”
“I think so. But I’m afraid to let myself feel it. Because I might lose it.”
He dragged my hand up to his lips and kissed it, gentle as a butterfly. “Love, you’re a Bludman now. A predator. You were stabbed a few hours ago, and now you’re in bed and practically begging me to kiss you.”
I looked up, aghast. “Begging you to kiss me? Please. We can’t do anything. We might hurt the baby.”
He was already kissing me, his lips dragging down the tender place behind my ear and along my jaw. “You’re too intelligent and well educated to believe that anything we do in bed could hurt a baby, now or later,” he whispered, and my skin came alive as his breath heated me. “If a good stabbing can’t do it, then . . .”
“A better sort of stabbing can’t do it,” I finished for him, breathless already and turning to give him my mouth.
“After all, love . . .” He dragged a finger down my hip and slowly caressed up my leg, under my chemise, my skin all goose bumps and my breath catching as he ran a single finger along the crux of me, which was beyond aching for his touch. “If lovemaking was bad for your body, you wouldn’t want it so badly. That’s nature, is it not?”
One hand made lazy circles on my bare belly as the other made faster circles below. I had to admit to myself, if not to him, that I was possibly more turned on than I’d ever been in my life and knew with a beast’s full certainty that all was well, inside and out, and that I would one day hold this man’s child in my arms.
“You’re stronger than you know, Letitia.” He said it softly and reverently, like a blessing, as he kissed down my neck. “You’re a lady and a tiger, powerful and sweet.”
“Yes,” I agreed, feeling it for the first time.
“How does it feel to have your worst fear realized?”
The breath caught in my throat. “It wasn’t.”
He stopped and slipped a hand up to cup my jaw. “I thought becoming a Bludman was your greatest fear.”
I shook my head and caught his finger in my teeth for just a moment. “No. My greatest fear was losing you, that the black-scaled hand I saw next to yours in the glance wasn’t mine. I have everything I need now.”
“Not everything. I can give you, oh, at least two or three more things.” His finger pushed into me with slow surety, making me gasp.
“I believe your record is six,” I said, almost panting.
“Today is probably a good day for beating records.”
His finger curled, and I clutched the sheets, my talons digging in and catching on the crisp fabric. And something occurred to me that I hadn’t thought of in six years of him playing my body like an instrument. “Wait. How are you . . . oh, God . . . doing that to me . . . ooh . . . with claws?”
“A smart man keeps at least one trimmed, if not . . . two?”
I whimpered.
“Funny that you’ve never noticed that before.”
My only response was a shuddering groan as my body arched up off the bed.
He caught my open mouth in a kiss, drawing the climax out until I fell back down, limp and gasping.
“You know,” I said, voice husky, “I’m learning so much about being a Bludman.”
His eyebrow arched up, even cockier with the rakish scar. “Like what, love?”
I reached under the sheets and carefully curled my fingers around him.
“Like how to use my hands, teeth, and tongue to maximize blood flow,” I said.
25
I couldn’t wait to get back to the caravan, back to the place that had become home. In the past week, I’d had more adventure than in the previous five years combined, and I was ready for a good, long run of boredom and contentment.
My pregnancy was normal, from what I’d read. I felt strong and peaceful, and day by day my belly grew bigger and rounder until it looked like I was smuggling a watermelon. On Earth, there would have been visits to the obstetrician and midwives, sonograms, and listening to my baby’s heartbeat on the ultrasound as a nurse squeezed cold gel on my skin. In Sang, there were midwives in cities, to be sure, but I wanted to stay with the caravan.
Without an older Bludwoman among us, I asked Bea most of my questions, as she and Mel wanted to spend a year traveling with us while Blaise began his apprenticeship under Criminy. Jacinda had a book on pregnancy in her small library, and I read it and frowned at all the silly superstitions. Still, when I was near delivery, I insisted that our old costumer’s abandoned cat, Arabella, come to stay in the wagon with Criminy and me. The way she curled around my belly to sleep was calming, and in both worlds, the old wives’ tales said that having a cat around cut the pain of childbirth, which I dreaded. Bea just laughed and told me that nothing could cut the pain of childbirth, which didn’t help.
I had always assumed I was an epidural kind of girl. And in Sang, there were no epidurals.
My water broke just outside of Liverpool, a soft and velvety pop that made me sit up straight in bed. Criminy woke by my side, claws bared and ready to murder whatever monsters might be attacking us. The poor man would have vastly preferred to fight off velociraptors with swords rather than spend hours enduring my occasional groans and grunts. Childbirth was a lonely struggle, and despite being surrounded by the people I now considered family, it was a battle that every woman fought alone. Bea and Mel bracketed me like colorful bookends as I spent the day walking circles around the caravan wagons, complaining and sipping blood and dripping as the baby churned within me. Criminy walked a good bit behind us, taking his anxiety out on the bludbunnies attracted by my scent. Twice he had to take a sack of furry carcasses back to the cook wagon, each time terrified that I would somehow explode while he was gone.
At sunset, just as the buses were rolling toward the caravan, something changed. It felt as if the baby had dropped a foot, and I crossed my legs, overcome with urgency. Bea and Mel assured me this was normal and hurried me back to my wagon, where the bed was covered with an old tent, with hot water and a pile of rags waiting nearby. I knew enough about labor to know that getting onto my back was the m
ost unnatural position, so I ended up bent over the bed, overtaken by waves of pain and pressure as Crim rubbed my back.
“Sing the song,” I demanded.
“Which one?” he asked.
“The one you sang to me when I first arrived, that night by the fire.”
“The one about—”
“Sing now!” I growled, feeling trapped in my body and more than ready for the baby to get the hell out.
As I pushed and groaned and rested in between, my husband did as I asked, his words sweet and slow and slurry with a song from his boyhood. My mind seemed to go elsewhere, to linger on the ceiling with the smoke from the fire, and I remembered what it was like, waking up here, naked, feeling lost and a million miles from home. Criminy had been there from the start, caring for me, giving me whatever I needed. When my locket had been stolen, he’d taken me on the journey to get it back, even knowing that the locket alone gave me the power to leave him forever and return to Earth.
But he’d helped me get it back. Alone in the dark on the wild moors, he’d sung me this song. For the past six years, he’d been the ideal partner, supporting me while challenging me, taking care of me and everyone in the caravan, and keeping life lively and fun.
I turned to tell him how much I loved him, but what came out of my mouth was “You did this to me!”
“Well, in fairness, you were an equal participant,” he said, a hand still massaging my back, as I’d threatened to murder him if he stopped. “I’ve heard having a baby is like sneezing out of your nethers.”
“Maybe if I kick your junk, it’ll be like having a baby, too.”
“Now, Tish,” Mel said, ever the peacekeeper. “We’re all here for you, chérie. Your husband means well . . .”
“But all men are fools when their wives are hurting,” Bea finished for her, with a fond smile. “Women, too.”
“Did you scream when you were giving birth?” I asked her between pushes.
“I bit people,” Bea admitted. “Many, many people.”
“That sounds helpful. Bring me someone to bite. Ungh!”
Bea peeked under my chemise, well away from my teeth, and observed, “The baby is crowning. Black hair. Like both of you.”
I knew what “crowning” meant: I was close. So I buckled down and pushed, screaming so loudly that I’m sure every human in the audience outside considered hopping back onto their bus and hightailing it back to the safety and surety of the city walls.
It was the worst pain I’ve ever known, and I was rewarded with a slick plop, and then Criminy held up for my inspection a tiny purple person with curly black hair. The first thing she did was stare at me with eyes the color of pencil lead, and the second thing she did was open up her tiny rosebud mouth and scream, even louder than I had.
“She’s got your voice,” Criminy said.
“And your flair for drama,” I added, taking the bundle wrapped in a piece of patchwork quilt and cuddling her close to my chest.
We named our daughter Felicia. It was Criminy’s idea, and when I pressed him, he showed me an old lamp of pierced tin and told me the story of his first encounter with a ghost, when a dark-haired fortune-telling child had told him that his love waited in another world. Me. Caravan records told him the child’s name was Felicia, and that her mother’s name had been Letitia. My name.
I went with it, but not for the fancy or the history. Because it felt right. And because whatever “Felicia” meant in Sang, it meant happiness in my world. I’d been unhappy on Earth, and when I’d first arrived on Sang, I’d still wanted to go back. But I’d found true happiness here, and I didn’t miss a single thing about my own world and time—except perhaps for online shopping and Milky Way bars. Everything else? Meh. I had what I needed.
Felicia was what old ladies call “a good baby” when what they really mean is “not horribly fussy or inconvenient.” At least, until her first fangs came in, which is when we stopped our nursing relationship cold turkey. Criminy was as marvelous a father as I’d always assumed he would be, and nothing delighted me so much as him plopping Felicia into a baby sling and doing his rounds with her strapped to his chest or, later, peeping over his shoulder as she rode on his back.
A few years later, once she’d mostly learned what “no” meant and I’d returned to eight hours of sleep a night, I came up pregnant a second time, with a son. This time, I had recognized my fertility and welcomed the moment Criminy looked at me with wide, wondrous eyes and said, “There. Do you smell that? That’s another little Stain for the wagon.” We named him Anton, after Crim’s childhood friend, our old tailor. Our third was another daughter, and we named her Ruby, mostly because a ruby had brought me to this world but maybe a little for the grandmother I’d known and loved on Earth.
I never saw her again, my Nana. Maybe because Sang was a very big world or maybe because she’d seen something in her glance that she didn’t share, something that told her to stay away, even though I hadn’t really meant it. Perhaps she was tied to the witch’s underground lair, or maybe she took up Hepzibah’s wagon and simply gave us a wide berth. It hurt my heart, but so it goes. I’d given her the best gift I had: more years of improved life, and with a new lover, no less. And she’d given me the best thing she could, I supposed: a reason to get bludded and claim my own reinvigorated youth and, with it, the chance to bear children, which was my heart’s dearest wish. She looked too young to be a great-grandmother, anyway.
For the most part, we were immune to tragedy. Our little family flourished, and so did our big one. We found a new strong man—or, technically, a strong woman. The daimons transferred fluidly between our caravan and Demi’s cabaret, and my glancing ability kept any riffraff away, as we never took on any new carnivalleros until I’d touched their skin and determined if they meant us harm. Blaise became as much a part of our lives as Demi had been, acting as Criminy’s second in command and showing an especially deft hand at finding freaks and building new acts.
The show, as they say, went on.
Epilogue
TEN YEARS LATER
Criminy and I waited, hand in hand, watching blocky shapes approach across the moor from London. Demi’s trio of carriages disgorged a riot of color and excitement: a handful of young daimon girls, Ahnastasia and Casper, Frannie and Thom and their brood of redheads, Mel and Bea and Reve, and all our old friends.
Frannie had a basket over her arm and delivered it to me with a sweet smile. It was a mutt much like the one I’d coveted in her shop but never returned to adopt, thanks to my pregnancy. The pup was a wiggling ball of fuzzy curls and licking tongue, and the children were instantly smitten. As I hugged her and thanked her a thousand times, I couldn’t help noticing how she’d aged, the crow’s-feet that were really laugh lines, the softness of her chin and figure. We each had three children, but she was thirty and looked forty, and I was forty-two and looked twenty.
Why had I ever wanted to be human?
A clattering drew my attention to a fight for the ages: three wee kilted warriors, three ink-haired vampire children, Jacinda and Marco’s two sloe-eyed Lotharios, Imogen and Henry’s spitfire of a daughter, and one green lizard girl in a pinafore of sealskin, Eblick’s daughter Cenna, all attacking one another with sticks for swords.
“They wear nothing under their kilts,” Criminy called to his progeny. “Aim upward.”
“Lure the wee smug monsters with your skin, and then smack ’em in the snoots,” Thom encouraged, and his lads all pulled back their sleeves and began to torment my babies.
Cenna looked at Eblick, who stood always aloof, quiet and watchful. “You’ve a tail, m’lady,” he murmured with a fanged grin. “Use it well.” Cenna smiled back and charged into the fray.
Demi was finally pregnant with her first, and Vale hovered around her, fiercely protective, just as Criminy had been of me. As soon as they’d arrived, he’d helped her out of the carriage and onto an ottoman he’d brought from the cabaret. She sat there, huge and happy, finally able
to enjoy a night of entertainment that she didn’t have to supervise. Casper and Ahna stood near her, watching the battle and looking wistful; their young twins and son were back in Freesia with Uncle Alexi and Aunt Keen and a dozen tutors, learning to rule the world of ice and blood that they would one day inherit.
That night, the caravan was closed to outsiders as a special treat. Since only friends were allowed, the carnivalleros took extra risks and put on a show unlike anything I’d seen in my entire time with Criminy’s Clockwork Caravan. The lights were somehow brighter, the music more jolly, each act more colorful and death-defying than the last. The children ran to and fro in groups of their own choosing, mixing up different species and dropping bits of candy fluff, blood slush, and sardines.
When I’d first arrived, the caravan had been full of bad seeds and dangerous folk, but under the last ten years of Criminy’s reign, we’d been lucky enough to adopt orphans, outsiders, and wastrels with good hearts. Emerlie the tightrope walker had settled down with, of all people, Vil, who was actually rather handsome when you got him out of his goggles and leathers. Charlie Dregs had gotten over his unrequited love for the little idiot and had fallen for a quiet but sweet daimon girl from Demi’s cabaret, and Lexi would soon surprise us all with a Bludman-daimon hybrid. Veruca the sword swallower was ageless and changeless, keeping to herself and disappearing a few times a year to ports unknown . . . and I was sure I’d recently seen her casting glances at Louise, our strong woman. Cherie, once half of a contortionist duo with Demi, had found love with a quiet poet in the city, whom she had met while helping Frannie with her crows in the pet shop. In short, almost everyone I cared about had found someone to love, and everyone’s glances had mostly come true.
As I walked through the caravan at midnight, I shared Criminy’s glowing pride. Our subpar calliope player bowed to make way for Casper, who flicked out his coattails and caressed the ancient keyboard before zooming into “We Are the Champions,” a song only Demi and I knew by heart. Ahnastasia growled something threatening at my children, who had inherited their father’s hero worship of the Freesian Tsarina and kept treading on her bejeweled hem. They ran away, giggling, and she sat beside her husband and smiled, possibly for the first time I’d ever seen.