Amélie POV:

I opened my eyes and saw Bell asleep next to my feet, just like she had been the whole night. As she rolled around in her sleep the little bell on her collar jingled, which is what had woken me up in the first place. I looked over at the clock on my end table with partially closed eyes, still tired from sleeping. It said nine thirteen, still too early for me to want to get up. Since I was already awake, I decided I would try to wake Bell too. I shook her a little bit and got a meow out and a big yawn accompanied by a stretch. She looked up at me with a stare that said, "Why did you get me up? You know I like to sleep in."

"You woke me up, it's only fair."

There was a knock on the door and Sebastian came in with my usual breakfast tray of earl grey tea. "Good morning. For once I can actually say that and it is morning," Sebastian said while putting the tray down on the bed. "Were you just talking to Bell?"

"Maybe, she woke me up."

"I see. Oh and happy 17th birthday."

"It's already the 12th?" I said. That meant there was only one more day till the party.

"The time has flown by with you sleeping most of the day, hasn't it?"

Sebastian's comment made me laugh and almost made me choke on the piece of scone I had just taken a bite out of. It was the usual buttermilk scone with big sugar crystals sprinkled on top. "No special scone for my birthday?"

"No, last time I made you special scones was a horrible day and I did not want a repeat of that. Especially since it's your birthday."

"That makes sense. Did you make a cake?"

"Not yet. Don't worry about that, just eat your breakfast. I will be in the kitchen cleaning up if you need me for anything."

"Thank you Sebastian," I called out to him as he left the room.

After I finished my breakfast I looked over at the clock again, 10. I decided I would get up. After all, I wanted to spend as much of the day as I could doing things because it was my birthday. I walked into my closet and threw on a pull over argyle sweater and some jeans. Even though it was March, you could still feel the cold winter air blowing when you went outside. I walked out of my room and found Sebastian cooing over Bell.

"Sebastian," I said, trying to get his attention.

"Oh yes, sorry I did not hear you come out. What do you want?"

"I was thinking, I've known you for almost a year now and I really don't know anything about you."

"What would you like to know?"

"Hmmm. What is it like to be a daemon? How are you different than humans? I mean you look the same as us, most of the time."

"That is a complicated question to answer. To start off, all our senses are amplified by about, oh I would say ten times or so. We can heal when wounded, so we do not really have to worry about dying. That is unless we are struck by the one gun you have or other weapons like it. Another handy thing is that we can see a person's soul. I guess it's not necessarily seeing it but more understanding what type of soul a person has. For example, when I first met you I could tell you were a very sweet girl, but also had a mind of her own. So mostly things like that; it really helps us to decide if we want to make a contract or not. The more complex the soul, the better the tasting. At least in my opinon."

"I never realized there was so much that went into deciding if you wanted to make a contract."

"Not everyone is as picky as I; some go for the easy ones that only last a day or two because they are that hungry."

I shuddered at the thought. I guess I was one of the lucky ones, that I had lasted so long with a daemon. "Sebastian, I think we should go out, I need to find a dress for the masquerade anyway."

"I thought you hated shopping."

"I do, but I want to get out of the house and it needs to be done. I can't go to the masquerade wearing something out of style now can I?" I said jokingly. It always made me laugh thinking people would shun you at parties if you did not have the latest trends on.

I walked out of the dressing room and stepped up onto the pedestal in front of a mirror. I was wearing a knee length grey flapper style dress. The bottom was lined with feathers and little strings of pearls. The top had pearls strung all across the drop waist bodice and draped off of the shoulder straps. "What do you think?" I said, twirling in the vintage Channel dress.

"I think it will do."

"Now all I need is a mask. They probably could make one to match the dress."

"No, I think I have one for you already that would go. It's back at the apartment."

"Ok I guess we will take this one then," I said to the clerk. I was so happy that I only had to try the one dress on and that I would be done shopping.

Once we got home, I plopped down on the couch causing Bell, who had already been on the couch, to hiss at me. "Stop that, you're not miss queen of the couch. You have to share."

"Sebastian, anything interesting in the mail today?" I asked as he opened the front door; he had just gone down to check.

"Nothing much: some bills and a birthday card from Christophe."

"What does it say?"

Sebastian opened the envelope and handed the card to me. It was just a plain white card with my silhouette on the front in an oval. Around the picture was a lace boarder and written on the top was Happy Birthday Amélie. The inside read:

Mon petit chou,

Happy birthday. You don't know how much this year has meant to me, even in the bad times. Just meeting you has changed me; seeing you so brave made me realize that you were the right person for the job. I would like to invite you to the ballet at the Paris Opera house. It starts at eight thirty; I will meet you outside by the front door.

- Christophe

"I'm not sure I should go," I said, looking behind me up at Sebastian.

"What if the king ends up being there?"

"You have a point. I guess I am going to the ballet then. I hope you hadn't started making the cake yet."

"No, it's fine. This is more important than a cake."

I walked into my room and tried to decide what I should wear. I decided on the black dress he had given me for the dinner party. I thought it would be nice to wear it again because it was such a pretty dress. I put my hair up the same way I had that night, a high bun with the gold tiara. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was older. My eyes had steadied and had the same cold look that Christophe's had had when I first met him. Christophe's eyes were now the happy ones. It seemed like with this job you paid the price of happiness.

Sebastian walked into the room holding a little box wrapped up in black paper and a silver bow. He set it down on the vanity table and said, "Open it."

I tore the paper off and inside was a small light blue jewelry box. I opened the jewelry box and saw a sapphire ring with an intricate silver band. I put it on my thumb since it looked to be too big for my other fingers.

"Thank you Sebastian, it's beautiful," I said as I got up to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Sebastian, after all this is over with, I'm done. I feel like this is what I was supposed to be doing and once I finish I won't really know what to do."

"Are you sure?"

"I just have this feeling that it's supposed to end after we get rid of Claude."

I stepped out of the car into the night air. People in evening wear were all around bustling to try to get to the opera house. All the windows were lit up and sparkling. The gas lamps along the street were lit, causing everything to have a golden glow to it. I looked up at the top of the steps and saw Christophe with a handful of white and pink roses. He was wearing the same tux he had been the night of the dinner party. I walked up the stairs with Sebastian holding my hand to help me up.

"You look beautiful," Christophe said. "These are for you and happy birthday."

I handed the roses to Sebastian and gave Christophe a hug. Even though I still was not sure of his involvement, without him I would not be here. I stepped back and could see a faint pink in his cheeks. "Thank you Christophe, for everything."

"Shall we go inside? It's about to start," he said while offering me his arm.

I put my hand in his and started walking into the building. In the main hall there was a marble staircase with gold railing, and at the bottom of each rail was a sculpture of angels holding up lights. The staircase split off into two and went up on either side with the same angels at the top of the stairs. Once at the top of the stairs Christophe led me over to a door and opened it.

It was the box closest to stage right. I looked out over the balcony; everything had a golden glow to it like there had been out in the hall. On the ceiling was a huge crystal chandelier with a modern painted circular mural surrounding it. All the seats were lined with red velvet and gold trimmed. There were five levels of seating.

"We should probably sit down, it's about to start," Christophe said as the lights were being dimmed. The music started with the overture to Romeo and Juliette.

I made it through the first two acts without feeling antsy. But halfway through the third act I started to feel like something was off. I heard voices coming from outside the door in the hall. I got up and told Christophe to wait there. I didn't want to have to worry about him getting caught up in a battle, if there was even going to be one. As I walked by Sebastian and opened up the door, he got up and followed me out.

"What are you up to Amélie?"

"Something's wrong, I can just feel it."

I walked over towards the stairs and saw the king and Claude talking. The king was pointing to his eye, which had a very similar marking to the one on my right wrist. They looked over at me nervously and stopped talking.

"Hello your majesty," I said, taking my small hand gun from Sebastian.

Sebastian took out the daemon gun and pointed it at Claude. I pointed my gun at the king and asked, "Now why are you under contract with Claude?"

"Claude this is an order, get me out of here alive!" the king yelled.

Claude picked the king up and ran down the stairs and out the front door. I shot off a few rounds but none of them hit, or if they did they had hit Claude. I sat down on the floor and put my face in my hands out of frustration.

"Amélie, there was nothing we could do. He would have gotten out alive no matter what."

"I know. It's just frustrating because every time we see Claude we almost get him."

"We will get him eventually, it just takes time to catch a spider."

"I need to get back to Christophe."

I stood up with the help of the railing and walked back over to the box. I opened the door and saw that act three had just ended with Juliet taking the sleeping potion. The curtain fell and the lights came back on. Christophe got up and motioned for me to come sit by him.

"What happened?" he said. My hair had fallen out of my poorly constructed bun.

"The king was out by the stairs talking to Claude. I think he is under a contract. No, I know he is under a contract."

"How?"

"He had this mark on his eye," I said, pointing to mine on my wrist.

"But he has not had that before. I saw him yesterday and he did not have one."

"There are ways of covering it up. What do you think I did back home? Say I just randomly decided to get a tattoo of the devil's mark on my wrist?"

"I had not really thought about it. What are you going to do?"

"Wait till the masquerade and hope I have a plan by then."

"You really are just doing this as you go along."

"Yep," I said, smiling as the lights dimmed for the final act.

We got back to the apartment around midnight. As soon as we got inside I kicked my heels off and changed into my silk pajamas.

"Sebastian please tell me you have a plan."

"I do, would you like to hear it?"

"No I just wanted to make sure you had one. I like it better when I have to think on my feet. I tend to do better at things when I don't have time to think what could go wrong."

"You should go off to bed, it's late."

"I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were doing."

I picked Bell up off the couch and went into my room. I set Bell on the chair at the end of my bed and looked out the window. The trees outside had almost all their leaves now and were blowing in the wind. I opened the window and smelled the night air. As I looked up I could see the moon was covered by incoming rain clouds, causing it to cast an eerie shadow around the city streets. Even the weather seemed to point out that the coming day was going to go horribly.

I looked over and saw Bell had climbed up onto the foot of my bed and was sleeping on the floral bed spread. Her purple collar matched the color of the tufted headboard perfectly. She rolled around playfully like she had been doing this past morning. I guess I was going to be woken up early again. I climbed into bed and turned my lamp off, and let the sound of the wind put me to sleep.

AN: Sorry I took so long to get the last chapter out my internet has been having some major problems and my editor was moving, so she did not have time to be editing things. Next Chapter is the last one for this book. There will be another book coming out soon, more on that at the end of chapter 10. Thanks for reading.