West–meets-hell theme the rest of the place had going on. Augustine was better than that.
But he wasn’t too good to dress his models like strippers to lure in additional customers. Francoise and the three other sylphlike beauties currently on the clock were modeling his latest creation, which as far as I could tell wasn’t a dress at all. It was more like an eighteen-inch-wide satin ribbon—red, in her case—that wrapped around the body and ended in a flourish behind the head.
It was obviously magicked to cover strategic areas, because no matter how much she turned and twisted, getting down items from the shelves behind her for the salivating horde of customers, she never flashed anyone. But the guys were clearly living in hope. And while they did, they bought things from the tacky tourist line Augustine made fun of, but never actually got around to deleting.
I browsed through the T-shirts and found one that showed a frazzled-looking ’toon with bulging eyes. The caption read “There’s too much blood in my caffeine system.” I bought it for Pritkin, knowing he’d probably never wear it, just to see his face.
Assuming I saw his face again. Assuming—
I snatched the shirt off the rack and told myself to stop being an idiot. If ever there was a guy who could take care of himself, he was Pritkin. And he knew Faerie better than most. He’d be fine.
He’d be fine, or I’d kill him.
“When you get a chance, I could use some help,” I told Francoise, as she handed back my credit card.
“Some ’elp?”
“I need to talk to you. And I need a dress.”
She shot me a look. “You ’ave a dress. Or you would, if you evair came for a fitting. Each day you do not, you make him more of a . . .” She waved a hand to indicate an English word that wouldn’t come to her.
“Asshole?” I guessed.
“Zat, too.”
We were talking about Augustine, and the dress he was supposedly designing for my inauguration. I say “supposedly,” because I’d never seen it. Nor had I been given a sketch, a mock-up or even a description. The ceremony was a little over a week away, and all I’d seen of my outfit so far was a bunch of brown paper, the kind patterns are made of.
Considering my past history with Augustine, it was making me very nervous. I was going to have to stand up in front of the leaders of the magical world with no pedigree, little training and few skills. I couldn’t afford to look crappy, too.
“I’m boycotting until I get some details,” I told her.
“You ’aven’t seen eet?” Francoise looked puzzled.
“No.”
“ ’Ave you asked?”
“Of course. But he won’t show it to me. He says I wouldn’t understand the artistic process, or something. Anyway, I’m afraid if he gets a chance to fit the damn thing, they’ll make me wear it, no matter what it looks like —”
“Augustine is a good designer,” she protested.
“And he hates me. You know he does.”
Francoise didn’t argue. She just pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, and because she was French, actually made it sexy. A nearby guy groaned.
“If you saw eet, you might change your mind,” she told me.
“I might. Can you ask him for me?”
“I do not sink zat would do any good,” Francoise said, looking thoughtful. “ ’E is very strict wiz his designs.”
“But?” I said, because there’d clearly been one in her tone.
“But ’e is on lunch at ze moment. . . .”
“And?”
She pulled something out of a drawer and dangled it off one finger. “And I ’ave his keys.”
She waved one of the other girls over to cover for her, and in less than a minute, we were past the back counter and into the fitting area, where I had to stop to deal with my shadows. The two golden-eyed vamps had been loitering nearby all morning, pretending to be part of the scenery. They weren’t doing it particularly well. Everybody else was in shorts and T-shirts, in respect for the 120-plus-degree heat wave outside, while they were impersonating the Men in Black.
Still, we had a truce; I pretended I didn’t notice them, and they didn’t crowd me too closely. But enough was enough. “Out,” I told them abruptly.
“We have to do a check first.”
“Then do it and leave.”
“Why?” One of them demanded. He was one of the new guys and I didn’t know his name. “What are you planning to do in here?”
I blinked at him. “It’s a dressing room. What do you think I’m planning to do?”
“That doesn’t explain why we have to go.”
“Because I might be trying on some clothes.”
“And?”
“And I might have to get naked!”
He just looked at me for a moment. “You are aware that we’ve seen it, right?”
“OUT!”
As soon as they’d left, Francoise unlocked the door to Augustine’s workroom and we scurried inside. It was a lot like the man himself, a flamboyant sprawl of creative excess, which in this case involved bolts of expensive fabric, bins of precious trims, heaps of glossy furs, and assorted sparkly things. There were tables holding materials, whiteboards covered with sketches and some half-assembled mannequins looking like war victims in the corner.
But I didn’t see any sewing machines or other nonfabulous equipment. Only a couple of tomato-shaped pin cushions that buzzed around our heads as soon as we entered. Like they knew we weren’t supposed to be there.
Francoise waved them away and they floated over to the back wall, where they huddled together ominously. Then she pulled back a curtain, and I promptly forgot about them and the vamps and even my aching body. Because Augustine was a bastard, but he was a brilliant bastard.
“Ze spring line,” Francoise said with a flourish worthy of a TV spokesmodel.
I didn’t say anything, because my mouth was busy hanging open. Okay, I decided, maybe I’d misjudged the guy. Because obviously he’d been busy.
I recognized some of his staples: a nude sheath dress with black lace fans embroidered on it that opened and closed every few seconds; a bunch of kicky little origami dresses that constantly reworked themselves into new shapes; and a selection of jeweled columns of what looked like liquid ruby, sapphire and diamond, the last so bright it was hard to look at.
But the real story this season was obviously the seasons themselves.
A nearby pale blue gown was printed with a swirl of autumn leaves—russet, gold and rich, earthen brown. But the leaves didn’t just move; they also didn’t see any need to actually stay on the fabric. They tumbled down the garment and spilled out into the air, swirling around the dress in one last, brief, ecstatic dance before finally vanishing.
The same was true for a shimmering white gown that shed glistening snowflakes whenever I touched it, and a grass green one with sleeves formed of hundreds of fluttering butterflies. But the real showstopper was a pale pink kimono with a Japanese landscape hand painted onto the silk.
Francoise had been watching me with an amused tilt to her red lips. “ ’E is good, no?”
“He is good, yes,” I breathed, as the kimono shimmered seductively under the lights.
It would have been beautiful on its own, but the scene had been magicked to change as I watched. Snow melted from the bare branches of a tree, which sprouted leaves, and then delicate pink and white blossoms. They hung there, trembling, until blown off the surface of the dress by a summer’s breeze.
