I kept a keen eye out for Peter and Daisy as she dragged me forward. I bit my lip—where were they?
“There.” Madeline pointed toward a row of makeshift fitting rooms cordoned off by hanging black sheets. Aileen, with her bob cut and glasses, crouched next to a model wearing a shimmery, transparent garment that changed colors as she turned. The petite designer looked even smaller, like a child, next to the towering model, and my stomach twisted with doubt. Could she really be our killer?
But Madeline pulled me forward before I could think twice, and we skidded to a stop right in front of them. The model, who primped and preened in front of a gilded full-length mirror, barely spared us a glance. But Aileen, who held pins in her teeth, looked up from shortening the hem of the dress.
“Yes?” Her dark eyes widened as she recognized me. “What—what are you doing here?” She blinked up at me, brow furrowed, then went back to pinning the hem. “I’m a bit busy at the moment.”
I licked my lips, ready to ease into the questioning, but Madeline beat me to the chase.
She stuck a hip out and arched a brow. “We know you were the one who leaked the design plans. You used to work in Li Fan’s sweatshop and you brought them to her.”
I shot her a surprised look. Really? Just like that? I frowned as I thought it over. Was that how Peter felt when I jumped in on his questioning?
“Ow!” The model yelped and shot Aileen a dirty look. “You pricked me.”
The young designer winced and spoke around the pins in her mouth. “Er. Sorry.”
Suddenly, it slid into place for me. The spider venom. The fitting. What the giant spider had seen—here as a girl, and again as a woman.
I gasped. “You killed Bel Hahn.”
Aileen looked up and paled. Her throat bobbed and she rose and addressed the model. “You’re all fitted—go to sewing, they’ll take care of you.”
The tall woman frowned. “But Ferdinand said you’d—”
“Go,” Aileen ground out. She pulled the last pins out of her mouth and stuck them into the pincushion strapped to her wrist.
The model huffed, shot us a wary glance, then gathered up her shimmering skirt and strode off. Madeline and I were left alone with the designer.
Madeline elbowed me. “Keep going.”
I swallowed, my throat dry, and stepped forward. “It was spider venom that gave Bel the heart attack, but not a spider bite. You poisoned a pin and put it in the garment you knew Bel would wear down the runway.” I shrugged. “It would’ve scraped or pricked her, administering the venom and triggering the heart attack within minutes.” I raised my brows. “Which meant you didn’t have to be right next to her when Bel died—you just needed access to her garments backstage. Which you had.”
“Ooh.” Madeline winked at me. “You’re good.” A quill and scroll now magically hovered beside her head, furiously scribbling notes.
Aileen paled, a sweaty sheen to her forehead, and glanced at the scroll beside the reporter’s head. Her chest heaved. “Why would I kill Bel?” She forced a faltering smile. “You’re right. Okay?” She blinked rapidly. “I used to work in the sweatshop. And I fought my way out of the slum and landed my dream job working for Bel Hahn, a famous designer. She saved me from the Darkmoon District and gave me a posh job.” She let out a weak chuckle. “Why would I want her dead?”
Madeline shot me a questioning look.
I winced and muttered, “I haven’t quite worked that part out, yet.”
I frowned. It was true that it didn’t make sense for Aileen to turn on the woman who’d given her a hand up. A weight settled over me as I thought of the woman who’d helped me, a mix of gratitude and grief flooding my chest. Me and my big mouth had gotten me into plenty of trouble growing up in the Darkmoon District, but one fateful day, it’d changed my whole life, too.
I’d been seventeen, nearing the age the orphanage would turn me out into the streets, and I had no prospects, no idea what my future might hold. I’d made extra money for years by stealing and fencing the goods on the main street of Bijou Mer. I wandered in Ninette’s rare and wonderful bookstore that day looking for the smallest books I could palm.
She caught me, of course, with her sharp eyes and wits, and I did what I did best—talk. I worked every angle I could—trying to deny it until she pulled the books out of my threadbare jacket pocket. Then I tried for pity, then defiance, and then tried to work a deal with her. I was in the middle of explaining how, seeing as her shop was so cluttered, I was in a way doing her a favor, when she started laughing.
She told me I had a way with words and hired me on as a saleswoman. I stood out in the street, enticing shoppers and hawking books and working my first ever job. Ninette let me live in the attic above the shop for free and paid me on commission, which only motivated me more.
I gulped as I came back to the present. If it weren’t for Ninette, I wouldn’t have been able to save up and put myself through law school. I likely would’ve ended up like all the other orphans—dead, or working for Ludolf Caterwaul. I let out a shaky breath. Part of me was glad she’d passed away already—that she hadn’t seen me fall… sink back into the slums.
My eyes refocused on pale, shifty Aileen Shen. No, if that had been her relationship to Bel Hahn, there was no way she’d have killed her. Unless that wasn’t the way it’d happened for her.
“Maybe it wasn’t a dream job.” I lifted my palms. Aileen’s clothing
