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She stood on the sidewalk, taking it in. Trying to decide if it was beautiful or obscene, a marvel or a waste. That, and she didn’t want to go inside. Verol had gone two stores down with promises of returning with tea, and told her to go ahead and start looking.
The problem was, Clare hadn’t ever shopped in a store. Not one like this. The market in Midtown had at least been familiar—if still leagues in quality and variety above anything Renault County had to offer—so she’d understood how things worked there.
But this place…she didn’t know how she was supposed to act once she went inside. She loathed not knowing how to act. If she couldn’t pull on the facade the world expected to see at any given moment, then she was left with only herself. And she didn’t know who that was.
So she told herself it was the sheer wall of glass that held her entranced, made her linger rather than enter. But she lingered too long. A woman strode out of the shop, her lips twisted in a moue of distaste. She crossed her arms as she looked at Clare.
“Didn’t you read the sign? You can’t loiter here.”
Clare glanced at the sign she couldn’t read. The word “loiter” wasn’t familiar to her either, save that it clearly meant “existing unwanted in the space outside this shop.”
“I was just coming inside.”
“No, you aren’t. You want to get out of the cold, you do it somewhere else.”
Clare bristled. Her shoulders drew back and she shifted from Renault County gutter child to the woman she’d been molded into when her life had ceased being her own. She looked down her nose at the shopkeeper. “I was coming inside to shop.”
The woman hesitated at the haughtiness in Clare’s tone, but then her eyes raked back over Clare’s dress—the one that was a hundred times better than anything Clare had ever procured on her own before, and yet still marked her as less-than-nothing in this part of Veralna. “You can’t afford anything in my shop and I won’t have you upsetting my actual customers. Now leave, before I?—”
“Is there a problem?” Verol’s shadow fell over Clare.
The shopkeeper gave a hasty bow. “Lord Arrendon?” She sounded genuinely confused about his presence, as if she hadn’t realized that Verol’s question was directed to Clare, and thought he’d inserted himself into an argument between two random women in the street.
“There does indeed appear to be a problem.” Clare turned to Verol, holding her hand out for one of the two paper cups of tea he held. He handed her one. She wrapped her fingers around the warmth and waited until the light of realization dawned in the shopkeeper’s eyes before saying, “According to this woman, you can’t afford anything in her shop.”
“I didn’t say—I didn’t mean—that is, I didn’t know she was with you, my lord.”
Clare continued on as if the woman wasn’t still stammering and tripping over herself. “And since I am loath to make you spend outside your means, I think we should take our business across the street.”
Verol, bless him, didn’t say a word until they were on the sidewalk opposite the previous shop’s. He glanced up at the sign they now stood beneath. “I’m curious, was the selection of this store an impulse, or did you know Galina’s is Theresa’s largest competitor?”
“I wouldn’t be very observant if I didn’t,” she answered breezily, opening the door and stepping inside. She might not have been able to read the name of either shop, and she might have been a little dazed at the glasswork, but she was still a child of Renault County. She could mark the movements of people on the street in her sleep, and all that foot traffic had told her the most expensively dressed people milling about either went into this shop, or the one she’d just come from.
A young woman glided forward to greet them, an innocent, charming smile on her face. She was impeccably put together, hair sleek and twisted into an elaborate up-style, her gown a silky fabric of a deep, rich blue. Clare drank in the woman’s appearance, memorizing the twists and turns of her hairstyle—she thought she could probably replicate it on her own—the artful stroke of blush, high on the woman’s cheekbones, the way the brows had been darkened to look fuller and more defined.
She was going to have to purchase cosmetics at some point, and sincerely hoped there were better ones here than what she’d worn before. She had never particularly enjoyed the feeling of her face being literally painted on.
“Lord Arrendon.” The young woman gave a graceful dip of her head in deference. “Welcome to Galina’s. My lady is out, but I can assist you with anything you need. I’m Cynthia.” She was devoid of the fear so many people had thus far exhibited in Verol’s presence, but Clare didn’t think the woman knew him, even if she obviously knew of him.
Her eyes sparkled with curiosity as she took Clare in, none of the other shopkeeper’s condescension in her gaze. The hard, uncharitable part of Clare couldn’t help but wonder if that condescension would have been there had Clare not walked in with Verol at her back.
“Cynthia, this is my new apprentice, Miss Clare Brighton.”
“Pleased to meet you, miss.” The woman dipped her head to Clare, the keen interest in her eyes conveying she’d already heard the rumors and Verol was merely confirming them for her. “What are you looking for today?”
“Everything,” Verol said.
“Everything?” Cynthia’s brow furrowed in confusion.
Clare swooped in. If she didn’t cover Verol’s misstep in admitting her lack of wardrobe, the next rumors running around Veralna would be that the Lords Arrendon had taken in a penniless waif as an apprentice. She didn’t need everyone knowing that that was precisely what she was. “I lost everything on the journey here,” Clare confessed. “The carriage had a broken axle, which I don’t think was accidental. It was right after we stopped for a rest in a passing town, and then shortly after it broke we were robbed.”
Clare’s performance was, to her own mind, a little on the overdramatic side, but Cynthia drank it down like water. “Oh, that must have been awful. But weren’t you with her, my lord?” Cynthia asked Verol. She had a little bit of hero-worship in her eyes where Verol was concerned—which was opposite every other reaction Clare had seen to the mage thus far—and she clearly thought it impossible Clare could have been robbed with him near.
“I was traveling in on my own,” Clare said, before Verol could damage the story she was concocting, the one she needed to be viewed as fact by the end of the day. “Fortunately, Verol and Marquin did worry when I didn’t arrive in town on time and were able to find me. I barely made it into the city in time for the theater performance, and thank goodness Chalen was able to find me something to wear on short notice.”
As Clare had hoped, Cynthia took the three gossip points she’d been given—the performance, Chalen, and the fact that Clare called Verol and Marquin by their given names—and ran with them, chattering excitedly as she drew Clare into the store, steering her toward this or that item. Verol followed, obviously uncertain about what to do with himself.
“If you have other business to tend to, I’m sure you don’t need to stay. Cynthia can take care of me,” Clare offered. Gossip was a valuable currency in its own right, and Clare suspected she could get a lot out of Cynthia if Verol wasn’t around.
