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“Oh, yes,” Cynthia agreed. “If you come back in three hours or so, I think we should have everything sorted out.”
Three hours? Ferrian’s hells, did the woman mean Clare to look at every dress in the store?
Verol allowed himself to be ushered out with very little persuasion. Once he was gone, it only took Clare half an hour—and an offhand comment about how excited she was for her apprenticeship—to steer Cynthia to the topic Clare most wanted to know about.
“Who wouldn’t be excited, apprenticed to Lord Arrendon? You know he hasn’t taken an apprentice in over twenty years?” The woman fussed with the sleeves of a dress she’d convinced Clare to try on.
“Twenty?” It was roughly Clare's own age, though she couldn’t be sure. Namedays were not the type of thing celebrated in Renault County, and Clare didn’t even know when hers was.
Cynthia nodded. “Not after the dreadful business with that girl dying. He had another apprentice at the time, and of course he did his duty by them, but since then? Nothing. You can see why news of you is spreading like wildfire.”
So one of his apprentices had died. And he’d another, too. It made her wonder. Fitz was a mage—she’d noted the sapphire dangling from his ear that morning—and of an age to have been apprenticed twenty years ago.
“But if it’s true what they’re saying about you, it’s no wonder he wanted you.” When Clare didn’t respond to this prompt, Cynthia blushed, but she must have really wanted to know because she pushed forward. “Is it true? Are you really a black diamond?” Her eyes were practically riveted on Clare’s un-pierced, unadorned ears.
Black diamond. She’d almost managed to forget all about that business. But if she had to be an item of gossip in this particular manner, proving it to Cynthia would make it more likely the girl would tell her what she wanted to know. She reached into her pocket for the small box that bore the earring and opened it.
The predictable amount of gasping and rushing of chatter followed, until Clare clicked the box shut and tucked it away again. Then, leaning into Cynthia, as if confiding in her was a special thing, she said, “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t know much about the Lords Arrendon. I grew up quite sheltered, you see. Lord Verol was very kind to me, when he discovered my talent, and I felt he would treat me fairly as an apprentice, but I had no idea he was as well-known as you seem to indicate.”
“Oh.” Cynthia’s eyes widened—they did so with disturbing frequency. “Everyone in Veralna knows them. They earned their lordships during the Mages War. I wasn’t even born then, but Father says it was a terrible time. He says they were instrumental in restoring Veralna to peace, and that without them we’d all be enslaved to the Mages Guild.
“The king himself gave them their titles for their loyalty. Father says they’re the sole reason there’s never been another uprising. No one wants to go against the Butcher and the Barbarian.” Cynthia’s hand flew to her mouth, a deep blush coloring her cheeks. “Oh, I’m sorry! The monikers are so common, but I know I shouldn’t use them. You won’t tell, will you?”
Clare had to work hard not to laugh—as if she was going to stride out of here and demand Verol punish Cynthia for calling them names. But then, the woman seemed as if her viewpoint of the world was one handed to her by her father, so maybe she was.
“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.” She was far more interested in how they’d gotten the names, and why two men who had already warned her about the dangers of the Jackal King had apparently supported him in a war waged by their own people. At least the hostility and fear she’d noticed at the Mages Guild last night made sense now. “Lord Verol’s last apprentice,” she said, moving the conversation forward to smooth over Cynthia’s discomfort, “the one who died. What were they like?”
Cynthia’s eyes saddened. “I didn’t know her, but she was a Songweaver, like you. She was murdered when she was six. Lord Verol didn’t leave his estate for an entire year afterward. Called for the High Court to do an official inquiry and everything, but they never found out who did it. Most people think it was some kind of revenge, trying to get back at him for the Mages War.”
Cynthia was getting that pinched look around her lips that told Clare the conversation had grown tiresome, and it never did good to irritate an easy source of gossip. So she made an appropriate, “That’s dreadful,” comment, and pulled a random nearby dress up to the light. “What do you think of this one for me?”
Cynthia brightened immediately. “Oh, it’s perfect, do try it on.”
Two hours later, Clare’s interest in finally having a wardrobe had been dulled considerably by the number of times she had slipped in and out of dresses—as for the pants and shirts she preferred, Galina’s was sadly lacking in many options on that front. Clearly, she was going to have to pay Chalen Mora to do something about the lack of functional clothing in her life.
“Oh, you should wear this one home, Miss Clare,” Cynthia gushed, beaming at the light green dress Clare stood in. “You’ll feel ever so much more like yourself in something respectable.”
Something respectable. In Renault County’s streets, the dress she had worn into this store was damn near as respectable as one ever came. But since she’d gone to the difficulty of pretending to be a woman and not a street urchin, she vowed not to ruin the illusion by snapping at the woman. Instead, she suggested that Cynthia choose what shoes she was to wear home, and the woman ran off in her eagerness to acquiesce. Clare had probably just bought herself an entire quarter hour of blessed silence.
She smoothed the dress—it was practical and comfortable enough for her tastes, with wide straps at the shoulders that left her arms free of hindrance. The fabric was smooth, soft and evenly woven, and she marveled at how different it felt—how different it made her feel—to wear something that had never been worn by anyone else. Living with him there had been nice dresses of course, but she had had no choice in the wearing of them. They were not things she had chosen for herself, but things that had been picked out for her so she could be dressed like a doll.
Looking at herself in the floor-length store mirror she felt, almost, like a human being.
She turned, getting a feel for the garment’s maneuverability—the need to run, quickly and nimbly, was one Clare liked always to be prepared for—when a flash of red in the corner of her eye caught her attention.
She moved toward it, toward the window it was displayed in, some instinct driving her forward. She had avoided all of the window displays because they held the most expensive items, and while Verol hadn’t set a budget for this venture, Clare had. Maybe Verol truly wouldn’t view her as owing him anything once this apprenticeship was through, but she would. Nothing was free, and a sense of obligation was one of the most dangerous weights a person could carry. She didn’t have to carry it if she intended to pay him back.
The closer she came to the dress, the more certain she was, until she came to its front and found herself staring at Battle Armor. It was as perfect as she remembered. Every part of her wanted it, and she couldn’t fully explain why. Only that it once again evoked that feeling of power and danger in her, the feeling that if she stood before all of Veralna in that dress, she would hold the city in the palm of her hand.
“I confess myself dying to know what it is about that dress that puts such a look of consternation on your face.” The words carried as if they were murmured in her ear, slow and lazy like a cat basking in summer sunlight, amusement evident in the lilt and cadence of the stranger’s voice. But intimate as the words sounded, no lips brushed her ear as the stranger spoke, no breath graced her neck, so he—whoever he was—stood a respectful distance away.
There was something about the voice—she was almost certain she’d heard it before, though she couldn’t place where. She answered serenely, refusing to be shaken by her failure to recognize someone had approached until they’d spoken. Either she was growing complacent already, or he was very good at sneaking up on people. “I cannot decide if it’s a dress, or a weapon.”
He laughed and the deep, rich sound had her turning as he said, “Didn’t you know? The best clothes are both.”
It took everything in Clare not to give recognition away when she saw him. Because her stranger was none other than the not-drunk thief she’d seen at the Hawk and Scepter, Mr. Call-Me-Taius himself, and looking nothing like he had either of the previous times she’d seen him.
This was the face he’d revealed in the mirror that first night, after taking off his disguise. If she’d thought that half-reflection pretty, it was nothing compared to standing a handful of feet away from him. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, and it had nothing to do with the clothes he wore—fine clothes she suddenly recognized Chalen Mora’s careful hand in.
