Page 91 of Fallen Court

Like everything else in New Orleans, Madame Voiler’s Costume Shop was not—and maybe never had been—quite what it pretended to be. The racks on the main sales floor were full of modern, cheap costumes shoved in plastic bags. Tourist-targeted crap was piled on every available inch of the checkout counter, save for the space occupied by an ancient brass register and the tablet-based credit card readers that everyone actually used.

It wasn’t exactly what I expected of a costume shop that touted itself as older than the city around it. It was, however, a desperately needed break from murders and politics and what was rapidly becoming business as usual, even to me. If I were being honest, Ciara might have needed the fun even more than I did.

Ciara hustled us toward the back of the large, low-ceilinged space as a voice drawled from somewhere out of sight, “Welcome. I’m over here if you have questions.”

We couldn’t see its owner. Not with the never-ending bunch of long, wooden, floor-to-ceiling sales racks that divided the shop almost completely into separate narrow corridors. If we had actually wanted to talk to the woman face-to-face, whoever she was, we would have had to go to the narrow gap between shelves and wait for her to do the same.

“The problem is, I have no idea what I’m looking for,” I admitted.

“I keep forgetting that you’re a Halloween virgin.” Ciara waved an orange costume constructed from a questionable amount of fabric at me. “What about a sexy pumpkin?”

Clearly, we’d reached a section devoted to the scantily clad.

“I’ll pass.” I pointed to a short white dress emblazoned with a red cross. “It’s funny. I don’t remember dressing like that for work.”

“Sometimes I think the costume industry was taken over by the porn industry,” she admitted with a laugh. “That’s why I try to shop from the back of the store. At least the costumes there are handmade. What do you want to be?”

Normal. I bit back my answer. “I don’t really care.”

“But not sexy.” She riffled through a rack of ready-made options.

“It can be sexy as long as it’s not weird like a pumpkin, or perverse.” I frowned at one labeled scandalous squirrel. Who would wear that?

“Let’s try a different strategy,” she suggested. “What is Lach dressing up as?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, I assume.”

“Nothing?” she repeated.

“I don’t really see him taking the time to go buy a costume. Do you?”

“Nuh-uh.” She shook her head. “He’s not getting out of participating. You can do a couple’s costume!” She clapped her hands, channeling an enthusiasm I doubted her brother would share.

“Let me clear it with him.” I whipped out my phone.

“You’re wasting your chance to decide for him,” she said in a singsong voice as she moved to flip through a catalog of rentable options. “Ohhh, I could be Juliet.”

“And maybe Roark could be Romeo,” I murmured as I shot Lach a text that simply read: game for a costume?

Ciara pretended to throw the binder at me. “I thought you were my friend. It’s bad enough that we’re connected twenty-four hours a day. We are not wearing matching costumes. People will think we’re together, and no one will flirt with me.”

Judging from the way Roark looked at her behind her back, I suspected he might be on board with that plan.

“Maybe you two should be Romeo and Juliet,” she suggested. “It would be romantic.”

I raised a brow. “Two idiots doomed to die because they’re impatient? Sounds like a great choice.”

And maybe a little closer to reality than I was comfortable admitting to her.

My phone buzzed with the sound of an incoming text.

I don’t know… Can I trust you to pick something out?

Well, they’ve got everything from pumpkins to squirrels here.

Squirrels? There has to be something better than that.

I smiled. What about a garden gnome?