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“What do you want?” A bolt of blank white fabric began draping itself around the form.
“Can you make me invisible?”
Augustine sighed and flipped the edge of my wig with a finger. “A bad outfit and worse hair can do that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then what about spell-proofing? Can you make it so if someone slings something nasty at me it bounces off?”
“Jealous rival?” he asked sympathetically.
“Something like that.”
“How powerful is the little cat?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does! I have to know how strong to make the counterspell,” he said impatiently. “If it’s something petty, like making you smell like a garbage truck—”
“No. I need to stop a major assault, like a dark mage could cast.”
Augustine blinked at me owlishly. “Darling, what kind of party are you attending?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe you should think about skipping it. Who needs that kind of stress? Take the night off, do your nails.”
“It’s sort of mandatory.”
“Hmm. This isn’t really my line,” he said doubtfully. “The war mages use charmed capes sometimes, to reinforce their shields, but I don’t think fashion is their main priority.”
Françoise poked her head in. She appeared to be wearing a small animal over the top half of her body, one with a lot of brown quills extending outward in all directions. “I ’ave found somezeeng,” she told me.
Augustine stiffened. “Where did you get that? It’s a prototype.”
“What is it?” I asked, eyeing it warily.
“A jacket, of course,” he told me. “Porcupine. Wonderful for getting rid of unwanted attention. Unfortunately, that one tends to launch quills without warning at anyone who upsets the wearer, so I don’t think—”
“I’ll take eet.” Françoise piled an armload of other items onto the table. “And zese.”
“What is all this?” I asked. Behind her were a couple of walking mountains of clothes, which I assumed to be the shop assistants, although no heads were actually visible.
“Pour les enfants,” Françoise said, holding up a tiny T-shirt with WORLD’S GREATEST KID written on it in what looked like crayon.
I frowned at it and Augustine snatched it out of her hand, looking aggrieved. “An image of the child wearing it will appear under the title,” he told me loftily.
“There’s a place at the mall that can do that.”
“And it makes the wearer have a sudden, uncontrollable fondness for vegetables.”
I sighed. “We’ll take it.” He snapped his fingers at his over-burdened assistants, who began running around, adding things up. “About my dress,” I said, now that he was in a better mood. “I thought creative geniuses like you appreciated a challenge.”
He patted my cheek, which was a bit much considering that he didn’t look a lot older than me. “We do, love, we do. But there’s also the little matter of payment. This isn’t ready-to-wear we’re talking about. And for what you’re asking—”
“Send the bill to Lord Mircea,” Françoise said, playing with a scarf that, oddly enough, was just lying there being scarflike.
I started slightly. “What? No!”
Her pretty forehead wrinkled slightly. “Pourquoi pas?”
