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“Let me see.”
She shook her head. “Non, Cassie. Vraiment—”
“Let me see.”
“You don’t want to see.”
“How bad can it be?”
She just looked at me, her dark eyes huge. “I was wrong.’E ’ates you.”
“Francoise, move!” I pushed past her, ignoring the kamikaze pincushions and the static tingle of a ward. And there it was, in solitary splendor on a dressmaker’s form in the center of the room.
For a moment, I just stared, not sure what I was seeing. Because it didn’t look like a dress. It looked like a bunch of wire hangers that had had a drunken binge with a load of paper bags. Cheap paper bags. The brown kind they give you at the grocery store that have been recycled a couple dozen times. It wasn’t just hideous; it was sad. A sad, brownpaper-bag dress with what looked like—
“Uh,” Francoise said faintly.
I didn’t say anything. I narrowed my eyes and moved closer. And saw a banana peel masquerading as a shoulder pad, a line of bottle caps on a string for a necklace and a hollowed-out tin can as a belt buckle. There were coffee grounds on the shoulder and red wine on the hip and what looked like a desiccated mouse pinned to the bodice. The whole thing looked like it had taken a roll through a Dumpster before—
And then I got it, and speechless became furious.
“Okay,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. “So I trashed one of his dresses—all right, a couple—in the line of duty and through no fault of my own. So he makes me a trash heap of a dress? Is that what this is?”
Francoise just looked at me, a terrible kind of pity on her face. “Zere is a card.”
And there was, attached to the dress form above the desiccated rat. I yanked it off and stared at it.
I thought I would save you some time on this one. You’ll get the real dress when it’s finished, and not a second before. And get out of my workroom.—A
I said some creative things about the creative genius, until I ran out. “Eet is not nice,” Francoise agreed. “But what can you do?”
For a moment I just stood there, contemplating Augustine’s face if I showed up wearing another designer’s creation. But I didn’t know any other designers, any magical ones, at least, and it wasn’t like I could just go out looking for them. And, frankly, I doubted anyone else would stand up to the competition I would be facing.
I needed a dress, and I needed a good one. Fortunately, I was surrounded by them. “How long until he gets back?” I asked quickly.
Francoise’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because I feel like doing some shopping.”
Chapter Seven
“That’s more like it,” Marco said approvingly, as I staggered through the door of the suite half an hour later.
“I thought they were supposed to help,” I gasped, nodding my head at my shadows. It was the only thing I could move, since every other appendage was laden with bags, boxes and packages.
“Need our hands free for weapons,” one of them said blandly.
“Both of you?”
“You have a lot of enemies.”
“I have a lot of pulled muscles now, too!” I snapped, lurching into the living room.
“That mage is here,” Marco warned me.
“Pritkin?” I asked, my head coming up.
“Naw. That old one. And some slick-haired guy.”
