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“Move around,” I ordered, because one of the things camo spells had trouble with was movement.
Nothing.
“Are you moving?”
“Yes! And stop feeling me up!”
“Well, I can’t see you,” I pointed out.
“That’s the idea!” He slowly came back into view. First a shining blond head with a sharp, razor cut hairstyle that was now a dripping mess; then a lean, angular face with slightly crazed, pale blue eyes; and finally a shimmery jumpsuit that looked like a Buck Rogers costume from the eighties, with an opalescent white background that flashed prismatic colors whenever he moved.
“How are you doing that?” I asked, genuinely impressed.
He brushed it away. “It’s something . . . I’m working on . . . for the Circle. For the war, you know?”
“Yeah.” Augustine had been approached to help design some items for the invasion. It wasn’t as weird as it sounds. He was part fey, and his designs had showed a tendency for creativity in the past. And, frankly, we could use all the help we could get.
“We’re getting an invisible army?” My mood suddenly improved.
Augustine snorted. “They wish.”
“It looks like it works to me!”
“Oh, it does. For about ninety seconds. Best-case scenario, it’ll help some of our spies. But it takes too much power for general use.”
Figured.
“Now listen,” he said, toweling off. “What I need from you is—”
“What I need is a rinse off,” I told him, turning on the shower because I had soap in my hair, and everywhere else. “Go wait in the dressing room.”
“But I—”
“Out!” I said, massaging my stinging eyes. “Or I’ll call Marco, I swear.”
“Damn it, Cassie—”
“And I’ll mention that gorilla comment.”
He went.
I de-soaped, except for my eyes, which required some eye drops before I stopped looking tragic. I took my time, blowing out my hair and doing the mousse, curling iron, and round brush thing that made my tight little angry curls into big, soft bouncy ones that looked happy to be there. I even curled my eyelashes, because what the hell, and put on extra liner and mascara.
I thought about the fey woman’s vivid blue eye color and added some shadow. It didn’t really make mine much bluer, but it countered a bit of the lingering redness. So, score?
Finally, I traded my towel for a big terry cloth bathrobe and went into the dressing room. And immediately wished I’d arrived sooner. Because Augustine wasn’t sitting at my dressing table, ankles primly crossed, waiting for me. He wasn’t even sitting at all. His weird, too-skinny bod was in my walk-in closet, which had already looked a little bare and was now being completely denuded.
“Crap, crap, unbelievable crap!” He looked at me in outrage, brandishing a shirt. “Have you been shopping at thrift stores?”
“Hey!” I snatched my property back. It was one of my favorites, a plain white tee with a bowl of leaves on the front and “Salad, the Taste of Sadness” underneath. He’d just ripped it off a hanger and was in the process of tossing it on a pile he was making in the corner. “Don’t disrespect thrift stores. Half of my wardrobe used to come from there.”
“Used to?”
“Augustine—”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I was being rude.”
“That’s better.”
