Grim Lovelies (Grim Lovelies 1)

“This way, mademoiselle.” The Pretty in the navy dress waved them toward a contraption that looked like a staircase but was moving, each step climbing above the other, and Anouk stopped short. The Pretty glanced back at her with an odd look, and Beau grabbed her arm and pulled her onto the moving stairs.

“Try to act normal,” he whispered.

“Is this magic?”

“Sort of. It’s called an escalator.”

The stairs moved steadily, lifting them high over the perfume counters into the endless balconies. The lights on the top floor came on. Electricity wasn’t magic, Luc had explained to her once, but it worked in much the same way. It had rules to it, just like magic. It could be used only for certain things, and there was always a cost. Anouk gripped the moving handrail, dizzy.

And then the stairs ended abruptly, nearly spilling Anouk off. The Pretty waited primly. Behind her were racks of clothes of every size and color with names Anouk had seen on boxes and bags: Givenchy and Dior and Prada and Louis Vuitton.

“We’re in a hurry.” Beau grabbed a striped dress off the nearest rack. “This will do. We’ll take this.”

Alarm crossed the Pretty’s face. She snatched up the dress, hung it back on the rack. “Oh, no, monsieur. Oh, no. That won’t do at all. It’s from last season!”

“Yeah, Beau,” Anouk said. “That won’t do at all!”

He sighed, glancing back over his shoulder at the front door as Anouk grabbed a skirt with gold trim. The Pretty followed behind her, pulling more clothes off the rack, explaining how this would accentuate mademoiselle’s long legs, this would flatter her fair skin, this would hide—?if she’d pardon the observation—?her meager bosom.

Anouk caught a glimpse of her face in a mirror, gaunt and pale and splotched with blood—?Mada Vittora’s blood—?and her stomach lurched.

“This,” she blurted out. She grabbed the nearest dress. Black, long-sleeved, with white cuffs and a small, round white collar. “He’s right: we really need to go.”

The Pretty held her tongue. It was one thing to chastise a driver, but not a client’s niece, even if she happened to be inexplicably covered in blood. She smiled tightly. “Certainly. And would mademoiselle be wanting some shoes?”

Anouk wiggled her eight toes. “Yes. Something easy to walk in. Something flat. Oh! Oxfords.”

The woman touched the intercom in her ear. “Brigitte? Oxfords. The Burberry ones. Size nine. To the second-floor dressing room.” She motioned down the hall. “You may change here.”

She led them toward a door that had a sign reading SALON PRIVé; it opened into a single dressing room surrounded by crimson velvet curtains and floor-length mirrors. The Pretty extended a hand to help Anouk step onto the platform. She cast a withering look back at Beau.

“Surely you’d like to wait outside, monsieur?”

Beau went red. “Right.”

“I’ll hurry,” Anouk promised.

The woman was already untying the bows and buttons of Anouk’s maid’s costume. She peeled the bloodstained clothes off Anouk’s limbs and then produced a packet that contained a damp cloth and scrubbed the blood off her arms.

“I’m sorry. The blood is . . . it’s . . .”

“No need to explain, mademoiselle,” the Pretty said crisply. “I assure you, we cater to all sorts of clients with all manner of particular needs.”

She helped Anouk into the black dress and did up the buttons on the back. It was made of a fine, soft fabric, heavy but not stifling. Anouk adjusted the white collar around her neck. The dress fit her slim figure well, and she blinked at herself in the mirror, stunned. She’d never seen herself in anything but a maid’s costume.

“Gorgeous. Yes. And look at those legs. Do you have a boyfriend? You’ll have to get rid of him if you do. He’ll simply be too jealous. Ah! Here’s Brigitte with the shoes. You’ll need socks too. High ones will balance out the short hem.”

The Pretty produced the shoes and a roll of soft black socks that extended all the way above Anouk’s knees, leaving only a few inches of thigh.

“Yes. Magnifique. Let me write you a receipt.”

The woman disappeared while Anouk couldn’t stop staring at the mirror.

No silly bows, no frills, no ribbons except the black one holding back her hair. She tipped her chin up. Something about the dress, simple though it was, made her feel bold. No wonder Hunter Black favored dark clothes. She could imagine another life in this dress, envision herself selecting creamy white dahlias at the flower market, climbing into an airplane waiting to whisk her off to somewhere exotic, sitting at a corner café beneath a red-and-white-striped awning, served coffee and macaroons just like anyone else.

But something was missing.

Her eyes fell on a satin jacket on a nearby rack. It was a bold red, made of a quilted fabric that caught the light. Heavy embroidery in dazzling colors hugged the shoulders and arms. There was something undeniably masculine about the jacket, especially the embroidery that wasn’t neatly stitched but a little wild, threads running together like spider webs. She stepped down from the platform and walked around to look at the back. The embroidery continued in even more vibrant blues and greens and oranges, cascading along the jacket’s soft curves in the shape of some mythical creature with wild curls of mane and wings and thorny teeth. If such a creature had a name, she’d never learned it.