“It’s the blood,” Anouk realized, touching her dress. “I scared her. I didn’t mean to . . .”
Beau went to the glass door, shading his eyes to see inside. He pounded on the door. “Hello!”
She couldn’t shake the image of how the jogger had turned and run. Like she was a criminal. A murderer. Heat started to flush up her neck.
“Hey, you! Let us in!” Beau called to someone inside.
The door was thrown open by an ogre of a man who towered over them with arms like thick hams and no perceptible neck. He wore dark glasses and carried something strapped to his belt that it took Anouk a moment to recognize. A gun? Yes, that was called a gun.
“We’re closed.”
Beau lifted his hands, taking a step back. “We need help.”
The man stared at the blood on Anouk’s clothes. “Are you hurt, mademoiselle?”
“Oh, no, it isn’t my blood,” Anouk explained.
“We need to go shopping,” Beau added.
The man stared at them like they were playing some demonic joke. But then he took off his glasses and squinted at Beau. “One moment. I know you, don’t I? You’re Vittora Antona’s driver. Apologies, monsieur. I’m just the night security guard. It’s my job to keep people out until we open. You understand.” He strained his stubby neck back toward the car. His voice fell to a reverent whisper. “Is she here?”
“No,” Beau answered quickly. “She’s sent me with her . . . her niece. Who’s visiting from the countryside. As you can see, we need some new clothes. Immediately. And . . . discretion.”
“Of course. Right away.” He touched a piece of machinery in his ear, whispered something low. In another few seconds, the click of high heels approached. A slim woman with a tight bun and navy-blue dress came to the door. If she thought the blood on Anouk’s clothes or the fact that Anouk was barefoot and missing two toes was odd, she didn’t bat an eye.
“Vittora Antona’s niece, yes? Very sorry to keep you waiting. Usually if madame wishes us to open the store early for her, she calls in advance. Fortunately I was already here, ordering for our spring collection. Come. Follow me.” She tapped the same machinery in her ear and hissed into it, “Round up every sales associate you can. There’s a few of them setting up the Cartier display. I don’t care if it’s early. Now!”
Anouk entered the department store in a state of heady shock.
“Oh!” she exclaimed.
It was more a cathedral than a store. A stained-glass cupola sparkled over four stories, balcony after balcony after balcony after balcony, each packed with dresses and blouses and, oh, the shoes. Anouk found herself spinning in a circle to take it all in. Even with half the lights off, it was all glittering glass and marble. And the perfume! Hundreds of delicate little glass bottles, each more glamorous than the last. Anouk grabbed a bottle and sprayed it.
Beau sputtered at the perfume in his face.
“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.