All That Lives Must Die (22 page)

               23               

SHOPPING FOR TROUBLE

Paris. That’s where they were going.

Fiona had always wanted to see the City of Lights. She’d dreamed she would go one day as a college student, alone in a city filled with art and style and wonderful romance.

But not with her aunt as chaperone.

And definitely not with Amanda Lane tagging along.

They rocketed through forest and over roads barely visible on tundra plains, past oil-drilling derricks, and then back again into Sitka spruces . . . only the stars wheeled overhead instead of the sun.

“This
is
one of Uncle Henry’s limousines, isn’t it?” Fiona asked Dallas.

No other car could break a half dozen laws of physics, drive faster than the speed of sound while being whisper quiet, and get you from one side of the world to the other in a few hours.

Dallas shrugged. “He lent it to me,” she said. “Henry’s a darling and does whatever I ask.”

Fiona imagined that no man could refuse her aunt Dallas anything. She had a perfect geometry of dimples, cheekbones, and mouth—which all animated into a dancing smile that made you want to smile along with her.

Everyone seemed to like her . . . which, ironically, made Fiona suspicious.

Amanda had her face plastered to the window, gawking at the blurry scenery.

They flashed by billboards covered with the backward
s of Cyrillic writing. They had to be in Russia.

“How long now?” Amanda whispered.

“Just a few minutes.” Dallas poured them both more iced tea from a silver thermos.

Earlier, when Fiona had protested that she needed to study, Dallas told her that she was right: She really didn’t need a shopping trip to Paris. She said that Fiona looked
almost
perfect in her Paxington uniform, and that she was
nearly
the flower of womanhood.

Fiona got the message.

Almost. Nearly
. Two lousy adverbs that communicated loud and clear that she still was awkward and nerdy, and likely a total embarrassment to the League of Immortals.

So here she was, getting a stupid fashion makeover on a school night.

She looked over at Amanda to watch her expression at their magical journey. But she wasn’t blown away like when Fiona and Eliot had first ridden in one of Henry’s cars.

Had she driven with Uncle Henry before? Maybe when he took her home after they’d rescued her? What did Amanda’s parents think of her going to Paxington? They were probably normal people. So why did they let her go to a dangerous school full of magic and Immortals?

“So where do you live?” Fiona asked Amanda.

Amanda turned from the window and looked at the floor. She paled and twisted her hands. “In the dorms on campus,” she murmured. “It’s easier that way. For everyone.”

“We’re there,” Dallas said, and her eyes sparkled. “Driver, slow down. I want them to see absolutely everything.”

Smears of head- and taillights resolved into traffic. The limousine turned onto the Boulevard Périphérique. Strings of lights draped over manicured trees and the classic architecture of every building. Statues glowed as if dipped in silver.

They angled onto Avenue des Champs-Élysées and Fiona’s breath caught as she saw the towering Arc de Triomphe, gleaming a rosy gold in a column of illumination.

Dallas sighed. “There’s no time to see it all. And I think your mother would kill me if I got you home too late. A pity.” To the Driver she said, “Take us to
Art d’air
.”
25

The car turned onto smaller and smaller streets. Only the occasional lamppost punctuated the darkness now as they twisted onto byways so narrow that Fiona feared they’d scrape the walls . . . although the Driver managed to squeak through somehow.

The buildings here weren’t classic architecture or decorated with gold lights; they were crumbling brick and leaning against one another as if too tired to stand by themselves.

The limo halted before a storefront, its windows partially boarded. A spot of light cast from a wrought-iron lamppost revealed a sign over the doorway with curling vapors rising about a cavorting nymph.

“We’re here!” Dallas said gleefully.

She started to get out.

“I thought we were going shopping,” Fiona said.

“My dear, I could have taken you to Gucci or Prada, but this is where
those
designers come to steal their best ideas. I wouldn’t dream of giving you
more
secondhand things to wear.”

She meant Cecilia’s clothes: hand-stitched with love but also with an amazing lack of skill . . . things she had found at deep-discount stores and then altered to fit . . . or not fit, as the case might be.

The older Driver held out a hand and helped Dallas out, then Fiona, and Amanda.

It smelled like someone had urinated on the nearby wall.

Down the street, a group of boys eyed them. There were seven of them. They looked dangerous and hungry. They spoke to one another, and one called out to them—French so gutturally accented and drunkenly slurred that Fiona couldn’t decipher a word.

Dallas shouted back—the same primitive dialect—and then made a rude gesture.

The boys all laughed at the one who had yelled at her.

“They won’t bother us,” Dallas said, and entered the store.

Her Driver remained with the car and polished the side mirror.

Fiona glanced one last time at the gang—she didn’t like their looks—and then hurried Amanda in front of her into the shop.

Inside were mirrors: silver dusted and gold variegated, lit with soft lighting and angled so Fiona couldn’t help but look at a dozen copies of herself and Amanda. Aunt Dallas smiled at herself and preened.

Between the mirrors hung red curtains and velvet wallpaper. There were racks of clothes as far back as Fiona could see. Everything emitted a faint flowery perfume.

A model runway ran down the length of the store. Floor lights flickered on, and an old woman hobbled down the raised platform. She was impeccably dressed in black slacks and shirt and high heels that barely brought her up to Fiona’s chin.

“We’re closed,” she croaked in a thickly accented voice and shooed them away. “Forever closed! Go away.”

Her scowl dropped as she saw Aunt Dallas. “Oh, it’s you, Lady. A thousand apologies. Come in, come in.” She smiled and bowed. “Can I have coffee or tea or perhaps some
Kirschwasser
brought out for you?”

“Nothing for me, Madame Cobweb. We are working on my niece tonight.” She nodded at Fiona. “And her charming friend, Miss Lane.”

The old woman’s eyes grew wide.
“The
Fiona Post? Yes . . . I see the resemblance. To the mother as well. Stunning. Grace and beauty just now budding.” She fumbled the glasses on a silver chain about her neck and donned them, taking a more careful, much longer look.

Fiona felt like she’d been set under a microscope and every pimple and too-large pore exposed.

“Yeeees. Exquisite material. Both of them. But Paxington girls? Those uniforms—something must be done.” Madame Cobweb said
Paxington
like it was a rare tropical disease. Like she and Amanda needed to be quarantined.

“Maybe this wasn’t a great idea,” Amanda whispered, and took a step back. “I’ll just wait in the car. . . .”

“We shall hear none of that,” the old woman said. “Beautiful girls must wear beautiful things. Come, I measure you.”

Dallas wrapped her arms around Amanda and Fiona and drew them along to Madame Cobweb. “It won’t hurt,” she said. “Much. Probably.”

Madame Cobweb took out a tape measure and zipped it across Fiona’s shoulders and down her back, making tut-tut noises. “They should not have been let out in these rags.” She turned her about and measured her chest—first above, then directly over, and then she measured under as well. “Needs lifting and definition,” she said.

Fiona’s face burned, but she endured the handling rather than letting any of them see how self-conscious she was.

“You know how that horrid Miss Westin is with her tweed and slavish devotion to Victorian styles,” Dallas said, rolling her eyes. “We’re lucky they’re not in whalebone corsets.”

Madame Cobweb measured Amanda, who let her move and pose her like a doll.

She then examined the numbers on her notepad. “I have many things in their sizes. My latest creations.”

“Very well,” Dallas said, and tiny frown appeared on her lips. “But you will make a few things, just for them, no?”

“But of course, M’lady. Originals. Only the best.” Madame Cobweb moved to the back of the shop. “One moment, please.”

Fiona turned. “Aunt Dallas, this is great. Really. But we’re wearing uniforms all day. When are we going to need anything else?” She made a little frustrated motion with her hands.

“And their wretched uniforms!” Dallas shouted back to the old woman. “They will need three new ones that actually fit.”

“Oui, mademoiselle,”
Madame Cobweb called back.

Dallas turned her attention back to Fiona. “There are always occasions to dress up, darling. Dances and parties. I’ll see to that.”

“Maybe we should just try on a few things,” Amanda whispered. “It
could
be fun.” She brushed her hair to one side.

Dallas stepped closer. “Let me, please.” She grabbed a clip off a nearby rack of rhinestone encrusted hairpins and tucked Amanda’s hair back and fussed over it. She did the other side of her head then and turned her back to face Fiona. Amanda’s hair
was finally
out of her face, artfully swept up, and highlighted with tiny sparks.

“Why, Miss Lane,” Dallas said. “You are lovely. The world can be such a dreary place; you should help light it.”

Amanda blushed so hard, Fiona felt the heat on her skin three paces away.

Before Fiona could figure out how that was possible, there was a great crash outside.

She went to the window and glanced between the boards.

That gang of boys threw rocks at a tiny car that sputtered by on the street. They shouted after it, and then all laughed and took swigs from bottles wrapped in paper bags. What a bunch of creeps!

Amanda, however, was too busy admiring her new hair to even notice.

Madame Cobweb returned then, wheeling a rack loaded with dresses and slacks, gossamer blouses, and carrying a separate tray of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

“Pour les belles jeunes dames
. Miss Post”—she gestured to the right side of the rack—“and Miss Lane”—she waved to the left side. “Please, help yourselves. The dressing rooms are this way.”

Fiona and Amanda exchanged a look and then shrugged, grabbed an armload of clothes each, and stepped into the dressing rooms.

If Fiona tried on a few things to appease Dallas, then maybe they could find a moment to have a
serious
talk with her aunt about the League and what it meant to be a goddess . . . surely more than fancy clothes.

She got out of her uniform and wriggled into a gown of gray silk that flared about her ankles.

A perfect fit.

Fiona had never had clothes like this—no puckering, not too long or too short, no binding in all the wrong places. It felt better than her own skin.

She added a string of jade beads and turned to the full-length mirror. Her breath hiccupped in her throat. She looked great. Like a model.

Sure, she was still stuck with her unmanageable hair and her face . . . but that almost didn’t matter with
this
dress. The silver made her skin look luminous.

She wanted it. And she wanted to wear clothes like this all the time.

She twirled, and smiled, and then stopped.

So why did it also feel so weird? So wasteful?

“This is great,” Amanda whispered from the adjacent changing room.

“Let me see.”

They both stepped out. Fiona was dumbstruck.

Amanda wore spike red heels and a red skirt that fell to her knees and clung about her slender waist, a white silk blouse, raw rubies that flashed against her skin, and a smart little jacket to match. She had auburn highlights in her hair that Fiona had never noticed before. When she smiled, she looked like a princess or a model on the cover of a magazine. She wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she had
something
that had eluded Fiona.

“Wonderful!” Dallas clapped her hands. She hugged them both. “Try something else.”

There was a scratch at Fiona’s wrist: the price tag.

She looked and gasped. Dollar or euros, it wouldn’t matter, this one dress cost more than she made working all last summer at Ringo’s Pizza Palace.

She had the credit card Audrey had given her. That was supposed to be for school supplies and emergencies. Did this qualify as school supplies? Hadn’t Aunt Dallas said there might be school dances? Maybe her clothes were a justifiable fashion emergency?

No. It’d be breaking a rule.

“I’ll just change back,” she murmured, so softly that she thought only she heard.

“Oh no no no,” Dallas said. “Don’t worry about price.” She waved her hand toward Madame Cobweb. “Put it on my account.”