by Eli Grant
I slid out of the car after Dante and directly into a puddle of ambient magic. There was so much magic being thrown around here that the runoff washed across the street like an oil slick, swirls and spills of color splashing like shallow water around the ankles of pedestrians. That just tended to happen in places the Fae hung out a lot. They bled magic like stuck pigs. I shook the living color off my shoes and hurried to the sidewalk. I’d never been to this part of town. Driven past it maybe, but I didn’t have the money for an area like this, and I wasn’t stupid enough to go poking around in a place that was so clearly vampire territory without a good reason.
The town car drove off without us and Dante guided me down the street, winding through the mild mid-day crowd. The people on the street were almost exclusively vampires and more Fae than I’d ever seen in one place. The occasional witch stuck out only because they were the only ones not impeccably dressed and ageless or seven feet tall and glittering like an ad for the latest holographic highlighter. The only wolves were uniformed security. There were no trolls or goblins in sight.
The fine old brick buildings played host to a parade of gleaming storefronts, exclusive boutiques and trendy little cafes. Every spare inch of wall bristled with magical architectural detail and abstract art installations. The Vampiric tendency for gothic maximalism clashed and mingled with the Fae’s Art-Nouveau-meets-the-New-Weird thing. Baroque frescos crawled up the corners of buildings and joined into impossibly delicate twisting arches like tangled tree branches over the street. The walls crawled with spiraling runic carvings that pulsed with circuitry. Stone gargoyles with dynamic, modernist bodies like something sculpted by Beth Cavener loomed from the building edges and I sidestepped to avoid the clear water spilling from their thorny mouths. Nearly knocked a guy over trying to avoid getting soaked before I realized the water was disappearing before it hit the ground in a scatter of rainbows. It dissipated the same way on the heads and shoulders of the people passing, including the pissed off guy I’d bumped into. I braced for a fight, but Dante put a hand on my shoulder and the guy moved on, double time. I shrugged Dante’s hand off, annoyed as I was embarrassed.
The scent of magic, copper and ozone, made my nose itch. Fae tech LED screens in baroque frames equipped with spidery metal limbs jockeyed for prime positions on the sides of the buildings or on the arches and power lines over the street like bulky neon pigeons, blasting advertisements for designer blood additives and luxury cars. One selling a weight loss blood supplement followed us for several yards, trying to dance its way in front of me until I threatened it with Dante’s umbrella.
“Finally,” Dante said as we approached a boutique that communicated a kind of haute couture fussiness so loudly I was tempted to cover my ears and run.
“Christ,” I muttered, eyeing the magical signage above the front window, which was so stylized and dripping with so many magical effects that I couldn’t actually read the name of the store. The dresses on display were nice, I guess, if you were into that kind of 80’s fantasy puffy taffeta thing. “Couldn’t I just get something at Macy’s or whatever?”
“We’re not going clubbing, Evie.” Dante gave me a critical look as he opened the door for me. “The Triumvirate themselves will be in attendance. If you show up in something you bought off a clearance rack they won’t let you through the doors.”
“Admit it,” I said, stopping in front of the door to meet his eye. “You’re just enjoying torturing me. It isn’t enough to make me go to this damn party, you have to make me play dress up with fairies too.”
A saw a smile briefly touch the corners of his mouth before he managed to hide it.
“You did threaten me with a taser,” he pointed out. Which was, I guess, fair. “Also, I would avoid using that word. Lady Amaryllis is the most well-respected dressmaker in the city and I’m paying her a frankly outrageous amount to do this last minute. So I would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t offend her.”
“I make no promises,” I replied, but I let him usher me inside despite my reservations. Lady Amaryllis turned out to be a Summer Court Fae who looked like a cross between an orchid mantis and Meryl Streep’s character from The Devil Wears Prada. She spoke exclusively in the Court tongue and hung around the back sipping champagne and waving her pearly, segmented limbs at her swarm of identical and identically harried assistants as they forced me in and out of what felt like about a thousand different dresses. None of which Dante saw, since he stayed just long enough to say something to Amaryllis which made her laugh (probably suggestions for how to make this even worse for me) and hand her a small package wrapped in brown paper. She took it with the air of someone politely receiving an underwhelming birthday gift. But when she handed it to one of her assistants they hurried it off towards the back while holding it carefully away from their body, like it was both indescribably precious and also potentially explosive. Then Dante bolted like he couldn’t get out of there fast enough, despite me shouting curses after him, abandoning me to the claws of a hive of pincushion wielding pixies.
He returned an hour and a half later, by which point I’d run out of energy to fight and was basically letting the Fae puppet me around like a living mannequin. They had at last settled on a dress and had been busily pinning and measuring and adjusting for what felt like forever. I shrugged them off as I saw Dante and picked up the heavy skirt as I tried to figure out how to get down from the mirrored dais they’d been posing me on.
“Finally!” As relieved as I was that this ordeal, or at least this part of it, was nearly over, I was almost more pleased just to have someone in the room who spoke my language. Being happy to see a vampire for any reason was a new and uncomfortable experience. “Where the hell have you been?”
Dante had been looking down as he entered, several shopping bags over one arm, a coffee in his hand, tucking his sunglasses into his breast pocket with the other, so I got to see the surprised expression on his face as he finally saw me. I’d been braced for insults. I probably looked like a clown in all that fabric. But he just stared, eyes wide.
“Errands,” he answered vaguely. Then he blinked, cleared his throat, and composed himself. The surprise vanished under his usual polished aloof smile. “I see Lady Amaryllis’s reputation was not undeserved. Though this is surprisingly understated for one of her designs.”
Understated wasn’t how I would have described it. It was massive for one thing, with a full ball gown skirt which I doubted would fit through most doors. The skirt was made of scarlet satin gathered in a million dramatic pleats beneath the darker burgundy of the bodice. The sweetheart neckline flowed into off the shoulder sleeves, which draped into an almost-cape of artfully layered loose fabric. There was an indulgent part of me that really wanted to twirl around in it like a princess. The more practical part of me was trying to imagine stealing anything in a tent like this.
“I threatened to start ripping things off if she put me in anything beaded, bowed, sequined or appliqued,” I explained, casting a dirty look back at Amaryllis, who hissed at me in return. “This is still ridiculous, but at least I don’t look like someone set a bunch of preschoolers loose with the glitter glue.”
I saw another one of his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it genuine smiles, before he handed me the iced coffee he was holding.
“You brought me coffee?” I asked, puzzled by the unexpected gesture. He shrugged dismissively.
“The café got my order wrong, and I imagine you could use the caffeine. We still have much to do after all.”
I was getting better at telling when he was lying. Or at least learning to expect everything he said to be bullshit. I tried the coffee, which was excellent.
“I picked up a few other things as well,” Damien went on quickly. “If you’ll let the lady finish taking measurements for the alterations, I’ll show you.”
I rolled my eyes, but the coffee had placated me more than I’d like to admit. I let myself be herded back onto the dais and sipped it as
he unpacked the shopping bags.
“Christ,” I whispered as he laid out a score of plush velvet boxes full of glittering jewelry. “You realize that’s enough to buy me out of debt right there?”
“Nonsense,” he said, not looking at me as he removed a necklace heavy with rubies set in filigreed gold. “This is only what a patron of Lord Heuron’s status would be expected to provide for his Host. We wouldn’t want anyone to assume he’s lost interest in you.”
Lady Amaryllis’s assistants moved wordlessly out of his way as he stepped on to the dais. I held stiffly still as he put the necklace on me, the metal cool against my skin, a little too aware of the brush of his fingers against the back of my neck.
“There,” he said, stepping back as he adjusted the chain. “At this rate, you’ll outshine all the Elders in their finery. I was worried you would attract too much attention, but I must admit I expected it to be for rather a different reason.”
“Are you trying to flatter me now?” I asked sarcastically.
“Never. I don’t believe in it. Flattery is the clumsy tool of the desperate and underprepared.” He turned away with a flippant gesture, then waved to Amaryllis, striding off the platform towards her. “Amy, you glittering goddess! You have outdone yourself. Will your genius never cease? Your shell looks phenomenal today, is that a fresh molt?”
He cornered the Fae under a hail of compliments, then switched to the Court’s language as he interrogated her about, from what I could decipher of the handful of words I understood, the color of the fabric.
Finally I was allowed to take the stupid dress off, for a couple of hours at least, and Dante led me back out into the street.
“We’re a bit behind schedule,” he said with a disapproving hum. “I need to have my own suit adjusted. Perhaps I can get make-up to join us at the hairdresser.”
“Whoa, wait, no,” I said quickly. “I played along with the dress thing, but that’s where I draw the line.”
Dante wrinkled his nose, staring at me in baffled confusion. “At getting your hair done? Why?”
“I don’t like people handling my hair,” I said, feeling my skin heat with embarrassment. “Or touching my face. I just can’t do that, alright?”
“You cannot attend this party without your hair and makeup done,” Dante said plainly. “I’m afraid I have to insist.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, looking for an alternative, or at least a way to explain. What the fuck was I supposed to say? I wasn’t lying about not being comfortable with people touching my face and hair. Anyone being that close tended to make me start throwing punches instinctively. But there was a bit more to it than that. My parents took me to a Fae-space salon once when I was a kid. Told the beautician I was a witch. But it turns out, little known fact, beauty spells have to be really specifically calibrated. If major variables like, you know, the person’s species are off, they backfire horribly. Long story short, all my hair fell out the day before the start of third grade. Not an experience I’d like to repeat. But I couldn’t tell Dante that, even if he’d probably already figured that I was a changeling.
“How about a compromise?” I said instead. “I have a friend who’s a hairdresser. Let me call her and see if she can fit me in.”
“I doubt your friend is as good as the incredibly exclusive salon I have booked,” Dante said pointedly. I said nothing, just crossed my arms and adopted the most stubborn posture possible. He sighed. “Fine. I suppose it’s better than nothing. As long as she doesn’t work at a Cheap Clips in the mall…”
That first day of third grade, when I showed up with no hair? That’s when I met Judith. I was a tomboy kid and at nine I was already starting to get shit for it. Judith was the other side of the coin. She was too girly. All rainbows and frills and frothing excitement about unicorns. She got even more shit for it than I did. Kids are little assholes to one another, and ‘not doing gender right’ seems to be one of the first things they learn to torment each other about. But that first day she loaned me a scarf and promised to bring me a wig from her costume trunk, and I broke the nose of a kid who tore up her Lisa Frank binder. From then on we were sworn to defend one another to the death. And that was before we saw each other at the Otherside after school program and realized we were both magic.
Which still didn’t mean I was thrilled about having to get a makeover.
“You seriously haven’t let me do your hair since middle school,” Judith said, scrunching my curls up against my head thoughtfully as she deliberated how to style it. I watched her in the mirror, still as chubby and freckly as she’d been in school, with thin, fine red hair that she’d always bemoaned. Too flat and straight for the proper princess hair she wanted. I half thought she’d gone into hair styling just looking for a way to change it. I guess she’d never found a solution that suited her, but she had the healthiest, longest hair I’d ever seen. It was nearly waist-length now when it was loose, though she kept it pinned up at work.
“It’s not like I’m doing anything that deserves a fancy hairdo,” I replied with a shrug. “I don’t have time for dating or going out. Think I’m going to put that much effort in for Dwayne at the bodega? The drive-through line at the burger place? I don’t even shave my legs for those assholes.”
“You know you don’t always have to have a reason,” Judith pointed out, leaning over my shoulder. “Sometimes it’s just fun!”
I sat in her chair in the dinky independent salon where she worked. It was a small, local place. Not a Cheap Clips in the mall, but maybe one rung up. Judith had been working there since graduation while she studied for her certification in mundane cosmetology as well as beauty magic.
“For you maybe,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“So what’s the occasion?” Judith asked, reaching for one of the books of example hairstyles near her bench. “Must be big to finally get you in my chair again. Did you finally get a date?”
“God no,” I scoffed. “It’s a... work thing.”
“A work thing that requires you to get your hair done?” Judith paused, raising an eyebrow. “Did you get a new job since I saw you last month?”
“Sort of,” I muttered, looking away.
“You’re not working for Domino again are you?” Judith asked in a concerned whisper.
“No,” I answered quickly. Not technically a lie. I was working for Dante. Domino was just also working for him. “It’s just, uh, I’m just going to—fuck it. Fine, it’s a date, happy?”
Judith squealed and hugged me.
“Yes, finally! Who is it? What are they like? Tell me everything.”
“It’s, uh, it’s kind of a blind date,” I said, scrambling for an explanation. “Someone I work with set it up. His cousin has an invitation to this party and needed a date, and I would never have agreed but the party is kind of a big deal so...”
“What’s the party?” Judith asked, frowning.
“The, uh,” I winced in anticipation before I spoke. “The opening ceremonies of the Tournament?”
“Holy shit, Evie!” Judith said so loudly that the other stylists paused what they were doing to look at her. She smiled apologetically, then repeated herself at a more subdued volume. “Holy shit! Like, the actual opening ceremonies gala? The one they put on TV?”
I nodded, feeling the first flutter of actual nerves at the thought.
“This changes everything,” Judith declared, dropping the book she’d been holding and digging out another, much slimmer and clearly less frequently used one. “Why did you come here in a t-shirt? We need to get you a button up, ASAP. I think I can borrow one from Angie. What are you wearing, what’s the neckline like? Details Eve, quick! This is going to take all afternoon.”
“Seriously?” My hopes of having some time to chill out before I had to risk my life flew out the window.
Judith went to work in a fervor of hairspray and beauty magic. As she washed and dried my hair she measured its precise length a
nd looked up star positions and weather conditions on her phone.
She’d explained it to me once when we were younger, after I’d confided in her about being a changeling during the wee hours of a middle school sleepover.
“The secret to magic is how everything’s connected,” she said. “Everything is always pushing on everything else. Whenever you’re doing a spell on something, you gotta look at all the stuff that’s pushing on it. Messing with all of those is what causes the change you want. You gotta look at all the stuff the thing you’re putting a spell on pushes on too, or you can cause way more changes than you meant to. The really good witches, the High Circle and the wizards at the university, they can remember all the influences on something just by looking at it.”
Changelings apparently made this extra difficult. A spell that worked on a vampire would generally work on another vampire, assuming the other influences were right. But no two changelings were alike. So casting anything on them was a total crapshoot. Of course, this is Judith we’re talking about, so once she learned to cast her first beauty spell she practically made it her life’s mission to figure out how to get them to work on me. Eventually, through lots of trial and error, she’d stumbled on something that worked most of the time, and didn’t collapse too catastrophically when it didn’t.