First thing: I had to contact Tristan. I knew he worked at theEagle—that was where I would go. Tomorrow was Saturday. Everyone would spend the day working on their wedding gowns. I would go then and see what Tristan thought about my plan.
My plan.My racing mind settled around the thought, and I smiled into the darkness. Ever since arriving at the Fashion House, I’d been told where to go, what to do, and even what to wear—the architecture of my life plotted out by others. Yes, my plan was risky, but for once, I would answer to myself and my own will. Even though I was sitting completely still, my heart lifted in my chest, excited, breathless, skipping through its beats. The sensation rose through my body, the elated rush half dizzying lightheadedness, half intense focus.
I’d felt that way once before. Right after I’d gone back into Madame Jolène’s tent at Evert and secured my spot at the Fashion House. It was the sort of feeling that only comes when great risks pay off. This plan hadn’t paid off yet, not in a measurable way. But I was more myself than I’d been since arriving here—and that was all I needed.
Part II
Chapter Twelve
ITHOUGHT IT MIGHT BEhard to sneak out of the Fashion House, but it ended up being easier than I’d anticipated. I told Francesco I was coming down with a cold, and since I would be presented to the press at the gala, he told me to take a nap, saying, “Red noses don’t go with pink dresses. To bed with you, little scarecrow dresser.”
As soon as I got to my chamber, I put on one of Sophie’s black capes, crept back down the stairs, and simply walked out the front door like a client leaving an appointment. Once outside, I pulled the cape tightly around me, trying to hide my obnoxiously pink skirt.
At some point, I really did need to talk to Francesco about getting a new wardrobe. All this pink was making me feel like a walking cupcake. I’d noticed the other girls found ways around Madame Jolène’s fashion edicts. Sophie, after all, wore black day in and day out. But then again, Sophie wasn’t a press pawn.
The Fashion House sat directly on the street, unsheltered by gates or barriers. Leafy green ivy was neatly cropped around the long windows and, of course, around theFHinsignia.Despite the dreary morning, the gold letters managed to pick up a few faltering rays of light. I’d never stood on the front steps of the Fashion House, or even on the sidewalk in front of it. When I attended events in the city, I was always picked up at the rear entrance. As I walked down the cobbled pathway toward the street, I wanted to pause and let the place seep into me through my feet, as though fashion magic ran through the ground. But shaking my head, I made myself walk briskly forward. I couldn’t get caught up in emotions, especially when I was about to do something akin to Fashion House blasphemy: attempt to contact a blacklisted client.
“Do pardon me.” As I stood on the sidewalk, a Fashion House customer brushed by me. She inclined her head toward me and gave a polite smile even as she looked me over, sizing me up, trying to figure out if I was above or below her on the social ladder. She thought I was a Fashion House customer as well, someone wealthy enough to purchase couture.
“Of course,” I murmured, and quickly ducked away down the sidewalk. Elegant black hacks with gold trim glided along the street like enchanted fairy-tale carriages. Most of them had small red flags attached to their doorknobs, indicating they were reserved for the day by a well-to-do customer. I saw one without a flag and quickened my pace so I was nearly jogging alongside it. I’d never hailed a hack before, and I waved my hand uncertainly at it. The driver noticed me from his position up in the back and pulled on the reins, drawing the hack to a stop. Stepping down, he opened the door and took my hand to help me into the cab.
“Where to, miss?” He bowed at the waist, his gaze averted. Like the other woman, he thought I was someone of note.
“I need to go to the offices of theEagle.”
His eyebrows shot up and he straightened, lines of confusion spreading across his forehead.
“TheEagle, miss? Are you quite sure? That’s in the Republic District.”
“I’m sure.” I tried to sound confident, but his reaction shook me. Maybe I didn’t know what I was getting into. I involuntarily looked over my shoulder at the Fashion House.
“Very well. Do you have a companion?” A chaperone, he meant. Young single girls rarely traveled alone in the city.
“Not today.” Without waiting for his response, I stepped into the cab and settled on its velvet bench. The driver worriedly rubbed his hand over his face and then scratched his head. I stared straight ahead, pulling myself upright and hoping I appeared somewhat commanding. Madame Jolène and Sophie kept their spines as straight as broomsticks and their faces as frozen as ice. I adopted a similar countenance, imagining I really was someone with important business to attend and money to wield.
“All right, miss.” The driver shut the door and clambered up onto the back of the coach. It shifted with his weight, and he called to his horse. We started moving forward, and my hands shot out to grip the sides of the bench. I was really doing this. I really was being carried away from the Quarter District and to the underbelly of Avon-upon-Kynt.
“Miss!” the driver yelled to me through the window afterabout thirty minutes. “We’re about to leave the Quarter District. You’re certain this is where you want to go?”
“Yes,” I called back, placing a hand on the windowsill. The change in landscape was almost instantaneous as we entered the next district. Narrow brick buildings were crammed together, thin plumes of black smoke rising from smokestacks atop their roofs. Stalls made from splintery planks and stacked crates lined the streets, and vendors yelled out to the men and women bustling by in threadbare jackets, their shoulders bent against the chill.
In the Quarter District, nearly every business had a sign supporting a Fashion House Interview contestant. Here there were fewer, but if I looked, I could spot them. I noticed, with a rush of gratitude, that almost all of them were for me.
The clustered buildings and sewage in the streets were foreign to me. Shy was not a wealthy parish, but the people were proud. What little we had, we kept orderly. We didn’t have the architectural feats found in Avon-upon-Kynt, but we had open fields and forests. When I was a girl, my mother would sometimes take me to the fields just past our pub. We would lie down on a blanket and watch the clouds inch their way across the blue bowl of sky, finding different types of flowers and leaves in their shapes. We’d see a black willow leaf here, an amaryllis blooming there. The air smelled clean—not like rotting garbage and acrid smoke.
“We’re here, miss,” the hack driver called after we’d pushed through the streets for nearly an hour. He stopped the horses and climbed down from his seat to open the door. I stepped out, shivering. The chilly air had a bite to it. “That’s the office.”
He pointed with one gloved finger at a brick building. A sign hung from a rail protruding from just underneath the roof: THE EAGLE. There was, in literal fashion, an eagle painted onto the sign just underneath the text. It held a folded newspaper in its beak, and a sun rose behind its outstretched wings. The grand image was ironic considering the paper’s tendency to report on everything from extramarital affairs to ghosts.
“Be careful now. A fine girl like you has no business down here,” the driver said anxiously.
“I’m sure I’ll be all right.” I tried to sound firm, but my voice was swept away by the wind whistling down the street. He was right. I didn’t have any business down here. In fact, I was fairly certain I wasn’t even safe. There were two vagrants right outside theEagle’s door, and they staggered into each other, one of them holding a bottle and the other flailing for it. I hesitated, ready to get back into the hack and tell the man to take me back to the Fashion House.
“Miss?” the driver prompted.
“Here.” I pressed a banknote into his hand, trying to make my movements assured. He climbed back on top of his hack, giving me one last apprehensive glance before snapping the reins over his horse’s back.
I paused for a moment, collecting myself.
