by Emma Savant
I leaned back on the couch.
Scarlett: Sure, maybe. Don’t know what my schedule will be like. Dealing with family stuff.
Brendan: Can I help?
The thought of Brendan trying to help with any of this was hilarious. Magicians were probably some of the least naturally intimidating Glims out there. They had magic, sure, but their parlor tricks were nothing to witch magic, and mostly relied on sleight of hand and charisma instead of elemental forces or natural gifts. I pictured him facing off against a werewolf and snorted, then bit the inside of my cheek as the reality of the situation hit me.
He wouldn’t survive that. I wouldn’t have survived if those weres last night had actually decided to attack me.
Scarlett: No, but thank you for offering. Means a lot.
I wasn’t a future Stiletto. I was barely a Dagger. I didn’t have natural aptitude or clout in this house or any idea what I was going to do about Carnelian.
But I did have a friend, and that wasn’t nothing.
20
Headlights shone into the kitchen, where I was making an enormous pot of macaroni and cheese. I craned my head to look out the window. The Daggers had been gone all day, but now, Ginger’s sleek little red sports car pulled up in front of the mansion’s enormous garage, followed by Cherry’s sensible sedan. I brushed my hands on my pants and turned around.
“Rosalie, can you keep an eye on the pasta?”
She nodded. The girl’s dark-olive skin seemed extra covered in freckles these days, ever since she had started spending every free minute in Grandma’s small pool out back. She refastened the end of one of her thick black braids and stepped up to the stove, watching the pot with all the intensity of a ten-year-old who’d just been given a very important job.
I glanced at the youngest baby, Amberley, but Rowan seemed to have her well under control despite the film of mashed banana that covered Amberley and her high chair. One of the toddlers, Peony, followed after me, and I slung her on my hip and kept going.
I ducked into the hall toward the foyer just as Ginger burst into the house. She took one look at me, made a disgusted noise, and stomped up the stairs. The noise wasn’t directed at me, but my heart sped up anyway.
Sienna came in after her. She watched Ginger disappear up the stairs, then shook her head at me.
“Negotiations didn’t go well,” she said. She pressed her lips into a thin line. “Total bust, actually, and the alpha would only meet us in a coffee shop, so we still don’t know for sure where their stupid den is.”
“I thought Mom and Saffron were doing divinations.”
“Which are useless when the pack has their place protected by what seems like a million enchantments,” Sienna said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Mom followed behind her, with several more Daggers in tow. Half of them were furious, the others exhausted. Pepper reached for her daughter and buried her nose in Peony’s curls.
“How are the kids?” Mom asked.
“We’re just starting dinner.”
“Good,” she said. “Let’s get everyone to bed, and then we can talk.”
Full as the house was, it seemed dull without Grandma here. I fed the kids while their moms put together a better dinner of pasta and Caprese salad, but no one was talking. Whatever had happened today, they didn’t want to share it with the younger members of the coven. Rowan shot me lots of significant glances, and Autumn tried to ask what I thought could have happened, but I only shrugged.
I was a novice like the rest of them, sitting at home with the kids while Grandma’s fate was decided without us.
Finally, after what felt like an agonizing age, the moms took their young daughters off to bed, and the rest of us gathered to learn what had happened.
“The discussion didn’t go as well as we hoped,” Mom said. She was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace and had a glass of something strong in her hand, which was telling in and of itself.
“It was a disaster,” Ginger said. She was curled up in the corner of a sofa with her own drink in hand. Her wife, Cerise, snuggled up next to her and tickled her arm lightly. They were yin and yang, with Ginger’s dark limbs a perfect contrast to Cerise’s pale, freckled ones, their affection for each other a spot of calm in the otherwise tense room.
I rolled my lips together, trying to hold the questions back.
“The Wildwoods have refused to alter their demands,” Mom said. “They were entirely unwilling to discuss or negotiate. The one concession we received was on the timeline, which has been extended to four weeks. Apparently even werewolves understand the challenges of liquidating property and business assets.”
“Business assets?” I burst out. “You’re not selling Carnelian.”
“We won’t have to sell the entire house,” Mom said. “Goddess knows how we’d go about doing that, especially on such a short timeline. But Nelly has money invested in the business that we can pull out.”
“What about her Fashion Week show?”
Mom pressed on the back of her neck. “I can’t imagine that’s a priority right now.”
“It would be for her,” I said.
She shot me a look, one that I understood immediately. She was speaking as the acting Stiletto, not my mother, and this was not up for discussion.
I took a long sip of my ginger ale. The bubbles hurt all the way down.
Pepper, sitting next to me, patted my knee. Beside her, Rowan shifted and raised her hand.
“Can I ask why the Faerie Queen isn’t involved in this?” she said.
“We’ve consulted with the Waterfall Palace,” Mom said. “The queen has asked us to handle this one alone if we can.”
Typical faerie, trying to keep her hands away from the dirty work.
“Her Majesty is in the middle of important negotiations with some mermaid tribes right now,” Sienna said. She surveyed the room to make sure she had everyone’s attention. “It’s critical that we not cause trouble between Portland’s leadership and local partial-humanoid collectives.”
This important proclamation made, she sank back into her chair and sipped her seltzer. I rolled my eyes.
“It’s a weak excuse,” Blaze muttered, and glared into her drink like it had insulted her general badassery.
“The queen can’t go around pissing off werewolf packs and every other group that’s pushing for autonomy,” Cerise said gently. “It makes sense that she’d stay out of things.”
“What about the High Priestess?” Roux said. “She’s on the queen’s councils. She might be able to use her influence without making it seem like the queen is overstepping her bounds.”
Mom shook her head and drained the last of her drink. “Already talked to her. The Wildwoods accused her of suppressing werewolf voices during the last Faerie Court, and she’s not willing to get involved.”
“So Grandma just gets abandoned?” I demanded.
“No one is abandoning the Stiletto,” Mom said. “She’ll be back as soon as we can get the money together.”
“And then we’re a thousand galaxies down,” Blaze said.
“We’ll recover.”
We drifted off to bed a few at a time. I was more than ready for the comfort of my pillow, but once I was lying there in the darkness, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, each time disrupting the cat who’d chosen my bed as her own for the night, and finally sat up.
I had information they didn’t. Mom probably wouldn’t be willing to use it, but at least I would know I’d done everything I possibly could.
21
I caught Mom the minute she was up and dressed. She looked surprised to see me sitting on the floor outside her bedroom door, and then the surprise just faded back to fatigue.
We were all tired. I felt it in the house and in myself. We were missing our Stiletto, and nothing felt right without her.
“I’m not going to argue with you about the werewolves,” I said, scrambling to my feet.
“Well, that’s something.�
�
I stepped toward her room, and she stood aside to let me in. I closed the door and turned to face her.
“I’ve decided to focus my efforts on making sure Carnelian’s show is a success,” I said, then hurriedly added, “I know that’s not your priority and I know our budget will get pretty small. But the show is important to Grandma. I don’t want her to get rescued and then come back to find out everything’s fallen apart.”
Mom watched me carefully. This announcement wasn’t worth camping outside her door at six in the morning for. I cleared my throat and cut to the chase.
“I have information you don’t,” I said. “I know where the Wildwood den is. Exactly where, not just that it’s in Forest Park. There are almost a hundred werewolves, and they have Humdrum weapons. They’ll kill Grandma if the Daggers attack, but that’s assuming they know we’re coming. If they don’t know, we might be able to get her.”
Mom’s shoulders and jaw tensed up before I’d finished talking.
“And why do you know any of that?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Honestly, I don’t think we should talk about it. You don’t want to know, and I don’t want to tell you.”
“What did you do?” she said. Her voice took on a harder edge as she spoke, and I inched backwards.
“You’re mad at me,” I said. “You should be. I was dumb. But I found the den, and I’m telling you instead of going off to get Grandma by myself.”
It was the only card I had, and Mom seemed to consider it.
“Your negotiations didn’t work.” It wasn’t polite, but it was the truth. I took a deep breath. “Whether you go after Grandma or choose to pay the ransom is up to you. You’re the acting Stiletto, and you know more about this than I do.”
The words were hard to get out, but I had to say them.
Grandma was in danger, and going into the woods on my own and facing off against werewolves hadn’t gotten me very far. I wasn’t strong or skilled enough to rescue my grandmother on my own. And I don’t know if I wanted to be a Dagger.
But I did know that I had to be an asset to them.
And that started by recognizing my own failures and letting the people in charge actually be in charge—even if my entire soul cringed at the thought of stepping away and letting Mom make all the decisions about Grandma’s safety.
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her. But this was my grandmother at risk—the one person in this world who always thought there was something in me worth valuing. Mom loved me, and I loved her, but she didn’t get me like Grandma did.
I couldn’t bear to let go of the reins.
I had to do it anyway.
“Let me help,” I said. “Let me try again to actually be useful to this coven. I won’t go off on my own again. I promise.”
“Where did you go when you went off on your own?” Mom said. “What did you do?”
“It’s not important,” I said. “What matters is that I won’t do it again. But you’ve got to let me help, and I don’t just mean babysitting. I can be useful. If you need help liquidizing Grandma’s assets, let me know and I’ll do what I can with the business. If you want to get her out of there before she’s been in Goddess knows what conditions for a month, I’ll help with that, too. Just please let me help.”
Mom’s dark eyes stayed locked on me. She was thinking a mile a minute, analyzing me, weighing the chances that I’d make good on what I’d said. I straightened my shoulders.
“If you want me to be a Dagger, I need more chances,” I said. “I’m probably always going to need more chances than the other girls. If you don’t want to let me off the hook, I need you to give me an inch.”
She nodded sharply, once. “Double down on your fitness training,” she said. “You’re better at divination than the other novices, so play to your strengths there. I want to know everything you can learn about the Wildwoods and I don’t want you to get it through any means besides your magic.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Unless you’ve got a contact who’s willing to give us information.”
I shifted from one foot to the other. “I got everything I could out of my contact,” I said.
“You have to prove you belong,” Mom said. “Every Dagger does. Whether you follow this path or not is up to you, but don’t you dare quit until you’ve given it everything you’ve got.”
That was fair. And I had an assignment now, something I could sink my teeth into. I stepped aside and let her pass.
Alec texted while I was standing outside Carnelian. The cool morning light filtered through the gap in the buildings across the street and lit my phone with its glare. I shifted it to see better.
Alec: You still alive?
I almost ignored the message, then, despite my better judgment, replied with a terse Yes.
Alec: Your first clasp is ready. I can drop it off during my lunch.
With any luck, I’d be out of here long before then.
Scarlett: Sounds good. You can leave it at the front desk.
I didn’t want to see him. On the one hand, he’d saved my hide. On the other, I hadn’t asked him to and I wasn’t totally sure I was grateful for his interference.
Josette met me at the café on one of the upper floors. It was a small, cozy space, meant for comfortable employee breaks and one-on-one meetings. People filtered in and out, most of them just filling their mugs before they headed to their respective departments. A few sat at tables with sketchbooks or laptops in front of them.
Josette waved me over to a corner seat by the window. The city outside was misty and gray with morning fog. I filled a mug with a tea bag and hot water and slid into the chair opposite her.
We got through the initial pleasantries quickly, and then she narrowed her eyes a little in concern. “Is everything all right?”
I put on my most confident smile. “Everything is fine,” I said. “I’m guessing you’ve realized Nelly hasn’t been in her office here for a few days.”
“It’s not totally unusual for her,” Josette said, although her voice hinted at hesitation. Her graying hair was swept into a neat French twist, and she shared Grandma’s perfect posture and fondness for tailored silk blouses. “But she usually calls to let me know.”
“She can’t this time,” I said. I’d been rehearsing the lie. Now, it slipped out easily. “She’s been called to deal with a client in the Maldives. She wasn’t happy with the fit of a gown, and Grandma had to go smooth things over.”
A tiny line appeared between Josette’s thin eyebrows. “Who?”
“Guess,” I said dryly.
There was one client in particular, a Glimmering actress, who had caused the house no end of gossip over the past year. She’d ordered a gown a few months ago, and she hadn’t been in the news much lately. For all anyone knew, she was as likely to be in the Maldives as anywhere else. I crossed my fingers under the table and hoped she wouldn’t be caught in the Glim tabloids in the next few days.
“Grandma was planning on being home by tonight, but she caught a pretty bad case of kraken virus from one of the client’s guests. She’s laid up in bed and can’t fly back until she’s over the worst of it.”
“Kraken virus?” Josette’s hand twitched on her coffee cup. “That’s going to take weeks to clear.”
“At least.”
Josette was an expert at staying calm under pressure, but I could see anxiety rising in the way her shoulders crept slightly toward her ears.
“She’s asked that I coordinate with you to make sure the show stays on track,” I said.
I sat up straighter, trying to look like the kind of person an internationally renowned businesswoman and fashion designer would hand the reins to. Josette delicately wiped a drop of coffee from the corner of her lips.
“It’s not ideal,” I said. “I know that better than anyone, trust me. But I also know what Grandma’s been working on back at her home studio, and you’re obviously the most well-informed person on everything to do with Carnelian. So
we need to work together and save this.”
“We’ll do our best, absolutely,” Josette said. She drummed her fingers against her coffee cup a few times. Her short, manicured nails tapped against the ceramic. “You’ll need to put in a lot of hours here, just coordinating things and making decisions about garments. I’ll keep the atelier on task, but there’s still a lot about the final designs we don’t know.”
By a lot, she meant everything. Grandma had only finalized two sketches, and even those were subject to change. Mostly, we’d been draping and making style boards and playing with mockups, and the house designers had recently sent her three hundred sketches to review. It was barely a start.
“You know what Carnelian’s style is,” I said. “I know what Carnelian’s style is. We have to get moving on things, and hopefully Grandma will be back in time to make final calls on what actually goes in the show.”
“We can’t make too many garments that won’t end up at Fashion Week,” Josette cautioned. “We’re working on thin margins.”
And they were about to get thinner, if the Daggers went through with liquidating a bunch of the houses’s assets.
I’d think about that later.
“Can you meet to go over sketches tomorrow?” I said. “Grandma’s narrowed them down to her top hundred or so and was planning to pick the final designs this week. We’ll have to do that.”
Josette’s lips tightened. So did mine.
It was a lot of responsibility.
“We need to keep the Faerie Queen’s style in mind,” she said.
“While maintaining what makes Carnelian unique.”
Josette nodded sharply. She didn’t like the quick turn this situation had taken, but she was a professional. I could already see the gears in her head turning, mirroring mine as they searched for ways to save us from total disaster.
22
My phone kept buzzing. I kept ignoring it. Brendan’s offers to take me out for lunch were tempting, but I was up to my ears in work. Sketches and swatches covered the home studio table in front of me, and I shoveled Rowan’s spicy chili from a nearby bowl into my mouth whenever I remembered it was there.
