Crimson Daggers- The Complete Trilogy Page 17

  Grandma was in her element, and that meant my to-do list grew by the length of my arm every time I entered her office. I ran fabric samples around the building and booked lighting and sound directors and pitched in with the ten thousand little tasks that seemed to need doing each day. When I needed to get off my feet, I holed up in the atelier and stitched beads to chiffon with a tiny tambour hook or tacked zippers into last-minute muslins. I loved working on the clothes, where I could keep my hands busy and where the only thing I had to think about was the next perfect stitch, and then the next.

  Two other clasps arrived from Forrest Designs not long after my visit. The first was smooth and cool, carved from jade in the shape of a leaf. The other hung like lace and was made of fragrant cedar stars linked together by tiny golden loops. They were both stunning. I couldn’t imagine Grandma being able to choose just a few to go in the show, but I knew they’d get narrowed down in the end. Grandma wasn’t afraid to make hard choices.

  With just three weeks to go, those kinds of decisions were being made left and right. Josette was being short with everyone because a gown she’d been working on had been nixed from the final lineup. It had been a beautiful dress, and I understood why she was upset, but it hadn’t fit into the look of the collection. And the collection, as Grandma had reminded me at least twenty times in the last week, was everything.

  Josette poked her head in to where I was stitching with a few of the actual sewers. A length of glimmering wine-red satin hung on the table between us as we formed tiny black and silver beads into elegant swirls on the material.

  “Why isn’t this satin done yet?” Josette snapped, interrupting a story about a bad date.

  The guy she’d spoken over looked up at Josette, irritation plain on his face. We were all a little tightly strung with the pressure of the show crowding in on us from every direction.

  “We’re getting there,” I said before he could snap back at her. “It’ll be finished by this afternoon.”

  She gave us a brisk nod and disappeared. We all exchanged glances and he resumed the story. Half an hour later, the fabric was finished, and the story was long over. I stood and stretched. My back protested at the mistreatment of sitting hunched over for so long.

  “I’m going to run to the café and get something strong,” I said. “Anyone want anything?”

  Most of the sewers shook their heads. One of them raised her thermos, which I assumed to be still full. I stepped out into the hallway, then stopped dead.

  A familiar laugh and approaching footsteps floated around the corner. The sound made me want to turn around and march straight back to the atelier. Instead, I ducked into a supply closet. The space was full of old lights and projectors and other technology we only pulled out during demonstrations or small shows that weren’t Fashion Week. I tucked the door shut and waited for the footsteps to pass.

  Had it really come to this? Was I really hiding in a closet just so I wouldn’t have to smile and nod at Sienna as she passed?

  The feeling in my gut said the answer was yes. She was still upset at me. She’d made that perfectly clear over the past few weeks every time she’d left the room when I entered it or refused to train with me even though her arm was all but healed by now, thanks to Clancy’s potions and attention. She didn’t want to see me, and I didn’t want to see her, and if that meant hiding in the closet like a five-year-old playing hide-and-seek, well, then, fine.

  I folded my arms and rested against the door. The footsteps were taking forever.

  No, they’d stopped.

  The water fountain across the hall buzzed on as someone took a drink. Sienna’s voice filtered through the closet door.

  “There’s free coffee upstairs, you know.”

  “Never turn down a chance to hydrate,” someone else said.

  I recognized that voice, too. Blaze, maybe?

  “Not much point staying in top shape if we can’t do anything with it,” Sienna said. She sounded resentful. Oddly, it was easier to tell how she might be feeling when I couldn’t see her face. She knew how to control her expressions when she wanted, but her voice let things slip.

  “You know Nelly,” Blaze said. “She’s cautious.”

  Cautious wasn’t the word I’d use to describe my grandmother. I inched closer to the door and wished I’d thought to leave it cracked.

  Better yet, I wished I’d been smart and run the other way the second I’d heard her coming.

  “And look where that got her,” Sienna said. “You’d think being held prisoner would have loosened her up a little.”

  “Nelly sticks to her morals,” Blaze said.

  Sienna scoffed. Their voices lowered so much that I couldn’t hear them. I reached out and summoned just enough wind energy for a tiny charm. I snapped quietly, redirecting the sound waves toward me, and their voices got louder.

  “—didn’t convince her, then nothing will,” Sienna said. “We’re on our own if we want to deal with this problem.”

  “There’s no guarantee it’s going to be a problem,” Blaze said, sounding overly patient. “We did get her back.”

  “So now they’ll know not to mess with us?” Sienna’s voice was thick with sarcasm. “Come on. You know that’s not how it works. I really thought this whole escapade was going to make Nelly reconsider.”

  They started walking again, and their voices faded past the reach of my charm. I stood still and listened as they moved down the hallway, and I stayed frozen as if they might hear me if I so much as breathed.

  Whatever had happened with the Wildwoods, it hadn’t changed Grandma’s mind in the way they’d hoped. But changed her mind about what? There had to be so many things going on in the coven that I didn’t know about—things I couldn’t know about as a novice. I wanted to scream.

  But maybe that was just the stress of the show speaking. We only had a few weeks to go, and nothing was coming together as quickly as I’d hoped. No wonder Grandma didn’t want to take on anything new with the coven. We were barely holding things together at Carnelian as it was.

  I slipped back out into the hall. I could worry about Sienna later. For now, I had work to do, and hiding in closets wasn’t going to get it done any faster.

  I shook out my shoulders and headed to the café, but her voice lingered in my mind.

  37

  Brendan: Thanks for the bread.

  I smiled and put my phone away. Brendan and I weren’t exactly friends again, not quite. But last night, after Rowan had gotten overzealous in the kitchen and ended up with fresh banana bread coming out her ears, I’d stolen a few loaves and left them at the edge of the forest with a note. I’d texted Brendan that they were there and then sped away before any of the wolves arrived.

  I didn’t want to talk to them. Not yet, not now. But it felt good to reach out a hand of support, if only to try to prove that every Dagger wasn’t out to get them.

  Whatever had gone on between our families, I knew two things—maybe not for sure, because being for-sure wasn’t my life these days, but well enough. First, I knew that Brendan was trying his best. Whatever stupid mistakes he’d made, he’d made them out of a desire to protect his family. I knew what that felt like. Even when I questioned my place among the Daggers, I’d take a bullet for any one of them, even Sienna. The second thing I knew was that we had a better shot of a peaceful future if we took turns making little gestures. He’d invited me to his den to talk, I’d dropped off banana bread. They were small steps, but I knew from sparring that small moves could be just as powerful as big ones.

  My pocket buzzed.

  Brendan: It’s not poisoned, is it?

  I snorted. Baby steps.

  Scarlett: If I decide to poison you, I’ll do it to your face.

  I shoved the phone in my pocket and finished my email to the makeup artist, confirming the time and place of the show. We were only a week away now, and the world spun with emails and phone calls and panicked trips to the atelier, during which I followed behind
Grandma with a clipboard and camera and tried to take note of everything that came out of her mouth. She was a genius in the studio, and following behind her was a master class in design, but keeping up with her left me exhausted.

  She didn’t seem tired. If anything, she was more alert and alive than I’d ever seen her. I couldn’t tell whether it was coffee or adrenaline or just the pressure of knowing everything was riding on her in the end.

  I shot off a few more emails and updated the spreadsheet that tracked every conversation about the show I’d been having for the past few weeks, confirming decisions and assignments, then I swung by the atelier to pick up some pieces of appliqué for Grandma’s approval.

  She was on the phone, pacing the office like a caged animal but speaking in a voice that was as calm and measured as ever. She waved me in.

  “No, she cannot jump from Carnelian’s show to Fabre’s,” she said. “I admire her ambition, but she simply won’t have time. She needs to decide, today, and if she decides to go to Fabre, we need to find another model.” She paused. “No, I can’t put the coat on anybody else. Call her, and if she drops out, send me the head shots from casting. Yes. Fine. Thank you.”

  She ended the call with a pronounced tap of her crimson-manicured finger.

  “At least one girl always drops out at the last minute,” she said to me. “I ought to know to have alternates ready to go by now.”

  “Except you don’t know who’s going to drop out.”

  “Alternates for everybody, then.” She sank into the chair behind her sleek silver desk and reached for her coffee. “We could double-cast the show like a play.”

  “Acacia would love that.”

  “No doubt.” She held out a hand for the appliqué in my arms, and I carefully handed the black and silver floral pattern to her. “Is this for the veil?”

  “Either the black or the silver one,” I said. “Josette’s still wavering between them.”

  “Black,” she said. “Silver gets the red pattern.”

  The veils were a couture touch that would have been an affectation in a Humdrum wardrobe but might just become the next big trend in the Glimmering world. It was impossible to tell what fashion oddities would become the next big thing, which was why Grandma always included something like dramatic capes or metal-heeled shoes or sheer veils in every show. Or, in the case of this year’s collection, all three.

  “Is the silver veil going to look too bridal?”

  “Not on our model,” Grandma said. She winked at me. “She’s a ringer for Queen Amani, and the gown is far too glamorous to belong to a mere bride.”

  “What about the clasps? Have you decided which ones you’re using?”

  She shook her head and reached out to her desk. The desk was full of irregular drawers, which never seemed to hold the same thing twice, and its reflective surfaces played elegantly with the assortment of herbs and oak and hazel saplings in minimalist pots that stood artfully around the room. Grandma’s office was as stylish as any Humdrum space I’d ever seen, but the room screamed witch.

  Grandma pulled a shallow box out of a slender drawer and set it on the desk between us. She opened it to reveal the clasps, each one nestled in its own pocket of deep-crimson satin.

  “I’ve ruled this one out,” she said, touching the first ash clasp Alec had made. “And this one,” she said, pointing to the leather-and-toadstone oddity.

  “What?” I said. “I loved that one.”

  “Oh, so do I,” she said. “I’m going to build next year’s ready-to-wear collection around it. It’s not suited to this show, though.”

  “So which ones stay?”

  Her fingers hovered over the remaining empty space in the box, which belonged to the final clasp: a delicate creation of woven sphinx whisker that Alec had promised me would be dazzling.

  “He said he’s having trouble getting the material to do what he wants,” I said.

  “As I’d expect,” Grandma said. “The sphinx’s entire purpose is to aggravate mere mortals.”

  “Mission accomplished, then.”

  “I’m leaning toward these,” Grandma said.

  She pulled out three clasps, one of glistening unicorn horn, the simple one of silver-cast leaves, and one of etched dragon scale that shimmered in the light pouring in from the office windows. All three had a slightly iridescent quality, as though they captured the light and played with it for a moment before throwing it back at the viewer. She laid the clasps out on the table for my approval, and I nodded.

  “They’re perfect together.”

  “I’ll use the rest on other projects,” she said. “Mr. Forrest did a fine job on all of them.”

  “He seems like a very dedicated artist.”

  Grandma surveyed me over the tops of her glasses. “Oh, does he?”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Not my type,” I said. “You know me, I like to go for unavailable werewolves that lie about who they are.”

  She made a soft, sympathetic clucking noise and put the clasps back in the case.

  “Speaking of,” I said.

  Her eyes met mine too quickly, and I waved a hand.

  “I’m not involved with him,” I said. “You just reminded me. I overheard Sienna talking the other day about the Wildwoods. I think it was about them, anyway.”

  Grandma’s eyes narrowed a little, the way they often did when I started to talk about Sienna, and she reached again for her coffee. I waited for her to say something about how I needed to stop jumping to conclusions or letting my envy get the best of me, but of course she didn’t. This was Grandma, not Mom.

  “She’s still pretty angry at them, isn’t she?” I said.

  “I think most of us are,” Grandma said.

  “We have reasons to be,” I admitted. “But don’t you think it’s time to try to let it go?”

  She set her coffee cup down on the table. “I didn’t expect to hear that from you, sabre.”

  “Me neither,” I said, half under my breath. “I just got to thinking about what you told me, about the old alpha. His son turned and went after you, and I’m worried that if we try to go back after them—where will it stop?” I rested my wrist against the edge of the desk and leaned forward. “We’re Daggers. We have an important job. What’s going to happen to our mission if we get distracted by some blood feud?”

  “A blood feud,” Grandma said, sounding almost impressed.

  “It might as well be,” I said. “I know everyone’s upset, and I know we’re all still trying to make sense of what happened to Pepper.” Images of the ritual we’d held for her filled my memory, and I pushed them away before they could make me cry or scream or do any of the things thinking about her death made me want to do. “I’m angry about it, too,” I said. “And I know that sometimes, I want to go murder everyone who was involved with it and anyone who ever touched you. But I know where that kind of reacting leads. You go in fists flailing and you end up in Glimmering law enforcement and have to get picked up by Mom, you know? This feels like that, but big.”

  The corner of Grandma’s mouth quirked up.

  “You can laugh at me,” I said sharply. “I won’t get butthurt over it.”

  “I’m just thinking about how you used to be as a little girl,” Grandma said. “Always punching first and asking questions later. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you try to rein in your temper and succeed at it. Really succeed, not just the kind where you make faces at Sienna and then go destroy a punching bag.”

  I remembered that. It wasn’t a flattering memory.

  “I’m proud of you, sabre,” Grandma said. She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. Her fingers were as iron-like as ever, but her skin was soft and warm. “And I agree. I won’t hesitate to protect any of you if it comes down to that, but I won’t risk the coven to satisfy my own desire for revenge. The wolves can operate on revenge. That’s not our way.”

  I nodded. “I just want to be sure the rest of the coven knows that.”
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  “They do,” she said. “Sienna included, if that’s who you’re worried about. She and I had a chat very much like this one. I made it clear to her that we’re to let the Wildwoods go unless they attack us again.”

  She gave my hand another squeeze, then handed me back the appliqué.

  “Now, run this back to Josette, tell her it’s perfect, and then meet me at the capes,” she said, all business again. “You’ve been involved with these clasps from day one and you may as well help me attach them. Bring more coffee. We’ll need it.”

  38

  I walked back and forth behind the curtain. My legs felt restless. I wanted to run, or kick, or jump, or do something to relieve the tension, but I couldn’t do anything but pace without running into a model or assistant.

  This wasn’t even the real show, just a dress rehearsal, and I still felt like I was ready to climb up the walls. I couldn’t imagine how I was supposed to get through the real thing tomorrow, let alone sleep beforehand.

  I’d been behind the scenes at Fashion Week shows before, of course. But this year felt different. This year, the queen would be out there watching our designs.

  The last model came back from her place on the catwalk, and the music died out. The tech crew called across the room to each other, noting lighting changes and music cues.

  Carnelian’s showroom had been transformed with tree branches and glittering ribbon to simulate a forest that sparkled in the lights reflecting off the gleaming white catwalk. It was beautiful—stunning, even—and I sincerely hoped I’d have a moment of peace sometime tonight to actually enjoy looking at it.

  Acacia, who’d been overseeing the rehearsal, waved her clipboard at me from across the room.

  “That’s a wrap,” she said over my headset. “Let’s get the models out of here and then Josette can do whatever she needs on the clothes.”

  I gave her a thumbs-up, then started the chaotic process of getting all the models out of their delicate garments without anything getting ripped or trampled on.