Page 32 of Kill the Beast
They crossed the street, Alderic dragging his feet pitifully, and peeked inside the shop.
“Oh! Yes, this will do nicely!” Alderic exclaimed, his face lighting up when he saw a rack of pants in a veritable rainbow of colors.It wasn’t the only one, either, and Lyssa realized with horror that the display in the window had betrayed her.
“On second thought,” she started, but the shopgirl got to them first.
“Come in! Come in!” the girl cried before Lyssa could haul Alderic away, sailing over to where they hesitated in the doorway. “The dog is welcome, too! We outfit many of the men from the Warham Hunting Lodge—a little animal hair doesn’t bother me!” Her laugh was like the tinkling of a harpsichord, and she smiled sweetly as she waved Alderic inside. “May I ask what caught your eye?”
“Er…” Alderic glanced back at Lyssa before squaring his shoulders and stepping over the threshold into the shop. “The scarlet pants.”
Lyssa groaned, but the shopgirl clapped, delighted. “An excellent choice, sir! Would you like to try them on? Oh! And youmusttry these as well…”
She began pulling a riot of brightly colored items off the racks and shelves, holding them up for his inspection and chattering on and on about the cut and drape and stitching. Such talk would have bored Lyssa to violence, but Alderic looked happy, asking questions and fingering fabrics.
Lyssa turned to Nadia. “Stay here, and don’t let him leave this shop—not that he’ll want to.”
“But I have to go get supplies.”
“AndIneed to offload my stuff first, so that you have more money tobuythose supplies, and room for them in the wagon,” Lyssa said. “I won’t be long.” She eyed the pile of clothes in the shopgirl’s arms warily. “Don’t let him buy anything ridiculous. Make sure he gets something in black, brown, or gray.”
The little witch crossed her arms and glowered. “I don’t take orders from you, remember?”
“Nadia, I’m serious.”
“So am I. If you want someone to babysit him, do it yourself.”
“But I have to—”
“Then you’d better hurry up.”
Lyssa made a sound of frustration, and Nadia smirked in return.
Half an hour later, Lyssa left the Iron Lane and headed back to Muslin Street, her money pouch jingling merrily on her belt. She had managed to offload most of the items she had made in the past few months: table cutlery, hunting knives, horseshoes, a couple of swords—non-magical, of course—and a handful of iron talismans for warding off faeries. The merchant she bought her smithing materials from hadn’t yet gotten in the shipment of Valdalian steel Lyssa preferred to use for her magical weapons, though, which meant that Lyssa would have to come back to Warham to buy it before she could forge the sword—and she’d have to pray to the Lady that the extra errand wouldn’t throw off their timing too much.
When she returned to the clothier, Nadia was sitting on one of the padded benches in the waiting area, Brandy at her feet, an enormous array of white shopping bags arranged around them like a snow fort.
“What’s all this?” Lyssa demanded, crouching to rifle through one of the bags. “Silk cravats? Emerald-green pants? Nadia, Itoldyou—”
“AndItoldyouI wasn’t going to babysit him.”
“Then whathaveyou been doing? Watching him rack up an enormous bill just to spite me?”
“I have simply been giving my honest opinion when I am consulted on matters of taste,” she said, mimicking Alderic’s voice.
“So you’ve been enabling him, is that it?” Lyssa looked at one of the price tags and swore. That waistcoat could have fed her and Eddie for a month, when they were living on the streets. “This is outrageous.”
“It’s not my fault he buys everything that happens to look good on him. Or that he looks good in everything, no matter how weirdit is. Besides, it’s his money,” Nadia pointed out. “Who cares what he does with it?”
“What about this?” Alderic announced, strutting out of the dressing room in canary-yellow pants and a leaf-green waistcoat embroidered with oranges.
“You look stupid,” Lyssa said automatically, barely registering more than the ostentatious flash of color.
He lifted his chin. “Well, that is a matter of opinion, isn’t it? Fashion is subjective, after all.” He turned to Nadia. “What do you think?”
“I think it looks—”
“Stupid,” Lyssa interrupted. “She thinks it looks stupid, because it does.” She glared at the little witch, daring her to say something, but Nadia only rolled her eyes and looked away as if she no longer cared.
Alderic put his hands on his hips. “Well, I like it, and that’s all that matters.”
