Page 20 of Spring's Arcana
A GIVING MOOD
The rehoboam of Veuve Clicquot was his own special little joke, and Dima could barely wait to bite it open and make thezaikashriek with pleasant fear. Coco’s shop enfolded him in its humming bath of power—quite acceptable in its own way, even if it was merely woman’s magic. Still, all his many nephews liked to dress well, and it did a man good to have an appropriately feathereddevotchkaon his arm.
This girl was a little whey-faced and sickly, though who wouldn’t be under Mashenka’s thumb? Far more intriguing was the fact that she seemed utterly and boringly naïve, but that was all to the good so far as his plans were concerned.
The unwary were easier prey.
Coco didn’t have the girl in the front dressing rooms, so he passed through the workroom with only a single glance at the dancing shears, the rattling machines—one of which popped bright colorless sparks from its interior when it noticed his gaze; he showed his teeth in return. The silver needles would be uncomfortable if they hit anything vital, but only the belief in them could truly wound.
Even a child might poke a hole in divinity, given a sharp enough blade.
The fashionista had taken the girl through the low door, down a short hall with an ebony floor—oh, a mortal might think it merely grimy or old, but Dima knew quality when he saw it, a thief’s instinct for the best—and between two pillars made of the same stuff. The threshold was a strip of worn stone, but its reflection atthe top glowed golden—either a tear in the illusion, or more likely, one of Coco’s little jokes.
Women. They were all in league, and this one gilded the trap for others.
Dmitri stepped through, the silver caps on his toes giving one vicious twinkle, and a ripple passed through him. The marks on his back, his arms, his chest, his knees—ink forced under the skin with handmade implements, everything done the old way in a dank malodorous prison cell or the hush of a tavern’s back room, bamboo biting or electricity buzzing—ran like little mice, and his muscles twinged for a bare moment.
“Lift your arms,” a cooing alto said in the dimness, and Dima hefted the bottle, smiling broadly, prepared for a cry or two when he rounded the corner to see somedéshabillé.
Instead, he stepped into bright golden glare and stopped, his toes placed catlike-precise and his mouth open to deliver a slightly sarcastic remark.
Coco stepped back, one half of her bright crimson mouth starred with silver pins, and nodded sharply. “Yes,” the other half said. “Oh, yes,chère enfante. Just a little longer.”
Thezaikawas in three-quarter profile, gazing at her twin in a limpid, shining full-length mirror. Her hair hung in honeyed waves to the middle of her back, ripples remembering the braid it had been twisted into, and the cloud looked very soft. Seen from this angle she was a statue in a neoclassical garden, wide dark eyes and proud nose over a flower-mouth, a vision suddenly uncovered by an ambling visitor.
The dress was green, but not just any green. It held none of the pale gold of cold early spring, or the bright cheerfulness of fir tips after the first soft rains and less-than-icy nights. Instead, shade after shade of tender new growth crowded against valleys of old, rippling forested hillsides teeming as they clung to the girl’s curves, now free of the shapeless peacoat and jeans that did nothing for her.
Her spread arms, innocent of any tan, were nevertheless dusted with the faintest hint of gold and smoothly muscled; she held them in a ballet frame like a good little girl, though her remoteexpression suggested the pose was uncomfortable. The dress was a Directoire revival of a classical peplos, and the sway of heavy silken drape managed to show and reveal at the same time. No dainty sandals—if there had been, he might have liked it a little more. Instead, low Cuban heels the color of pines baking on a bright slope peered from under the hem.
“What I wouldn’t give for some absinthe grosgrain,” Coco continued in her singsong, tapping the sweet curve of thezaika’s hip. “But here, gold… no, not that shade.”
The ribbon uncurling from her crimson fingertips obediently shifted color, wrapping serpentine over the hillock; Dima suddenly envied a scrap of cloth with quite uncharacteristic intensity. Even the girl’s fingers were a little different—Coco had applied the faintest blush to buffed, smoothed nails, pink pussywillows just dying to be stroked.
His own fingers twitched, and the rehoboam almost slipped free. Dmitri closed his mouth with a snap, leaned against the doorway’s left pillar, and watched.
“We’ll curl your hair, but leave most of it down.” Coco coaxed the ribbon into a knot. “Such a nice color too. Just like sun through a jar of buckwheat honey. Oh, your mother was never this beautiful,chère,I can tell you for a fact.”
“I’ve seen pictures.” Thezaika’s voice was hushed, a husky toe-curling purr. “I think I got the nose from my dad, though.”
There was an interesting question. Who had Masha selected for that duty? Dmitri set the thought aside for further brooding. It was always best to enjoy what was in front of you.
For a little while, at least.
Coco’s laugh was a brush of warm fur. “Lucky, lucky man.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Did she sound sad, the little girl? “She doesn’t talk about him.”
Well, that was to be expected. Dima considered lighting a cigarette, but neither woman seemed aware of him. It was probably a pose on Coco’s part, but the idea of watching this fresh new divinity while she was unaware was unexpectedly… appetizing.
“Of course not.” Coco nodded, one of the pins shifting in hermouth and the crimson on her lips deepening just a fraction. “You’re all she could have wanted, and more. I would scold her, if she… well, this would be easier if she’d brought you before.”
“I can’t imagine her getting anything designer.” Was it a faint touch of sadness? “She’s all about saving money. Thrifty, you know.”
“Pfft. As if that’s a problem forus.” Coco straightened, a line appearing between her manicured eyebrows. “Arms down. Very good. Now the hair. Stand very still,chère bébé.”
“I’m trying.” The girl hadn’t sounded this relaxed or amused with Baba, or with him, and Dmitri’s envy took on a darker edge. It was ridiculous—she was just a silly littlezaikafor the pot, so who cared? He certainly shouldn’t be measuring every other word he’d heard from her against this soft levity. “What do you mean, for us?”
“I wonder yourMamandidn’t… ah, interfering is boring.” Crimson-tipped nails plunged into the girl’s honeyed mane. “Coco’s job is the soap bubble, the luxury, the little things that make life worth living. Just like Dima’s job is to be a greedy little boy.”
