Page 2 of Spring's Arcana
Y.A.G.A.FINEARTS ANDANTIQUES,IMPORT-EXPORT.MORRER-PESSELMEMORIALTOWER.No phone number, no email, just that beautiful, chilling fountain-pen writing on the reverse.
Let her in.
Well, maybe they would. Or maybe she could stand out here and freeze to death, just another statue in a park not even the homeless liked despite its benches lacking the hard, hurtful metal studs designed to keep them from sleeping.
The entire world was unfair, and her own problems less than a speck of comparative dust. Nat Drozdova shook her head, couldn’t hitch her purse strap higher on her shoulder because it was trapped under her coat for safekeeping, and took off across Pessel Square, threading between the statues.
She was very, very glad that despite her lifelong overactive imagination, none of them looked like they were about to move.
SOME WEATHER
The Morrer-Pessel foyer was just as cavernous and mirrorlike as the outside; Nat had time to wonder how they cleaned the place before the pair of shaved gorillas in three-piece suits at the security desk noticed her. She was a sight, certainly—almost wet clear through, shaking deicer pellets off her cheap flats, her hair starred with snow and her skirt crooked enough she wanted a few minutes peering into a restroom mirror before she attempted any human contact.
But this place certainly wouldn’t open up its bathrooms to anyone off the street, so Nat unbuttoned her coat and dug in her purse, her head down as she shuffled for the desk, trying to appear businesslike and polite at once. Her wallet squirted through her damp fingers. She finally fished it out, and when she reached the security desk—a big, black, dull-gleaming curve, probably with monitors and screens all along its inside for the guards’ delectation—she found one of the beefy men in matching dark suits had stepped back a bit, his fingertip to his ear where a tiny plastic bud nestled.
Just like in the movies.
She held up the card—its ink was exactly the same color as the desk—and tried a placating smile on the remaining goon, a slab of fair-haired muscle with the pink-rimmed blue eyes some blonds were cursed with. “Hi,” she said, as brightly as possible. “Some weather, huh? I’m here for Mrs. de Winter.”
You’ve got to be kidding,she’d said to Mom.Tell me her first name’s Rebecca.
But her mother, usually so happy with literature in-jokes, hadmerely frowned.Don’t ask, my dumpling. Just go, and be polite, she’ll know what you’re there for. Please do this for me.
“Dumpling” meant Mom was disposed to be kind and wanted her daughter to do something very badly indeed, and the thought that maybe Nat had put this off because the kindness was such a rare occurrence rose like bad gas in a mineshaft, was strangled, and went away quietly.
“Some weather,” the blond agreed, cautiously. The dark-haired one behind him dropped his hand and studied Nat—at least, what he could see of her over the desk, which left her hips safely out of the equation. His gaze settled on her breasts, as fucking usual, and Nat bit back a cheekysee something you like, sailor?
He didn’t look like he’d get the joke. So instead, she simply laid the card on the desk, her wet fingertips leaving a quickly vanishing streak.
The blond glanced at it, then at her. “Turn it over, please.” There was no purchase on this cliff; his face was a wall just as straight and unyielding as the Vogge building’s granite skirts.
“Okay.” So she did, and he stepped back as soon as the purple letters came into view. “Mrs. de Winter’s an old friend of my mother’s, and—”
“Yes ma’am.” He almost collided with the dark-haired fellow. They really looked astonishingly alike, except for their noses—the blond’s was a big beak, the brunet’s was mashed. “Through the stile, last elevator on the left, press the P key.”
Well, that’s simple enough. Nat took the card back, trying not to notice both of them staring at it like they expected the paper to grow scales and fangs, and also tried a small wave at the blond one. Maybe their imaginations were just as vivid as hers, which would be a welcome change. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
The duo stared mistrustfully at her, and Nat’s smile faded. The trouble with social anxiety was that you couldn’t tell what was someone having a bad day versus them trying to tell you they hated your guts personally and forever, so your brain picked the latter as default just to be safe.
The turnstile made a dry, bony click as she stepped through, andthe faces of glossy black elevators multiplied the few people waiting for a mechanical box to carry them up on either side, ghosts standing in mirrored halls. Nobody was waiting for the last one on the left, and there was no summoning button to press because it was standing open, red carpet on its floor a welcome break from all the black.
Nat stepped in, pressed the round silver circle next to the P at the top, and waited for the doors to close.
They did, and even their inside was mirrored. She stared at a pale brownette—not blonde, not brown, somewhere in between—with a crooked skirt and a wet coat, damp curls coming loose from what had been a businesslike French twist and her cheekbones standing out alarmingly. Acceleration pressed along Nat’s body while she did her best to repair the damage.
She was still tugging at her skirt’s hem when the elevator slowed, dinged, thought about what it was chewing, and reluctantly opened its red-carpet mouth to deposit her before a wall of frosted glass broken only by double doors—also glass, with brass handles shaped like falling leaves. Whatever lay beyond glowed with snowy light, shadows of office workers hurrying back and forth like more trapped ghosts.
No holiday lights here. Maybe this de Winter lady felt the same way Mom did about Christmas.
An arc of gold-foil letters on the door smugly announced Y.A.G.A, with a small, tasteful IMPORT-EXPORTunderneath, in case anyone accidentally arrived up here and didn’t know where in the woods they’d landed.
Nat took a deep breath, stepped decisively to the door, and had to glance at the hinges. It opened in instead of out, which was probably against fire codes, but what did she know?
Chin up and her feet squishing, Nat stepped through.
OUTSIDE CAPABILITIES
The grande dame was in a mood today, standing behind her massive curved mahogany desk like Napoleon in a campaign tent. Her shape flickered between a round-hipped, unbent crone and a tall, stately middle-aged professional poured into a pantsuit, both forms with ivory hair piled high and coal-black eyes narrowed. It was probably the snow; whoever was on duty shaking out her bedding was working their little heart out.
