The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - V. E. Schwab Page 0,57

on the floor swept away by some invisible hand. No mark made, even on herself. She finds a pin and fastens the light brown waves back in the style she has seen men wear, plucks a tricorne hat from one of the forms and rests it above her brow.

At a distance, perhaps; at a passing glance, perhaps; at night, perhaps, when the darkness is thick enough to smudge the details; but even by lamplight, the illusion does not hold.

The men in Paris are soft, even pretty, but they are still men.

She sighs, and casts off the disguise, and passes the next hour trying on dress after dress, already longing for the freedom of those trousers, the stayless comfort of that tunic. But the dresses are fine, and lush. Her favorite among them is a lovely green and white—but it isn’t finished yet. The collar and hem lie open, waiting for lace. She’ll have to check back in a week or two, hope that she catches the dress before it’s gone, wrapped in paper and sent on to the home of some baroness.

In the end, Addie chooses a dark sapphire dress, its edges trimmed in gray. It reminds her of a storm at night, the clouds blotting out the sky. The silk kisses her skin, the fabric crisp and new and utterly unblemished. It is too fine for her needs, a dress for banquets, for balls, but she does not care. And if it draws strange looks, what of it? They will forget before they have the chance to gossip.

Addie leaves her own dress draped around the naked form, does not bother with the bonnet, lifted from a line of clothes that morning. She slips back through the curtain and across the shop, skirts rustling around her, finds the spare key Bertin keeps in the table’s top drawer, and unlocks the door, careful to still the bell with her fingers. She pulls the door shut behind her, crouching to slip the iron key back through the gap beneath the door, then rises and turns, only to collide with a man standing on the street.

It is no wonder she didn’t see him; dressed in black, from his shoes to his collar, he blends right into the dark. She is already murmuring apologies, already backing away when her gaze lifts, and she sees the line of his jaw, the raven curls, the eyes, so green despite the lack of light.

He smiles down at her.

“Adeline.”

That name, it strikes like flint on his tongue, sparks an answering light behind her ribs. His gaze drifts over her new dress. “You’re looking well.”

“I look the same.”

“The prize of immortality. As you wanted.”

This time she does not rise to take the bait. Does not scream or swear or point out all the ways he’s damned her, but he must see the struggle on her face, because he laughs, soft and airy as a breeze.

“Come,” says the shadow, offering his arm. “I will walk you.”

He does not say that he will walk her home. And if it were midday, she would scorn the offer just to spite him. (Of course, if it were midday, the darkness would not be there.) But it is late, and only one kind of woman walks alone at night.

Addie has learned that women—at least, women of a certain class—never venture forth alone, even during the day. They are kept inside like potted plants, tucked behind the curtains of their homes. And when they do go out, they go in groups, safe within the cages of each other’s company, and always in the light of day.

To walk alone in the morning is a scandal, but to walk alone at night, that is something else. Addie knows. She has felt their looks, their judgment, from every side. The women scorn her from their windows, the men try to buy her on the streets, and the devout, they try to save her soul, as if she hasn’t already sold it. She has said yes to the church, on more than one occasion, but only for the shelter, and never the salvation.

“Well?” asks the shadow, holding out his arm.

Perhaps she is lonelier than she would say.

Perhaps an enemy’s company is still better than none.

Addie does not take his arm, but she does start walking, and she does not need to look to know that he has fallen in step beside her. His shoes echo softly on the cobblestones, and a faint breeze presses like a palm against her