The Queen's Assassin (Queen's Secret #1) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,72

The door swings open. “Make yourselves at home,” he says, before handing the key over to Cal and shuffling back down the hall toward the front desk. On his way he calls over his shoulder: “Washtub’s out back.”

Inside the room there’s a small round table with one chair and a single bed. Cal wipes his hand across the table and leaves a long smear in the dust. Shadow sticks her head out the door into the hallway and calls out, “Excuse me, Mister Gorfinkle. I believe there’s been a mistake.”

“No mistake,” he yells back over his shoulder. “Take it or leave it.”

She shuts the door. “I gave him fifty a night for this?”

“I couldn’t stop you.” Cal sighs. He looks out the dirty window. Their view is the gray brick wall of the building next door. “Hopefully we won’t be here long. And you’re not paying for the room so much as his silence.”

“Right,” Shadow says. She sits down on the bed, then falls back. “A real bed. A hard one, but a real one, at least.”

“No time for a nap. We have things to do.”

“Yes. We should inquire about proper attire for Lord and Lady Holton of—what did I say it was called?”

“Backley Hold.”

“Backley Hold! Is there a quill around here? I should write it down.”

“I’ll remember for you,” he says, and holds out his hand for her, a true gentleman.

She takes it. His hand is warm in hers.

He bows to her. “Shall we, my lady?”

“I believe we shall,” she says.

* * *

BY THAT EVENING LADY Lila and Lord Callum are outfitted in simple, yet far more suitable, clothes whipped up by Mont’s finest—and most bribable—tailor. Anything can be bought in this city, for the right price. And somehow Shadow’s purse seems to be bottomless.

Cal even made an appointment with the barber next door. He’s already bathed and dressed in a sharp new black suit, in the Montrician style, of course, when Shadow comes out of the back room of the shop where a seamstress was helping her into a new gown.

He doesn’t look up from the broadside he’s been reading. He’s discovered that political treatises are illegal in Montrice, so clever satirists use fictional characters to stand in for King Hansen and his council. Cal’s totally absorbed in the tale, about a greedy, spoiled little boy who takes whatever he wants from anybody he wants, when Shadow clears her throat to get his attention.

A beautiful figure is standing a few feet in front of him. For a moment he can’t quite place her or where he is. Then Shadow smiles and holds out the skirt of her new dress. “What do you think?” The sound of her voice takes him back to himself.

He looks at her as if for the first time.

The seamstress has pulled her growing hair up off her face with a thick band, decorated with glittery leaves and vines around the top of her head. The gown is a pale greenish-blue, with iridescent layers flowing from a fitted empire bodice, and covered in pale gold-and-silver floral embroidery.

“Just a little something I had lying around,” the seamstress says. “It was just waiting to be fitted to the right person.” She smiles and stands back to admire her work. Then glances disapprovingly at the choppy hair around Shadow’s ears. “The wig will be ready tomorrow.”

Cal blinks a few times. He hardly thinks a wig is necessary; she looks perfect exactly the way she is. He tries to find the right words but can’t. Finally he manages: “I think . . . I believe Lady Lila is going to be quite popular.”

Shadow waves him off. “Don’t be silly.”

There’s an awkward moment until the seamstress breaks the silence by clearing her throat and announcing, “We accept coin of all realms.”

Each of them receives a set of day clothes and evening wear, which Shadow pays for with the coins in her pouch. Their old clothes are thrown in the burn pile out back. They are too ragged to save, though Cal feels a bit melancholy about it. They’re