Meeting Gregory Montague the afternoon, my face still itched as I walked to the carriage outside Lord Montague’s manor.

  Maybe it was the ret ge. Maybe it ending the entire m having the fumes of various poisons floating about the attic b. None of them were deadly whehed in, but they weren’t pleasaher. I’d o install an improvised fume hood in there.

  I’d worked on talking till my voice sounded essentially the same as before. I hadn’t touched my vocal cords, but adjusting my lips and tongue had altered it. I’d settled on not just altering my face to appear like a mixture betweeish and Anglean, but ging it further than necessary, further adjusting the shape of my skull.

  Striking a baween being as far as possible from my natural appearand not looking too intrinsically off was difficult. There was an excellent reason to make yourself resemble another person you khe artificially created teo look artificial. And the eye could spot those little differences.

  I approached the carriage, waving a friendly hand iing. The message I’d delivered yesterday had been the first Infernal to approach with a wave was me. He wouldn’t reize that only if shape-gers intercepted their mail after it went into the mail slot.

  Gregory Montague leaned out of the carriage, a hand. He’d dressed up, a frock coat in dark green with breeches of the same color. No top hat, thankfully.

  I sidered the offered hand. Truth be told I was tall enough to get into the carriage myself but my face might not be fully set i. Best not to take any ces.

  “Miss Harrow or Miss Fara today?” Gregory asked as I took his hand. “Which do you prefer?”

  “Miss Harrow, and could you not publicly say that tter name?” I hissed as I closed the carriage door behind me. “I might need another name for the ball. Best not to introduce me under a name associated with the Bck Fme. Danielle Waters?”

  “Sounds reasonable enough, although juggling that many once seems a bit difficult. Not just keeping track of whie is being used but trying not to respond to the other ones.”

  “A name is a mask,” I told him. “If you wear it, immerse yourself into it till you fet all other aspects of yourself, including the other names. If you treat a name as a name, you’ll fail to bee it. Suffocate yourself in it till the others are corpses, only revived when you want them to.”

  “That’s a morbid way of putting it,” Gregory said with a lightly strained smile. “I don’t want to offend you, but it doesn’t seem like you’ve kept up that advice yourself?”

  “No, I have not,” I agreed. “I failed at it, letting stress weaken two different name’s hold ohis one will be fi’s just for an evening. How long till we reach this dressmaker?”

  “Twenty minutes, with how traffially is. Thinking we should put together the story of how you and I met for the party?”

  “We’ll for the dressmaker, so yes.”

  “Oh, Aedelia is very discreet,” he said. “I’ve trusted her with all manners of things regarding my dates to these events.”

  “Would you trust her with something that might mean the death of your brother?” I asked bluntly.

  He frowned slightly, hesitating in his answer. “Perhaps not.”

  “Then I definitely don’t,” I said. “So, how did we meet?”

  “I believe with you tag me and holding a bde to my throat, but I imagihat won’t work in this case. Maybe in the Quarter still, perhaps I met you out oreets-”

  “No one is going to buy a noble randomly walking the streets of the Infernal Quarter without a good reason,” I said. “And sidering the two professions you would be most likely to enter, I’m not willing to pretend to be either.”

  “You are a criminal, though, aren’t you?” He asked.

  The gre I turned on him was only a smidge less intehan the one Voltar had received for ruining my face adjustments yesterday.

  “Fair enough. We met…at the temple. you fake being a worshipper of Tarver?”

  sidering my knowledge of Tarver was occasionally hearing his name among Universalists who occasionally toured the Quarter, no. I’d stopped listening to them after realizie their preag of lifting us out of ods-cursed existehey weren’t much better than those of Halspus who stood at the outskirts yelling about hoould soon be destroyed for our bsphemy.

  There were other Infernals mious than I who did visit temples, but I’d shut my door on that a long time ago. When the head of the pantheon had priests praying for your destru, I sidered his fellows the same for not overthrowing him.

  “I fake being a worshipper of Halspus,” I muttered. “Maybe even a cleric. Certainly picked up enough of their doe from having it screamed at me.”

  “That probably wouldn’t be believed. I'm not saying there has never been a cleric of Halspus who also happeo be an Infernal, but it’s a bit of a walking tradi. You don’t o know much about him. You could be a neophyte who ventured in wanting to learn more, maybe head to one of Sister Kellin’s ies, we met before then, hit it off,-”

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “Sister Kellin’s ies? You must be joking.”

  “No,” Gregory said, seemingly sincere. “She does them every other week, masked affairs. It tends to attraobles of a young age. A bit of troversy for them, thinking they're tweaking the nose of their rich parents, and si’s masked, there's no actual risk of public sdal or said parents finding out. A fun, safe act of rebellion. A bit troversial, especially with the Gilded Lily’s clergy since she is the goddess of love, and…you know, I don’t o get into the doal arguments. I’ve tended one, so I ’t really speak to the experieher.”

  “I don’t know what the harder thing you wao believe is. That yod approves ies in his temple or that you’ve never been to one.”

  A look of fake sdalization came across Gregory’s face.

  “Why the nerve, acg me of something so i, Miss Harrow! Truth be told, I was in one before I joihe temple. Holy? I got much less out of it than I put in.”

  “We go with that as the cover then,” I said. “That I went to the temple, not necessarily that I was there searg for an y.”

  “Well, part of the reason you are being invited is that you would sdalize my father in our cover story, so-”

  “No,” I insisted. “We need a good reason for my invitation to be an irritation to your father but we do not eople paying more attention to me than as a mild curiosity. Being an Infernal will fulfill that role. Adding more details turo more of a curiosity. We end this discussion there.”

  “We have another versation we o finish at some point,” he said.

  I grimaced at the memory of all that had gone on in Lord Montague’s manor. The results of not enough sleep and a truly horrendous…had it even been a week yet sihis entire mess had started?

  “We do have a few we o,” I tered. “You once warned me very firmly about Lady Karsin. Something about her spending a tury in the court?”

  That threw the noble a little off-bance, but it only took a sed for that easy grin to sprout across his face again.

  “It was as I implied that day. She’s survived a tury at court, even made it through the reign of Her Most Profane Majesty. Some thought her dead till she turned up toward the end with some household troops. She ever talk about taking part itle for Avernorn with you?”

  “We’ve only met a few times,” I said. “She probably thought it would be unfortable t up. She’d be right.”

  His smile faded a little bit again. “You don’t agree with the decision to overthrow Her Most Profane Majesty?”

  That disturbed him? Then again, he’d read his father's most cssified files, which probably included histories of that era. From descriptions, Versalicci was a tenth of what Her Most Profane Majesty was in terms of spite, pain, and ways to utilize both.

  “I have no fondness in my bones for her,” I said. “By all ats, she’s a monster who deserved the sying. That doesn’t make me any more fond of what happened after.”

  “Well, regardless of that Lady Karsin has mao survive this length of time as an elf at court,” Gregory said. “While I hardly talk about how it pares to being an Infernal, they aren’t beloved among the nobility. See, the nobility is for us full blood humans only. It cost the queen a good deal of capital just to have the Keltish nobility accepted despite the possibility of an ht rebellion if we didn’t leave the local lords with some authority over there. Yet she’s maintained her positions all these decades. Definitely oh a shrewd mind. Ah!”

  He suddenly leaned out the window of the carriage for a few seds before ing baside.

  “We are at our destination! Aedelia is a bit enthusiastic, but she is quite good at her job. Just don’t let her foist something too ostentatious on you. I’ll pay for the dress, so please don’t try to empty my wallet.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, how tempting that is. For more than one reason. I don’t usually buy clothes like this you know?”

  “Not a fan of dresses?” Gregory asked.

  “No, I’m not a fan of figuring out how much it’ll cost to get a dress that’s both respectable enough to wear, easy to move in, and with enough cealed pockets to carry the arsenal I want t. Assuming this dressmaker even do that.”

  Oh, and if it could be adjusted because my legs went backward. And my tail. I should resign to taping it down so it didn’t actally lift my skirt. That was a lesson I’d thankfully learned before the streets.

  “She is quite skilled,” Gregory assured me.

  “Well then, I’ll see about not draining your wallet,” I told him. “But a good quality dress that I don’t o tape my tail to my legs? Oh that is quite the temptation, Lord Montague.”

  His smile grew a bit nervous. “Maybe I should be in the room when you two discuss it?”

  “Why Lord Montague! Being in the same room as a woman and her dressmaker? The sdal that would arise!”

  Truth be told, he seemed half-serious about the possibility of his wallet beiied. But it was o be oher side of this for once. Exhirating even.

  “I’m not afraid of sdal,” he told me ftly. “I am afraid of losing money since I don’t get any allowance from my father.”

  When we exited the coach, he did not offer me his hand to help me down. Ah, the fickle nature of your average….I suppose cleric of Tarver instead of Dandy.

  The dressmaker’s was a siory store practically hiddeween bigger ones, and opening the door led to a little front room with a single visible stall currently empty and a doorway leading further bato the store.

  “Ah, allowance,” I said. “Truly a devastating loss for a man in his twenties. However, could you pensate me for not missing it? I think there a pair of words for it. Employment, mayhaps of the gainful kind for your lordship?”

  “I’m a cleric at Tarver’s temple,” Gregory replied. “So I am gainfully employed, and religious work doesn’t pay that much money. So-”

  The door swung open, and a brown-haired elf wearing a dress in a riotous bination of pink, green, and brown emerged from behind it.

  “Gregory, it’s been too long!” She yelled, rushing forward to hug him. “I thought your father must have threateo kill you after the st dress you had me make for your date. And you must be the Infernal. His Lordship didn’t mention your name?”

  “Miss Waters,” I said, ign being called ‘the Infernal.’

  “Well, e on back, let’s see if I have anything in your size. You stay out here, Gregory, just wait out here in the front.”

  Aedelia rushed me to the back, the shutting door cutting off Gregory telling her not to fix me up with anything too expensive.

  “He certainly knows how to treat his dates,” she said as soon as the door was shut.

  “I hear you!” he protested through the open space over the front stall.

  “Yes, I know,” she pined, leadihrough a small hallway, dresses hanging up oher side, most of them very far out of date. A colle of some sort? Most of them looked like styles long since past.

  We eventually ended up in a rge room with more stored all across each wall. She took my measurements, keeping a running entary up the eime. I mao get a word in asking about all the dresses.

  "Oh, truth be told I'm more a dress re-seller than a dress-maker, I mostly deal in adjustments and fittings from my current stocks."

  "That expins the styles then," I muttered to myself.

  “Oh, fashion has bee so dull pared to years past,” the dressmaker pined. “Everything now is so mundane. I don’t suppose I could tempt you to move past the modern sense of restraint?”

  “I’d prefer to be able to move,” I replied, sidering how much I could tell the elf. Trusted by Gregory Montague did not mean I should be transparent.

  “As much as I hate to be a bore, just a simple dress that doesn’t impede my movements too much will be fine.”

  “I suppose,” Aedelia said. “I have a few that could work. We’ll o make some adjustments of course, especially for the tail unless you want to tuck it in?”

  “I’d prefer to not do that,” I answered. Gregory would be buying the dress so there was o worry about returning it in the same dition.

  “I don’t suppose I could get you to accept a hat as well?” She asked.

  I tapped one of my horns, smiling apologetically.

  “I’ve found most hats don’t agree with the horns, sorry.”

  “No,” she said, looking over them, eyes narrowing. “But perhaps something else. Give me just a sed.”

  Aedelia went to the back of the store, and I waited first a mihen two, then ten before the dressmaker returned. She cradled a model ship in her hands, a man-o-war in miniature.

  “You wao show me a model ship?” I asked.

  “No, I want you to wear a model ship,” she told me, beaming.

  I…what?

  “We might o do something with your hair, a wig perhaps, but with hair ed around it and banced between your horns, it should fit right in,” Aedelia said proudly.

  “I am not wearing a ship on my head,” I said. “Everyone will be staring at me the moment I look in with that perched atop my head.”

  “That is the point. Oh, it is about half a tury out of style, I’ll admit, but look at it this way: you’ll be the ter of attention!”

  "No,” I ftly replied.

  “You’ll be the talk of the event!”

  “I’ll be attending one of Lord Montague’s events! I’m an Infernal! I think that’ll be talk enough, don’t you?”

  “Maybe,” Aedelia ceded. “I suppose the HMS Sunstopper will have to return to ste then. Wait here a moment?”

  She disappeared into the ste rooms, but I could hear her steps as she made a circuitous route to the front room, opening the door and closing it quietly.

  I’d taken the liberty of adjusting my ears while remolding my faot too much, so it wouldn’t leave any obvious physical traces of being modified, but enough that I could hear a little farther than most would expect.

  Aedelia whispered, and I tried to listen in, sidering it a good way to test my new ears.

  “You said this one wouldn’t be b! But she is!”

  “You tried to put the ship on top of her didn’t you? No one’s wanted a boat on their head for seventy years, Addy!”

  Aedelia showed back up several mier, a few dresses on her arms.

  “Those are the ones you wao try?” I asked.

  "The first batch, yes. There's at least ten more batches in the back”

  Well, I thought as she went bato the rooms of her shop for me, I could use a rexing afternoon for once.

  ***

  Halfway through the batches, rexation drifted further and further from my mind.

  Not that it wasn’t fun, seeing myself in clothes I’d never been able to afford and probably would never again. Sed-hand, obviously, but it's still something I could never justify adding to my budget.

  Only one problem.

  “It’s very lovely,” I said, looking down at the pale green bell skirt, moving around while looking at the mirror. This particur shade was maybe a bit too light for my skin, perhaps a bit mu the ruffles, but if I had a choice removed from practicality? This would be a very close decision.

  Except for the oline, which was very difficult to move in. The corset holding my waist i like I would never be able to bend over in it as well.

  “I do have to be able to move, though,” I said, ending my turn fag Aedelia.

  The dressmaker sighed. “Unfortunately, yes. One sed.”

  The elf helped me out of the dress, and I was grateful that only oher person was required to help me in and out. Even if it meant more time was taken to ge. I didn’t know how much Gregory had told her about what was going on, but she knew I o move quickly but had given me several dresses that were not that at all.

  “Perhaps something not in a style that’s intrinsically different to move in?” I asked as I finally got out of the oline.

  “I do have something in the back that could be easier to move in,” Aedelia said, eyeing me for what felt like the huh time. “Give me half a sed.”

  Stu my drawers and a short camisole, I nervously tapped my hoof, waiting for her return. It took far lohan a minute, but wheurned, it was carrying something that immediately stopped my tapping.

  “What is that?” I said while eyeing the garment, she’d brought back.

  “Something that found its way into my hands after a few different stops along the way,” Aedelia said. “I’m not sure of the exaame.”

  I k. Mother had worn a few before we’d beeo the quarter. Some of those memories I could easily picture held onto for some happy times pared to what came ter.

  gsam, although this one had been altered he top, the colr was removed, and the sleeves were adjusted to a barely on-the-shoulders style like the dress I’d just worn. Holy, there might as well not even be sleeves at that point. It was red with golden flowers patterned across it, the skirt going down to just below the ankles but two slits climbing up the sides to…very high.

  “I think it is close enough in your size that it’ll fit,” Aedelia said. “Do you want to try it on?”

  Yes, that was my immediate thought, but I held back just a little. Aunt Diwei would be there. Would this raise suspiaybe.

  Then again, it might just make her angry to see it on a foul-blood, which is actually a point in its favor.

  “Yes,” I said.

  It didn’t take too long to ge into it and to start looking at myself in the mirror.

  It y a bit too much skin bare, maybe. Shoulders, arms, and if I moved too far, those slits in the skirt….what would people say?

  I was venturing into dangerous territory here. They would already think the worst of me, or many would. Did I want to feed fuel into that?

  “It’ll need some adjustments,” Aedelia noted, walking around. “A bit tight up top, and on the sleeves, but I have some spare fabric of this type. I’ll be careful not to disrupt the patterns.”

  It was, and I was half-tempted just to say to find something else. But…I looked at myself in the mirrain, n to sider what would be good if a fight happened. Just would it be o be seen in this?

  “Not a lot of spay tail,” I observed, wiggling my appendage. Looking behi ushing the dress back a fair bit and trying to fit it through the slit…well I certainly wouldn’t be doing that.

  “I add a hole back there,” Aedelia said.

  “And something to cover it up?”

  “Hrrm, perhaps a bow? I have a few ones in this hade. Oh, I have a sed, smaller one for your tail as well! That might look nice.”

  I sidered it in the mirror, trying to picture what that would look like. I wasn’t going to look Danielle Waters would be.

  “Yes, it would,” I said. “Both of them. How long do you think alterations will take?”

  “A day at the most. I send it to your address, or you pick it up, depending on your preference?”

  I should limit the number of hints on who I was. “I’ll e pick it up. About the price?”

  “A discussioween me and Lregory. Don’t worry; it woy his precious wallet. Do you want him to see you in it?”

  I turned back to the mirrors.

  “Not yet.”

  ***

  Malstein was with us for the fourth day.

  We’d sketched out from memory the parts of the manor Voltar and I had gohrough during our earlier visit. It filled some more of the sed floor out. Gregory had helped with more of that, but the third floor remaiy.

  Apparently even kinship didn’t get you access to the third floor. Those who could vehere could be ted on two hands, Lord Montague, his heir, a pair of retaihat were most likely practitioners of some kind of magid a quartet of guards.

  “He better not be keeping your brother there,” I told Gregory. “Unless he lets more people in. A pce with a restricted number of people in or out is going to be more at risk.”

  This was closer to a kidnapping than an assassination attempt, s to hide Edward Montague would present a higher risk, mainly if access was limited. We’d known sihe st meeting with Lord Montague what their goal would be, but then he chose a way of hiding his heir that seemed to help more than hihe shape-gers.

  “I’d suggest sending someoo scout the rest of the yout if we had more time and if being caught wouldn’t result in the invitations beiracted,” I said.

  “Too much of a risk,” Vreed. “Also, perhaps do not discuss this ime in front of the Watch?”

  Malstein grinned. “He’s got a point. Breaking the w is only legal when you’ve got a badge, Miss Harrow.”

  Like I needed a reminder of that.

  “Dawes and I will keep close together and hahe first floor to draw the attention of any of the shape-gers who will be there. Also, from prior events, we will both find it hard to disengage.”

  The celebrity of being the Empire’s best detective and his trusted panion would be keeping them from slipping away.

  “That leaves me and Gregory Montague to hahe outskirts and the sed floor,” I said. “The sdal of him bringing an Infernal should hopefully fade quickly. At least some guests will probably pretend I’m not even there as soon as I make it ve for them. The shape-gers will probably be aware of who I am, though.”

  A lone Infernal at the party? After their issues with the same Infernal uwo different faces? One didn’t o be Voltar to ect those dots.

  “Most likely,” Voltar said. “I might have made a mistake deg not to go after those Pure Bloods. I’d sent o the Delver Guilds, hoping they would sider it a matter of importance, but I’ve yet to hear anything back. And now we are stuck purely on the reactive, hoping they swallow the bait.”

  I nodded. “Let’s hope that they are targeting Lord Montague specifically then. Because if they are, no matter how obvious the trap, this is their best moment to strike.”

  Edward Montague had gotten up this m fit as a fiddle, Gregory had said, just in time for the sed dose of the antidote that left him a wreck, barely able to lift his head an inch off his bed. The fight between antidote and poison was ongoing and would be cluded by the evening of the ball.

  It was too much to hope that no shape-ger had infiltrated the Montague’s estate. The ces were too high they had been.

  Whatever ges were made to his personality would be ted by the day after. The best time to repce him would be the ball.