Page 2 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)
Galton’s department store, the largest in the city of Devin, roiled with chaotic life, each of the five floors packed with last-minute shoppers and onlookers who’d come to ogle the enchanted displays.
Every year, alongside the first icy promises of snow, winter brought the temporary softening of laws prohibiting the use of magic.
With the proper licensing and plenty of donations, Galton’s had obtained permission to provide a bit of extra wonder to the season and more than a bit of additional profit to the store. Not that it needed any more money.
My uncharitable thoughts rankled me, and I fiddled with the ruffled collar of my blouse, laying the starched white frills neatly over the uniform jacket assigned to all of the girls in the cosmetics department.
I had been working the perfume counter for a year, condemned to wear the heinous Galton Girl ensemble: a stiff skirt and jacket set in variations of soft blues and grays that did nothing for my complexion, which a recent Authority report had described as wan .
I tilted my head to dislodge the memory, but it held tight.
My powder blue kitten heels were pinching, and I had a run in my stocking, dangerously near the hem of my skirt.
I willed it to remain content in its place and venture no farther south.
I was poised to spend the evening uncomfortable, contemplating all the ways my life had recently gone terribly wrong .
Sleep had eluded me for weeks, and my appetite was inconsistent.
Yet to anyone looking, I was chipper-faced and clean, my hair freshly curled and pinned into controlled waves at my neck, no strand amiss.
I’d kept my makeup subtle to avoid attracting unwanted attention from husbands who’d wandered away from their wives in Women’s Clothing across the aisle, and I wore no scent on my skin but lavender soap.
Galton’s dress regulations prohibited perfume, and I was tempting fate with the lavender, but being the best saleswoman they had came with some liberties.
I mulled over my status as the lead clerk, such a normal, safe thing to be.
Humanity undulated around my counter: youths hunting for small tokens to give to sweethearts, men in their trilby hats and wool suits rushing to purchase gifts they had left for the last minute, and women in their best winter day dresses, pulling behind them sugar-addled children, faces still sticky with sweets from the confectioners one floor below.
I visited the sweet shop often myself to enjoy their enchanted display.
It consisted of red licorice and cream taffy, stretched and molded into the form of a Clydesdale-sized candy elephant, which periodically raised its trunk to trumpet sparks through the air.
This golden glitter transformed into wrapped tarts and jellies, raining in pinpoint form into perfect rows of silver foil boxes.
Magic of this complexity was the work of dozens of people, all from various prominent families whose abilities hadn’t completely atrophied over the decades since the ban.
They’d each offered what they could, but it was still the barest of scraps.
Though I craved an opportunity to participate, to stretch muscles long unused, there were rules for people who lived their lives in hiding, ones I’d chanced breaking a few too many times already.
I spared a glance at the disappointing spectacle constructed for my department: a series of poufs rising from their gold compacts in graceful arcs, twirling to release a powdery scent before descending again, compact lids snapping shut and reopening to repeat the performance.
I’d have wagered it more a feat of engineering than magic, but a faint power still buzzed pleasantly, and I lowered my guard a little to enjoy it.
Immediately, a cold tremor twitched through me, slinking into my shoulders, an unfortunate sign that more than whimsy visited Galton's today. I shut myself up again hastily.
Unpolluted magic was a rare and tempting resource, attracting many types of wickedness.
The Authority were undeniably present, dressed as civilians and monitoring each floor for attempts to steal the displays and for any signs of Drudge, cursed magic with enough juice to twist itself into something corporeal.
Since the prohibition, Drudge were rare but a threat nonetheless, and Authority prolific.
I had a history with both and no interest in running into either.
With cursed magic lurking nearby, I’d need to keep my head down.
Faking illness was tempting, but I’d already taken my entire year of leave following the summer incident that haunted me.
Even one more day might cost me my position, best saleswoman or not.
I arranged our most expensive bottles to catch the light and pasted on a smile to tempt passersby to stop and distract me from my thoughts.
A few eyes slid my way but didn’t linger, and I sighed through my teeth.
“Lizzie!”
My counter partner Magdaline Shaw called out to a friend in her chirping soprano, joyful and excited as always. Everyone was Magdaline’s friend, a trait equal measures endearing and nauseating.
“Lizzie, has your brain clocked in?”
Magdaline appeared at my left elbow, dressed in the Galton Girl uniform, her sweep of ash blond hair worn with a cobalt pin. She was peering at me with those cornflower-blue eyes, lips upturned, bemused.
With a jolt, I shifted back into my present. Lizzie . That was me and had been for two years. Before Lizzie, I’d been Joan; before Joan, Carrie; half a dozen names, all fitting me worse than a secondhand girdle.
“Sorry, Madge,” I replied, “I was daydreaming.”
She pulled a sympathetic face, a small crease appearing between her brows. “I know it’s rough whiling away the hours here when you’ve got such a fine night to look forward to. I’d be daydreaming too.”
I had no plans tonight.
“Dolly Pier is going to be a thrill,” she continued. “I still can’t believe Ben’s taking you there, the cab costs an arm and a leg…”
As was her way, my friend went on talking, amiably rambling with hardly a breath taken, while my stomach curdled with guilt.
I’d forgotten tonight. Forgotten Ben. I’d been doing that too much lately.
There’d barely be time to change after shift, but my worries were likely wasted.
Ben was too sensible to care about my looks and never noticed any effort I put into them.
As Madge chatted on, she chose a bottle of our most expensive scent and spritzed her wrists. Now, she smelled the way she looked, like a starlet waiting for her big break, all sun-kissed skin, pale hair, and excessive, vulnerable optimism. She was summer in human form.
“Have you talked to Wendy?” she asked, breezing into a new subject. Heat surged to my cheeks. “She never answers the phone when I call her flat.”
Wendy never answered because she was long gone and never coming back.
Resentment unfolded in my belly. My life had been settling.
I’d gotten used to being Elizabeth Knoles, the woman from a quaint farm town, a two-day train ride away with happy, simple parents who missed her and sent her letters and some money every now and then.
Lizzie had a one-room flat in a safe part of town, a library card, a decent boyfriend, and a steady job.
She was even due a promotion to department manager.
I’d finally been wrestling my life into submission.
And then Wendy Mofton happened.
Sweet, quiet, Wendy and her dreamy white-collar husband, ten years her senior, with his big goofy smile, bigger laugh, and a talent for leaving bruises where no one was likely to notice them. If I’d minded my business, the Authority wouldn’t know I existed, and Wendy’s husband would still be alive.
Anxiety jumped in my throat.
“She hasn’t been in touch with me since Brock passed,” I said.
Not since she’d hinted to the Authority I might be involved, resulting in the investigation, the interrogation, and the end of my anonymity in this vast metropolis where I’d once been blessedly invisible.
Now, I felt eyes on me at every turn, jumped at any sudden movement.
I’d been keeping my nose clean, for the most part, but trouble sought me out, and I had a damnable empathy for it.
But at least Wendy was free. Really, there was no one to be angry with but myself.
After all, she hadn’t made me kill her husband. I’d done that on my own.
“What an asshole,” Magdaline proclaimed fervently, placing the perfume down a little too hard, the high clink of glass emphasizing her distaste. “Good riddance if you ask me. Gosh, I hope she’s okay.”
I was proud of my friend for having enough sense to detect Brock’s hidden ugliness. At twenty-three, she often seemed much younger, but that might have been more show than I thought.
“Anyway…” The brightness was back in her voice, gloom pushed aside. “I’ve been dying to talk to you about this knockout I’ ve been seeing around lately, tall, devilish, so handsome. He could probably throw me over his shoulder like a rag doll.”
“Madge, I could throw you over my shoulder like a rag doll.”
Her giggle fizzed, high and sweet as champagne. “You’ll see what I mean. I’ll point him out. I thought he might be shopping with his wife, but I’ve never seen a lady with him, and he’s always looking this way. I bet he’s working up the nerve to ... oh.”
Magdaline stopped short, voice pinched into silence as though someone had taken her by the neck. She was looking over my shoulder, expression collapsed.
“It’s Ms. Rosley,” she said with a mournful twist of her hands.
This was jolting news.