Changeless

CHAPTER THREE Hat Shopping and Other Difficulties

Alexia lay staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling, feeling about as wet and as limp as a half-cooked omelet. Suddenly she stiffened. “What did you say had ended?”

A soft snore greeted her question. Unlike vampires, werewolves did not appear dead during the day. They simply slept very, very heavily.

Well, not this werewolf. Not if Lady Maccon had anything to say about it. She poked her husband hard in the ribs with a thumb.

It might have been the poke or it might have been the preternatural contact, but he awoke with a soft snuffle.

“What ended?”

With his wife’s imperious face peering down at him, Lord Maccon took a moment to wonder why he had thought to crave such a woman in his life. Alexia bent over and nibbled at his chest. Ah, yes, initiative and ingenuity.

The nibbles stopped. “Well?”

And manipulation.

His bleary tawny eyes narrowed. “Does that brain of yours never stop?”

Alexia gave him an arch, “Well, yes.” She looked at the angle of the sunlight creeping in around the edge of one heavy velvet drape. “You do seem to be able to give it pause for a good two hours or so.”

“Was that all? What do you say, Lady Maccon—shall we try for three?”

Alexia batted at him without any real annoyance. “Aren’t you supposed to be too old for this kind of continuous exercise?”

“What a thing to say, my love,” snorted the earl, offended. “I am only just over two hundred, a veritable cub in the woods.”

But Lady Maccon was not to be so easily distracted a second time. “So, what ended?”

He sighed. “That strange mass preternatural effect ceased at about three a.m. this morning. Everyone who should have returned to supernatural normal did, except for the ghosts. Any ghost tethered in the Thames embankment area seems to have been permanently exorcised. We brought in a volunteer ghost with a body about an hour after normality returned. He remained perfectly fine and tethered, so any new ghosts should establish in the area without difficulty, but all the old ones are gone for good.”

“So that is it? Crisis averted?” Lady Maccon was disappointed. She must remember to jot this all down in her little investigation notebook.

“Oh, I think not. This isn’t something that can be swept under the proverbial carpet. We must determine what exactly occurred. Everyone knows of the incident, even the daylight folk. Although they are, admittedly, much less upset about it than the supernatural set. Everybody wants to know what happened.”

“Including Queen Victoria,” interjected Alexia.

“I lost several excellent ghost agents in that mass exorcism. So did the Crown. I also had office visits from the Times, the Nightly Aethograph, and the Evening Leader, not to mention a very angry Lord Ambrose.”

“My poor darling.” Lady Maccon petted his head sympathetically. The earl hated dealing with the press, and he could barely tolerate being in the same room as Lord Ambrose. “I take it Countess Nadasdy was in a tizzy over the matter.”

“To say nothing of the rest of her hive. After all, it has been thousands of years since a queen was in such danger.”

Alexia sniffed. “It probably did them all some good.” It was no secret she bore little love for and had absolutely no trust in the Westminster Hive queen. Lady Maccon and Countess Nadasdy were carefully polite to each other. The countess always invited Lord and Lady Maccon to her rare and coveted soirees, and Lord and Lady Maccon pointedly always attended.

“You know, Lord Ambrose had the audacity to threaten me? Me!” The earl was practically growling. “As though it were my fault!”

“I would have suspected he thought it was mine,” suggested his wife.

Lord Maccon became even more angry. “Aye, well, he and his whole hive are deuced ignorant arses, and their opinion is of little consequence.”

“Husband, language please. Besides, the potentate and the dewan felt the same.”

“Did they threaten you?” The earl reared upright and grumbled several dockside phrases.

His wife interrupted his tirade by saying, “I completely see their point.”

“What?”

“Be reasonable, Conall. I am the only soulless in this area, and so far as anyone knows, only preternaturals have this kind of effect on supernaturals. It is a logical causal leap to take.”

“Except that we both know it was not you.”

“Exactly! So who was it? Or what was it? What really did happen? I am certain you have some theory or other.”

At that her husband chuckled. He had, after all, attached himself to a woman without a soul. He should not be surprised by her consistent pragmatism. Amazed by how quickly his wife could improve his mood by simply being herself, he said, “You first, woman.”

Alexia tugged him down to lie next to her and pillowed her head in the crook between his chest and shoulder. “The Shadow Council has informed the queen that we believe it to be a newly developed scientific weapon of some kind.”

“Do you agree?” His voice was a rumble under her ear.

“It is a possibility in this modern age, but it is only, at best, a working hypothesis. It might be that Darwin is right, and we have attained a new age of preternatural evolution. It might be that the Templars are somehow involved. It might be that we are missing something vital.” She directed a sharp glare at her silent spouse. “Well, what has BUR uncovered?”

Alexia had a private theory that this was part of her role as muhjah. Queen Victoria had taken an unexpectedly favorable interest in seeing Alexia Tarabotti married to Conall Maccon, prior to Alexia’s assumption of the post. Lady Maccon often wondered if that wasn’t a wish to see greater lines of communication open between BUR and the Shadow Council. Although, Queen Victoria probably did not think such communication would take place quite so carnally.

“How much do you know about Ancient Egypt, wife?” Conall dislodged her and leaned up on one arm, idly rubbing the curve of her side with his free hand.

Alexia tucked a pillow under her head and shrugged. Her father’s library included a large collection of papyrus scrolls. He had had some fondness for Egypt, but Alexia had always been more interested in the classical world. There was something unfortunately fierce and passionate about the Nile and its environs. She was much too practical for Arabic with its flowery scrawl when Latin, with all its mathematic precision, made for such an attractive alternative.

Lord Maccon pursed his lips. “It was ours, you know? The werewolves’. Way back, four thousand years or more, lunar calendar and everything. Long before the daylight folk built up Greece and before the vampires extruded Rome, we werewolves had Egypt. You have seen how I can keep my body and turn only my head into wolf shape?”

“The thing that only true Alphas can do?” Alexia remembered it well from the one time she had seen him do it. It was unsettling and mildly revolting.

He nodded. “To the present day, we still call it the Anubis Form. Howlers say that, for a time, we were worshipped as gods in Ancient Egypt. And that was our downfall. For there are legends of a disease, a massive epidemic that struck only the supernatural: the God-Breaker Plague, a pestilence of unmaking. They say it swept the Nile clean of blood and bite, of werewolves and vampires alike, all of them dying as mortals within the space of a generation, and no metamorphosis came again to the Nile for a thousand years.”

“And now?”

“Now in all of Egypt, there exists just one hive, near Alexandria, as north as it can get and still be delta. They represent what remains of the Ptolemy Hive. Just that one, and it came in with the Greeks, and is only six vampires strong. A few mangy packs roam the desert far up the Nile, way to the south. But they say the plague still dwells in the Valley of the Kings, and no supernatural has ever practiced any form of archaeology. It is our one forbidden science, even now.”

Alexia processed this information. “So you believe we may be facing down an epidemic? A disease like this God-Breaker Plague?”

“It is possible.”

“Then why would it simply disappear?”

Conall rubbed his face with his large callused hand. “I do not know. Werewolf legends are kept in the oral tradition, from howler to howler. We have no written edicts. Thus, they shift through time. It is possible the plague of the past was not so bad as we remember or that they simply did not know to leave the area. Or it is possible that what we have now is some completely new form of the disease.”

Alexia shrugged. “It is at least as good a theory as our weapon hypothesis. I suppose there is only one way to find out.”

“The queen has placed you on the case, then?” The earl never liked the idea of Alexia undertaking field operations. When he first recommended her for the job of muhjah, he thought it a nice, safe political position, full of paperwork and tabletop debate. It had been so long since England had a muhjah, few remembered what the preternatural advisor to the queen actually did. She was indeed meant to legislatively balance out the potentate’s vampire agenda and the dewan’s military obsession. But she was also meant to take on the role of mobile information gatherer, since preternaturals were confined by neither place nor pack. Lord Maccon had been spitting angry when he found out the truth of it. Werewolves, by and large, loathed espionage as dishonorable—the vampire’s game. He’d even accused Alexia of being a kind of drone to Queen Victoria. Alexia had retaliated by wearing her most voluminous nightgown for a whole week.

“Can you think of someone better suited?”

“But, wife, this could become quite dangerous, if it is a weapon. If there is malice behind the action.”

Lady Maccon let out a huff of disgust. “For everyone but me. I am the only one who would not be adversely affected, and, so far as I can tell, I seem to be essentially unchanged. Well, me and one other type of person. Which reminds me—the potentate said something interesting this evening.”

“Really. What an astonishingly unusual occurrence.”

“He said that according to the edicts, there exists a creature worse than a soul-sucker. Or perhaps it used to exist. You would not know anything about this, would you, husband?” She watched Conall’s face quite closely.

There was a flicker of genuine surprise in his tawny eyes. In this, at least, he appeared to have no ready answer carefully prepared.

“I have never heard talk of such a thing. But then again, we are different in our perceptions, the vampires and the werewolves. We see you as a curse-breaker, not a soul-sucker and, as such, not so bad. So for werewolves, there are many things worse than you. For the vampires? There are ancient myths from the dawn of time that tell of a horror native to both day and night. The werewolves call this the skin-stealer. But it is only a myth.”

Alexia nodded.

A hand began gently stroking the curve of her side.

“Are we done talking now?” the earl asked plaintively.

Alexia gave in to his demanding touch, but only, of course, because he sounded so pathetic. It had nothing, whatsoever, to do with her own quickening heartbeat.

She entirely failed to remember to tell Conall about his former pack’s now-dead Alpha.

Alexia awakened slightly later than usual to find her husband already gone. She expected to encounter him at the supper table so was not overly troubled. Her mind already plotting investigations, she did not bother to protest the outfit her maid chose, replying only with, “That should do well enough, dear,” to Angelique’s suggestion of the pale blue silk walking dress trimmed in white lace.

The maid was astonished by her acquiescence, but her surprise was not sufficient to affect her efficiency. She had her mistress smartly dressed, if a tad too de mode for Alexia’s normal preferences, and down at the dining table in a scant half hour—a noteworthy accomplishment by anyone’s standards.

Everyone else was already seated at the supper table. In this particular case, “everyone else” included the pack, both residents and returnees, half the clavigers, and the insufferable Major Channing—about thirty or so. “Everyone else” did not, however, appear to include the master of the house. Lord Maccon made for a tangibly large absence, even in such a crowd.

Sans husband, Lady Maccon plonked herself down next to Professor Lyall. She gave him a little half-smile as a partial greeting. The Beta had not yet commenced his meal, preferring to begin with a hot cup of tea and the evening paper.

Startled by her sudden appearance, the rest of the table scrambled to stand politely as she joined them. Alexia waved them back to their seats, and they returned with much clattering. Only Professor Lyall managed a smooth stand, slight bow, and reseat with the consummate grace of a dancer. And all that without losing his place in his newspaper.

Lady Maccon quickly served herself some haricot of veal and several apple fritters and began eating so the others about the table could stop fussing and continue with their own meals. Really, sometimes it was simply too vexatious to be a lady living with two dozen gentlemen. Not to mention the hundreds now encamped on the Woolsey grounds.

After only a moment to allow her husband’s Beta to acclimatize to her presence, Lady Maccon struck. “Very well, Professor Lyall, I shall bite: where has he gone now?”

The urbane werewolf said only, “Brussels sprouts?”

Lady Maccon declined in horror. She enjoyed most foods, but brussels sprouts were nothing more than underdeveloped cabbages.

Professor Lyall said, crinkling his paper, “Shersky and Droop are offering the most interesting new gadget for sale, just here. It is a particularly advanced form of teakettle, designed for air travel, to be mounted on the sides of dirigibles. It harnesses the wind via this small whirligig contraption that generates enough energy to boil water.” He pointed out the advertisement to Alexia, who was distracted despite herself.

“Really? How fascinating. And so very useful for those more frequent dirigible travelers. I wonder if…” She trailed off and gave him a suspicious look. “Professor Lyall, you are trying to persuade me away from the point. Where has my husband gone?”

The Beta put down the now-useless newspaper and dished himself a fine piece of fried sole from a silver platter. “Lord Maccon left at the crack of dusk.”

“That was not what I asked.”

On the far side of Lyall, Major Channing chuckled softly into his soup.

Alexia glared at him and then turned a sharp look onto the defenseless Tunstell, seated at the other side of the table among the clavigers. If Lyall would not talk, perhaps Tunstell would. The redhead met her glare with wide eyes and quickly stuffed his face with a large mouthful of veal, trying to look as if he knew absolutely nothing.

“At least tell me if he was dressed properly?”

Tunstell chewed slowly. Very slowly.

Lady Maccon turned back to Professor Lyall, who was calmly slicing into his sole. Lyall was one of the few werewolves she had met who actively preferred fish to meat.

“Did he head off to Claret’s?” she asked, thinking the earl might have business at his club before work.

Professor Lyall shook his head.

“I see. Are we to play at guessing games, then?”

The Beta sighed softly through his nose and finished his bite of sole. He put down his knife and fork with great precision on the side of his plate and then dabbed, unnecessarily, at his mouth with the corner of his serviette.

Lady Maccon waited patiently, nibbling at her own dinner. After Professor Lyall had put the damask serviette back into his lap and shoved his spectacles up his nose, she said, “Well?”

“He had a message this morning. I’m not privy to the particulars. He then swore a blue streak and set off northward.”

“Northward to where, exactly?”

Professor Lyall sighed. “I believe he has gone to Scotland.”

“He did what?”

“And he did not take Tunstell with him.” Professor Lyall stated the obvious in clear annoyance, pointing to the redhead who was looking ever more guilty and ever more eager to continue chewing rather than participate in the conversation.

Lady Maccon worried at that information. Why should Conall take Tunstell? “Is he in danger? Shouldn’t you have gone with him, then?”

Lyall snorted. “Yes. Picture the state of his cravat without a valet to tie him in.” The Beta, always the height of understated elegance, winced in imagined horror.

Alexia privately agreed with this.

“Could not take me,” muttered the Tunstell in question. “Had to go in wolf form. Trains are down, what with the engineer’s strike. Not that I should mind going; my play’s finished its run, and I’ve never seen Scotland.” There was a note of petulance in his tone.

Hemming, one of the resident pack members, slapped Tunstell hard on the shoulder. “Respect,” he growled without looking up from his meal.

“Where, precisely, has my husband taken himself off to in Scotland?” Lady Maccon pressed for details.

“The southern part of the Highlands, as I understand it,” replied the Beta.

Alexia recovered her poise. What little she had. Which admittedly wasn’t generally considered much. The southern Highland area was the vicinity of Conall’s previous abode. She thought she understood at last. “I take it he found out about his former pack’s Alpha being killed?”

Now it was Major Channing’s turn to be surprised. The blond man practically spat out his mouthful of fritter. “How did you know that?”

Alexia looked up from her cup of tea. “I know many things.”

Major Channing’s pretty mouth twisted at that.

Professor Lyall said, “His lordship did say something about dealing with an embarrassing family emergency.”

“Am I not family?” wondered Lady Maccon.

To which Lyall muttered under his breath, “And often embarrassing.”

“Careful there, Professor. Only one person is allowed to say insulting things about me to my face, and you are certainly not large enough to be he.”

Lyall actually blushed. “All apologies, mistress. I forgot my tongue.” He emphasized her title and pulled his cravat down to show his neck ever so slightly.

“We are all his family! And he simply left us.” Major Channing seemed to be even more annoyed by Alexia’s husband’s departure than she was. “Pity he didn’t talk to me beforehand. I might have given him reason to stay.”

Alexia turned hard brown eyes on Woolsey’s Gamma. “Oh yes?”

But Major Channing was busy puzzling over something else. “Of course, he might have known, or at least guessed. What did they get up to those months without an Alpha to guide them?”

“I don’t know,” pressed Alexia, although his talk was clearly not directed at her. “Why don’t you tell me what you were going to tell him?”

Major Channing started and managed to look both guilty and angry at the same time. Everyone’s attention was on him.

“Yes,” came Lyall’s soft voice, “why don’t you?” There was steel there, behind the studied indifference.

“Oh, it is nothing much. Only that, while we were on the boat and for the entirety of the journey over the Mediterranean and through the straits, none of us could change into wolf form. Six regiments with four packs, and we all grew beards. Basically, we were mortal the whole time. Once we left the ship and traveled some ways toward Woolsey, we suddenly became our old supernatural selves once more.”

“That is very interesting given recent occurrences, and you didn’t manage to tell my husband?”

“He never had time for me.” Channing seemed angrier than she was.

“You took that as a slight and did not make him listen? That is not only stupid but could prove dangerous.” Now Alexia was getting angry. “Is someone a little jealous?”

Major Channing slammed his palm down on the table, rattling the dishes. “We have only just arrived back after six years abroad, and our illustrious Alpha takes off, leaving his pack to go and see to the business of another!” The major practically spat the words out in his self-righteousness.

“Yup,” said Hemming from nearby, “definitely jealous.”

Major Channing pointed a threatening finger at him. He had wide, elegant hands, but they were callused and rough, making Alexia wonder what backcountry he had fought to tame in the years before he became a werewolf. “Take greater caution with your words, runt. I outrank you.”

Hemming tilted his head, exposing his throat in acknowledgment of the threat’s validity, and then proceeded to finish his supper and keep his opinions to himself.

Tunstell and the rest of the clavigers watched the conversation with wide-eyed interest. Having the entire pack home was a novel experience for them. The Coldsteam Guards had been stationed in India long enough for most of the Woolsey clavigers to have never met the full pack.

Lady Maccon decided she had had enough of Major Channing for one evening. With this new information, it was even more urgent she head into town, and so she rose from her chair and called for the carriage.

“Back into London again this evening, my lady?” wondered Floote, appearing in the hallway with her mantle and hat.

“Unfortunately, yes.” His lady was looking perturbed.

“Will you be needing the dispatch case?”

“Not tonight, Floote. I am not going as muhjah. Best to remain as innocuous-looking as possible.”

Floote’s silence was eloquent, as so many of Floote’s silences were. What his beloved mistress made up for in brains she lacked in subtlety; she was about as innocuous as one of Ivy Hisselpenny’s hats.

Alexia rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, well, I take your point, but there is something I am missing about last night’s incident. And now we know that whatever it was came into town with the regiments. I simply must see if I can catch Lord Akeldama. What BUR did not uncover, his boys will have.”

Floote looked slightly perturbed by this. One eyelid fluttered almost imperceptibly. Alexia would never have noticed had she not labored under twenty-six years of acquaintance with the man. What it meant was that he did not entirely approve of her fraternization with the most outlandish of London’s vampire roves.

“Do not alarm yourself, Floote. I shall take prodigious care. Pity I do not have a legitimate excuse for going into town tonight, though. People will remark upon my break from the normal schedule.”

A timid feminine voice said, “My lady, I may be able to assist with that.”

Alexia looked up with a smile. Female voices were rare about Woolsey Castle, but this was one of the few commonly heard ones. As ghosts went, Formerly Merriway was an amenable one, and Alexia had grown fond of her over the last few months. Even if she was timid.

“Good evening, Formerly Merriway. How are you tonight?”

“Still holding myself together, mistress,” replied the ghost, appearing as nothing more than a shimmery grayish mist in the brightness of the gas-lit hallway. The front hall was at the farthest end of her tether, so it was difficult for her to solidify. It also meant her body must be located somewhere in the upper portion of Woolsey Castle, probably walled in somewhere, a fact Alexia preferred not to think about and hoped fervently never to smell.

“I have a personal message to deliver to you, my lady.”

“From my impossible husband?” It was a safe guess, as Lord Maccon was the only one who would employ a ghost rather than some sensible means of communication, like perhaps waking up his own wife and talking to her before he left for once.

The ghostly form swayed a bit up and down, Formerly Merriway’s version of a nod. “From his lordship, yes.”

“Well?” barked Alexia.

Formerly Merriway skittered back slightly. Despite copious promises from Alexia that she was not going to wander about the castle looking to lay hands on Merriway’s corpse, the ghost could not get over her fear of the preternatural. She persisted in seeing imminent exorcism behind every threatening attitude Alexia took, which, given Alexia’s character, made for a constant state of nervousness.

Alexia sighed and modified her tone. “What was his message to me, Formerly Merriway, please?” She used the hall mirror to pin on her hat, careful not to upset Angelique’s hairdo. It perched far to the back of the head in an entirely useless manner, but as the sun was not out, Alexia supposed she did not have to mind the lack of shade.

“You are to go hat shopping,” said Formerly Merriway, quite unexpectedly.

Alexia wrinkled her forehead and pulled on her gloves. “I am, am I?”

Formerly Merriway gave her bobbing nod once again. “He recommends a newly opened establishment on Regent Street called Chapeau de Poupe. He emphasized that you should visit it without delay.”

Lord Maccon rarely took an interest in his own attire. Lady Maccon could hardly believe he would suddenly take an interest in hers.

She said only, “Ah, well, I was just thinking how I did not like this hat. Not that I really require a new one.”

“Well, I certainly know someone who does,” said Floote with unexpected feeling from just behind her shoulder.

“Yes, Floote, I am sorry you had to see those grapes yesterday,” Alexia apologized. Poor Floote had very delicate sensibilities.

“Suffering comes unto us all,” quoth Floote sagely. Then he handed over a blue and white lace parasol and saw her down the steps and into the waiting carriage.

“To the Hisselpenny town residence,” he instructed the driver, “posthaste.”

“Oh, Floote.” Lady Maccon stuck her head out the window as the carriage wheeled off down the drive. “Cancel tomorrow’s dinner party, would you? Since my husband has chosen to absent himself, there is simply no point.”

Floote tipped his head at the retreating carriage in acknowledgment and went to see to the details.

Alexia felt justified in turning up on Ivy’s doorstep without announcement, as Ivy had done that very thing to her the evening before.

Miss Ivy Hisselpenny was sitting listlessly in the front parlor of the Hisselpennys’ modest town address, receiving visitors. She was delighted to see Alexia, however unexpected. The whole Hisselpenny household was generally elated to receive Lady Maccon; never had they thought Ivy’s odd little relationship with bluestocking spinster Alexia Tarabotti would flower into such a social coup de grace.

Lady Maccon swept in to find Mrs. Hisslepenny and her clacking knitting needles, keeping wordless vigil to her daughter’s endless chatter.

“Oh, Alexia! Tremendous.”

“And a good evening to you too, Ivy. How are you tonight?”

This was rather an imprudent question to ask Miss Hisselpenny, as Miss Hisselpenny was prone to telling one the answer—in excruciating detail.

“Would you believe? The announcement of my engagement to Captain Featherstonehaugh was in the Times this morning, and practically no one has called all day! I have received only twenty-four visitors, and when Bernice got engaged last month, she had twenty-seven! Shabby, I call it, perfectly shabby. Although, I suppose you would make it twenty-five, dearest Alexia.”

“Ivy,” said Alexia without further shilly-shallying, “why bother to lay about here awaiting insult? You clearly require some diversion. And I am in just the humor to provide it. For I do believe you are in dire need of a new hat. You and I should go shopping for one.”

“Right this very instant?”

“Yes, immediately. I hear there is a divine new shop just opened on Regent Street. Shall we give it our patronage?”

“Oh.” Ivy’s cheeks pinkened in delight. “The Chapeau de Poupe? It is supposed to be very daring, indeed. Some ladies of my acquaintance have even referred to it as fast.” A little gasp at that word emitted from Ivy’s perennially quiet mama, but that good lady did not offer any comment to companion her inhalation, so Ivy continued. “You know, only the most forward ladies frequent that establishment. The actress Mabel Dair is supposed to stop in regularly. And the proprietress is said to be quite the scandal herself.”

Everything about her friend’s outraged tone told Alexia that Ivy was dying to visit Chapeau de Poupe.

“Well, it sounds like just the place to find something a little more unusual for the winter season, and as a newly engaged lady, you do realize you simply must have a new hat.”

“Must I?”

“Trust me, my dearest Ivy, you most definitely must.”

“Well, Ivy dear,” said Mrs. Hisselpenny in a soft voice, setting down her knitting and looking up. “You should go and change. It would not do to keep Lady Maccon waiting on such a generous offer.”

Ivy, pressed most firmly into doing something she wished to do more than anything else in the world, trotted upstairs with only a few more token protests.

“You will try to help her, won’t you, Lady Maccon?” Mrs. Hisselpenny’s eyes were quite desperate over her once-again clicking needles.

Alexia thought she understood the question. “You are also worried about this sudden engagement?”

“Oh no, Captain Featherstonehaugh is quite a suitable match. No, I was referring to Ivy’s headwear preferences.”

Alexia swallowed down a smile, keeping her face perfectly serious. “Of course. I shall do my very best, for queen and country.”

The Hisselpennys’ manservant appeared with a welcome tea tray. Lady Maccon sipped a freshly brewed cup in profound relief. All in all, it had been quite the trying evening thus far. With Ivy and hats in her future, it was only likely to get worse. Tea was a medicinal necessity at this juncture. Thank goodness Mrs. Hisselpenny had thought to provide.

Lady Maccon resorted to painfully pleasant discussion of the weather for a quarter of an hour. None too soon, Ivy reappeared in a walking dress of orange taffeta ruffled to within an inch of its life, and a champagne brocade overjacket, paired with a particularly noteworthy flowerpot hat. The hat was, not unexpectedly, decorated with a herd of silk mums and here and there a tiny feather bee on the end of a piece of wire.

Alexia forbore to look at the hat, thanked Mrs. Hisselpenny for the tea, and hustled Ivy into the Woolsey carriage. Around them, London’s night society was coming to life, gas lights being lit, elegantly dressed couples hailing cabs, here and there a reeling group of rowdy young blunts. Alexia directed her driver to proceed on to Regent Street, and they arrived in short order at Chapeau de Poupe.

At first Alexia was at a loss as to why her husband wanted her to visit Chapeau de Poupe. So she did what any young lady of good breeding would do. She shopped.

“Are you certain you wish to go hat shopping with me, Alexia?” asked Ivy as they pushed in through the wrought-iron door. “Your taste in hats is not mine.”

“I should most profoundly hope not,” replied Lady Maccon with real feeling, looking at the flower-covered monstrosity atop her friend’s sweet round little face and glossy black curls.

The shop proved to be as reported. It was exceptionally modern in appearance, all light airy muslin drapes, with soft peach and sage striped walls and bronze furniture with clean lines and matched cushions.

“Ahooo,” said Ivy, looking about with wide eyes. “Isn’t this simply too French?”

There were a few hats on tables and on wall hooks, but most were hanging from little gold chains suspended from the ceiling. They fell to different heights so that one had to brush through the hats to get around the shop, and they swayed slightly, like some alien vegetation. And such hats—caps of embroidered batiste with Mechlin lace, Italian straw shepherdesses, faille capotes, velvet toques that put Ivy’s flowerpot to shame, and outrageous pifferaro bonnets—dangled everywhere.

Ivy was immediately entranced by the ugliest of the bunch: a canary-yellow felt toque trimmed with black currants, black velvet ribbon, and a pair of green feathers that looked like antennae off to one side.

“Oh, not that one!” said both Alexia and another voice at the same time when Ivy reached to pull it off the wall.

Ivy’s hand dropped to her side, and both she and Lady Maccon turned to see the most remarkable-looking woman emerging from a curtained back room.

Alexia thought, without envy, that this was quite probably the most beautiful female she had ever seen. She had a lovely small mouth, large green eyes, prominent cheekbones, and dimples when she smiled, which she was doing now. Normally Alexia objected to dimples, but they seemed to suit this woman. Perhaps because they were offset by her thin angular frame and the fact that she had her brown hair cut unfashionably short, like a man’s.

Ivy gasped upon seeing her.

This was not because of the hair. Or, not entirely because of it. This was because the woman was also dressed head to shiny boots in perfect and impeccable style—for a man. Jacket, pants, and waistcoat were all to the height of fashion. A top hat perched upon that scandalously short hair, and her burgundy cravat was tied into a silken waterfall. Still, there was no pretense at hiding her femininity. Her voice, when she spoke, was low and melodic, but definitely that of a woman.

Alexia picked up a pair of burnt umber kid gloves from a display basket. They were as soft as butter to the touch, and she looked at them to stop herself from staring at the woman.

“I am Madame Lefoux. Welcome to Chapeau de Poupe. How may I serve you fine ladies?” She had the hint of a French accent, but only the barest hint, utterly unlike Angelique, who could never seem to handle the “th” sound.

Ivy and Alexia curtsied with a little tilt to their heads, the latest fashion in curtsies, designed to show that the neck was unbitten. One wouldn’t want to be thought a drone without the benefit of vampiric protection. Madame Lefoux did the same, although it was impossible to tell if her neck was bitten under that skillfully tied cravat. Alexia noted with interest that she wore two cravat pins: one of silver and one of wood. Madame Lefoux might keep night hours, but she was cautious about it.

Lady Maccon said, “My friend Miss Hisselpenny has recently become engaged and is in dire need of a new hat.” She did not introduce herself, not yet. Lady Maccon was a name best kept in reserve.

Madame Lefoux took in Ivy’s copious flowers and feather bees. “Yes, this is quite evident. Do walk this way, Miss Hisselpenny. I believe I have something over here that would perfectly suit that dress.”

Ivy dutifully trotted after the strangely clad woman. She gave Alexia a look over her shoulder that said, as clearly as if she had the gumption to say it aloud, what the deuce is she wearing?

Alexia wandered over to the offensive yellow toque she and Madame Lefoux had so hastily warned Ivy off of. It completely contrasted with the general sophisticated tenor set by the other hats. Almost as though it wasn’t meant to be purchased.

As the extraordinary patroness seemed to be thoroughly distracted by Ivy (well, who wouldn’t be?), Alexia used the handle of her parasol to gently lift the toque and peek underneath. It was at that precise moment she deduced why it was her husband had sent her to Chapeau de Poupe.

There was a hidden knob, disguised as a hook, secreted under the hideous hat. Alexia quickly replaced the hat and turned away to begin innocently wandering about the shop, pretending interest in various accessories. She began to notice that there were other little hints as to a second nature for Chapeau de Poupe: scrape marks on the floor near a wall that seemed to have no door and several gas lights that were not lit. Alexia would wager good money that they were not lights at all.

Lady Maccon would not have thought to be curious, of course, had her husband not been so insistent she visit the establishment. The rest of the shop was quite unsuspicious, being the height of la mode, with hats appealing enough to hold even her unstylish awareness. But with the scrapes and the hidden knob, Alexia became curious, both about the shop and its owner. Lady Maccon might be soulless, but the liveliness of her mind was never in question.

She wandered over to where Madame Lefoux had actually persuaded Miss Hisselpenny to don a becoming little straw bonnet with upturned front, decorated about the crown with a few classy cream flowers and one graceful blue feather.

“Ivy, that looks remarkably well on you,” she praised.

“Thank you, Alexia, but don’t you find it a tad reserved? I’m not convinced it quite suits.”

Lady Maccon and Madame Lefoux exchanged a look.

“No, I do not. It is nothing like that horrible yellow thing at the back you insisted on at first. I went to take a closer look, you know, and it really is quite ghastly.”

Madame Lefoux glanced at Alexia, her beautiful face suddenly sharp and her dimples gone.

Alexia smiled, all teeth and not nicely. One couldn’t live around werewolves and not pick up a few of their mannerisms. “It cannot possibly be your design?” she said mildly to the proprietress.

“The work of an apprentice, I do assure you,” replied Madame Lefoux with a tiny French shrug. She put a new hat onto Ivy’s head, one with a few more flowers.

Miss Hisselpenny preened.

“Are there any more… like it?” wondered Alexia, still talking about the ugly yellow hat.

“Well, there is that riding hat.” The proprietress’s voice was wary.

Lady Maccon nodded. Madame Lefoux was naming the hat nearest to the scrape marks Alexia had observed on the floor. They understood one another.

There came a pause in conversation while Ivy expressed interest in a frosted pink confection with feather toggles. Alexia spun her closed parasol between two gloved hands.

“You seem to be having problems with some of your gas lighting as well,” said Alexia, all mildness and sugar.

“Indeed.” A flicker of firm acknowledgment crossed Madame Lefoux’s face at that. “And, of course, there is the door handle. But you know how it goes—there are always kinks to work out after opening a new establishment.”

Lady Maccon cursed herself. The door handle—how had she missed that? She wandered over casually, leaning on her parasol to look down at it.

Ivy, all insensible of the underpinnings to their conversation, went on to try the next hat.

The handle on the inside of the front door was far larger than it ought to be and seemed to be comprised of a complicated series of cogs and bolts, far more security than any ordinary hat shop required.

Alexia wondered if Madame Lefoux was a French spy.

“Well,” Ivy was telling Madame Lefoux in a chatty manner when Alexia rejoined them, “Alexia always says my taste is abysmal, but I can hardly see how she has much ground. Her choices are so often banal.”

“I lack imagination,” admitted Alexia. “Which is why I keep a highly creative French maid.”

Madame Lefoux looked mildly interested at that. Her dimples showed in a little half-smile.

“And the eccentricity of carrying a parasol even at night? I take it I am being honored by a visit from Lady Maccon?”

“Alexia,” Miss Hisselpenny asked, scandalized, “you never introduced yourself?”

“Well I—” Alexia was grappling for an excuse, when…

Boom!

And the world about them exploded into darkness.