“It’s all right, Evangeline. You don’t have to say anything. I’m just glad you’re back!” Marisol set her cake on the closest gilded table and threw her arms around Evangeline, hugging her the way Evangeline always imagined that real sisters hugged.
And she knew she couldn’t tell her the truth, not today.
Evangeline had just spent the last six weeks alone as stone. She wasn’t ready to be alone again, but she would be if anyone learned what she’d done.
7
If storms were made of scandal sheets, queues of gentlemen dressed with starched cravats, and notes of questionable origins, then the perfect storm was brewing in Evangeline’s world the next morning. She just didn’t know this yet.
All she knew about was the note of peculiar origin, which had prompted her to slip out of the house at daybreak.
* * *
Meet me.
The curiosity shop.
First thing after sunrise.
—Luc
* * *
Evangeline’s heart had nearly burst after she’d discovered the message in her bedroom the night before. She didn’t know if it was a new note or an old one that she was only finding now. But she’d fallen asleep reading it again and again, hoping that Luc would be waiting for her in the morning with a story that was different from the one she’d heard from Marisol.
Yesterday’s conversation with Marisol had shaken Evangeline; it had almost convinced her that she’d been deluding herself about Luc. But hope is a difficult thing to kill, just a spark of it can start a fire, and this note had given Evangeline a new spark.
Her father had owned four and a half shops across Valenda. He’d been the silent half partner of a tailor that sewed weapons into clothing. He’d built a secret bookshop, only accessible via secret passage. Then there was his store in the Spice Quarter, covered in decorative Wanted posters with captions that read like short outlandish crime stories. His third shop was a secret, even from Evangeline. And his fourth store was her favorite place of all: Maximilian’s Curiosities, Whimsies & Other Oddities.
This was the store where Evangeline had started working as soon as her father had allowed it. He used to tell customers that everything inside was almost magical. But Evangeline had always believed that some of the items that passed through his shop really were enchanted. She’d often tracked down chess pieces that had wandered from their boards, and sometimes the paintings wore different expressions from those they’d had the day before.
Evangeline’s chest tightened with something like home sickness as she turned a corner onto the bricked street that Maximilian’s Curiosities called home. She’d missed the store during the weeks she’d been made of stone, but she hadn’t felt just how much until that moment. She missed the walls her mother had painted, the shelves packed with her father’s finds, the bell—
Evangeline skidded to a halt.
Maximilian’s Curiosities had closed its doors. The copper-lined windows were boarded up. The awning was ripped off, and someone had painted over the name on the door:
Under New Ownership
Closed Until Further Notice
“No!” Not the shop! Evangeline banged and banged on the door. This was the last piece of her father that she had left. How could Agnes do this?
“Excuse me, young miss.” A patroller’s stout shadow fell over her. “You’re going to need to stop that pounding.”
“You don’t understand. This store was my father’s—it was willed to me.” Evangeline continued knocking as if the door might magically open, as if Luc were waiting on the other side, as if she hadn’t just lost the last piece of her parents. “How long has it been closed?”
“I’m sorry, miss. I think it shut nearly six weeks back and—” The young patrolman’s face lit up. “Fallen stars—it’s you—you’re Valenda’s Sweetheart Savior.” He paused to smooth back his hair. “If you don’t mind me saying so, miss, you’re even prettier than the papers say. Do you know where I can get one of those applications?”
“Applications for what?” Evangeline stopped knocking, suddenly uneasy, as the patrolman reached into his back pocket and retrieved a black-and-white sheet of newsprint.
* * *
The Whisper Gazette
FROM THE STREETS TO STONE TO STARDOM:
AN INTERVIEW WITH VALENDA’S SWEETHEART SAVIOR
By Kutlass Knightlinger
Seventeen-year-old Evangeline Fox looks like a fairytale princess with her shimmering pink hair and her innocent smile. But weeks ago, she was a parentless orphan. When I spoke with her recently, she told me that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.