Chapter Ten #2
They exchanged a wordless beat of mutual respect, which was so intimate, so profound, that if I hadn’t already aligned myself with the world behind the veil, I’d abandon any remaining agnosticism and commit myself to whatever it was they shared.
As it stood, I was on the outside of a grander conversation—one that belonged to the witch community and not girls named Marlow who’d fallen in love with princes. The two of them chatted for a minute longer before Adrien resumed his duties, leaving me to admire his space.
I didn’t spend a lot of time in New York.
It was supposed to be the greatest city in the world, but I usually came for book signings and morning shows, and honestly, I found the hustle and bustle exhausting.
In the past, my takeaways were limited to the streets smelling like piss, the crime being insane, and being shocked that in the whole of New York, Henrietta Hudson was one of the only lesbian bars for when I wanted to get laid but couldn’t be bothered by men.
Still, looking at Adrien Vail’s space, I felt like I understood why some people were destined to be here.
The pinkish light took on a golden hue as the morning sun poured in through his front windows.
I savored my coffee, impressed that he’d managed to brew it without a hint of bitterness, and marveled at my morning in the city.
The studio smelled like incense, which I assumed most visitors might wave off as a quirk of his needs as a designer.
It took me a moment of examining the brick walls, the exposed duct work, the enormous warehouse windows, the crawling vines, and the racks and racks of clothes and mannequins and fabrics before I spotted what I was looking for.
There, exonerated near the center of the room, was the material expression of his devotion.
It wasn’t an altar in the way I’d expected to find one.
A tall, white glass candle had a beautiful insignia that could have been little more than a fanciful heart and lovely wings painted onto it in glimmering silver.
It may have just been a pretty drawing—a charming piece of eccentric art.
Rose quartz dangled from a mobile like an intentional art installation rather than a crystal offering.
The fresh flowers, intermingling with bright, green herbs, would have been a lovely accent to any studio to the undiscerning eye.
A tall, rose-scented column of smoke twisted and curled from the incense from a green-glass holder.
I was no witch—at least, I didn’t consider myself one—but I’d been in the business of the supernatural long enough to know what others were doing right that I’d spent twenty-six years doing wrong.
People like Betty, Priscilla, and Adrien interacted meaningfully with their entities.
They called upon them, welcoming them, working with them.
They’d prayed for the sort of clairabilities that had been thrust upon me since birth.
I, on the other hand, had suppressed mine for as long as possible.
It was with a bit of envy at time lost that I watched Priscilla and Adrien interact.
Priscilla was up first. As someone who’d transcended the human caffeine addiction, she wasn’t experiencing the morning hangover of being alive that plagued the rest of us.
She and Adrien launched into excited gabs about their first meditations with the Duchess, their scariest encounters, their worst faux pas, and their excitement about seeing her at Alessia’s speaking engagement.
Adrien snapped as she stepped onto the platform and struck a pose in front of the mirror in her best shopping mall attire.
He made a zigzag gesture to her figure in the mirror.
“Priscilla, my darkness, my night, my fallen angel, for you, I’m feeling…if Lizzo at the Met Gala went to brunch with Hillary Clinton. Fashion, curves, beauty, statement, but make it political.”
Priscilla’s lipstick was red today, making her smile whiter and brighter as she grinned. “Sounds ambitious. I love it.”
“When it comes to Alessia…impressing her isn’t an option. You either make a splash and win her over, or you miss your shot. And if you need something from her…well, I’ll give it my all. I’d love to see the best of my handiwork in action.”
“You’re going?” I asked, brow raised.
A measuring tape muffled his response as he spoke through the object in his lips, unable to drop his hands from where they pinched fabric at Priscilla’s back. “As an observer,” was all he said.
“Speaking of observing,” I said somewhat hesitantly.
I waited for Priscilla to meet my eyes expectantly before they drifted to Azrames.
She shook her head no, and I understood.
Deity work and clairsentience were not one in the same.
Adrien was far more advanced in his meditation practice, even if I was the one who’d been seeing Caliban in the physical realm.
I was sure that both of us would kill for the other’s abilities.
It would be awfully convenient to communicate with Silas and Azrames without making a public spectacle of myself.
“If you’re not going to finish your sentence, baby girl, then I’ve got a topic for you,” Adrien said. “Have you heard about the protests? Miss Clovis always draws quite the crowd of haters. If you wouldn’t have been burned at the stake in the 1800s, are you even living?”
I giggled.
“Who’s protesting, exactly?”
“Girl!” He flicked his fingers at me as if spraying me with water. “She’s a women’s advocate. Who in the red pill do you think protests that sort of event?”
I had to give it to him there. We’d all walked the modern earth long enough to know the red-capped archetype down to a tee.
Adrien finished pinning Priscilla and extended a hand toward Xuan. “My forest nymph goddess: It’s giving earth, it’s giving vines, it’s giving forest. What’s your name?”
“Xuan,” she said. “Similar to swan.”
Adrien withdrew his hands from her shoulders. He met her eyes from the reflection in the floor-length trifold mirror ahead of them. “It’s pronounced like swan, or it is swan?”
“It’s close enough for English.” She attempted to make a dismissive gesture, but he waved a finger.
“No, baby girl, if you don’t know the power your name holds, then we can’t leave this studio without it. Say it back to me. I may get it wrong the first time, but that’s my fault, not yours. Don’t live your life accommodating lazy tongues.”
Xuan’s statuesque speechlessness would have said enough. Her watering eyes tipped the scales entirely. I’d been lectured about the power of names for some time now without even considering the violence of carelessly wielding mispronounced monikers.
“Well,” she said, voice shaking a bit. “English combines vowels to make one new sound, but in Vietnamese, we pronounce both back-to-back. Um, I guess the best way to explain it is that the vowels have a short, fast sound. Oo, then ah, in quick succession. When you put them together, makes the uh sound. Swun.”
“Swun,” he repeated with a smile. “It’s an honor to meet you, and to dress you. Look at this precious tiny waist. Oh, I want to squeeze you. Now, are we wanting to let the hair do the talking and keep the outfit in neutrals, or to go in loud and proud?”
She lifted her shoulders, quietly saying, “You’re the artist.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” He beamed.
Coffee, pins, needles, chai lattes with oat milk, honked horns just outside, vegan spring rolls, beachy EDM humming pleasurably through the speakers, measuring tapes, and fabric filled the morning.
We switched to mimosas, white wine, and champagne as afternoon stretched on.
Nia and Kirby looked fantastic, as if business suits and capes had mated to have fashion-forward, tasteful babies.
When Adrien extended his hand for me, I looked at it and frowned.
I’d had just enough champagne to speak my mind.
“Don’t put me in white,” I said, voice less confident than I’d hoped.
He relaxed into a hip and crossed his arms, propping an elbow on one hand as he held his chin. He examined me for a moment before clapping his hands for his assistant. They conferred briefly about the hair and makeup team before he returned his attention to me.
“Do you know where you’re going?” he asked me.
My brows dug deep, furrowing trenches as they met in the middle. “To…impress Alessia.”
He relaxed from his pose, taking a few steps toward me as he demanded my hand once more.
Bubbles continued to trace perfect lines from the base of my pale, dry liquid, popping at the surface of the glass in my hand as I took my place in front of the mirrors.
He looked over my shoulder, staring me in the face as he said, “And from what do you know of Alessia Clovis, do you think she’ll give a fuck if you’re some Bride of Hell? Would she want you to dress for a man?”
The smile was hesitant at first, barely tugging at one corner of my lips.
“Mmm, no, baby girl. We are not dressing you to define your relationship to some man. It’s giving blood. It’s giving power. It’s giving agency. We, my love, are putting you in red.”
***
I would have been radicalized to Alessia’s cause no matter what after walking through the throng of her protestors as we worked our way to the doors.
The crowd was sticky, confusing, and smelled strongly of body odor.
Azrames carved a way forward, parting the men like the Red Sea as he ran a finger along their spines and sent them tumbling out of our path.
I hadn’t realized men could rally in such groups for such a disappointing cause.
A handful of picket signs said things like “Men are Victims Too,” “Feminism is Misandry,” and “Stop the Hate!”
Meanwhile, they kept up a smattering of disorganized chanting, shouting, “Not all men,” slightly off-tempo.
The protestors were radicalizing me, all right, though not in the way they’d intended.