The collar of his jacket was pulled up around his neck and his fair hair curled out from beneath his cap. For the first time since Dern, I felt like I could exhale. He felt like home. As long as I was with Clove, he wouldn’t let anything happen to me. And the truth was, if he and my father were taking down Zola, I was in.

We walked until the street opened abruptly to a square of shops, all clad with huge, clean windows. Each one was fit with flower boxes and fresh, bright paint. Clove stopped before the first shop on the corner, straightening his hat. The sign that hung over the street read FROCKS & LIVERIES.

He pushed open the door and I followed him into the warm shop, where a woman was crouched beside a dress form, needle in hand.

She looked up with her head tilted to the side, eyes raking over us from top to bottom. “May I help you?” The question sounded like an accusation.

Clove cleared his throat. “We need a frock. One fit for a gala.” I rounded on him, stunned, but before I could object, he was speaking again. “And we’ll need it tomorrow.”

The woman rose, sticking the needle into a cushion on her wrist with a flick. “Then you had better have the coin to pay me to sew through the night.”

“It’s not a problem,” Clove answered.

She seemed to consider it for a moment before she wove through the bolts of cloth piled on the long wooden counter. “New silks just came in yesterday. No one in Bastian has anything like this yet.”

Clove ignored my icy stare, following her to the window that looked out over the street.

“What is this?” I whispered, pulling on the sleeve of his jacket.

“You’re just going to have to trust me.”

I was as angry with myself as I was with him. I should have known the moment I saw Clove on Zola’s ship that Saint was up to something. Now I was entangled in whatever scheme they’d hatched and it wasn’t likely that I’d come out unscathed.

His hand moved over the different fabrics carefully, his lips pursing before he picked one up. “This one.”

It was the richest of blues, the color of the sea on sunny days when it was too deep to see the bottom. The dark fabric shimmered as it caught the light. I couldn’t imagine what Clove could possibly have planned that would warrant a frock made of something so fine, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it.

“All right, let’s get you up there. Everything off.” The woman wrapped her arms around the dress form, tipping backward to set it against the wall.

The curtain in front of the mirror closed with a whoosh, and then she was staring at me, both hands on her hips. “Well? Come on.”