She handed me a sign that had fallen off the display. IN A HURRY? CHAPEAU AND GO BY AUGUSTINE. YOUR MAKEUP AND HAIR DONE IN AN INSTANT. I blinked at it. You know, considering my schedule, I could really use—
“Can you take zem somwhaire?” Françoise asked, gesturing at the trio. “He ees only going to get worse zee longair zey stay here.”
The he in question being Augustine, I presumed, who was now slapping at the Graeae with one of the fallen hats.
“I’m too pooped to pop right now,” I admitted. “At least and carry anyone else.”
In fact, I wasn’t sure I could carry me. Spatial shifts were a heck of a lot easier than the time variety, but they still took energy. Which was why I planned on taking the elevator up to my suite, to rest and eat something more substantial than a few bites of pork.
But I had a question first.
“I have a question,” I told Françoise, who was attempting to corral the hats.
She looked up, and the Grecian gown she was wearing slipped off one shoulder. It was the go-go version, with a too-short skirt and a plunging neckline, because Augustine knew how to get male customers into a woman’s clothing store, yes, he did. But it looked good on her, like the elaborate updo her long, dark hair had been woven into, held in place by thin bands of silver.
She matched the shop, which I’d last seen dressed up like a circus tent. Now it was marble-floored and ionic-columned, with swags of diaphanous gauze draped here and there and pastoral murals covering the walls. Augustine was really going all out on this goddess thing, wasn’t he?
“About zee chapeaux?” Françoise asked.
“No, about zee fey—I mean, about the fey,” I said, bringing my attention back to her. “You lived with them for a while, didn’t you?”
“Too long,” she said grimly, probably because it hadn’t been voluntary.
“But you know them pretty well, right? Better than most?”
I really hoped so, since my options were kind of limited. There weren’t a lot of experts on the fey, especially the light variety. Their world had a habit of consuming any unwanted visitors and spitting out the bones. Not that Françoise had been unwanted. She was the kind of immigrant the fey welcomed with open arms.
Literally.
“Zey kidnapped me,” she said bitterly. “I was a slave. What does a slave know?”
“More than I do. And I need to.” And I guess something in my tone got through, because she looked at me from under a rack, where she was trying to reach a rogue hat.
“What ees wrong?”
I glanced around again, but the only people nearby were the mother and child, and they were busy watching the drama with open mouths. I squatted down beside her and lowered my voice. “I don’t have that much time,” I said quietly. “But I need to know everything you can tell me about their weapons.”
“Zere weapons?”
“Not the everyday stuff. The special ones.”
She frowned. “What special ones?”
I glanced around again. “It’s only a theory, but I saw a weapon, a staff, that . . . Look, the gods fought all kinds of wars when they were here, right? With each other, with demonic monsters, even with humans. The legends all say so.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “Oui?”
“Well, if you have a war, you have weapons. And if you read the old stories, they’re mentioned pretty regularly: Artemis’ bow, Thor’s hammer, Zeus’ thunderbolt—”
“But zee gods, zey are gone now.” She looked over at the Graeae, who had just dealt with Augustine the same way they had with his clothing—by sticking him onto one of their backs. That left his long legs flailing around in the air, and his mouth yelling obscenities that, thankfully, were not in English. She sighed. “Most of zem.”
“Yes, they’re gone. But their weapons might not be.”
“I don’t undairstand.”
I switched the ICEE to a new hand, so I could gesture around. “When the gods were kicked off earth, it happened fast. Like really fast. If it hadn’t, they would have been able to throw off the spell banishing them, or kill the one who had cast it. Right?”
Françoise nodded. She knew as much about what my mother had done as I did, since she’d been there when I found out. “Oui, c’est ça, mais—”