Page 35 of The Muse (Beautiful Magic 1)
“Oh, gosh,” I say, widening my eyes in innocence. “I didn’t realize the store was closed. I just tugged on the door, and it opened right up.” I laugh as I wave toward the street.
Something wiggles in my pocket where I stashed the key.
That’s . . . unexpected.
It’s moving around in there.
Awesome.
I turn quickly to the nearest display, arranged like a lady’s dressing table, and grab the purple hat perched on a lamp. “We were looking at this hat. It’s just the kind of thing we hoped to find in the Marais.” I make sure to butcher the pronunciation. “Right, sis?”
Sophie nods, doing a good job of looking overwhelmed by all the Frenchness around us.
“It’s a lovely hat,” Cass says as the key wiggles a little more. “Shall I wrap it for you?”
“Yes. That would be great.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed looking around,” Cass says, appraising me with her stone-gray eyes. “My family and I pride ourselves on our unique items.” She heads to the register and rings the item up. I drum my fingers against the counter as she wraps the fake gift, purchased by a real thief, from one of the preeminent fake artists of the last few years.
A real thief with a key shimmying in his pants.
I dip my hand into my pocket like I can settle it down. But then, it’s gone.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
Or rather now you feel it, now you don’t.
I root around surreptitiously just to make sure, but nope. The key has vanished.
Good riddance, I say.
When Cass hands me my package and says, “Come back,” I finally make my escape with Sophie, some euros poorer, but with proof of the fraud that will keep Clio’s painting safe.
I wait until we’re a block away from the shop before I turn to Sophie and say, “I thought your brother would be here by now.”
She points down the street, and I look to see Remy walking toward us. “Did you find them? The fake papers?”
“Julien found them,” Sophie gushes. “And you’ll never guess what else.”
I jump in before this becomes a game. “What else is what I want to know,” I tell Remy. “Any other bombs you want to drop besides how I’m supposed to be this . . . human muse?”
Remy, no surprise, doesn’t look repentant. He just glances at Sophie and asks, “You told him?”
She folds her arms, her chin jutting out. “You didn’t.”
“Yeah. It was the perfect timing, really, finding that out while we were breaking into an art forger’s shop.”
“Well, it was,” Sophie insists. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to make the key to let us in.”
Remy’s gaze bounces between us. “I think I missed quite an adventure.”
“I’m sure Sophie will give you all the details,” I say, “since you tend to leave things out.”
He laughs first, then catches the look on my face. “Julien, you’re not seriously mad, are you?”
I sigh—one of Sophie’s loud, meaningful sighs. I’m more irritated than angry. “You couldn’t have said something the night we talked about all this at your home?”
“Would you have believed me back then?” he asks, about as serious as I’ve seen him.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully.
“I thought it would be too much at once,” he explains, a note of apology in his tone. “I was worried you’d just walk away, and we need you.”
Before I can reply to Remy, my phone rings, and when I look, I see that it’s Simon. He rarely calls when he can text.
“What are you doing in the Marais?” he asks immediately.
“How do you know where I am?” I demand.
“Look falafel-ward.”
I glance across at the falafel restaurant and see Simon give me a cocky wave through the window.
“Be right there,” I tell him, then I hang up and turn to Remy. “Listen, I’m going to get something to eat and then give these papers to Adaline. She’s really worried about the Renoir.”
Remy frowns, looking like he might try and explain again, but I wave it off. “Don’t worry about it. But maybe you should write up a user’s manual, because this on-the-job muse training is the worst.”
Remy gives me one of his open-handed shrugs. “You’re the first one. Maybe you should write it yourself.”
“Maybe I will.”
I say au revoir to him and Sophie and head into the falafel house. I also pull the papers out of my jeans and look at them again.
“Hands in your pants again, Garnier?” Simon calls to me from his throne booth in the middle of the restaurant.
“Some days I just can’t help myself,” I say as I slide onto the bench across from him, dropping the bag with the hat next to me. Lucy is here too, sitting against him, two jigsaw pieces with interlocking edges that fit just so.
“What have you got there?” Simon asks, nodding to the papers in my hand.
