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Now that he was more or less still, I could see his backward feet. A duende, then. I switched to Spanish. “What a coincidence,” I said. “I’m looking for a glamourist too. Elizabeth Factor. Do you know her?”

The duende sneered. “I’m a model’s agent, aren’t I?” he said in English. “Of course I know Elizabeth Factor. She’s strictly Artistes and Debs.”

“What?”

The duende stamped his foot. “Don’t you understand simple English? Oh, why am I even talking to you?”

He grabbed the mannequin’s stick arm and darted around me.

I darted after them.

The duende turned onto a side street. I turned the corner just in time to see him disappearing into a low brick building with LIVING DOLLS painted over the door in swirly silver letters. Through the door were stairs. I leapt up them, two at a time.

When I got to the top, panting and sweating, the agent, his mannequin, and the puffball were standing in front of another door. The duende saw me and sighed. “You’re harder to get rid of than a bad dye job,” he said. “Okay, you can come with us. But I’m warning you. If you so much as open your mouth before the glamourist’s done with my client, I’ll turn you into a pair of orthopedic oxfords.”

As I nodded, the door opened. I followed the duende and the mannequin into a huge, airy room lit by tall, gauze-draped windows. Half of it was taken up by racks of clothes and the other half by shelves filled with bottles and jars and boxes and trays and tubes and lidded bowls. Between the halves was a narrow strip of carpet and a black leather chair occupied by a floating copy of Vogue.

“Oh dear,” said a voice from behind the Vogue. “Another challenge. Two challenges. Pelo, darling. Why do you keep bringing me these no-hope cases?”

“The mortal’s not important,” Pelo said. “Jacaranda needs a Look.”

The Vogue dropped and the Glamourist detached himself from the black chair like a solid shadow. I wasn’t sure what kind of Folk he was—some minor djinn, maybe. He was all black—not black like Fortran, who was actually very dark brown, but black like a black cat: eyes, teeth, fingernails, clothes, everything. He pulled the sticklike mannequin into a clear space, then started waving his hands and shouting orders at the air.

Jacaranda and the Glamourist disappeared in a swirl of airborne beauty spells and potions.

“A real artist,” Pelo said admiringly. “He can copy anything. Watch your head! Here come the clothes.”

The racks behind me rustled. I ducked just in time to miss being knocked over by a stream of dresses, skirts, petticoats, and tops. They spun like a bright cyclone around Jacaranda and the Glamourist, then froze.

The Glamourist’s head popped out between a blue velvet skirt and a glittery red gown. “Fairy princess?” he asked hopefully.

“Goose girl,” said Pelo.

“Retro?”

“For Fairy Parade.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

A few minutes later, the clothes slumped to the floor, revealing Jacaranda’s new Look.

Jacaranda didn’t look like any goose girl I’d ever heard of. The Glamourist had provided her with just enough flesh to keep the clothes from collapsing, but she still looked kind of like a stick figure. She was wearing an apron made of sky-blue net. Her tiny brown skirt showed off long legs ending in high-heeled wooden shoes with little cream-colored geese painted on the toes. She had pouty red lips, rosy cheeks, and wide blue eyes shadowed with the same brown as her skirt. A silver stick dangled from one slender wrist by a blue ribbon.

Jacaranda twirled. “How do I look?” she said, breathy and high and worried.

“Gorgeous, darling. As always.” Pelo shot me a glance. “What do you think, mortal?”

I thought any geese Jacaranda came near would probably attack her. “Gorgeous,” I lied. “But isn’t it kind of impractical?”

Pelo laughed. “Are you kidding? This is glamour. It’s not supposed to be real. If you want to talk to the Glamourist, do it quick, before I turn you into an accessory.”

I turned to the djinn. “Can you tell me where to find Elizabeth Factor?”

The Glamourist tilted his shadowy head. “Are you sure? I mean, okay, you