The Bones of Ruin

by Sarah Raughley

  “Hold on, I’ve seen something like this before,” Iris heard Lucille say on the other side of the room only to be shushed by Mary.

  “We who see all,” the women chanted in English. “Through the years we have seen them. The figures who pioneered the enlightenment of mankind and the modern age. We see their past. We see their destiny.”

  The oldest woman unwound part of the rope and tied one end to a branch of the tree. And then began her verses.

  “In the salle de jeu de paume,

  those men of Robespierre’s Estate;

  in the salle de jeu de paume, they made a promise.

  But the upheaval they sparked was not a parlor game.

  The ideas they formed would shape Europe for decades to come,

  and lead millions to their deaths.”

  She threw the rope to the next woman, who wound it around the rock.

  “Treaties deeply pondered

  can sometimes lead to the enslavement of others.

  The Earl of Shaftesbury had once believed in the divine right of kings,

  and the hereditary conditions of their slaves.

  But the moment he challenged the king, his fate was sealed;

  his body was sealed without even a trial.

  He who once supported the imprisonment of others became himself a prisoner…”

  The last and youngest woman caught the rope that was passed on to her before throwing the end behind her.

  “Immanuel Kant was inspired by that English man of science,

  that professor whose discoveries changed the world,

  and yet what a small-minded fool Kant was.

  Despite his love of nature and reason,

  he failed to understand the nature of humanity.

  But such a man would have been welcome in that professor knight’s humble abode,

  or perhaps his academy. An institution of learning… an institution of misery.”

  The youngest threw the rope to the second. “Oh, sister, know’st thou what will befall their children?”

  She nodded. “Branches of the ash tree litter the ground.”

  The second threw the rope to the first, who then loosened it from the tree. “Ready for the flames that will burn all to ashes.”

  The rope broke. A hush fell over the women as they took hold of the pieces.

  “The die is cast,” said all three in unison. “No more speaketh we. The folly of men begets folly. The cruelty of men begets cruelty. They shall hear us no more. Descend!”

  In a puff of smoke red like the sunrise, the women vanished from the stage.

  The hall was silent. Iris’s eyebrow rose as she looked at her teammates.

  “Was that it? Was that the riddle?” Cherice whispered behind her. “I can’t even remember what the hell they said!”

  “Quiet,” said Jacob.

  “The second round will officially begin tonight at midnight.” Fool’s voice could be heard over the hall. “You’re not to touch each other until then. You’ll have until midnight tomorrow to complete this round. But the round can end sooner so long as all three cards are returned to Club Uriel.”

  “Twenty-four hours?” Max lowered his voice, turning to Iris. “These cards are hidden throughout London. It’s a big city. We’re going to have to work fast to make it in time.”

  “This trial is not so hard if you reflect upon what was said.” The gold in Fool’s mask glinted. “Then, take your leave. I bid you farewell!”

  The curtains closed for good. Immediately afterward, champions began filing out of the music hall, grumbling in fury. Like Cherice, Iris could barely remember the riddle. Thankfully, the little bald man at the door was giving each team a pamphlet of the play’s script as they left. How nice of the Committee.

  “Hey.” Cherice leaned in. “We’ll meet in your room in thirty,” she told Iris’s team very quietly before following Jacob and Hawkins out the door.

  Iris looked around. Bately had already left. She’d seen him pass by with a toothpick lodged between his teeth, his eyes on Iris. Gram and Jacques were gone too. Jinn and Max got up.

  “Iris?” Max said, worriedly looking down because Iris was still seated.

  She felt suddenly drained. Fool’s words were beginning to jumble inside her mind, which was already preoccupied with a mystery of its own.

  “It’s all right, I’ll join you at the club. I just need some time.”

  “We’ll wait for you outside,” Jinn said in a tone that told Iris this wasn’t up for discussion. Iris smiled almost in spite of herself as her two overprotective teammates hesitantly left the hall.

  It was almost ten minutes that she laid back against her seat, staring up at the rafters, letting her vision double and blur before blinking her eyes clear again with a groan. Robespierre. Shaftesbury. Kant. She’d heard of some of those names, not all. Wherever in London those three cards were, their locations were related to those three men. Iris was sure of it.

  Her whirring thoughts blocked everything else out. Maybe that was why she was so shocked when she turned and found—

  “Fool!” Her heart jumped into her throat. He was sitting several rows behind her, staring up at the rafters along with her. “What are you doing here?”

  Fool began to giggle. Loud and frenzied. His lazy slouch looked like hers just a second ago—his arms dangling behind his chair, his eyes up at the ceiling. Was he mocking her?

  “Don’t be scared, little rabbit. I am a fool, after all. A jester. Though one could say a fool is no fool at all.” His top hat obscured the upper part of his mask without falling down entirely. He pushed it up and leaned forward. “Did you enjoy the play?” he asked with great interest. “Did you understand the riddle I wrote, ‘Twilight of the Gods’? It’s partially based upon that extraordinary opera by Richard Wagner. Clever, don’t you think?”

  “You wrote the riddle?”

  “Under the supervision of the Enlightenment Committee. It wasn’t too difficult. All my life I’ve been quite the fan of the opera, of plays and the masque. Though I must admit, when it came to ‘Twilight of the Gods,’ Lord Temple had quite a few ideas of his own. He’s very much a fan of Wagner’s work, you see.”

  Iris swallowed carefully as Fool tilted his head to the side as if she was supposed to get something… as if she was missing an important clue just by his sitting there and speaking to her.

  She wasn’t sure what to make of this Fool. His peculiar nature, his intense interest in her. But there was one thing about him she wanted to know, right here, right now.

  Fool lay back against the bench, his face to the ceiling. This was Iris’s chance.

  Not too quickly, she stepped toward the mysterious man, pausing every so often to watch the rise and fall of his chest. So he was human, then. Not some kind of conjured golem. When she was close enough, she stretched her hand toward his face. She expected him to grab her wrist, but he didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. Well, that was good for Iris.

  She seized his mask and pulled.

  And pulled.

  And again.

  “It doesn’t come off,” Fool said, making Iris jump back. She could imagine him smiling underneath that veil of his.

  “You were at the South Kensington fair ten years ago too, weren’t you?”

  “Why, yes. I was there to murder my doctor. Don’t be surprised”—for Iris had audibly gasped—“I don’t much like alienists. Lord Temple is the only one who seems to understand. We both have terrible fathers.” He laughed.

  Though this time his laugh felt a little strained. Iris didn’t know what to think.

  “Ah, that reminds me: he has a message for you.”

  Stepping back as he leaned in, Iris put a hand against her chest. “What?”

  “Just that it would have done you some good if you’d taken him up on his earlier offer.”

  Earlier offer? Iris furrowed her brow. “You seem to talk about him a lot. Are you his personal servant or something?”

  “He f
eels you need time for relaxation,” Fool said without answering. “I agree. The truth will be learned in time. Perhaps sooner—”

  He stopped, immediately placing a finger to his lips. Silence. He looked up quickly, and then: “Ah,” he said finally, a little defeated, slumping back. “I guess my time is up.”

  Iris felt a chill and looked up at the rafters.

  Fool. One. Two. Three. Three Fools. Three Fools standing upon the rafters, one crouching, one upright and pristine like an arrogant gentleman, the last fidgeting with his top hat. It was too much. Iris ran from the hall as fast as she could.

  31

  I SAY WE JUST CHECK everywhere.” Cherice kicked her legs as she sat on Max’s bed.

  Max rolled his eyes. “Oh, we’ll just scour the whole city indiscriminately, will we?”

  “We can throw her in the Thames and have her take a look there,” said Hawkins by the door.

  Cherice pouted as the two boys laughed. “You guys never take my ideas seriously.”

  “Because who can take you seriously?” Max ruffled her hair as if she were a scruffy little schoolboy. Iris could tell she hated it.

  “Okay, okay.” Sitting on the couch in the corner, Jacob held up a hand to stop them. At the very least, they took him seriously. “We need to think this through a bit more carefully.”

  Iris cleared her throat. “Did I happen to tell you all that there were four Fools at Wilton’s?”

  “Yes!” said everyone for the second time, since it was the third time Iris had brought it up.

  “It explains how he’s able to watch so many different teams,” Jinn had said when Iris told him outside the hall.

  Indeed. Perhaps Fool started out as one man and, due to the explosion at the fair, became many—or maybe he could split himself into different Fools at his leisure. Each Fool seemed to have his own way about him. His own mannerisms. His own personality. And it was very clear to her that the Fool she spoke to didn’t seem all too comfortable sharing everything he wanted while the other Fools were around.

  But all the champions had strange abilities, and he was a watcher, not a competitor. What they needed to do now was concentrate on the second round. The riddle.

  “I read the riddle a few times.” Jacob flipped through the pages of the pamphlet Wilton’s doorman had given them. “There are some words here where the ink is bolder than the others.”

  “A clue,” said Hawkins, and though Jacob stiffened a little at the sound of his voice, he nodded. Hawkins seemed to notice; though he was too proud to show it, he probably hadn’t realized he was showing it nonetheless. Iris blushed slightly as she remembered shamelessly spying on them.

  “There were some words that sounded louder than the others when they spoke,” Iris offered. “What are the bolded words?”

  “The first actress who spoke—the ‘Norns,’ they’re called here—for her section the words are ‘salle de jeu de paume ’ and ‘parlor game,’ ” Jacob said. “For the second Norn, the word ‘prisoner’ is emphasized. And in the last section: ‘abode.’ ” He looked up, a question in his eyes. “It’s a start, but…”

  “But the key is finding out about those men mentioned in the riddle,” said Iris.

  “There were three, weren’t there?” Max listed them off with his fingers. “Robespierre. The Earl of…” He scratched his head. “Stansville?”

  “Shaftesbury,” Iris corrected. “Immanuel Kant…” She thought. “And someone else. The humble ‘abode’ belonged to a professor knight he supposedly admired. That has to mean something.”

  The room fell silent as both teams thought.

  “Well, Robespierre was a leader of the French Revolution,” Jinn said, sitting on his bed.

  “Well, we can’t very well travel to France, can we?” Iris paused. “Can we?”

  “I’m guessing it’d be a waste of time as the cards are supposed to be here in London,” Jinn answered with a tiny teasing smile that made Iris grumpier.

  “The Earl of Shaftesbury ended up a prisoner.” Max grimaced. “Are these even real people? How do we know they weren’t made up?”

  “Robespierre was real. Why wouldn’t the rest of them be?” The actresses spoke of men who drove the enlightenment of modern man. French Revolution… They must have been figures of history. But how were they to know the details of these men’s lives? Iris crushed her pillow against her chest. “They could have given us a reference book at the very least.”

  Max finally threw up his hands in defeat. “Maybe this whole thing’s a red herring,” he said with a shrug. “I say we just check around the city.”

  “That’s what I said!” Cherice growled, smacking him on the head with her fist.

  But it couldn’t have been a red herring. Nothing Fool said, wrote, or did seemed to be just for the sake of it. Even his message from Adam—for her to relax. What did it mean?

  “The setting of the riddle was interesting. They were in front of a cave, weren’t they?” said Hawkins. “Some teams might already be looking for caves in the area.”

  Cherice thought about it. “So should we give it a go?”

  Jacob was thoughtful, quietly assessing the situation, listening for the words behind the words. Iris noticed how he considered everyone’s opinions before answering carefully.

  “The setting of the play could certainly be a clue as to what we’re dealing with,” he said. “The three ‘Norns.’ The rope that broke. But I think it’d be smarter to focus on the names and emphasized words in the script.”

  “Let’s pool our knowledge,” Iris said. “What do we know about each of these guys? And where can we go to learn more about them?”

  “Well, there’s a study on the first floor of the club. Maybe we can—”

  Jacob stopped and looked toward the door. They all did—so they all saw the white note slip underneath their door.

  Hawkins whipped open the door quickly and searched both ends of the hallway. They should have been the only ones on this floor. “No one’s there,” he said, closing it again.

  “What does it say?” Max asked as he stooped to pick up the note.

  “ ‘All England Lawn Tennis Club.’ ” Hawkins frowned. “They can’t be this obvious.”

  Another message from Fool? Adam? Another team looking to partner up?

  Cherice jumped to her feet. “All right, let’s go!”

  “Wait a second!” Jacob stood quickly. “We need to consider this carefully.”

  “I agree,” said Jinn. “We don’t know who the message is from, why they gave it to us, or whether the location is even real.”

  Jinn was right. For all they knew, it could be a trap. A team pretending to help while sending them to the wrong location. Worst case scenario: a bloodbath awaited them.

  “Wait a minute.” Iris thought back to Fool’s words in the hall. Adam’s message for her to relax. That she should have taken him up on his earlier offer. What did he offer…?

  “Come on, you don’t think the other Patrons are cheating?” Cherice pressed, placing her hands on her hips. “All the other teams probably have the locations by now.”

  “The Patrons are probably watching each other,” Jacob said. “I don’t think they could cheat so freely. They probably have their own rules.”

  But sending secret messages wasn’t beyond them. What was it that Adam offered?

  The second round won’t start for a while. Maybe you and I could play a round at the new Gossima parlor in town. A game of whiff-whaff should help you relax.

  “Gossima!” Iris stepped off her bed. “The new parlor in town. Adam told me about it a few days ago! ‘Parlor games’—that’s one of the phrases, isn’t it?”

  Jinn turned. “Adam told you about this?” he asked slowly. “When did you talk?”

  But Hawkins wasn’t interested in that. “Table tennis?” He blinked. “But why—”

  Iris was already putting on her shoes. “Just trust me on this.”

  “But—”

 
“Jeu de paume,” Jinn whispered. “Game of the palm. It’s an old name for tennis. I heard it from my father once when I was living in France.”

  “You lived in France?” Max tilted his head, grinning a little even when his amused curiosity was met with the stone wall of Jinn’s silence.

  “My father taught me a lot of things. Robespierre was the leader of the French Revolution,” Jinn said instead, closing his eyes as if thinking back. “The Third Estate was a group that represented the people. The place where the Third Estate gathered when the nobles and clergy wouldn’t allow them to assemble was an indoor tennis court.”

  Iris knew very little about the details of the French Revolution, but—“Gossima’s kind of like tennis, isn’t it?” Iris hopped about, adjusting her shoes. “Fool told me something at the hall that points to it. He said it was a message from Adam.”

  “Wow, he really, really fancies you, doesn’t he?” Cherice snorted, and she leaned into Max. “Better luck next time, mate,” she said in a very loud “whisper.”

  “I never need luck, mate,” he “whispered” back, making Cherice bristle.

  “Look. We can go to both locations. Split up.” Iris dusted off her skirt. “But I think the tennis club is more likely to be a trap.”

  “We’ll go,” Jacob said, nodding at Hawkins. “Iris, your team will try the parlor.”

  Iris nodded. “The goal is for both of our teams to get—and keep—a card. Whatever advantage it’ll give us in the final round, we can’t let anyone else take it from us.”

  The room fell silent, because they all knew: the final trial would likely be the worst. And if either team was going to make it out alive, they needed that advantage—whatever it was.

  * * *

  Past midnight, the Gossima parlor was closed. It was a high-society game, sometimes called whiff-whaff because of the little ball they whacked with paddles across dining room tables. If the venue were open, she’d have seen people dressed in their finest to play this comically miniature form of tennis. Having nobody inside just made it easier to break in. Max did the honors behind the building, wrapping his fist in cloth and punching the window glass.