by Tim Susman
“Eat as much as you can,” Alice said. “We need to keep our strength up, and it won’t help Jorey, Charity, and Richard if we starve ourselves.”
“True enough.” Emily set her fork to the meal, and that inspired the rest of them to eat a little more.
Kip ate quietly until Alice asked him about Chakrabarti. That set him to sit bolt upright. “Oh no,” he said. “I haven’t seen him at all today.”
“We can’t offer him anything until we have the money secured anyway,” Emily reminded him, “but you should have a way to reach him when that happens.”
Alice smiled. “I’m sure we’ll get the money, too. Who can compete with you two?”
“If they play fair,” Kip said darkly. “Anyway, didn’t you have one master’s salary from that von Bismarck?”
“I did,” Emily said, “but I promised the spot to that Dutch fellow because of all Master Janssen’s done for us. Including help find our students tonight. He’s very keen to have close ties between our two schools and he wants his masters to experience the breadth of the world.”
It wouldn’t make any difference to point out that Kip liked Chakrabarti better. “Very well,” he said. “He told me where he’s staying; I’ll go look him up now and let him know.”
Alice offered to go with him, but Emily thought she should stay and hear what Master Janssen had to say, so Kip went alone.
He had to ask three different people but eventually found Chakrabarti and sat down with the Indian sorcerer in his room. After confirming that he was still interested in coming to Peachtree, Kip explained their situation. They arranged to send word via the Sorcerer’s Post, forwarded through the Athæneum (as Kip did not trust King’s College to forward any correspondence on their behalf).
“I very much hope to have good news for you in a week, or a fortnight at most,” the fox said, rising to leave.
“Good night, Master Penfold.” Chakrabarti shook Kip’s paw with a smile. “I thank the gods for the fortune of our encounter.”
“I hope it won’t be our last.” Kip returned the smile.
The streets between Chakrabarti’s hotel and his own had grown more crowded as the night grew darker, filled with sorcerers enjoying the last night of the Exposition. Kip drew his robe around himself and tried to stay to the side of the street, but he couldn’t stop himself from watching the revelers in case anyone tried to use sorcery as they had the previous night. As he was also keeping some of his attention on Ash’s ever-widening circles, his pace slowed almost to a crawl.
More than once he passed by conversations about Victor’s demonstration. If Victor had wanted nothing more than to get people talking about him, he had certainly accomplished that. Kip wanted to stop every person he heard and tell them that Victor was an expert manipulator, that the truth behind his show wasn’t what it appeared. And yet…what if Victor had actually found a way to make new Calatians? It would be very like him to stage a demonstration that did not show off any of his actual secrets, and to goad Kip into declaring him a fraud when in fact he would be able to back up his claims.
Frustrated, he called Ash back to him and fixed King’s College in his mind, the great towers looming over the Thames with the Isle of Dogs on the other bank. Magic came to him and in a moment he stood in the grass between the College and Greenwich.
“Go,” he told Ash, who shook off her disorientation and launched herself from his shoulder. She made a circuit of the five stone towers, but even in the mild spring evening, there was not much activity to see, and certainly no sign of Victor nor of Farley.
Kip stalked back and forth on the grass. Anger had brought him here and left him adrift with no further guidance, or at least nothing more useful than burning the whole college to the ground. As appealing as that sounded emotionally, Kip had close enough control of himself that he didn’t even light a small fire. And when Ash dropped to his shoulder, having completed her circuit, he packed away the darkness in his mind and returned them to Amsterdam.
His mood when he returned to the hotel was not good. None of his friends or wife was in the public house, nor the hotel lobby, and when he opened the door to his room, Alice lay alone there on the bed.
She looked up as he entered. “Did you sort it all out with Master Chakrabarti?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kip said, and sat on the bed, rubbing the end of his tail.
“Everything’s set?”
He nodded. After a moment, Alice sat up and moved to sit beside him. “It’ll be all right,” she said softly, resting a paw on his knee. “We’ll find the students.”
“You and Malcolm will. I’m going to be put on display like a show horse while Victor is doing God knows what. I can’t do anything. I don’t even know where to begin to look.”
“You’re doing important work—”
Saying out loud that Alice would be searching for the students reminded him of her danger, and worry pushed his anger aside. He laid his paw over hers. “You’re as much a target as Jorey was, if Victor’s looking for magical Calatians.”
“And you’d be even more of a target.”
“I’m not carrying our cub,” he pointed out.
Alice stiffened. “You don’t think I’m going to put our cub in danger?”
“You’re going into danger,” Kip said.
“I’ll have Malcolm with me, and haven’t I proven by now that I can look after myself?”
He squeezed her paw. “Yes. You have. But can you blame me for worrying? For wanting to face the danger instead of you?”
“And,” she retorted, “don’t you think I would be just as worried at the prospect of our cub growing up without a father?”
“There will be a father,” Kip said with a half-smile.
“You know what I mean.”
He nodded. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s not that I think myself more capable.”
“Well.” She splayed her ears, mollified. “You are the one who won the war single-pawed.”
He flattened his ears. “It’s that I want to face all the dangers for you.”
Alice sighed. “I want to face all the dangers for you, too.” When he didn’t respond, she leaned against him and smiled. “In just a few months, I won’t be able to go on adventures. You’ve had a cub as surely as we will, only your cub is an entire school, and perhaps even the whole territory of East Georgia. You can’t just go off on adventures anymore.”
He sighed. “I want to be in two places at once.”
Alice lifted her paw and wrapped an arm around him. “For tonight, let’s both of us be in this one place, for the last time in hopefully a very few days.”
“Yes, you’re right.” He kissed her and lay down next to her, letting her warmth and scent wash away the problems of the world just for one night.
9
Paris
In the morning, on their way to the small bakery at the end of the street, Kip tried one more time to change the plan. “What if Alice comes with me to Paris,” he proposed, “and Emily, you and Malcolm stay to track down the students? You have the best rapport with the Dutch sorcerers, after all.”
“I’ll be fine,” Alice said before Emily could respond. She rested a paw just above Kip’s tail. “Emily has to go with you. She represents the school. How would it look if we didn’t send the headmistress? And besides, she knows all the money details. I’d be completely lost.”
“I promise we’ll be exceedingly careful.” Malcolm had recovered a little of his good humor overnight. “But I feel we’ll be successful. Remember, we’re the ones who solved the mystery of the attack on the White Tower.”
“I remember that very well,” Kip said, and the memory of Coppy, who had been lost in the course of solving that mystery, hung ghostlike in the air around them. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “But that took months, and we haven’t months.”
“If we don’t find anything here today,” Malcolm said, “we’ll go to the Isle of Dogs. Alice will be very useful among the Calatians w
ho might not entirely trust a human. And I promise that anything dangerous to be done, I’ll undertake myself.”
“No,” Emily said firmly. “Anything dangerous to be done, you’ll advise me before undertaking, and Kip and I will come help.”
“Yes.” Kip wrapped an arm around Alice.
“We’ll be fine,” Alice said. “And so will the students. I promise.”
At the bakery, Emily went inside to purchase pastries for their breakfast, leaving Sleek with Alice. Kip held his wife’s paw, not wanting to let her go, and then seeing Sleek on her shoulder gave him an idea. “Why don’t you take Ash with you?” he said. “Then you’ll be able to contact me—us—right away if something happens.”
Alice looked up at the raven, who had perked up at the mention of her name. “If you think she can bear to be away from you for that long.”
“She loves you.” Kip smiled as Ash croaked, bobbing her head.
“Well…all right.” The vixen beamed up. “I’ll be glad to have her with us.”
“Have who with you?” Emily had come out of the shop with a handful of small pastries.
Malcolm took one from her. “We’re to bring Kip’s raven along with us, to set his mind at ease. And to make it easier to talk between us,” he added, at Kip’s glare. “This way you needn’t worry about bringing us to Paris.”
“Good idea.” Emily handed pastries to Kip and Alice. Sleek hopped back over to her shoulder, and Ash fluttered down from Kip’s to Alice’s. “I should have thought of something like that.”
“We’re a team,” Kip said.
“Cheers.” Malcolm smiled and raised his pastry like a glass, and the others followed suit.
“And we’re all worried. It’s hard to think clearly when we’re worried,” Alice pointed out.
Emily’s grey eyes were cloudy, and though she bore up very well, Kip noticed her quick nod and the way she and Malcolm leaned against each other.
The sweet rolls were delicious, and vanished quickly (a few morsels finding their way into the beaks of the ravens). And then it was time for Malcolm and Alice to go to the Athæneum, and for Kip and Emily to meet their French hosts. They embraced, Kip and Alice sharing a longer embrace while Emily and Malcolm did likewise. “Take good care of yourself,” Kip said.
“You too.” Alice nuzzled him. “Trouble has a way of finding you, so do try to keep out of its way.”
“I’m going to a French noble’s estate,” Kip said. “But I will do my best, yes. And if you hear anything…”
“Yes, yes. And if you think of anything, tell us.”
They kissed and then stepped back from each other. Emily took Kip’s paw. “We’ll see you two soon,” she said. “Good luck.”
And in an instant, she and Kip were in Paris.
They appeared in a basement room similar to the room at the Athæneum, for similar reasons, Kip assumed. “I talked to Master Debroussard at the Exposition,” Emily said.
“Debroussard?”
Emily walked toward the door. “The one I met on my mission for Abigail Adams during the war. He’d said I could use this room any time I pleased, and I just confirmed it would be available. We won’t have time to spend with him, as the Dieuleveults are sending a carriage to meet us here right away.”
On the other side of the door sat an apprentice, a stocky young man in white robes eating a croissant. He dropped the pastry as Kip and Emily emerged, and asked their business in French. Kip replied that they were here by permission of Master Debroussard to travel to Paris, and his French must have been bad, because the apprentice wished them well in English. “There are riots and fights today again,” he told them. “Be sure to tell your driver to avoid the center of the city where possible.”
They emerged into what looked like a historical reconstruction. There had been old buildings in Amsterdam, but here the entire city was made up of hundred-year-old square greyish-tan buildings, darkened with streaks from the drizzling rain. Identical tall rectangular windows stretched along the façades in a regular grid, a few open but most closed and reflecting the cloudy sky.
The French school resembled a large fortress; even in an old city, it looked ancient. Kip studied it for a moment before Emily drew his attention to the carriage waiting in the street. A velvet-clad footman stood smartly before it while a black-cloaked driver, hooded against the rain, sat on the driving board. Two jet-black horses waited patiently in the harness before the carriage.
The footman, watching the door, straightened as they approached. “Miss Emily Carswell?” he asked, and when Emily nodded, he opened the carriage door and spoke in French-accented English. “Mme. Dieuleveult regrets that she could not be present to meet with you herself, but the demands of an estate leave her very little time to herself. She asks me to present her most sincere apologies.”
“That’s all right.” Emily stepped up into the carriage. “Thank you. Ah, the apprentice there said there was some trouble in the city center and we should avoid it?”
The footman stayed standing in the light rain. “Yes, we saw it on the drive in. We will conduct you safely, do not worry. Have you no luggage?”
“I’ve taken it home,” Emily said as Kip joined her in the carriage. “When we arrive, I will go fetch it again. It’s safer there than being driven.”
The footman nodded and then stepped back, preparing to close the door. “If you would prefer privacy, I would be pleased to ride with the driver.”
“Oh, no.” Kip tucked his tail around to one side of the hard cushioned seat, attempting to wipe away the moisture his wet fur had left. “Please do join us. There’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you very much, sir. It would be my pleasure to describe the wonders of Paris as we drive, if you and Miss Carswell would prefer.”
“That would be lovely,” Emily said with a glance at Kip. “Master Penfold has never seen Paris.”
“Oh!” The young man sat beside Kip and pulled the door closed from the inside, then rapped on the ceiling. A moment later, the carriage jerked into motion behind the clop-clop of horse hooves.
“Fortunately,” the footman said, “the most spectacular sight will be early on our journey. There.” He pointed out the left-hand window. “You can see the Hôtel de Ville, the center of Parisian government, and beyond it the towers of Nôtre-Dame de Paris, the great cathedral that ministers to more souls than any other church in the world.”
It was easy to claim such a thing, but in this case it might be true. Kip realized that Emily hoped the distraction of the tour would help them both relax, to leave the quest for the students in the very capable hands and paws of their friends, so he made an effort to engage with the footman. “How old is Nôtre-Dame de Paris?” Kip asked, peering out. There seemed to be a great crowd in front of the Hôtel de Ville, perhaps part of the “trouble” the apprentice had spoken of, but he couldn’t see details from this distance.
“A church has stood on that spot for nearly a thousand years,” the footman replied, “but the cathedral that you see now was completed only a few hundred years ago.”
“‘Only.’” Emily smiled wryly. “There aren’t any buildings in America older than two hundred years.”
“The Hotel de Ville is less than two hundred years old,” the footman said, pointing. “That is, this version of it was completed during the reign of Louis XIII.”
“How long ago was that?” Kip asked.
The footman paused. “Er…I believe in the environment of one hundred and ninety years.”
“Practically modern,” Emily said.
Kip smiled at the footman’s embarrassment. “We are proud of the newness of our country just as you are proud of the endurance of yours,” he said.
This seemed to put the young man at ease. “Thank you, sir.”
“You’re very well educated. What can we call you?”
“Oh! My apologies. I am called Charles, Master Penfold.”
“Then proceed with the tour, Charles,” Kip said, and
leaned back to watch the beautiful old buildings of Paris pass him by.
Charles called out building after building, but Kip began to see groups of people huddled in the mud at the edge of the street, some with arms outstretched, and these Charles did not mention, nor even seem to notice. They crossed a majestic stone bridge (“the Pont Royal, Paris’s third oldest bridge”) soon after passing the Hotel de Ville and the ancient palace of the Louvre, and thereafter seemed to have left the heart of Paris behind, because the buildings diminished in grandeur on the other side of the Seine.
Emily pointed out a spire that Charles had not described. “What’s that?” she asked.
“Ah, that is the chapel of the…” He paused, looking down. “Hospice des incurables.”
“Hospital?” Kip asked. “For…incurable diseases?”
“Yes, sir. I apologize for my deficiency in English.”
“No, no, you’re doing wonderfully.” Emily reached over to touch Charles’s knee, but this contact did not help; the footman stiffened. Emily withdrew her hand and folded it with her other in her lap.
“Do you know this area well?” Kip asked.
“Sir, I grew up in Neuilly-sur-Seine.” He pointed past the hospice. “To the west and north of here. But I know the Hospice—the hospital—well. My mother spent the end of her life there.”
“Oh.” Emily glanced out again at the hospital and then back at Charles. “I’m so sorry.”
