by Heidi Heilig
Merde!
LEO jams the note in the booklet and stuffs them both in his pocket. Then he grabs the ribbon and jogs out the door. The dragon bounds after him. From above, the sound of screaming, but LEO runs the other way—toward the dining hall, where porcelain plates and crystal glasses wait for a meal that will grow cold in the kitchens. The dragon follows at his heels.
At the end of the dining hall, they burst through the double doors that open onto a balcony overlooking the water. Frowning, LEO gauges the distance to shore—too far to swim with the pack. Reluctantly, he heaves it over the side, into the dark river—better that no one have it than to leave it behind for the armée to discover. Then he climbs over the rail, about to follow, but he hesitates when he catches sight of a fishing boat—one of the many little river craft that scull the water. This one is quite close to Le Rêve—especially taking into account the sound of the gunfight above.
Whistling through his teeth, LEO waves to the men in the boat, both in faded fishing gear, though looking closely, he can see that one of the men is dripping wet—and very familiar. The other man ignores him, continuing to row toward the shore. With a grimace, LEO whistles again. Then he whips the ribbon across the rail, and the dragon bounds after it, her long leather body graceful as a snake, the gold paint glimmering in the last light of the setting sun.
Both men are staring now, and after a hurried discussion, the boat turns back. LEO waits impatiently, bouncing on the balls of his feet as the fighting continues above. At last the prow bumps against the back of the ship. The man with the pole steadies the boat as LEO drops down among the netting. The other man holds out a hand to help him. His eyes are sharp, calculating, though his hair is still dripping river water. The dragon slips down between them, coiling at their feet. LEO drops the ribbon across her nose and bows to the man.
LEO: Your Majesty.
RAIK: Not so loud.
RAIK settles back into the boat, among the fishing nets, tossing them over the dragon, who squirms gleefully as she kicks at this new toy. LEO sits down beside him, nodding back toward the ship, the shouting, the confusion.
LEO: From the sound of it, that was quite a show you staged.
RAIK: It had to be a spectacle, to throw Legarde off my trail.
LEO: And to make your people angry enough to join the rebellion? Once word gets out that a soldier shot the Boy King, there will be riots.
RAIK: There were already riots, thanks to the armée. But I had word the general was planning my death soon enough. It was to be a drunken accident at sea. After the wedding, of course. You must be Leo Rath. Your sister has told me about you. (He glances briefly at the dragon writhing under the nets.) Though not everything.
LEO: What’s a marriage without a little mystery?
RAIK: Unfortunately the wedding is off. Mystery is one thing—secrets are another.
LEO raises his eyebrows and gestures to the dragon.
LEO: This? I assure you, Theodora has no idea. I didn’t either, until an hour ago.
RAIK: And how did you learn so quickly?
LEO: Me? No. This belongs to . . . to someone I fell in with for a while.
RAIK leans forward, his face intent.
RAIK: Who?
LEO wets his lips.
LEO: You know, I can’t recall her name.
RAIK: What will help you remember?
Together, the men settle down in the boat as it sweeps toward the shore.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As Le Rêve turns back to shore, the city lights blur and shimmer like a mirage. I have never abandoned hope, but at times, hope abandons me.
I can feel it now, trying to escape, like the spark of my soul, all the light in me. I clench my fists as though I can hold it close, but it slips out in my protests, my pleas, and finally, my bitter laughter. One of the soldiers sneers down at me as though he knows I’m mad—but I have never felt more sane. It is the rest of the world that doesn’t make sense.
Was reaching Aquitan ever possible, or is it only an illusion? Perhaps the search for a cure was the real lunacy. To travel to the edge of the world I knew, only to be turned back on the water. To give everything for a better life and still come up short. To try to stop the rebels and be accused of being one.
I should have listened to Leo.
My laughter only fades when the soldiers haul Papa to his feet. He moans when they touch his wounded arm; he cries out when they tie his hands. I try to stay close to him—just to give him a warm look, a bit of comfort—but when the boat returns to the dock, the soldiers pull us apart to march us down the gangplank. The riot has dispersed, leaving nothing but a line of soldiers and a black smear of blood on the wharf. Desperately, I search the face of each man in uniform, looking for my brother among them—or the man I’d thought was my brother. But if I found him, would he help us?
Either way, he does not appear. The soldiers drag us through the streets. The city is dim, subdued; the revelers gone. But when Maman sees our destination loom out of the dark, her cries split the air.
“You can’t take me in there! You can’t!” Maman struggles, but the soldiers march us inexorably along the carved stone path toward the black temple—Hell’s Court—where Le Trépas lurks in the dark. As they haul us over the threshold, Maman’s protests turn to screams. They echo in the long hall, over and over and over, wordless shrieks like a hammer to glass. Somewhere, off in the dark, a man starts screaming back.
Shadows flee before us. The only light comes from the smoking torches tacked to the walls, their feeble light swallowed by the blackness of the cavernous vault. At the far end, a stone statue looms, stripped of its gold. Its face is lost in the darkness near the distant ceiling, but his lamp is there, empty at his feet. The King of Death. There are no offerings here, and no souls either, though I can smell death in the air.
At the foot of the statue, a jailer rests his feet on the black stone altar. As we approach, he stands, taking a set of keys and a lamp from his makeshift desk.
“What did they do?” he asks, barely curious, as he leads us down the long hall.
“Traitors,” the soldier grunts. “Like the rest of them in here.”
The jailer shakes his head as I whisper prayers to our ancestors—but can they hear me here? And if so, which ones are listening?
We trail down the hall, past rows of cells, small square hollows with tiny windows and scarred wooden doors: the rooms where monks once slept. Now they are full of prisoners. The smell is almost a physical assault—joined soon enough by voices. Curses, threats . . . prayers. I shudder. Is it his voice I hear? Which cell houses Le Trépas?
Finally we stop before a cell just like the others, only empty. The guards thrust us through the door. When the jailer shuts it behind us, the dark comes down like a curtain: stop the show. There is no light—there never has been, and will never be again. But Maman’s screams go on and on, reverberating in the room, making the blackness come alive. Then comes a thudding sound, over and over and over, as she flings herself at the door.
A thought—fleeting: at least we are together. I reach out with trembling hands and find Papa first. To my surprise, he is standing—though he’s still hunched, his wounded arm hanging at his side. With the other, he pulls Maman close, folding her against his chest, muffling her cries till they turn back from sounds to words.
“He’s here,” she says, over and over. “He’s here.”
His arms around us, Papa leans against the wall; we slide down together to huddle on the floor. But then, over her sobs, Papa starts to sing.
He sings songs from our shows, old airs from the valley, lullabies and reels about home. Songs for remembering, for resting, for laying down to sleep; even songs for children’s clapping games, for threshing rice, for herding water buffalo—he sings them all, over and over, all through the night, as hopelessness circles like a vulture and eternity falls into the chasms between hours. I hold on to his voice—no, it holds on to me, wrapping me like a blan
ket, warming the cold stone. Maman goes quiet too, finally calm or exhausted. And it isn’t only her. When Papa sings, the other prisoners are silent in the dark, even the screaming man.
What about Le Trépas? Can he hear Papa’s voice? Does he smile at the music?
Finally dawn arrives, a sickly, crepuscular light seeping into the prison through cracks and around corners. Papa brings his performance to a close, looking somehow smaller, as though he’s poured something of his substance into his song. As the light grows, it heightens the pallor of his skin. He slumps back against the wall, his shirt stiff with dried blood. I have never seen him look so diminished, and it is somehow worse than the whispers in the walls.
But there is nothing I can do to help him. The cell is bare—there is no water to wash his wounds, no clean cloth to bind them, no betel or alcohol, only stone floors and filth in the corners and the bones of vermin who have died here in the dark. If only their souls had stayed, I could break the lock, twist open the door. But nothing dares come near, not even when I pick at my wounds and blood beads on the skin. Even the dead fear Le Trépas—except the ones who serve him. A brief spark of gratitude for the dark; I’d rather have no light at all than a flicker of blue fire.
Hours pass like years. No one opens our door—why? Had they searched our rooms? Found our bags? Found Leo? Has he told them what I am? What I can do?
Maybe they will never open the door again.
We haven’t eaten since yesterday, but I am not hungry. The thirst, though . . . it’s like a file in my throat. Worse for Papa—it must be—but he doesn’t complain. And what about his arm? It is swollen, limp, hot to the touch. Pain flickers like a flame across his face, and even in the cold of the cell, sweat glistens on his brow.
Now that he is quiet, the sounds of the other prisoners creep in: men whispering, weeping. Someone coughs and coughs with a sound like tearing flesh. The hours pass, and eventually I hear sobbing, soft and close—and I think it’s Maman until I touch my face and find the tears, hot as blood.
At least Maman is no longer screaming. She only lies with her head in Papa’s lap as the hours pass. Gently he strokes her hair, and her breathing is shallow and even. I think she’s sleeping until she speaks. “Do you see them?”
Her voice is so quiet; her lips barely move. But Papa heard her too. “Shhh, Meliss,” he says, but I crawl closer.
“Who, Maman?”
“Your brothers and sisters.” Her whisper is softer than a dying breath; it chills me more than the stone. “Can you see their souls?”
“No,” I say, still cautious—but why? If we cannot talk about it now, when? I may never have another chance. “Not here.”
“In the middens,” she guesses, with such clarity that I wonder if she’d seen them too, so many years ago.
“In the tunnel,” I tell her. “Something like n’akela. But he put himself into a body like I put souls into fantouche.”
“Jetta . . .” Though Papa’s voice is quiet, there is a warning in it. But I take Maman’s hand, unwilling to be silent now.
“What are they, Maman?”
“A perversion,” she says with a shudder. “They use the power to give life to take new bodies for their own twisted souls.”
My lip curls at her words—but these are my brothers, she said. My sisters. If they are perversions, what am I? “How? Is it Le Trépas’s blood that makes us this way?”
“It’s the deaths,” she murmurs. “Three of them. Drowning. The hole in the earth, to swallow you up. I stole you away before the fire. You survived.”
I swallow. When I had walked through the graveyard, had I passed a stone carved for me? “If I hadn’t . . . ?”
“You’d be one of them.”
I sit back against the wall, the stone cold against my clammy skin. Under the damp rags of my uniform, my scar itches. The fire two years ago—my third brush with death. What will happen to my soul when the King of Death finally comes for me? Will I seek out the bodies of the dead and wear their rotting flesh till it falls away?
The image curdles in my head, but then Papa clears his throat and starts another song. Though his voice is raspy and softer than it was, it is more compelling now than the shadows whispering in my ear—more familiar. What we share is more than blood.
He sings the hours away. It is grueling, to sing without stopping, without food or water, without care for his injuries—and even a performer like Papa can’t keep it up forever. But he doesn’t stop to complain, and I am carried away by the melody as my heart beats in time to the song.
Time passes—how much? I don’t want to guess. What if this all the time I have left? But then, over the song, another sound: footsteps in the hall, and the jingle of keys.
I hold my breath. Is the jailer coming for us? Hope returns, though I hesitate to welcome it. Then again, it is oh, so sweet while it lasts. It grows as the footsteps stop outside our cell, then blooms when the tumblers turn in the lock. As the door swings wide, I stagger to my feet, weak and dizzy but propelled by need—for what? Food, freedom? And water. A sip of something. But the man does not carry a plate or a cup, nor does he say a word. He only steps aside to make way for two grim-faced Aquitan soldiers.
One raises a lantern and peers at our faces—Maman, Papa, and me. The light is painfully bright. I cringe, like a worm pulled from under a stone, but dirtier. My hair is lank and tangled, my skin streaked with muck, and the servants’ livery hangs off me, stained with water and worse. I must look like the worst sort of person—a criminal, a convict . . . crazy. But the soldier jerks his chin at me. “Come with us, girl.”
My heart judders; my gut twists into knots. “What’s going on?”
“Just a few questions.”
“Why? What about?”
They do not answer. They only take my arms and march me down the hall, and while a moment ago, I longed for freedom, all I want now is to race back to Maman’s arms. But the jailer slams the door behind me, the heavy wood muffling her cries. I struggle as the soldiers lead me down the hall, fighting with a strength I didn’t know I still had. I’ve seen how the armée questions prisoners. In my mind’s eye, the rebel’s face appears, spitted on a bamboo pike. Help me.
But at the end of the hall, the soldiers stop. Instead of a questioneur, General Legarde is waiting beside the altar, under the impassive gaze of the old stone god.
I stiffen, going still. What does he want with me? I can’t imagine the general himself is questioning everyone from the ship. Does he remember me from the road in Luda? Has he recognized my description from the recherche? Does he know about the guns I helped smuggle?
Has he found my fantouches?
But whatever he knows, whatever he says, this is my chance to try to convince him we are innocent. Perhaps my only chance. So I shrug off my captors and take a deep breath, lifting my chin, just so, and set my jaw, like this, as I stride toward my impromptu performance. But a laugh bubbles up in my throat. If only I’d known in Luda that I’d see Legarde again. That this would truly be the most important show of my life. And as I approach the altar, I stumble at a new distraction.
The surface is bare—cleared of the lamp, the inkwell, the jailer’s papers, his keys. Instead there is only a glass of water, placed directly in the center. It sparkles in the torchlight like a flute of champagne; in my ears, a ringing sound, as though someone were running an invisible finger around the crystal rim. I can hardly take my eyes from the glass.
“Is that for me?” My voice is a croak. The silence stretches. Legarde gives me a thin smile. He doesn’t answer my question.
“How do you know Leo Rath?”
Of course. His son. Legarde must know Leo is involved with the rebels. That is why he would question me personally—here, in the privacy of the prison. Did the soldiers find Leo in my room? And if I admitted to leaving him tied there, would that help or hurt my cause? The general has disowned him. . . . “Leo Rath,” he said, not Leo Legarde. But what about Theodora’s letter? You a
re my brother always, no matter what he says. I blink, trying to gather my thoughts—but the general takes my hesitation as equivocation.
“I can see by your face you know who I mean. Don’t try to be clever, and don’t bother protecting him. He’s a traitor. A pimp. Familiar with loose women.” He gives me a significant look, just short of mocking, and I use all the power of the muses not to change my expression. The man gives no indication that he’s speaking of his own son, but the words gall me—this, from a man who kept a mistress in a dance hall along Le Verdu.
Or is he only saying as much to draw me in? To get me to insult his son to his face? “We traveled together,” I say at last. “For safety on the road.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Aboard Le Rêve,” I say—truthfully. Should I tell him what Leo had said to me there? That he was involved with the rebels? Would Legarde show mercy if he knew I had tried to fight back? I take a breath, but I can’t get the words past my teeth. What’s stopping me? I want to believe it is caution. “May I have some water, please?”
“Leo was seen leaving the ship aboard a fishing boat with another person of interest.” Legarde puts his hand on the glass. My tongue curls. “Where is he going next?”
“I wish I knew,” I say, also the truth, though it sounds like a lie. “Maybe Luda? If I knew exactly what you wanted to know, I might be able to help better.”
Legarde watches me awhile. I watch the glass, and grit my teeth as he moves his hand to gesture at my filthy costume. “That is the uniform the rebels used to steal aboard the ship. A servant reports you threatened him with a gun. But when we questioned the surviving rebels, none of them knew anything about you. What’s more, you were invited aboard at Leo’s request. You must know each other well.”
I open my mouth to refute the claim—there was so much I didn’t know. So much I hadn’t suspected. But why, then, can’t I lay the blame at Leo’s feet? “He wanted to help me,” I say at last, and at the thought, the words finally come. “We met in Luda. I was there for La Fête. I’m just a shadow player. We’re . . . I was trying to get to Aquitan. To bathe in Les Chanceux. To find a cure for my malheur. Leo said he would help me get there. He said I reminded him of someone he knew.”
