Under a Starlit Sky

by EM Castellan

  When he had appeared on my doorstep, my first instinct had been to turn Armand away. Given the growing rift between Philippe and me, I didn’t want to fuel my husband’s concerns regarding my relationship with his former lover. But aside from a few hastily written notes sent to the palace to ask after my health, Philippe had disappeared again, and his continued absence made me less eager every day to follow his advice. It also encouraged me further to turn to people I could trust, and Armand was among them. He knew about my magic, he had played a key part in our fight against Fouquet, and he was always the first one to concoct conspiracy theories. And he was here.

  “HATS!” Armand’s shout startled me out of my musing. “You’ll need to wear hats in the afternoon. With feathers. And jewels. And ribbons.”

  I sat up. “Why don’t we give everyone here a short break while you and I make a list of all the items we need?”

  Armand paused mid-stride, vague incomprehension slackening his expression. I gave the tailor, his assistant, and my servants a pointed look. Understanding dawned on him, and he clapped his hands once.

  “Right. Everyone out for a moment! Her Highness and I need to confer in private about such important matters.”

  The room emptied at once, leaving us alone amid a chaos of glittering fabric and sparkling accessories. Armand dropped next to me on the sofa, rested his hand on my ankle, and settled his green gaze on me with an eyebrow raised.

  “I’m sensing mischief.”

  I swatted his hand away. “No mischief. We just need to talk.”

  His face darkened, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not talking about him. It’s not good for my complexion, and all the crying makes my eyes puffy.”

  Underneath the bravado, real bitterness steeped his words, prompting me to grab his hand. If the past year had taught me anything, it was that Armand cared about Philippe as much as I did, and seeing him with Lorraine was likely as hurtful to him as it was to me.

  “You know Philippe,” I replied, saying aloud to him the words I had been repeating to myself these last few days. “He can’t resist charismatic people and shiny new things. But soon he’ll tire of having to share Lorraine with his brother, or he’ll get bored of Lorraine himself. And when that happens, we’ll still be here.”

  “Stop saying his name.” Armand wrinkled his nose. “It makes me want to stab things.”

  “Shall I call him the Angel?” I teased.

  “Eww. As if he’s more handsome than me. And he’s just the second son of a count. Practically a plebeian!”

  I laughed. “Now you’re being snobby.”

  “I’m a French courtier, of course I’m snobby.” His tone was still gruff, but his features softened.

  A lull in the conversation allowed us to exchange a tentative smile.

  “So what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” Armand asked after a minute. “Whatever the problem is, I blame Lorraine.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, then paused. Up until now, I had treated my problems with magic as a separate issue from Lorraine’s arrival wreaking havoc in my personal life. It only now occurred to me that both had happened at the same time, and Armand might be right: Lorraine might be the link between everything.

  CHAPTER VI

  “So let me make sure I understand,” Armand said.

  He had draped a square of red velvet around his shoulders in an absentminded gesture, and he paced my salon with a feathered hat on his head like a general on a battlefield.

  “You’ve been ill, and we’re not sure what’s happening with your magic.” He ticked off his fingers as he spoke. “You think spells are disappearing from books and from people’s memory. Lorraine has taken your place as the king’s new Source. And he’s convinced Philippe he’s not the worthless peacock we can all see he is. Have I got this right?”

  He stopped in his tracks to turn to me.

  “I don’t think the portal spell has disappeared,” I replied. “I know it has, and I don’t understand why I seem to be the only one aware of it.”

  “Maybe because you can’t prove it?”

  “Well,” I said, “there was the grimoire, except it has vanished as well, and now no one believes me.”

  He brought his index finger to his lips in an exaggerated thoughtful pose. “I mean, it’s quite obvious Lorraine is behind it all. He has access to this place and could have taken the grimoire. He has the most to gain from you being unwell and unable to do magic or leave your home.”

  “Lorraine isn’t the one who made me ill,” I protested.

  Armand held out his index finger toward me. “Isn’t he though?”

  I conceded that point. No one knew for certain why I had been feeling so wretched these past three weeks. “Then why would he make spells disappear? And how? He’s only a Source: He would need a magicien to perform the spell.”

  “You’re right.” Armand threw his hat down and resumed his seat by my side. “I say this is where we start. The fiend must have accomplices. To find out what his treacherous plans are, we need to know who his people are.”

  A warm, reassuring feeling spread through my chest. Whether he realized it or not, Armand was offering me what I had longed for these past few weeks: a sympathetic partner who didn’t look at me with pity or concern but believed what I said and wanted to act on it. I hadn’t realized how very much alone I had felt until this moment, when he laced his fingers through mine and announced:

  “Darling, let’s bring down the villain.”

  * * *

  It took us three days to devise a strategy.

  The king’s entertainment at Versailles was only a week away now, and uncovering Lorraine’s secrets was becoming a more pressing matter with each passing day. Armand visited every afternoon, each time with some impossible scheme on his mind to find out the evil designs of our designated foe. Each of his ideas was more outlandish than the last, but since I struggled to formulate a good approach myself—why, oh why did magic have to be so restrictive and complicated when I needed it to solve all my problems?—in the end I gave into one of his less eccentric plans.

  The auberge was called la Couronne d’Argent. Situated on a wide street between the Bastille fortress and the Seine river, it was a better establishment than the many taverns of ill-repute scattered across Paris, but not as renowned as the inns in the rue Saint-Honoré or rue Montmartre. Still, apprehension tightened my chest as I followed Armand into the dimly lit dining room where patrons filled every table for the midday meal. The smoke from their pipes blackened the low ceiling and hung in the air, mixing with the strong smell of bodies and the undefined odors of hot food.

  “Twenty sous for the meal,” a tall innkeeper in a dirty apron announced as we walked in. “Best bean soup on the street, partridge fresh from the market, bread and beer as much as you want.”

  My gaze lowered, I kept half my face hidden behind the cowl of my plain borrowed cloak, but Armand greeted the man with a cheerful smile and warm thanks. We were led to an empty table by the fireplace, where we sat on creaking chairs and were provided with the aforementioned food in pewter dishes. I held the fabric of cloak against my face to prevent a coughing fit triggered by the patrons’ smoke, but Armand misread my gesture. He leaned toward me when the serving girl withdrew to the kitchen.

  “No one can recognize you here,” he whispered. “So stop looking like a frightened rabbit. People will start to notice, and they’ll think you’ve been kidnapped by a handsome ruffian.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” I replied in a low tone.

  The noise of the nearby conversations drowned out our own words and no one gave us more than a passing glance, so I took in a few controlled breaths. The pungent smells of the place tingled my nostrils and teased my lungs, and I focused on calming my breathing to prevent a coughing fit. Meanwhile, Armand was taking to his role as a commoner like a duck to water. He ate his soup with approving slurping noises and dropped bread crumbs all over his borrowed servant livery. My
own maid outfit too large for me, I sat as still as possible to avoid attracting attention.

  “Darling,” Armand said between two mouthfuls of soup, “you sitting there unmoving as a Roman statue isn’t really helping us blend in.”

  I gave him a pointed look. Speaking to one of Lorraine’s domestics had been my idea, but this whole plan—borrowing my servants’ clothes to disguise ourselves as commoners and meet with one of his footmen in a Parisian inn—was not what I’d had in mind when I had suggested it. Obviously I had no desire to put us in jeopardy, but, as my stint at the fortune-teller’s lodgings last year had proven, blending in with the Parisian crowd wasn’t my strong suit. The danger of being recognized as aristocrats was slight, but the possibility of the situation going wrong weighed heavy on my thoughts.

  “I’m not eating, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” I replied.

  Armand’s mischievous expression softened. “I’m just saying there’s no need to fret. Your household thinks we’re visiting Athénaïs. No one in this part of Paris can even begin to suspect who we are. That footman employed by you-know-who is going to meet us here like he promised, and he is going to tell us everything we need.”

  His words made sense, and I forced my shoulders to relax. After all, I had come here by choice, seeking answers. We weren’t in any immediate danger. And Armand had proven last summer he could hold his own in a precarious situation.

  “In the meantime, you get to admire how dashing I look in a green livery,” he added. This time I bit my lip to prevent a smile. Armand grinned. “There it is. That lovely spark in your eyes. I’m not saying you make a convincing maid, but you definitely make a very pretty one.”

  I rested my arms on the rough wooden table to show him I could play my role if I wanted to. “You’re fishing for compliments now. Just eat your food and pray we haven’t come all this way for nothing.”

  Armand let out a theatrical sigh. “So coldhearted. Unrequited love is the worst.”

  A cold pang of anxiety reverberated through my chest at his joke.

  “You need to stop saying things like that,” I said, my brief moment of calm forgotten.

  He paused, his spoon halfway between his plate and his mouth. “Things like what?”

  “Things about how you love me.”

  Puzzlement pulled his brows together. “Why?”

  “Because people are starting to believe it! Because Philippe listens to those people. And I can’t afford—”

  Frustration at his lack of understanding cut me short in my speech. Armand still regarded me with a confused frown, and I struggled to explain myself without hurting his feelings.

  “But I do love you,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact and serious now. “Why can’t I say it?”

  “Because people don’t really know you, and they don’t understand that when you say these things, it’s not—”

  Again, words failed me, and Armand’s frown deepened. “I don’t understand—”

  A shadow fell over both of us, and a low voice interrupted, “Are you the chap who sent this note?”

  We both startled so much that Armand dropped his spoon and I knocked over my empty cup. A lean red-haired man held out a folded piece of paper to Armand, an inquisitive look on his rugged face. He wore a coat over his expensive blue livery—to appear less conspicuous, I assumed—and sweat moistened his forehead in the warm atmosphere of the inn.

  Armand stood up to shake his hand. “I did! Thank you so very much for coming. Please take a seat and have some of this wonderful soup.”

  The man appraised him with a disdainful look as he resumed his seat.

  “What is this?” the footman asked without sitting down. He didn’t spare a glance for me, which suited me fine. “I got a note promising a reward for information. Is it a joke?”

  “My dear fellow,” Armand replied, and one had to admire his composure. “It is most assuredly not a joke. I just felt our encounter required the right amount of discretion, for both our sakes. Hence the note. But it was definitely meant for you, and everything it contained is true.”

  I had my doubts using a series of people to send an obscurely worded note was the best way to approach a man one wanted secret information from, but Armand’s ploy appeared to have worked. Word on the street was that this particular footman had gambling debts, and we hoped the promise of money would entice him to tell us what we needed to know about Lorraine. However, the man still stared at him, as if debating whether Armand was mocking him.

  “You’re a strange one,” he said at last, and it almost sounded like a question.

  Armand smiled. “Thank you. Now please share a drink with us, at least.”

  He pulled a coin out of his pocket and laid it on the table. His fingers covered it, but the man’s eyes widened at the sum. He sat down at last and accepted both the coin and the proffered drink.

  “There’s a lot more where that came from,” Armand said while the man drained his pewter tankard. It wasn’t clear whether he was talking about the money or the beer.

  The footman set down his empty mug and turned his dark gaze to me. “And who’s the girl?”

  His expression could have been described as chilling, but, as I held his gaze, I found my earlier anxieties were forgotten. I’d come all this way for answers, and this man had them. Despite his shady nature and vaguely threatening manners, there wasn’t much he could do to us, two perfect strangers in a crowded tavern in the middle of the day. So I gave him my trademark gentle smile.

  “Well, I’m the one asking questions.”

  The man blinked at me, as if it had never occurred to him that girls could speak. Then, after silence had stretched for so long that Armand had begun fidgeting, the footman chuckled. “Go ahead, then.”

  It turned out that Armand had been right. The man did have gambling debts and a low opinion of his employer, both facts combined enticing him to speak to us. He was also as eager as we were for our encounter to remain a secret, which prompted him to answer my questions with efficiency.

  “The chevalier performs spells with the king,” he confirmed, speaking of Lorraine. “He’s a Source, a powerful one, from what I’ve heard. And he knows a lot about magic. A lot. He’s got a library full of books about it, and he keeps a journal of sorts, where he records things.”

  Both Armand and I leaned forward at this information.

  “A record of what?” I asked. “Spells?”

  The man shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never read it, have I? But he always keeps it about his person, and he takes notes in it after discussing magic with people.”

  I exchanged a conniving look with Armand. We needed to know what was in that journal.

  “But I can tell you he knows spells about everything,” the footman went on without prompting. “I’ve heard him brag he can perform any type of magic. Illusions, divination, you name it. I’ve seen him change the weather, turn objects into other things, heal people…”

  He trailed off, but his last words drove Armand to speak.

  “Have you seen him do darker spells? Like make someone ill, or—”

  “Oh, for sure,” the man interrupted, before catching himself. “Well, I’ve never seen him do anything, obviously, but he’s definitely the sort of man who’s ready for anything, including curses and such.”

  The revelation sent a chill down my spine. What if Armand was right and Lorraine had made me more ill with a spell? But our informant, now that he’d started talking, was warming to his subject.

  “The king isn’t the only magicien he’s in business with, you know,” he added. “He’s always worked with more than one at the same time, and right now he deals with at least two other magiciens in Paris and who knows how many at court.”

  “Would you be able to give us names?” I asked, eager to get concrete evidence.

  “No.” The man shook his head. “I work at his house in Paris, I don’t go with him anywhere. And he’s a private man. He doesn’t like to get visitor
s at home, he sees them at court or at their houses. The only one he brings home is, you know…”

  He raised his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, and both Armand and I froze. We could guess fairly well who Lorraine liked to open his private house to, but this stranger didn’t have to know we did. His eyes glimmered with malice. This was obviously the biggest piece of gossip about his employer, the one he thought we were after. So I cut off any further attempts at covering such grounds.

  “We’re only interested in the magic he does,” I said, and the malicious light went out of the man’s eyes. “Have you ever heard him talk about special spells he might have performed recently? Something unusual?”

  I was hoping for a clue about the vanishing spells. The man thought for a moment, his long fingers absentmindedly playing with his empty tankard.

  “No,” he replied after a while. “He’s talked to his … friend about the magic he’s done with the king at Versailles, if that’s what you’re asking. Creating things in the castle and the gardens, from what I gather. And preparing for that party everyone’s excited about. But mostly they talk about the people at court they don’t like or about what they’ve got planned for the evening, you know?”

  “So he hasn’t bragged about cursing someone?” I insisted. “Or about performing a rare spell?”

  Again, the man shook his head. “Listen, I want to help you, chérie, but I’d be lying if I said he did. He brags a lot, don’t get me wrong, but it’s all about the fancy magic that those people at court like him to do.”

  Too disappointed by this lack of revelations to get upset about his familiar tone, I gave Armand a dispirited look. He was pursing his lips, thoughtful.

  “That journal of his you spoke about,” he said. “Is there any way someone might have access to it?”

  For the first time since the beginning of our conversation, the man shuffled his feet and cast an anxious look around the inn.

  “Look,” he said, “I don’t mind spilling a few things for a bit of money. But stealing things and such? I’d lose my place for sure, or worse, if I got caught. I’m sorry, but whatever you two are thinking of, you’re on your own. I can’t help you.”