by Lily Blake
“It’s a boy,” the woman said, smiling as she cleaned the baby with a damp cloth. She poked and prodded the crying child, wiping at its nose, clamping the umbilical cord with a clothespin, then wrapped him in a blanket.
“A boy?” Francis echoed. The woman handed Francis the small bundle, and he gently moved the blanket aside to see his son’s face. His skin was pink and wet. The baby’s eyes were open, looking around, bright, clear blue irises just like his own. He had his own tuft of blond hair as well, though his heart-shaped mouth was unmistakably Lola’s.
Francis crossed over to the bed and held the baby out to Lola. “Look,” he said, feeling the words catch in his throat. “Lola. It’s our son.”
But Lola didn’t respond. She could barely keep her eyes open. Francis saw just how exhausted she was, her whole body limp now as she rested back on the pillows. He touched her gently on the shoulder, hoping she would stir, if only for this moment.
“It’s our son, Lola…” he repeated. But her head fell to the side, her dark hair in her face. When Francis reached for her hand, it was cold beneath his touch.
“Let me take him,” the woman said softly. She took the baby into her own arms. “I know a woman in the village who will nurse him.”
“What’s wrong? You have to help her,” Francis said, his voice rising in panic. “Please…”
“I’ve done all I can,” the woman said, her eyes filling. “I’m sorry.”
“And now… now what? We’re just going to let her die?”
“I don’t know what will happen, but she’s lost so much blood. You should say the things you need to. Pray over her. It’s too late for us to find a priest. They’ve all gone to the neighboring villages, helping those with the disease. I’m sorry,” she repeated. Then she turned away, rocking the baby and murmuring to him. She closed the door behind her when she left.
The bedroom was quiet now, except for the sound of Lola’s ragged breathing. Francis took a simple wooden chair from the corner and pulled it beside her. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, though Lola didn’t respond, or even seem to know that he was there.
Francis lowered his head, the tears hot in his eyes. There was so much to say.… He was all too aware of every wrong turn he had taken that day, every delay that had caused him to reach her side at so late an hour. Here, now, he couldn’t help thinking of all the other chances they’d missed. All those months that Lola was there, in the palace, he could have talked with her about their night together. He could have told her what it had meant to him, to see a familiar face there, after he’d been cast out of court. He could have told her how much he’d realized that night—that she was so funny, so kind, so beautiful. Instead they’d both tried to pretend it had never happened.
“I’m sorry, I meant to be here sooner. I came as fast as I could, but I got delayed.…” Francis took a breath, trying to summon the courage to say it. “Do you know how many times I’ve thought about it? How many times it would come back to me, even when I was in the palace, miles from there? I remember everything about that night, what you looked like, what you said.…”
He smiled down at her. He could almost imagine the face Lola would have made if she’d heard him now. She would have raised an eyebrow and smirked, those full red lips drawing to the side, revealing the deep dimple in her right cheek. What night are you referring to? she’d say without saying. I dare you to tell me.
“I remember… it was like it was the first time I was seeing you.” Francis leaned back in his chair, still holding on to Lola’s hand. “You’d always been in the palace, by Mary’s side. Of course I’d liked you. You were warmer than Greer, and kinder than Kenna. But you were always one of Mary’s ladies, one of Mary’s friends. How many times did we actually speak about anything real?”
He thought back to those first weeks at court when Mary and her ladies had arrived. Everyone had been dazzled by them, this bevy of beauties following the queen around. He’d noticed Lola from the beginning. Her green eyes, sharp and intelligent, were always watching, taking everything in. She didn’t miss a thing.
“But then when I saw you in Paris… it was like you breathed life back into me. I’d been dying a slow death. I didn’t even know who I was anymore.…”
He hated thinking about it, even now. Mary had cast him aside, choosing to believe some ridiculous superstition. She had chosen to be with Bash—his own brother—instead of him. She thought she was doing what she had to, to keep him safe, but it didn’t change the fact that he felt he had been replaced. In Mary’s heart, in her bed, and on the throne. When the proceedings to legitimize Bash had begun, he’d fled the palace. He couldn’t stay and watch someone else live the life that was supposed to be his.
He’d wandered from place to place, hopping across the Continent. He’d indulged his appetites for women and wine, hunting and gambling. But the whole time, he wasn’t truly enjoying himself. The loneliness was so awful he couldn’t have described it, even if he’d wanted to. Everyone was a stranger. Women loved him for the gold coins he put in their purses, for the lavish furs he was able to give them. Men were friends when he was buying them their third round of beer. He’d hated it, hated himself, until he’d landed in a gambling salon on the outskirts of Paris.
He’d been taking his turn at the tables when he’d heard a familiar voice. Lola. He’d been surprised at how happy he’d been to see her, as if she were the only woman in the room. For a while that night, they had just talked. She made jokes about court, telling him a funny story about how one of the servants had dropped a steak on the Duchess of Calle. She spoke of her family, of the brother whom she’d been trying to get out of a gambling debt. Maybe it was the wine they’d been drinking, or the way she covered her mouth with her hand when she smiled, or the way she looked at him as though she knew what he was thinking.… In any event, he’d taken a chance and kissed her.
He had thought of their night of passion many times. Her hair as she pulled it out of the bun at the nape of her neck, those dark curls cascading down her bare shoulders. His mouth on hers. The way she laughed when he ran his fingers over her stomach, tickling the tender spot below her belly button.
Even when he returned to the palace—and then to Mary—he had tried to put it out of his mind. He had to. He didn’t have a choice. But staring down at her now, at her pale face glowing in the candlelight, he regretted letting that connection slip away. Lola barely made eye contact with him in the palace halls. Francis went out of his way to make sure that they never sat beside each other at meals, and that he was never alone with her when Mary was not there.
“You saved me, whether you know it or not,” Francis said. “That night saved me. When you found me in Paris, I had lost my way. And then there you were, in that salon, a familiar face. I remember all of it, Lola—all of you. I remember the way you kissed my eyebrow before I fell asleep, the way you promised me I was going to be all right. You were—you are—so kind. So good. That night was one of the blessings of my life.”
Francis looked down at her, smoothing the hair away from her face. It seemed that her breathing was shallower than before.
“My beautiful Lola,” he said, leaning closer to whisper in her ear. “I need you to be strong. I need you to fight through this. Can you hear me?”
He studied her expression, but it revealed nothing. He lay down in the bed beside her, pressing his face into her neck, listening to each one of her breaths. He held her close.
“I need you. Your son needs you. You can’t leave us, not yet, not now. There’s still so much we need to say to each other. Lola…” His voice broke, the tears coming on.
He reached down into his cloak, pulling out the cross that Marcel had given him. He pressed it into her hand, closing her fingers around it. “Please…” he whispered, though he knew it might already be too late. “Lord, have mercy on her.…”
CHAPTER NINE
Do you see him?” Kenna asked. She could hear the panic creeping into her
voice. She collapsed on one of the benches in the hallway and stretched her aching feet.
Bash returned from the throne room, shaking his head. “I looked behind every curtain, behind the thrones, under the cabinetry,” he said. “I thought maybe he was hiding in there. We’ve looked everywhere else.” Bash sat down next to Kenna, resting his hand on top of hers.
They had been searching for Pascal for hours but hadn’t found any sign of him. One guard said he had seen him sprinting past a bedroom in the east wing, but by the time they got there he’d already left. He wasn’t in any of the bedrooms in the north wing. No one had seen him in the kitchens or servants’ quarters. Kenna pressed her fingers to her temples, remembering Pascal’s face as he opened the door. He’d been so scared… so confused. Who knew what he might do now?
“He has to be somewhere,” Bash said. “He has to be inside the palace walls.…”
“We hope,” Kenna said. “But who knows? It wasn’t a week ago that he was so frightened he couldn’t speak. He’s going through such a hard time.… I worry this will be too much for him.”
“I know,” Bash said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m worried too.”
Bash knew, far better than Kenna, just what the boy had experienced in the woods. When Bash had been hunting The Darkness, he’d seen the ghastly evidence of the crimes. Bloated bodies in that house on the hill, their throats slashed. Jars filled with congealed blood. Bones piled high in a ditch behind the outhouse. It was Bash who had found Pascal, cowering and dirt-covered, barely able to speak. The child was shaking. Any sudden movement, any loud noise, would send him running into Kenna’s arms.
“He didn’t understand what we were doing,” Bash said, shaking his head. “It must have looked like I was hurting you.”
“He’s already so suspicious of you,” Kenna said. “After he saw you in the forest…”
“I hate that that happened. If I could take it back, I would. But we have to tell ourselves we’ll find him. He’s just a child. This a protected palace,” Bash said. “Every door and gate is locked right now. No one is going in or out. We’ll find him.”
“But how?” Kenna asked. They’d spent the night running through twisting corridors, calling for him until they both were hoarse. They’d get hopeful at the sound of footsteps, or someone calling from down the hall, only to realize it wasn’t him. The guards had turned up nothing. He hadn’t been found.
Bash could try to comfort her, but she was the one who had the special relationship with Pascal. She was the one who drew him out of his shell, got him to trust her, made him feel safe. She kept thinking about the lock on the bedroom door, how she could’ve latched it shut. She could’ve been more careful… she should have.
“What if he’s gone?” she said, not daring to meet Bash’s gaze.
“There’s nothing hiding in this palace that can’t be found.” He stood, pulling Kenna off the bench with him. He headed back toward their rooms, walking with a new sense of purpose. “I just got an idea.…”
“Where are we going?” Kenna asked, confused.
“When I was seven, I disappeared for three days,” Bash said, their footsteps echoing in the empty corridors.
“What happened?” Kenna hurried along behind him. Her dress kept getting tangled around her feet. Tired of kicking it aside, she lifted up the hem, holding it away from the stone floor.
“I’d been playing in the kitchens,” Bash said, smiling at the memory. “And when all the servants were called away to dinner, I somehow got it in my head that I’d go on an adventure. I filled my pockets with as much food as I could and decided to explore the palace.”
“That sounds like you,” Kenna said with a laugh as they picked up their pace, turning down another corridor.
“The first night was fun. I slept in the stables. It was lovely to feel so free, after the terrible nursemaids in the palace nursery. I kept thinking about how I would tell Francis how brave I was, about all my adventures. But on the second day, I was exploring one of the storage rooms and the door slammed shut behind me. I got locked in.…”
Even now, the memory was so vivid—trying the knob over and over again, rattling it. The realization that he couldn’t get out. He had yelled until he was hoarse, the closet so dark he couldn’t see more than a foot in front of his face. He was convinced nobody would ever find him. Or if they did, that it would be much too late.
“Oh, Bash,” Kenna said. “That sounds horrifying.”
“I know. Looking back on it now, I can only imagine how panicked my mother and Henry were.”
“So what happened?” She followed Bash up the staircase that led to their chambers, but Bash went past their door, instead heading toward the room that was Pascal’s.
“It was a good thing my father was an excellent hunter,” he said, a smile curling his lips. “He gave one of my shirts to a pack of his hunting dogs, to let them get the smell. And then he set them loose in the palace. Catherine had a fit, of course. But they found me within the hour.”
Kenna nodded, finally understanding what he meant. “We can use the clothes he had on the day he came here—they’re in there somewhere.”
“If we don’t find him ourselves first,” Bash agreed. He pushed into Pascal’s room and emerged a moment later with the tattered brown jacket Pascal had been wearing when he’d found him. “This should work.”
“Let’s hope,” Kenna said.
“We should go to the stables. There are five or ten dogs there. We’ll find Pascal, I promise.”
Kenna squeezed Bash’s hand as they started down the stairs. For the first time in hours, it seemed possible—that they might find Pascal, wherever he was, and bring him back tonight. They turned down the path that led to the stables, but as they moved farther away from the palace, they saw the route was blocked. A guard stood a hundred yards before the stable entrance.
A woman with long, dark hair was yelling at him. “I am telling you I need to get through!” the woman said. “I don’t have time to argue.”
Kenna recognized the voice immediately. “Mary? What’s wrong? What are you doing out here?”
Mary turned around. Her hair was tangled in the wind, her face tense with worry. Kenna could see the panic in her dark eyes. “I’m trying to get a note out to Francis, but my way is being blocked. I can’t get to the gate to send it off with one of the messengers.”
“It’s for your own safety, my lady.” The guard couldn’t have been older than sixteen. He had red hair and a scattering of freckles on his cheeks. “The crowd at the gates is growing. They’re desperate. We can’t have them seeing you. We don’t know what they’d do.”
Bash frowned, taking a step closer. “What do you mean they’re desperate?”
“I… um…” the guard stuttered, suddenly unsure of himself. “You all must return inside. It’s for your own safety.”
“Those were my orders originally,” Mary said. “And now look what has happened. I can’t even move about the palace grounds without being told to go back inside.”
Mary started toward the north wing, Bash and Kenna following close behind. “I can try to get your letter to Francis,” Bash said, holding out his hand to her.
Mary hesitated, looking at the piece of paper pressed between her fingers.
“Don’t worry,” he told her. “I won’t read it. But I’ll do my best to get it to one of the messengers.”
Mary handed it over, then bit her lip. “Thank you, Bash. I just… I needed to say some things to him while I still could.”
“Don’t talk that way,” Kenna said, threading her arm through Mary’s. “Francis will be fine. He’ll return to us just as he was, with Lola and the baby too.…” She had intended this to be encouraging, but Mary didn’t look comforted. She wrung her hands together, her gaze somewhere beyond them.
“Even if you’re right, even if Francis is fine,” she said, “I might not be.”
“What are you talking about?” Bash asked. He leaned do
wn, studying Mary’s face. There was a time when he knew her expressions by heart. How the subtle raise of one eyebrow meant she was amused. How her pale skin flushed when she was embarrassed—even her ears would turn red. They’d been close once, and there was that afternoon by the lake… that kiss. Still, she seemed like a stranger now, her shoulders tense with worry, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“Mary… what is it? You can tell us. What’s gotten you so upset?” Kenna asked as they entered the palace. They wound up the spiral staircase, accompanying Mary to her room.
“At dinner,” Mary said, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Everything was fine… well, as fine as things could be with Catherine glaring at me the whole night. She kept asking questions about Francis’s whereabouts, as if I were to blame for all of it. When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I left with Greer. As I passed Nostradamus, he had one of his visions.”
Bash looked over at Mary, his throat suddenly dry. Francis might have been skeptical of the seer, but Bash knew Nostradamus’s power was legitimate. His mother, Diane, had dabbled in paganism when he was younger. Thankfully, her variety had never been the kind filled with bloodlust like the version currently running rampant in the woods. Diane had taught Bash about simple acts that created comfort—crushed rabbit bone in your tea to ward off illness. A peacock feather under your pillow for good dreams. She’d always spoken of the visions and the power they held. She herself had seen her father’s death in a flash, the image of him killed during a hunt, a whole two months before it actually happened.
“What did he say?” Bash asked, his voice low.
“He said that he saw an arrow pierce my neck.” Mary’s voice was uneven. “That someone is going to kill me.”
Bash felt a chill rip through him. He turned, glancing into the dark corridor behind him. He suddenly realized just how vulnerable they were, wandering the palace alone, late at night. He reached for his sword, forgetting he’d left it behind when he’d gone off to search for Pascal. “Let’s get you to your room,” he said. “We can discuss it there.”
