Tracing the Shadow

by Sarah Ash

  “The book is all I have left of my father.” For a moment he caught a glimpse of the alchymist’s orphaned child, vulnerable and bewildered. She had lost her father, her mother, and now her lover.

  “I understand,” he said, more gently. “Of course you want to preserve it as a memento. But why join the Commanderie? You must hate the men who arrested and executed your father—and with good cause.”

  “I joined because I could think of no better way to hunt down Magus Kaspar Linnaius.” The air of vulnerability had gone, replaced by a look of ruthlessness he had never seen before.

  “Then, in our own ways, we joined for the same reasons. No wonder we make a good team.”

  Dame Elmire was dozing again; Celestine sat beside the old lady’s bedside, her father’s book on her lap, wishing that she could sleep so easily. A single night-light burned on the table, but Celestine had left the shutters open so that she could see the stars.

  She still could not bring herself to return to her room. But she could not bear to leave his house just yet. She knew that once she made up her mind to leave, she would never return.

  “Why did you tell him your secret?” The Faie was gazing at her from the cover of the book, her soulful eyes as bright as the winter starlight outside.

  “Why?” Celestine had had plenty of time to wonder if she had been rash to confide in Jagu. “Because Jagu has as much reason as I to hate the Magus. And because…I trust him.”

  “But how far can you trust him? Every man has his price.”

  “I would trust Jagu with my life. He’s a good man.”

  “Who’s there?” murmured the old lady. “I thought I heard voices…”

  “It’s only me, Dame Elmire,” said Celestine, leaning forward to squeeze her wrinkled hand in reassurance.

  “Isn’t Henri back yet from the Opera House? He’s late again…”

  Celestine hesitated. Better to preserve the illusion, rather than distress the old lady with the unhappy truth. “No,” she said softly, “he won’t be back…till later.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Celestine and Sister Katell stood side by side, gazing out at the grey waters of the bay. A sea breeze, tinged with brine, tousled Celestine’s hair and stirred Katell’s white linen veil.

  “Four years,” said Celestine, staring into the misted horizon. “And yet here it seems as if nothing has changed. Sister Kinnie is still making simples in the Infirmary, Sister Noyale is still as strict as ever in her choir training…”

  “Well, excuse me!” said Katell crossly. “Sister Katell is now in charge of teaching the Skylarks to read and write. And a mouthy, mischievous bunch of little brats they are too. I’m sure we were never so ill behaved.”

  Celestine almost felt herself smiling. “I can’t think of anyone better suited to teach them their manners than you.”

  “And you missed Saint Azilia’s Day again. You promised me,” said Katell severely.

  Celestine could not meet her eyes. “I’m not sure,” she said indistinctly, “that I’ll ever be able to sing again.”

  “Dear Celestine.” Katell wrapped her long arms around her, hugging her against her lean frame. If anything, she had become wirier and taller since they had last met. “Is that what he would have wanted? You were his inspiration. If you don’t sing the music that he wrote for you, it’ll be like…like losing your last connection with him.”

  Henri’s music, unbidden, had begun to sing softly in her mind. Where is my spring-moon lover? And that radiant melody, which he had written especially for her, now had a bitter resonance, tainted by the knowledge that there would be no more.

  “I’m not yet ready,” she said defensively, pulling away from Katell and setting off alone back along the shore.

  Celestine gazed out of the guest room window. The moon was full, silvering the shore as the incoming tide washed away the footprints in the sand where she and Katell had walked earlier.

  “It’s time,” she whispered into the night. “Katell was right. I must sing again.”

  By the moon’s clear, fragile light, she returned to her packing. The prospect of returning to the bustle of Lutèce filled her with dread, yet as she mechanically folded her clothes and put them in her trunk, she had to admit to herself that much as she had appreciated the quiet of the convent, she had become increasingly restless as the weeks passed.

  She placed Lives of the Holy Saints carefully between the top layers of linen, then took it out again, weighing it in her hands.

  This ordinary-looking little volume was the cause of Henri’s death.

  “Why, Faie? Why did the magus want you and my father’s book so desperately?”

  A soft radiance illumined the austere room. The Faie emerged, gazing steadily at her with eyes as clear as spring rain.

  “Who was he? Was he Kaspar Linnaius? Why won’t you tell me?”

  “He was the one who set me free.”

  Celestine had not expected such an answer. “But I thought my father was the one who—”

  “That magus was little more than a boy then. He was not powerful enough to bind me. But that boy has become a man.”

  “And he called me Klervie. My real name. How could he have known…” Disjointed fragments of memory from her childhood in Karantec, long buried, began to surface. “Wait. Are you saying he was my father’s apprentice?” There had been a dark-haired boy with green eyes who used to come to the cottage. Sometimes he brought scraps of fish for Mewen. “But all the magi at Karantec were executed. I read it in the Inquisition archives. No one survived. So how—”

  “His master, Linnaius, stole me.”

  “He was Linnaius’s apprentice?” Celestine hugged the book to her, overwhelmed by the sudden realization that Linnaius might have sent the soul-stealer to reclaim the Faie. “So it still comes back to Linnaius. And his apprentice, whom everyone believed dead, is very much alive.”

  “Alive?” echoed the Faie. “After the injuries I inflicted on his hawk-familiar I doubt that either will have survived.” She spoke softly yet there was a ruthless edge to her words that made Celestine shiver; she knew now that the Faie’s frail aura concealed a considerable and dangerous power.

  “So he’s no longer a threat to us?”

  “I don’t want to be in thrall again, Celestine, I want to stay with you.” The Faie’s aura bloomed in the darkness, caressing Celestine, surrounding her like an embrace. Celestine closed her eyes, relaxing in the calming warmth of her gentle light. “Yes,” she murmured. “We’ve been through so much together. I couldn’t bear to be separated from you now…you’ve become a part of me.”

  Ruaud de Lanvaux gazed down at the ring of office that the king had just presented to him. The last Angelstone hung on a gold chain around his neck over his robes of office. He longed to take the heavy embroidered garments off and put on his comfortable old uniform jacket again.

  “May I be the first to offer my congratulations, Grand Maistre?” Celestine de Joyeuse stood waiting for him outside his rooms. A stab of bitter guilt pierced him as he remembered how he had accidentally crushed the soul-glass.

  And crushed your hopes of happiness with the man you loved, Celestine. The possibility that it might have been too late to reunite de Joyeuse’s soul and body anyway was nowhere near as consoling as it should have been.

  “My dear girl, when did you return to Lutèce?” He had feared that the shock of losing Henri de Joyeuse might have driven her to retire to the convent for life.

  “I’ve just arrived. When I heard your news, I had to come and see you.” She smiled at him and it was a smile of genuine warmth, which gladdened his heart, driving away the lingering shadows of guilt. But as soon as they were alone together inside his study, her expression altered. “I have a request, Grand Maistre. I want to work as a Commanderie agent again. I want to track down the magus who murdered Henri and bring him to justice. Even if it means traveling deep into the heart of enemy territory to find him.”

  Ruaud saw a new look
of resolve hardening her clear blue eyes. She had suffered a great loss but she seemed to have emerged more resilient than before. She would make a resourceful and courageous agent.

  “Francia needs strong spirits like yours, Celestine. But you cannot undertake such a mission alone. You need a partner.”

  The Church of Saint Meriadec was shrouded in evening shadows, but a blaze of brilliant organ fanfares made the air tremble.

  There was a driven, intense quality about the performance, almost as if the player had stood on the edge of the abyss and gazed into its darkest depths.

  Celestine walked slowly toward the choir stalls where she had so often spent her days singing. The last organ notes died away and she looked up, knowing that she had positioned herself exactly where he could see her in his mirror.

  “A word with you, Lieutenant de Rustéphan,” she said. A moment or so later, he came hurtling down the little stairs—and then stopped, gazing at her.

  “Is it really you, Celestine?” And then he hurried across to her. “I was afraid we’d lost you to Saint Azilia’s for good.”

  “Oh, Jagu,” she said, suddenly overwhelmed by emotion, “it’s good to see you again.” Yet neither she nor Jagu reached out to embrace each other; it was as if Henri de Joyeuse’s ghost stood between them in the church where they had all made music together. “I have instructions here from the Grand Maistre.” She held up the letter that had arrived by special courier. “It seems that we’ve been invited to give a concert in Mirom, at the Winter Palace.”

  “So we’re to be partnered again?” he said. “We’d better start putting a program together.”

  “Who knows where we’ll be asked to perform next?” she said lightly. “Maybe even at the Palace of Swanholm, in Tielen. I hear that Prince Eugene is having a fine concert room built there…close to the laboratories where his Royal Artificier works. What was his name, now? Oh yes, Kaspar Linnaius.”

  Their eyes met. “A pact, Jagu?” she said, holding out her hand. He gripped it between his own.

  “This time we won’t fail,” he said. “We’ll find this Magus—and we’ll make him pay for his crimes.”

  CAST

  THE COLLEGE OF THAUMATURGY AT KARANTEC

  Klervie de Maunoir/Celestine de Joyeuse

  Hervé de Maunoir, a young magus

  Maela, his wife

  Kaspar Linnaius, an elder magus

  Rieuk Mordiern, a student magus

  Goustan de Rhuys, another magus

  Magister Gonery, principal of the college

  THE SEMINARY OF SAINT ARGANTEL AT KEMPER

  Jagu de Rustéphan, a pupil

  Paol de Lannion, Kilian Guyomard, Emilion, fellow pupils

  Abbé Houardon, headmaster

  Père Magloire, librarian and archivist

  Père Albin, Jagu’s master

  THE FRANCIAN COMMANDERIE

  Ruaud de Lanvaux

  Alain Friard

  Grand Maistre Donatien

  Lieutenant Konan

  Père Laorans

  Philippe Viaud

  Père Blaize

  THE CONVENT OF SAINT AZILIA

  Abbess Ermengarde

  Sister Kinnie

  Sister Noyale, the choir mistress

  Rozenne, Katell, Koulmia, Gauzia, Angelique, Celestine’s fellow choristers

  LUTÈCE

  Henri de Joyeuse, the choir master

  Dame Elmire Sorel, Henri’s aunt

  Aurélie Carnelian, diva

  THE FRANCIAN INQUISITION

  Inquisitor Alois Visant

  ONDHESSAR

  Imri Boldiszar

  Lord Estael

  Arkhan Sardion of Enhirre

  Magus Aqil, Master of Poisons

  Oranir, Aqil’s apprentice

  THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCIA

  King Gobain II

  Queen Aliénor

  Crown Prince Aubrey

  Prince Enguerrand

  Princess Adèle

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  SARAH ASH is the author of six previous fantasy novels: Children of the Serpent Gate, Lord of Snow and Shadows, Prisoner of the Iron Tower, Moths to a Flame, Songspinners, and The Lost Child. She also runs the library in a local primary school. Ash has two grown sons and lives in Beckenham, Kent, with her husband and their mad cat, Molly.

  Also by Sarah Ash

  LORD OF SNOW AND SHADOWS

  Book One of the Tears of Artamon

  PRISONER OF THE IRON TOWER

  Book Two of the Tears of Artamon

  CHILDREN OF THE SERPENT GATE

  Book Three of the Tears of Artamon

  TRACING THE SHADOW

  A Bantam Spectra Book / February 2008

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc. New York, New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2006 by Sarah Ash

  Map copyright © 2007 by Neil Gower

  Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, Spectra, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ash, Sarah.

  Tracing the shadow / Sarah Ash.

  p. cm.—(The alchymist’s legacy; bk. 1)

  “A Bantam Spectra book.”

  I. Title.

  PS3601.S523T73 2008

  813'.6—dc22

  2007036284

  www.bantamdell.com

  eISBN: 978-0-553-90460-4

  v3.0