The Spirit Lens

by Carol Berg

  “You sliming weasel! You scheming toad! How in the name of mercy could you persuade him to leave Geni in that place when she is innocent?” He wrenched me up from where I’d fallen and shoved me backward again, this time into a tangle of thorns. “I should wring your scrawny neck, but that would be too kind. By all the Saints Awaiting, I’ll see your bowels cut out and burnt do you not go right back and tell Philippe you have no plan that requires my sister to stay there another moment. Prisoning will kill her.”

  Without regard to ripped skin or ruined garments, accompanied by a continuum of invective I had not imagined he knew, the chevalier hauled me up from wherever he’d last sent me and shoved me down again, tumbling me head over heels, tangling me in creeping vines, tree limbs, and thorny branches, rendering me incapable of protecting myself, much less providing any sensible answer.

  “The king’s idea,” I babbled, “his counselors . . . subjects rabid for justice . . .” Lord, I understand your anger . . . . It was the only way.

  He batted my hands away whenever I fought to prevent the next uncomfortable segment of my journey through the maze. “To think I had begun to believe you a Saint Reborn. Do you know the Two Invariant Signs?” Another shove. “Refusal to die without meaningful purpose. Inerrant perception of righteousness.” And another. “Twice you survived what would have killed any other—on the Swan, at Eltevire—and I’ve never known a man whose honor and compassion grew so much from his bones. But, of course, I am a fool.”

  When my head, still tender from my battering in Eltevire, encountered a much too solid tree trunk, livid lights and unreadable runes swirled behind my eyes. My knees lost all cohesion, and a whimsy stung my thoughts like an angry wasp. Dante . . . everyone would blame Dante for this. When my lifeless body was found, not the finest agente confide in Sabria would imagine Ilario de Sylvae had slain me. Me, a Saint Reborn. A most unlikely sensation burbled through my gut, climbing upward until it burst forth, sounding less like wild hilarity than a croaking screech.

  The powerful hands gripped yet again and dragged me upright, but only shook me rather than sending me flying. “Blazes, Portier. Are you dead?”

  My hands clutched my splitting head. Hilarity faded. “The queen’s only held till Edmond’s return,” I rasped, once he’d let me slump to an earth that wobbled unnervingly.

  My stomach heaved bile, and a fit of coughing threatened to finish what Ilario’s hand had begun. But he forced a dribble from his silver flask down my throat. Valerian could set a legion puking.

  “Try again,” he snapped, out of sympathy once the fit was eased. “Why is my sister yet confined when I hear you’ve brought letters that exonerate her? Her husband refused to address his decisions, and as the royal ass was about to tear down his own palace with his teeth, I chose to go to the source of the confusion. What have you told him, you pigeon-livered stick?”

  “Let me tell you what I learned at Vernase,” I said, between hawking attempts to clear the nasty taste from my mouth. “Ten years ago, Michel de Vernase made a bargain with Gaetana to stop leeching a young girl. We don’t know the terms, or whether that was when he first became intrigued by the power of transference. . . .”

  By the time I arrived at Maura’s letters, Ilario had settled on the ground beside me. Every time I paused in my recitation, he revisited his litany of swearing.

  “Even the leeching tools did not seal his belief about Michel,” I said, Philippe’s stubbornness maddening me yet again. “He demands more evidence. Yet his heart also demands he free your sister, lord. You know it does. The root of his rage is this dissonance between duty to Sabria and his love and fear for his wife. He believes he must produce the true criminal before he sets her free. If he cannot relieve the suspicions of his counselors and reassure his subjects that this woman is worthy of his love and theirs, whether or not she can bear him an heir, then his reign is cracked—perhaps the very breach these purveyors of chaos desire. Jousting for position will replace scholarly concords. Demesne wars and assassinations will replace exploration for new trade routes. News of Gaetana’s execution has already spread like plague. Without confirmation that she was truly rogue, fear and defensive maneuvering will grow between blood and nonblood families. And in whatever case, he must demonstrate his commitment to justice without prejudice of rank. So he leaves his wife imprisoned. He orders Michel’s arrest. And he waits fourteen days for Edmond de Roble to bring him Michel’s evidence, praying it will solve the mystery, exonerating both of those he loves.”

  “And if it does not?”

  Such was the likely outcome. “He’ll not leave her there an hour more than necessary. Think, lord—if he proclaims Queen Eugenie’s innocence today, he must reveal the letters, one of the few cards in his hand that Michel cannot suspect he has.”

  Ilario scraped his fingers through his hair. “She’ll die in the Spindle, Portier. They allow only one family member to visit her, and Antonia has precedence, naturally. Antonia is good-hearted, but she talks of nothing but the way the world should be ordered, and she’s never understood Geni. As a child, my sister brought nothing but delight to everyone around her. Now she believes she is Death’s handmaiden. If she hears that Maura has betrayed her . . . another friend dead . . .”

  “Maura lives until the matter of Michel is decided,” I said. “Philippe recognizes that he needs her testimony, no matter whether Michel or someone else is guilty.”

  “Sweet angels, Maura a traitor.” Ilario’s shudder rattled the dark. “She’s always treated me equably, never whispered behind my back, never gained advantage at my expense, and I can tell you that is rare enough in this court. But to deliver those vile banners to the Swan. . . .”

  “She had them made months ago and stored them in the temple, as one of Michel’s letters ordered her to do. The phosphorus was certainly added in that time, no doubt along with some clue that would link them to Ophelie, and ultimately, through Maura, to your sister. On the morning of the launch, Maura merely had them collected and delivered to the barge.”

  “What a demon-blasted confusion.” Ilario sighed. “I’d likely serve as dupe for anyone who rescued me from soul death.”

  “As would I,” I said, glancing at him sidewise. “Though I might ask my own brave rescuer yet two more favors.”

  A stillness enfolded Ilario like his black cloak. Had he even realized how thin his mask had become in the last hour? “And what would those be?”

  “You must convince Philippe to proceed with your Grand Exposition—and to expose himself to the crowd by his attendance. Prince Desmond’s deathday has been somehow significant to the conspirators. Perhaps merely to lay suspicion at the queen’s feet. But Michel has purposefully set Edmond’s return for that day. If we can lure the villain into some move while the queen is yet imprisoned, we’ve put a public face on her claim of innocence, while at the same time granting ourselves an opportunity to catch the real criminals as they act. If the villains don’t play, we’ve lost nothing.”

  “And the second favor?”

  “Once we’ve set the exposition arrangements in motion, Lady Antonia needs must fall ill or be otherwise incapable of visiting the queen, so that you can get me inside the Spindle.”

  Ilario puffed and spluttered. “Saints Awaiting, Portier, I didn’t hurt you all that awfully! If Philippe doesn’t chew my bones to rags, my foster mother surely will.”

  ILARIO, AS IN EVERY TASK I had set him and so many I hadn’t, proved faithful. On the morning after Maura’s arrest, Philippe issued a proclamation that Ilario de Sylvae’s Grand Exposition of Natural Sciences and Magical Phenomena Honoring Prince Desmond’s Deathday had his blessing to go forward.

  .. . for indeed the despicable, cowardly assault on the Swan blighted our offering of the Destinne’sbrave launch to speed our beloved son’s Veil journey. We invite the Camarilla Magica to join in this festival, for wholesome displays of the fantastical arts shown alongside the glories of natural philosophy, must surely dispel the stench
left by the rogue mage complicit in that attack, the canker now excised from Sabria92 YBD=1474 YHG=1422>s healthy body.

  THIRTEEN DAYS REMAINED UNTIL EDMOND would return with Michel’s answer. Thirteen days until Michel de Vernase would prove friend or foe. Thirteen days to plan how I was to get Maura out of the Spindle and away from Merona.

  On the first of the thirteen, Ilario and I spent the entire day with the palace steward, detailing our requirements for the Great Hall and the Rotunda, where we would place the exhibits, and the Portrait Gallery, where we would put refreshment tables. Maura’s imprint lay on every message, every name, every idea we had sketched in my journal on that one delightful morning before I’d gone to Seravain and learned I dared not trust her.

  On the second day, I sent confirmation messages to the Collegiae Physica, Biologica, and Alchemistra, to the Academie Musica, and to the various artists and makers of lenses and instruments Maura or I had contacted previously. Lord Ilario’s personal invitation to the Camarilla was delivered to Prefect Angloria, along with a gilt-edged copy of Philippe’s proclamation.

  On the third, I fielded at least one hundred fifty queries from interested participants at my newly installed desk in a minor bulge of the Rotunda. A more difficult task was to counter the various rumors each messenger reported: that the event was designed to mock and humiliate magical practitioners, or that it was naught but a venue for devious mages to upend the king’s righteous cleansing of Camarilla interference, or the one spreading like plague from some cult prophet that the Exposition would mark the return of a Saint Reborn.

  Late on that third afternoon, a dispatch arrived from the Guard Royale captain at Vernase.

  Thanks to the close watch on Damoselle Anne de Vernase you mandated before your departure, Ambrose de Vernase has been found. While in the village on household business, the young lady attempted to supply her brother with money, clothing, and maps of northern Sabria. The youth and the damoselle have been returned to Montclaire and the watch on the family doubled.

  I FORWARDED THE NOTE TO Philippe straightaway. Unfortunately northern Sabria was much too large an area to hint as to Michel’s whereabouts. Philippe immediately summoned Lady Madeleine and her children to Merona.

  Who could not grieve for the young people caught up in this wretched business: Lianelle and Ophelie, Anne and Ambrose, the missing Adept Fedrigo? And Edmond de Roble’s fate yet filled me with unreasoning dread. No matter that Gaetana was dead, we would not be done with the evils the Aspirant had wrought until he was in our hands.

  On the fourth day—nine remaining until the Exposition—Ilario worked with two painters, a printmaker, and three sewing women to create banners and posters to be hung or distributed throughout the merchant fairs, guild-halls, temples, and academic halls, inviting the distinguished citizens of the royal city to visit the scientific and magical displays. I dispatched personal invitations to the most important scholars and nobles in Merona to attend the climactic events of the festival, and confirmed that the Lestarte brothers were ready to provide a grand fireworks display from a chain of barges to entertain those people we were unable to accommodate at the Exposition itself. In late afternoon, I set out for the east wing to visit the queen’s remaining mages.

  “WHAT SORT OF EXHIBITION? I am no acrobat or trained dog to perform tricks for ladies, Acolyte Duplais.” Mage Orviene’s broad face had wrinkled the moment I broached the subject of the Exposition. And once I had described the aligned displays of science and magic, and introduced the idea of his participation, his wrinkles had deepened to ravines. “Dante, were you aware they wanted us to perform at this festival?”

  Dante’s back expressed naught of his thoughts on the matter of Ilario’s Exposition. Since Mage Orviene and I had arrived for this consultation, his only comments had been addressed to Jacard, who was scraping some foul mess from the floor inside the circumoccule. The mound of yellow and green muck smelled as if it could be a dead dog dissolving in quicklime. As the adept applied a blade, a pail, and himself to the unpleasant task, Dante observed the sun-drenched landscape outside his windows as if we weren’t present.

  “I’ve asked Prefect Angloria to sponsor ten fixed displays to parallel the ten fixed displays of the mundane sciences,” I said, smoothing the journal in my lap, as if the prefect herself were tucked away inside it. I needed all the authority I could muster. “Those displays will be open to all guests throughout the morning and early afternoon. But Lucan de Calabria and Aya de Gerson, the Royal Astronomers, will be presenting an optical demonstration for the late-afternoon program in front of Merona’s most influential gathering since His Majesty’s coronation. It is only fitting that we provide magical demonstrations of equal stature, something memorable, that our art might return to the position of prominence it has lacked for so many years. Who better than Castelle Escalon’s resident mages to provide them?”

  Orviene’s small, neat hands kneaded each other in his lap. “But Dante and I have no idea if we hold a position in the royal household any longer, thanks to the cursed Gaetana—may demons plague her Veil journey! Naturally I had noted irregularities, certain dark tendencies in her work, but I don’t believe I shall ever recover from the shock of learning her true depravity. And now Maura ney Billard is arrested, as well. So dreadful, that lovely young woman involved with perversion and murder. Naturally, I’ve never attached the least suspicion to Her Majesty. Truly, Portier, how could we possibly participate in entertainments, even scholarly ones, with our dear mistress so cruelly detained?”

  “No one recognizes that grievous situation more than Lord Ilario, sir mage,” I said. “He is confident our good lady will be free in days, if not hours, and feels that elevating her mages to parity with the king’s academicians will demonstrate her wisdom and insight before a noble audience. And what wish could she herself hold higher than that her dead son be honored with her own mages’ finest works?”

  Orviene blew a resigned sigh and sat back on the couch. “Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? We ought to honor the poor boy. Yes, certainly. I’m sure we can devise something worthy, don’t you think, Dante?”

  “I work alone,” snapped Dante.

  Orviene’s complexion reddened, and his mouth twitched unhappily. Dante, as a master mage, outranked Orviene. Dante’s choice would prevail.

  “Demon spawn!” Jacard’s knife must have caught on something and flipped out of his slimed hand. I glanced up just in time to see the flying blade plop into the gooey middle of the mess. Face curdled like sour milk, the adept stretched out to retrieve it. But his knee slipped, causing his foot to bump the pail, which dumped its contents back onto the floor. A new wave of the vile stench rushed across the room.

  Orviene gagged. I clapped my hand across my nose and mouth. Dante erupted.

  Across the room before an eye could see him, the mage kicked Jacard sprawling into the muck. “Bumbling toadeater! Get out of my sight!”

  The mage’s heavy boot gave the adept no time to get to his feet. Jacard, retching, scrambled straight through the mess, clawed at the door, and stumbled into the passage. Face purpled with fury, Dante spun and extended his staff, already belching fire. As Orviene and I gaped, flame consumed the stinking mess, until only charred streaks on the floor and a choking cloud of green smoke remained.

  Dante strode to the windows and shoved the casements open so violently, I thought the iron frames might bend. Hands, shoulders, every part of him trembling, he heaved deep breaths of the evening air. Gods, what was wrong with him?

  Orviene leapt to his feet and backed toward the door, keeping his chin up and face cold in disapproval. But his eyes were tinged with fear. Likely my own were as well. As when I’d interrupted his work with Gaetana’s book, as when he’d struck the stable lad in Vernase, Dante’s eruptive violence was no mere choleric temper, no playacting, no considered display to keep Orviene off balance and Jacard at a distance. It could not stem solely from his anger with me or in any other way from his time in the
Bastionne, as the incident with the book had preceded his stay with the Camarilla inquisitors. No, this was something else again. All sorcery requires certain expenditures, he’d said once. Was this the price of his brilliance? I hated to consider such a destructive cost, not when I needed him so sorely.

  Orviene waved a limp hand in my direction. “Acolyte Duplais, I shall pursue my own demonstration for the Exposition. Visit my chambers tomorrow, and I’ll discuss requirements.”

  Dante did not turn from the window as the door swung shut behind Orviene. His eyes seemed fixed on the deepening sky, indigo and purple smeared with gold. I urgently needed a private word with him, but could not decide where to begin. And so I waited, wishing I could glimpse his face.

  “Why are you still here?” Arms clamped tightly across his chest, staff tucked in the crook of one elbow, he spat the question through a clenched jaw.

  I edged closer to him, skirting the swathes of charred mahogany. “I need to know if you’ll do this. Before we traveled to Eltevire, you told Ilario you’d some exhibit in mind, something that would ‘shock the twittering birds in this palace.’ ”

  “You’re to attend this display?”

  “Yes, certainly.” The question surprised me. I couldn’t imagine he’d care. “I can see to your requirements—materials, lamps, draperies, parti—objects to be used. Whatever you wish to be provided.”

  “I’ll bring what I need. Be sure to stand where I can see you. Now, if that’s all . . .”

  Angels preserve. Unfortunately, I’d only begun, and no stomach-addling demands to stand in his sight when he worked magic could interfere with all the things I needed to say.

  “Dante,” I said, fingering my journal pages, “I know you wish to be quit of our partnership, but we cannot call our work done quite yet. . . .” His simmering hostility urging me to brevity, I sketched out my growing conviction that the Aspirant would strike one more time on the anniversary of Desmond’s death.