A Drop of Night

by Stefan Bachmann

  “Anouk. Will. Jules. Lilly. I hope you’re doing well.”

  We stop dead in the middle of the room.

  You hope we’re doing well? What are you, a holiday card? It’s like shooting someone in the chest and then asking if they’re hurt. No, we’re not doing well, FREAKHEAD, thanks for asking.

  Dorf doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m sure you’ve noticed you’re not alone down there.” His voice was probably icy smooth when they recorded it, but it pipes in tinny, the flow interrupted by a steady sequence of ticks and fizzes. “You’ve caused quite a bit of trouble. Clever of you to cut the camera feed.”

  “What?” Jules says. Looks over at me. I stare back, shoulders raised in a shrug.

  We didn’t cut the camera feed. We smashed a few lenses in that big hall with the razor wires. That’s it.

  “I want to inform you that your continued movement through the palace is an exercise in futility. It is a house divided, a war zone. You cannot survive it. Even if you were to reach the surface, you will find the world closed to you. Your parents have already been informed of the unfortunate circumstances in which all of you were killed in a plane crash over the Atlantic. The media is running the story. Debris has been found. Your families will be paid a generous settlement.”

  “Are they serious?” Lilly whispers.

  “So you see, it might be best to accept the circumstances as they are. We’d like to make a deal with you. It is of the utmost importance to us that you not be injured. There is another in the depths who would prefer you never reach us. If you are getting this message, if you are still alive—and we’re fairly sure you are—come to the salle des glaces. The hall of mirrors. We’ll meet you there.”

  “Our parents think we’re dead?” Lilly says, full-on panicking now. “They actually think we’re dead?”

  She looks like she’s about to cry, and I feel sorry for her. She loves her parents. They probably love her, too. How awful must that be, knowing they think you’re gone forever when really you’re just lost and trapped and all you want is to get back home?

  Will and Jules have gone really quiet.

  We hurry through the candy-box room’s cloud-blue doors.

  They slam behind us. We’re in an antechamber of some sort, a cloakroom judging by the hundreds of polished oak drawers and cupboards lining the walls. The little desk in one corner. The voice comes on in here.

  “Anouk. Will. Lilly. Jules. I hope you’re doing well—”

  The message repeats itself. I can hear it on the other side of the next set of doors, too. We throw them wide.

  Behind me I hear: “Oh, and to be clear . . .”

  We missed a part.

  “. . . this is not a request.”

  Will closes the doors behind us. We’re standing in a vast, pale hall, almost as big as Razor Hall. A ballroom.

  “These messages are being transmitted in a staggered pattern throughout the palace. If it’s a trap room, we have programmed it to trigger within twenty seconds of this message’s transmission. That should give you enough time and encouragement to move. You’ll have only one safe direction to travel. Toward the salle des glaces. We will be waiting.”

  I pivot. The floor is a checkerboard, white and black.

  Every black panel has a butterfly etched into it.

  Every white one a glaring, angry eye.

  “Trap room,” I say stupidly. “Trap room—”

  We start running, pelting toward the opposite end, but the speakers are off now. The clock is ticking. Twenty seconds. We can do this. The tall double doors are eighty feet away.

  My legs pump. I throw myself forward and the air rushes in my ears, streaking my hair back from my face.

  We reach the doors with ten seconds to spare. They’re locked.

  No. No way.

  A shudder flies through the hall. I can feel it in my entire body, an arthritic clicking, skittering behind the walls. And now every butterfly panel in the floor flips up.

  “Back!” Jules screams. “Back!”

  We whirl, sprinting for the other end. One panel opens right in front of me. I leap. Skid to the side to avoid another.

  Jules is shoving himself to his feet. Running again, limping.

  This isn’t happening. We’re not dying here, right when we were making progress.

  My lungs burn. I run faster, barely manage to dance around one of the holes in the floor. Something’s rising out of it. Glass globules, floating on thin wires, like delicate balloons. They shimmer coldly, poison blue.

  “They’re not going to kill us,” I whisper to myself. “They need us for something; they’re not going to kill us—”

  The glass balloons are drifting up by the dozens. Some reach hip height; others rise higher, diffusing the light and throwing it down like iridescent jellyfish. They begin to sway, ringing softly, piercingly.

  The one nearest to Will bursts with a musical pling! A cloud hangs where the glass was. Blue, spreading. Will swerves to the side. Whatever is in that globe got on his arm. His sleeve is smoking.

  The hall is full of the balloons now, hundreds upon hundreds, swaying gently. They’re so close together, almost touching. I can’t run anymore. I’ve slowed to a walk, slithering between them. They’re shifting against my thighs, bubbling around my shoulders. Pling! I hear, somewhere close by. Pling!

  Fifteen feet to the door. Only fifteen feet.

  “It’s burning me,” Will mutters, somewhere to my left. “It’s burning me!”

  A globe brushes my cheek. I feel like I’m choking, drowning in a clinking glass sea. Something pops close to my ear. I feel a prickle. The sudden itch of a million tiny crystals, and now wetness. Blood?

  No-no-no, NO, it’s going to burn me, burn my face. I gasp, clamp my mouth closed, and breathe through my nose. High above, the lights begin to flicker. Or maybe it’s me. Maybe my eyes are dissolving. The itch on my ear has turned into a screeching pain, burrowing under skin and into bone.

  “Keep moving, Ooky,” I say to myself. “You can make it.”

  I fall. I’m crushing them under me. Blue powder is everywhere, and I hear Lilly screaming. Will grunting in pain.

  I roll onto my back, my arms clamped over my face, glass bulbs popping and hissing under me. I look up. The blue is closing over me, an ocean of glass and creeping fumes. My eyes are tearing up, my throat closing. I think I hear something, far away, beyond the shimmering whine of the globes—

  “Anouk!”

  I shove myself to my hands and knees. I’m coughing, a deep chesty hack. I feel it ripping out of me, but the sound is far away. My eyes are burning, tears streaming down my cheeks. Through the blur I see a figure. It’s running toward me, almost flying, a shadowy shape against the lights.

  It’s not Will. Not Jules or Lilly.

  I think of the laughing woman in her red gown. Perdu in his loose, bloodied shirt.

  I sway, tip forward. See crushed glass and whole glass rising to meet me. The wind-chime plink of the globes is suddenly deafening. Someone is coming toward me. Throwing something—a rope?

  Shouting, yelling for me to grab hold. The lights are still flickering, chopping out. I raise my head. And I see . . .

  It’s Hayden. He’s standing at the edge of the field of glass bulbs. His hair is matted, plastered to his scalp. Grime and blood slick his skin. He’s yelling at me.

  I grab the rope. It’s thick and tasseled.

  I’m out from among the poison bulbs in one pull, squeaking over the floor.

  “Hey, Anouk,” Hayden says, and that jerk-face grin is on at a thousand watts as he drags me to my feet and shoves me toward the doors. “Better run.”

  Palais du Papillon—Chambres Jacinthe—112 feet below, 1790

  On the seventy-fourth day of my entombment, a visitor arrives.

  I am still in bed, half asleep, and in that foggy valley between waking and dreaming I dare hope my visitor is Jacques and we are leaving now, finding my sisters, returning to the sunlight. . . .r />
  I hear the rasp of a coat, heavy velvet, the whisper of lace.

  “Aurélie? Wake. I have a surprise for you.”

  My eyes crack open. Father is bustling toward me like a great swollen blood fly. The white lead paint that clings in flakes and patches to his face cannot hide how old he has become. Skin hangs in swags off his skull. His eyes are sunken, his wig is askew, and his red coat is stained and wrinkled, as if he has not changed in many days.

  I sit bolt upright. “Father? Father, what is the meaning of this—”

  He ignores me. He begins to pace along the side of the bed, his hands tight around the head of his cane. “A surprise,” he says, impatient and wheedling. “Dress quickly, and let us be on our way. It was a success!”

  I slide out of bed opposite from where Father paces and hurry behind a painted silk screen. What was a success? What does he mean, and what am I to do?

  I have been waiting for someone to come—Father or Havriel or the head butler, Monsieur Vallé—someone to explain to me this horrible aloneness. But now Father is here and I am caught like a maid in the wine cellar, drowsy and foolish. This is both too sudden and too late.

  “Hurry,” I hear Father muttering, his heavy step as he wanders through the room, the rattle and clink of objects he touches. “Hurry, hurry.”

  I feel in the dark for my clothing. I will wear it all today—stockings, petticoats, hoops, more petticoats, and damask skirts. I begin to wriggle into the cold things. When I feel suitably well armored, I step from behind the panels and fix Father with a cold stare.

  “Father,” I say, and my voice is vinegar. “Good health to you. It is wonderful to see you again. I’m sure you have been very busy, but I must confess, I have found the explanations for my imprisonment, for my separation from my sisters and our complete isolation, to be rather slow in revealing themselves.”

  Father looks straight through me, his piggish eyes fixed on a point on the wall behind me. “A success,” he says, and flutters his great hands. “Come! Come!”

  My skin crawls. “Father,” I say again. My voice shivers. “You will speak to me, please. I am your daughter. I am kept here as a prisoner, without human company, without a word of justification. Our mother is dead, my sisters are alone, and we cannot mourn her, or comfort each other; we—”

  Father’s eyes are on me now, twitching, making a diagram of my face. Then the stupidness and the dullness return and he throws back his head. “Havriel?” he cries in his high, quavering voice. “Havriel, she is being a goat!”

  Instinctively, I take a step back behind the screen, as if it will protect me. Havriel opens the door to my bedchamber. He is holding a blindfold.

  I cry out at the sight of it. I scream, and my hand closes around the nearest thing, a china figure of a dog. I hurl it with all my strength. “Get out!” I shriek. “Get out! I will not be kept this way!”

  The dog shatters a full yard from where Father stands. The two men stare at me, and I feel such a fury toward their great, slow selves. Havriel starts toward me again. I cower behind the screen, my skirts pooling. He pulls me upright and slips the blindfold partway over my eyes. I struggle. It is no use. His hands are as large as my head. He could crush my skull with nothing but his fingers.

  “Aurélie,” he says, and there is a warning in his voice. “Do not.”

  And now the blindfold is in place, and I see only darkness.

  “Come, come,” I hear Father mumbling. “Come and see.”

  Havriel pulls me through the chamber. I am trembling, anger and hate twisting inside me. I am not your puppet! I am not your dog; you cannot treat me this way!

  But they do.

  We step out into the hallway. The doors click shut behind me and we walk in silence. I do not cry. Father would not notice. Havriel would, and perhaps he would pity me, but he does not deserve to act the good man. He is as guilty as anyone in this pit.

  I try to focus on the number of steps I am taking, try to remember where we turn, how many doors we pass through, how the floor changes beneath my feet. Parquet, marble, carpet, parquet. But we walk for so long and pass through so many chambers that after a time it becomes impossible to remember the sequence. I can recall the length of the first passage and three of the ensuing rooms, the fragrant, jumbled scent of potpourri and dried rose petals in the first, a crackling fire in the third, and then it all becomes tangled together and I am lost.

  We are descending stairs now. Stairs? Are there more levels than one in this palace? The air turns dank. My shoes scuff against stone. We are in a close space for a brief moment, and with my vision snuffed out, it seems my nose seeks to make up for it, capturing every nuance and shade of scent around me: Father’s perfumes, matting the air like fur—cloves and freesia and rich ointments. The slightly mildewed smell of clothing, sweat and silk and wool. Something flat and dull from Havriel, like salt and stone. A key is inserted into a lock, followed by the soft grind of many prongs sliding back.

  Huge metal hinges yawn open. I am pushed forward. The blindfold loosens from my head. I blink.

  I am standing in a banquet hall. The colors here are entirely red and black, a disconcerting, flickering panorama, deep shadows and black wood and ruddy brocade. Even the light seems red, a murky, bloody glow.

  Behind me Father is snuffling with excitement. Havriel remains impassive as a mountain. I turn and see the door we came through. It is like none I have ever seen before, low and built of iron—thick as a wall, its surface a labyrinth of bolts and complex gear systems.

  “Look,” says Father. “Look, Aurélie!”

  My gaze darts around the hall, adjusting to the red light.

  I see a long table, many chairs, dim, low-hanging chandeliers, tongues of red flame smoldering behind the crystals.

  “I do not know what I should be seeing,” I say coldly.

  Havriel goes to a brass knob beside the door and turns it with a soft squeak. The red lights flare, not brighter, but hotter.

  “We are so close,” Father says. “So close to achieving what we have been seeking.”

  I peer into the blaze. Someone is seated in the shadows at the end of the table. It is a woman. She wears a towering gray wig, ornamented with jewels and a small boat. Her neck is slender, her shoulders delicate. Her great skirts are so wide they spill around the corners of the table, a watery foam of white and blue.

  I see her face.

  My skin seems to detach from me, loosening from bone and muscle as if it seeks to escape. Father is speaking, but his voice rings hollow, echoing up from the bottom of a well. The red lights reduce to pinpricks.

  It is Mama. She is lovely, her mouth a glimmering crimson bow. I see her bust rising and falling beneath a necklace of sapphires. She is breathing. Alive.

  She catches sight of me and raises her hand, waving. “Aurélie, my sweet!” she calls out, and her voice is high and soft. I see a bullet, bursting slowly from the mouth of a gun, blood creeping over cloth, a pretty face, dripping tears—

  It cannot be.

  32

  We collapse just inside the doors. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel anything but pain, like a swarm of microscopic insects burrowing into my flesh.

  “Hayden,” I mumble. Something bitter and chalky is coating my tongue. “Hayden?”

  There’s no way it’s him. I saw him die.

  I’m looking along the floor at the others. My vision is blurry, all flickering shadows and sudden, poisonous bursts of color when someone moves.

  I see Lilly and Jules. They’re scratching between their fingers, spitting on them, tears streaming down their faces. At least they have fingers. Will is next to them. His right hand is half gone, three of his digits burned to nubs. He’s hunched over, eyes closed, teeth gritted.

  I try to sit up. I feel my cheek knock against the floor, and I realize my sitting-up attempt has failed. I have absolutely no sense of balance. The chandeliers are out, replaced by a murky green glow. Emergency lighting. Dorf’s voic
e is droning somewhere in the distance. Muffled. Thumping.

  And Hayden’s still here. He hasn’t turned into a hallucination and disappeared. He’s kneeling next to Will, trying to pry his arm away from his chest.

  I get myself into a semi-upright position. Immediately I feel like I’m going to vomit. My skin is stiff and dry, like the outside layer has hardened into a shell. My legs are still attached. That’s cool. They feel like deadweights, prickly stumps, but at least they’re there.

  I rub the side of my face. Flakes of skin come off on my fingertips. A tuft of hair.

  “Hayden,” I rasp, and I sound like a wicked witch, a million years old. “I saw them kill you.”

  Hayden turns. His face flickers oddly in the shadows and the green light. He leaves Will. I catch a whiff of him as he approaches. Oh, gross. He smells rank. Worse than us, and I doubt we smell like roses, either, after this many hours down here. It’s a blood smell, but also dirt and damp, sweaty clothes, and something dark, hot, tarry.

  “Yeah, well, I felt them kill me. Stop scratching; you’ll spread the poison. Wave your arms to get the particles off and don’t put your fingers near your mouth.”

  I stare at him. Blink. Behind my eyelids I see: Hayden, lying on the floor of the cube room. Miss Sei, trailing a thumb along his brow. The nozzle driving in—

  “How do you know?” I ask quietly. “What happened to you?”

  He ignores me, gives my ear a cursory inspection, and apparently doesn’t deem it problematic because he’s heading over to Jules and Lilly now. “We can’t stay here,” he says over his shoulder. “This room isn’t rigged, but there’re some traps between here and where we need to be.”

  “Oh, and where do we need to be, Hayden?” I say, spiteful, because if he’s a hallucination he’s a stupid know-it-all one. I wave my arms anyway, sitting on the ground and swinging them in circles like some sort of demented flightless bird.

  “I found a panic room,” Hayden says. “About six rooms that way.” He jabs a finger toward a door in what I think is the western wall.

  I drop my arms. “A panic room?”