“So we have thirty hours to find that client and have him or her change their mind. But who is it?”
Tristan bit his lip.
“You remember when I told you that most of my family was dead or estranged?”
“Yes.” And it still made me feel sad for him.
“Well, Dora’s client is one of my cousins, a very powerful and very bad man.”
“Oh, that’s good. I mean, that you’re related.”
If the man was his cousin, Tristan must have leverage on him.
“No, Victoire, it’s not good at all. This guy—his name is Hughes—hates my guts. It means I can’t ask him to drop the matter and forget about you. I would only make things worse.”
“Oh.”
“He can never know that we are friends. It would be reason enough for him to target you.”
“Oh,” I said, my spirits rapidly deteriorating now.
“Dora knows all of this, and despite all of her flaws, she’s always been a good friend to me. So, after I presented you as my bad little habit, she agreed to meet Hughes here tomorrow night, at the bar opening, so that you could talk to him and work something out with him directly. I’ll be there if needed but would much prefer to stay quiet. I’ll only come out of the shadows as the very last resort.”
“Okay. Why do it here, then, though?”
“Because I still want to be here in case something happens, and you’ll be here anyway because you’re playing, remember? But Victoire, since I can’t play the middleman and Dora will have to do it, you’ll need to be nice to her. You’ll also need some coaching. There are things you can or can’t say or do when speaking with someone like Hughes. He’s really full of himself. And you’ll need a strong backstory. Do you think you could work with all that? Dora would be putting herself on the line. She would be doing it for me.”
I considered the plan. I didn’t think I had any other choice, not if I decided I could believe Tristan. And I thought he was telling the truth, even if I didn’t like it.
“What did it cost you? To get Dora to help you?”
“That’s not important.”
But his mouth was a straight line now. Whatever Dora had asked for, it didn’t agree with him very well.
“You know,” I said on an impulse, “maybe I should just open these mysterious fireproof boxes and be done with it. This is all getting ridiculous.”
He sighed and deflated completely. He looked even more defeated than when he’d entered the room.
“You don’t take this seriously,” he said reproachfully. “After seeing magic with your own eyes, after entering my realm, and Dora’s, you still think this is some kind of joke.”
“No. I see it’s real; at least it’s very real to you, and you are real to me.”
That seemed to be the answer he needed. It wasn’t trust yet, but it was a start.
“But…” he prompted.
“But see: I’m blind in that world of yours. I can’t appreciate the danger. And I want to trust you, but I’m used to freedom and to making my own decisions. Can you at least tell me what could be in the boxes?”
He shrugged.
“Your death. The ugly truth about a loved one. A curse.”
“In five pieces, in five boxes?”
He shrugged again.
“It’s been known to happen. This is what you learn at a very early age, in my world: don’t ever open an unmarked box when you don’t know for sure what’s in it. Everyone has a great-aunt who died because she forgot that.”
“Your world is pretty weird.”
It was very late, much too late to think now. Tristan was leaning heavily against the bar. He looked exhausted. It was time to call it a day, so that’s what we did. We went back to the front door in silence, walking together, but a small distance apart. The Circus Manager costume had faded away completely, leaving him in the tuxedo he’d been wearing earlier at Dora’s party.
“See you tomorrow,” he said when we’d reached the door. “Everything better tomorrow.”
I grinned at his disintegrating syntax.
“Thank you for…whatever you did.”
He made a face.
“Don’t waste time tomorrow. There’s nothing left to do at the bar. You should come to my place directly when you wake up. Will you do that?”
I nodded. I’d gathered he could not come to my world in broad daylight or something like that. But the opposite seemed to be possible.
“Just take the same road as last night, okay?”
And then it struck me.
“Oh! No. I have a car problem. You sent me back here, but my car was in Moulins, at that laundromat. The guys need it tomorrow morning to get to work.”
“I’ll lend you mine,” he said, handing me his keys. “You can drive them and then take the road to my place.”
“How will you go home?”
He grinned.
“I have my ways.”
“And what if I can’t find the road?”
“I put it in the navigation system. When you get there, we can prepare for tomorrow night’s meeting. Not now. I’m knackered, and I really need to rest, and so do you.”
I opened and closed my mouth several times, and when I finally was able to ask a question, here’s what came out:
“So if I drive your car, will it be a lime-green convertible with a broken window, or a black sedan?”
He smiled again and didn’t answer. One second later, he’d disappeared, leaving me alone in the small room.
20
As soon as I veered off the main road and onto the country lane that was supposed to lead to Tristan’s castle, a thick fog seemed to rise out of the ground itself to surround the car, blocking the pale gray morning light. I pressed my back into the soft leather seat and turned the heating up to the max. While driving Sam and Thom earlier, I’d turned on the radio for some jazz music to go with the ride, but it was silent now.
Thom had complained about his car staying in Moulins, but I’d only taken a minimum amount of teasing from them about Tristan, probably because neither of us had slept much. Thom and Sam had definitely seen the green convertible, not the black sedan. They’d gotten a kick out of the green moleskin seats that were apparently losing their foam filling. I, on the other hand, had been pretty sure they were reclining in expensive black leather seats. Despite how much fun they made of Tristan, I thought he’d managed to instill some respect in them. They felt confident about the night’s show and happy with the last songs we’d added to our repertoire. When I’d hugged them goodbye, overcome by a wave of uncharacteristic sentimentality, they hadn’t complained.
The fog was getting thicker now around the car: I’d even turned on the headlights, as a precaution. I supposed there were still fields around the road, but I couldn’t see them anymore. It was difficult just following the path, and yet there was a hypnotic quality about this journey. Or maybe it was just the exhaustion. Drifting from one thought to another, I started wondering about Tristan’s cousin, Hughes. Tristan had implied they were enemies. How did cousins come to fight like that? I had a cousin myself. Her name was Louise. She was the sweetest person on the planet. She lived in Scotland now, because she’d met a man in a kilt. I loved her to bits. There really wasn’t a mean bone in her body.
Granted, we weren’t from a big family with vast lands. We had no wealth, no title, nothing much to fight over. Maybe that was Tristan and Hughes’s problem? First-world issues? Tristan didn’t seem to be one to fight for power, but I didn’t know him all that well. I wondered what kind of man this Hughes was, if he truly was as mean and frightening as Tristan had painted him to me.
I’d dived so deep inside my own thoughts that when the voice spoke inside my head, I nearly drove off the road. I took a sharp turn to compensate for my temporary loss of control and swerved brutally to the other lane. I slammed the brakes and immediately jumped out of my seat. My belt stopped me from crashing into the steering wheel. I fell back into the soft lea
ther and swore, my heart racing. Good thing the road was empty.
What in the name of the King had just happened? It had felt as if a deep, masculine voice had just boomed directly between my ears, inside my skull.
Who is this? it had said. And why are you thinking about me?
Who on Earth had that been? I was still trembling when I started the car again. Of course, I had a very good idea as to who it had been.
Hughes, that’s who.
I could be mistaken, but Tristan and Dora weren’t the only persons in this world I seemed to have a very special connection with.
21
I didn’t know where on the planet I was, but one thing was for sure: time was flowing very differently here. It was still dark in the ancient forest, beyond the thick fog, and I had to drive very slowly, just to keep on the road.
The mist in front of me cleared unexpectedly, seconds before I would have hit the iron gates that guarded Tristan’s property. I slammed the brakes again and the car stopped just shy of the iron bars.
“Holy guitar solo!”
I breathed deeply to calm my nerves while the gates opened all by themselves, like they’d done on that evening two days ago. Sure, magic did seem to have its perks, I thought, starting the car again to drive up the majestic alley lined with gnarly old trees.
I wondered if I was going to see the stag again, but the short drive through the property was pretty uneventful. The moon was shining again over the vast expanse of land, and the white gravel driveway reverberated its light.
Tristan opened the door to the castle and came out just as I parked his car in front. This time, he’d gone through the trouble of actually using the big entrance. He strolled out of the building, looking a little more rested than the previous night and wearing his usual all-black attire: black dress pants, black shirt, and a black jacket with a high collar that managed to look both stylish and casual. In the strong white moonlight, he looked like nobility in a gothic novel. Breathtaking, mysterious, and haunted. He greeted me with a tight, close-lipped smile.
“How was the drive?”
“Good. Short. Except, at some point, someone spoke into my head and I nearly drove off the road. It may have been Hughes. I was thinking about him when it happened.”
Tristan froze. “What? Are you serious?”
“Would I joke about something like that?”
I told him everything. This earned me an even grimmer, even more thoughtful expression.
“Do you think he recognized you?” he asked. “How can you be sure it was him?”
“I can’t. And I don’t know if he recognized me. I don’t see how: we don’t know each other. Is that kind of behavior frequent in your world? Telepathy?”
He rolled his eyes. “You mean, do we spend our time thinking at each other, summoning each other, and showing up uninvited in other people’s realms, breaking all their defense mechanisms? Nope.”
“Not even a little?”
“No. For us to do this, spells are required, high-level spells.”
“Maybe Hughes was just casting one of those.”
“I highly doubt it. We don’t do that kind of stuff for fun. As I just told you, it’s high-level magic. It requires mastery, focus, commitment.”
“Maybe Hughes was committed. He seems the type.”
Tristan shook his head. “Commitment, as in human sacrifice, Vic.”
I gaped at him. Surely I must have misheard.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“You mean, as in killing actual people? Killing them dead?”
“Yes. I mean, as in slashing their veins with a silver blade and letting their life blood flow into a silver basin. All ten pints of it. Effectively killing them dead by bleeding them dry. And they have to remain conscious for as long as possible while you cast the spell. This is how you open a door, actually—a smallish one. It’s nasty stuff. You don’t do it casually, just like that. For each family to create a doorway, there’s a heavy price to pay. You do it once, and it lasts for centuries. When I retreat into this realm, I actually rely on a terrible sacrifice that was made a millennium ago. The victims consented and we still carry the guilt in many, many ways.”
Oh, sweet naked baby.
“I swear I’m not sacrificing people left and right,” I said, sobering up.
“I know that. But maybe you should pace yourself, because not everyone is going to believe it. And we need to make sure where you’re drawing all that energy from. It has to come from somewhere.”
“Oh, hell. What did you think when I first summoned you?”
He made a face. “A summoning of any kind will scare you shitless. It’s black magic. It wasn’t exactly a first for me, but I knew there was a good chance it would end in my violent death. Suddenly I found myself in this wasted old room, smelling of mold and decay, and someone was knocking on that old wooden door. I opened it, ready to strike, but instead of a big bad black magic practitioner, I found the cutest little thing and her three puppy friends.”
I showed him my teeth. “We’re not cute. We’re serious musicians.”
“I was just trying to explain things from my point of view.”
And just like that, it occurred to me: when he’d come to meet me here, he’d looked grim and closed off. But after two minutes of this surreal exchange about the darkest stuff, he was smiling again. I tilted my head at him, and he mirrored my gesture, raising his eyebrows.
I explained: “I can’t figure out if it’s talking about black magic that you find relaxing or if it’s just plain talking to a human being.”
I was starting to think that he spent too much time on his own in that giant, lonely castle on top of a hill.
“What makes you think it isn’t just talking to you?”
But I wasn’t ready to go in that direction.
“Do you ever see other people?” I asked. “Besides Dora?”
He laughed.
“Of course I do. Well, there’s my staff. My numbers guy, my suppliers, the cleaning crew, the gardening team.”
I snorted. “No. I mean, friends, not employees. I’m sure they’re decent people, but the relationship is tainted, by definition.”
We stood in silence for a second before he evaded the conversation completely.
“Well, are you ready to see the house now? Because I’ve just opened a room or two, just for the sake of comfort, for today. I wouldn’t say the temperature inside is toasty, but it’s survivable.”
I smiled. “I’d love to.”
I felt flattered. Was I special? I had my doubts. But one thing was sure: come tonight, I would meet this infamous Hughes who seemed to have a beef with me, and this whole weird story would be over, one way or the other.
In the meantime, I might as well play the strange game.
“We have a lot of ground to cover today,” Tristan explained to me as we crossed the gravel path. “I have an idea or two of things we might try, just to make some guesses as to why you called me, even before my cousin sent you those damned boxes. There has to be an explanation.”
“I’m in for that.”
“Then, depending on what we learn, we need to come up with a good backstory for you, and by this I mean a story you’ll actually believe, deep inside your thick skull.”
“Oh-kayyy.”
“And last but not least, we’ll talk escape tactics. For tonight.”
We’d gone up the flight of white stone stairs, and he led me inside his castle with an inviting gesture.
“This way, please.” There was a hint of Circus Manager Tristan in his tone and demeanor. Maybe he did it when he was feeling stressed out.
I made it two steps inside before I stopped, mesmerized. This place was huge. The entrance reminded me of Chambord, one of the most spectacular royal castles in the Loire area, where everything looked as if it had been built for actual giants. You could get a very bad case of wryneck, just trying to spot the ceiling in the darkness behind the
crystal chandeliers and the stone archways as massive as a cathedral’s. The floor was white stones of cyclopean dimensions, just like the thick columns. Wool and silk carpets in rich colorful tones that seemed to stretch for miles fought hard to make the place a little less impressive and more inviting. Two positively gigantic fireplaces were doing what they could to heat up the place while projecting moving lights around them.
The high walls, covered in green wallpapers adorned with golden patterns, almost disappeared under quantities of portraits in all sizes, and there were hunting trophies everywhere. Stag heads crowned with majestic sets of antlers rising in arabesques above them, casting huge shadows against the walls. Boars, snarling around extraordinarily prominent tusks. Even bears, and eagles, and enormous badgers. There were animal heads growling on every free wall surface, hundreds of them. It looked like massacres had taken place here, and willing human victims hadn’t been the only ones to bleed out.
“Genocide much?” were the words that escaped my lips, right before I thought better. “I mean, I’m sorry. It’s very impressive, very grand, and not a little frightening.”
“The Rentiers are hunters and always have been,” Tristan said with a grim smile. “We respect wildlife, but sometimes things have to be done to reestablish a balance before nature takes hold of the woods completely.”
“Yeah, a point frequently made by hunters in my world.”
Tristan laughed. “Those are just self-serving, bloodthirsty hobbyists,” he said.
“Whereas you…?”
“Whereas we are self-serving, bloodthirsty professionals,” he said.
“That’s much better. Do you really hunt? You, Tristan, personally?”
He made a face. “Not really. I don’t like it much. But sometimes I have to do something, and then I will organize a hunting party, yes.”
I grimaced. “With dogs?”
His eyes widened. “Why would we use dogs? No. It’s just us, bows and arrows, and knives, against the spirits of the forest.”
Now that sounded pretty dangerous. And fun. And antiquated.
“If we still know each other, the next time it happens, can I come?” I asked, curious.
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