by Morgan Rice
As she kept working to remove her makeup, Heloise found herself thinking of all the things that might be next for her. There might be invitations to perform for important people, invitations to parties and balls, perhaps even just invitations to be seen in all the right places. She’d heard of actresses having their portraits painted by members of the Salon, so possibly she might even find herself immortalized that way.
At the very least, there would be more performances. Even if Amelie came back tomorrow, Heloise suspected that she would still have the role of Juliet tomorrow night. After that, if things continued to go well, she could have her pick of the Paris theatres. Her name would be the first one that directors thought of when they needed a lead actress for their plays, rather than one relegated far down the list, behind a dozen others. She would be able to command her own fees, maybe even enough for a home in the Place Vendome, certainly enough to get her out of a single room in la Marais.
Heloise was still thinking through the possibilities that might flow from tonight when she heard the click of the door behind her.
“Is that you, Suzette?” Heloise asked. Perhaps it wasn’t her fellow actor; perhaps it was whoever had left the flowers. Heloise was still trying to consider exactly how to respond to such a bold move when she caught sight of the figure moving towards her in her dressing room mirror.
The figure wore a full opera cloak, with the hood up to obscure their face. They wore kidskin gloves, and moved with a sinuous kind of grace.
Even then, Heloise thought that it might be her admirer. After all, someone who would send roses with no note might go to this much trouble as well to avoid people knowing their identity. Perhaps, she thought, it was some great figure of the Emperor’s court, a grand marshal or a notable figure of the Assembly that he summoned only when it suited him. Perhaps it was some famed artist or writer, one of the great figures of the Paris scene who wanted to remain mysterious.
Then Heloise saw the velvet rope in the stranger’s gloved hands, and sudden fear ran through her.
“What are you-”
Before Heloise could finish, or think to cry out, the rope was around her neck. Her hands went up, scrabbling at it as she panicked. She fought to breathe, to call for help, to break free, but the figure behind her pulled her tight against themselves, in an embrace that might almost have been loving except for the cord cutting off the air to her lungs.
A stupid part of Heloise wanted to demand of her attacker if they understood who she was? Who she was about to become? This wasn’t what was meant for her.
But it was clearly what her assailant wanted for her. They kept the pressure on the rope, viciously strong, pulling against Heloise’s neck as if they might slice clean through it with the rope. She tried to get her fingers under it, but already, Heloise could feel pressure building up in her head, and the world starting to turn dark around her.
She’d acted a death scene out on the stage just minutes before. It wasn’t anything like this. There was nothing grand about this, nothing that would move an audience to applaud through their tears. There was something ugly about this kicking, jerking, gasping scene, where Heloise’s legs wouldn’t work anymore and now it seemed that she was dangling from the rope like a marionette. It might count as tragedy, but even then, not the kind that people would remember.
Perhaps some would, Heloise thought as the last of her strength ebbed away. Perhaps a few would remember, years from now, the night they had seen the finest performance of Juliet they had ever laid eyes on, only for the chance for more to be snatched away.
She was meant to be the finest actress in Paris, not this. Not this…
CHAPTER EIGHT
Kaia stared out of the window of the carriage that formed the last leg of their journey, wanting to see Paris as soon as it came into view in the early evening. A flush of excitement rose through her at the prospect of it, because the very idea of Paris seemed special and different, even compared to London.
Then she saw it, and her breath caught.
“It’s huge,” Kaia said, as the sheer scale of the city started to spread out ahead.
“Only London holds more people,” Pinsley said. Looking across, Kaia couldn’t tell if he was sharing her sense of awe at this strange place, but then, it was always hard to read exactly what the inspector was feeling.
This wasn’t London, though. Both were grand cities, and both seemed to have a river at their heart. Both had huge buildings, and presumably huge numbers of people going from place to place, about their business. Yet they were nothing alike. The cathedral that loomed over the city was more squarely edged than St Paul’s would have been back home, while the blocky shape of what looked like a fortress, or perhaps a prison, rose up not far away.
“Those are Notre Dame and the Bastille,” Inspector Pinsley said, following Kaia’s gaze. “It was used as a prison, and stormed during their revolution here. Although there were only seven prisoners in it at the time.”
“Seven?” Kaia said. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would it matter if there were only seven people?”
She saw Pinsley shrug. “Perhaps because the symbol of it mattered more than what it achieved practically? Although there was also the part where it was used for storing armaments.”
Kaia couldn’t imagine being at the heart of something as world-changing as a revolution. It was the kind of thing that happened to other people.
“And then the revolution stopped and we ended up with the current Emperor?” Kaia said.
Pinsley looked as if he couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.
“When they taught us history, it was the history of the British Empire,” Kaia said, not wanting to seem stupid. “I guess they never thought any of us would end up in Paris.”
The Garrows had probably never thought that their wards would go anywhere beyond the sculleries and the bedchambers of better folk. They definitely hadn’t cared. They’d taught the children at the orphanage little, and that by rote, so that Kaia could recite the kings and queens of England, but had no way of knowing about this.
“They had a revolution against their kings,” Pinsley said, in the disapproving tones of someone loyal to Queen Victoria and her government. “Then various counter revolutions. Then Napoleon I took power and proclaimed himself Emperor. We beat him at Waterloo. After that, the monarchy was restored. Then it was overthrown by the second republic, which the current Napoleon, Napoleon III, took the place of.”
“That’s a lot to remember,” Kaia said.
“It is probably better not to speak about it too much,” Pinsley suggested. “The Sûreté, the police in the cities, will be on the lookout for anyone who seems to be talking about revolution, or the past, or anything even remotely suspicious. Especially after the attempt to kill the Emperor.”
Kaia would try to remember that. The last thing she wanted was to end up in the cells of an entirely different city. Suddenly, the city took on an entirely new tone as they approached it. It was somewhere they were both going to have to be careful, somewhere that could cause trouble for both of them, even as the larger threat of the shadows lurked.
Even so, it was beautiful. Their carriage drove down broad, tree lined streets, some of which still seemed to be under construction. The buildings had a classical, almost triumphal feel to them, as if the whole route they were on had been designed to be paraded down. Perhaps it had. Ahead, there was a giant archway that had clearly been put in place purely so that people could walk to it on the way to the great buildings of the city.
“Let’s walk from here,” Pinsley suggested, and shouted something up to the carriage driver in French. The carriage drew to a halt, and they both alighted.
Even the smell of the city was different than London. While it still had some of the industrial stink of a big city, Kaia could also make out the scents of bread and garlic in the air, and pick out the perfumes of some of the women who passed on the street.
As she and the inspector set off walk
ing, Kaia could also see the way the broad expanses of the main avenues gave way to twisting, older looking streets behind. There were staircases leading down, too, some obviously leading to cellars, but some not seeming to make sense to Kaia.
“What are they?” she asked the inspector.
“Paris is built on layers of old catacombs,” Pinsley explained. “And on layers of old buildings, too, since the Romans and even before. It means that there is a city beneath the city that some of its criminals use.”
“There’s nothing like that in London,” Kaia said.
“Only because London is built much lower down,” Pinsley said. “As even Mr. Brunel’s engineers are finding, digging tunnels beneath it means dealing with flooding. The Seine is much less intrusive than the Thames.”
Kaia started to wander the streets. There were bakers’ shops that seemed to sell cakes that were tinier and more delicate than anything Kaia had seen before. There were dressmakers who were displaying designs finer than Kaia could even imagine. The whole city felt like the kind of place that it would be easy to get swept away in.
“The question now,” Pinsley said, as practical as ever. “Is how we find what we have come here for.”
He didn’t add anything about trying to work out if there really was anything to come there for, but Kaia knew he was probably thinking it. She knew that even now that he’d seen what she could do, he still didn’t believe everything to do with the shadows and the threat that they posed.
That should have hurt. It should have been discouraging that he didn’t believe her about all of it, yet Kaia didn’t find herself thinking of it like that. Instead, she felt gratitude that even when Pinsley didn’t really believe in everything she could see, he had still come all this way, to Paris. He’d trusted her enough to come with her, even when he couldn’t see the reason for it himself.
Now, Kaia had to justify that level of trust by finding the threat that the shadows posed here, and the Shadowseers, and her sister. The only question was how she would do that.
Kaia could remember what it had been like back in London, when she’d found the shadow that had possessed Xander. She’d felt that shadow from a distance, becoming aware of its presence the way she might have picked up on the change in the air that came before it started raining. Kaia thought that she could remember what that sensation felt like, with a sense of wrongness to it that was the same as nothing else.
Could she find that feeling again?
“We should start by finding somewhere to stay,” Pinsley said.
Kaia nodded, but she was already trying to pay attention to the city. She stretched out her senses as broadly as she could, trying to get a feel for the city. For a second or two, all that happened was that she heard more conversations she couldn’t understand, smelled more of the scents of cooking in a style that had nothing to do with pork pies or jellied eels.
“Shall we go, Kaia?” the inspector asked. “Perhaps we can find a hotel in one of the better areas, and then perhaps find a newspaper to establish what is happening in the city.”
All of that sounded sensible to Kaia, except in that moment, she caught the barest hint of the wrongness that came from the shadows. At least, she thought she did. It was hard to be certain. This didn’t feel as strong as it had back in London, but perhaps that just meant that it wasn’t as close by.
It was so faint that for a moment, Kaia thought perhaps she might be imagining it, and that the effort of trying to feel something had deceived her. What if it was real, though? Could she really afford to give up this chance?
Not knowing what else to do, Kaia set off into the city.
“Kaia? Where are you going?” Pinsley called after her, and a glance back told Kaia that he was hurrying along in her wake.
“I think I’ve found something,” Kaia said. She dodged out of the way of a horse, and was grateful for the first time since getting to France that she couldn’t speak French, judging by the tone of the things the rider called after her.
She set off through the streets, off the broad avenues and through smaller streets where the houses looked just as run down as in some parts of London. Kaia was sure that she could feel the traces of the shadow, now, and that it wasn’t just an illusion.
“We can’t just set off blindly through the city like this,” Pinsley said. He sounded worried for her. “We could end up anywhere.”
“It’s the same as the night we found Xander,” Kaia called back to him, sidestepping a couple of pedestrians who appeared to be arguing about the price of a string of onions. She couldn’t explain exactly what was going on, but she hoped that would be enough to keep the inspector following, at least.
Kaia reached the river, and there were bridges set over it that looked both elegant and almost new compared to those back home, made of white stone and decorated with yet more of the imperial symbols that she’d seen ever since they’d arrived in France. Kaia hurried across it, trying to focus on the feeling that led her onwards.
Notre Dame sat ahead, the cathedral rising up over the city, and for a moment or two, Kaia thought that perhaps the feeling was leading her in its direction. Instead, though, she found herself veering off into another district, one that seemed to be filled with venues advertising entertainments. A house Kaia passed had an artist painting from a balcony, while there were cafés here and there, busy even during the day.
Kaia took turnings, and at each one now she paused, trying to work out which way the sensation felt strongest. It meant that she found herself pulled along through the streets by it, trying to find whatever shadow lay ahead.
Maybe she and the inspector would be able to complete all this quickly. Maybe this feeling would be all they needed to lead them both straight to the shadows, and from there they could finish this. That hope made Kaia hurry, quickening her step until she stood in front of a large building that she was sure was where the sensation was coming from.
At first glance, it was a beautiful building, on a par with any of the grandest in the city. It had classical columns, and a broad, expansive façade that echoed the imperial lines of the rest of Paris. It seemed to be an edifice of almost pure carved marble, built like some ancient temple or grand museum.
Then Kaia saw that the brickwork behind the façade was crumbling slightly, and that most of what she’d taken for marble was actually plasterwork. There were signs up outside it, with the words Romeo et Juliet, une Romance in large letters. Even then, it took Kaia a few seconds to realize what she was looking at, because places like this hadn’t exactly featured in her day to day life up to this point.
It was a theatre.
“Kaia, what are we doing here?” Pinsley asked, coming to a halt beside Kaia. He sounded slightly out of breath, but then, he’d been carrying a much larger bag through much of Paris. Kaia saw him staring up at the edifice of the theatre, then over at her in confusion.
“What is all this?” the inspector asked.
“This is…” Kaia stopped short of telling him that this was where the feeling had led her, because she knew that he wouldn’t understand. “I think this is where we get our answers.”
CHAPTER NINE
Pinsley stood in front of the theatre, trying to make some sense of why Kaia had led him here. She’d said that it was the same as two nights ago, chasing after a killer through the streets of London, but as far as he knew, there was no killer here, and no chase.
Had that really just been two nights ago? A lot had happened in that time. Pinsley had probably thrown away his career, and had travelled a distance that would have seemed improbable in the days before modern steam railways. Now, he was in Paris, of all places.
Why? Because Kaia had led him this far. Now, she had led him across Paris, with people giving Pinsley looks as if they suspected that he was chasing after her for some nefarious reason. All because she wanted to see a play? It made no sense, but neither did the thought that she had been led by some mysterious power.
“What are we doin
g here, Kaia?” Pinsley asked, trying to make some sense of it. What had Kaia seen or heard to bring her here? Did she just want to see the production of Romeo and Juliet there? Pinsley didn’t want to believe that Kaia could be that… that flighty, but he wasn’t sure what else to think right now.
“There’s something happening here,” Kaia said. “We need to get inside.”
“Inside?” Pinsley said. “You’re sure? Right now?”
If they had a chance to pause and catch their breath, then maybe Pinsley would be able to talk some sense into Kaia about running off across the city.
“There’s something here,” Kaia insisted. “It’s important. Trust me.”
Those two words were the ones that made the difference. Pinsley knew how important trust could be, and he knew that almost no one had trusted Kaia before in her life. It was enough to make him take the few steps forward to the ticket office.
If he’d been in London, he would simply have taken out his warrant card and asked for assistance. As it was, the best approach seemed to be to buy a ticket for the performance. Switching into French, Pinsley approached the ticket seller.
“When is the performance tonight?” he asked, in French. Although he clearly didn’t get his accent quite right, given the next question.
“You are English?” The ticket seller looked like he wanted to spit, but still said the next part. “The performance will begin in half an hour. Although it will cost you. We are down to our last few tickets for tonight.”
And Pinsley suspected that there was about to be a hefty surcharge for being English thrown in. Did he really want to do this, all on the strength of Kaia asking him? Even as he asked the question, Pinsley knew what the answer was. He’d followed Kaia to Paris; he could follow her into a theatre.
