Exile for Dreamers (32 page)

I grabbed her arm and inspected it. “Blast. These irons are cutting into your wrists.”

She jerked out of my hold. “Why do you care? You said it yourself: my head will soon be on a pike. What are a few scrapes on the wrist compared to that?”

“I
don't
care. I shouldn't. You've done the same to others. And much worse.” I tore a strip of cloth from my underskirt and stuffed it between the rough iron edges on the inside of her wrist. “I saw Sebastian after you were done with him, and I've seen Mr. Sinclair's scars—” I flinched, having let his name slip out.

“Ah! The young protégé of Monsieur Fulton.” She brightened, all of a sudden too keen, too sharp. “So you are hiding him here. That explains all the hammering and sawing I hear. He is building something, a weapon perhaps?”

I dropped her wrist. “It explains nothing.”

She twittered, a high plinking sound that plucked at my nerves. “Oh, but it does,
mon amie.
It explains all.” She leaned back against the wall. The wine relaxed her guard at least that much. “So your young Ravencross, is he helping with this project, as well?”

“Enough talk about my friends.” I brushed my hands off, trying to remove the grime of her blood and the rusting irons. “You haven't told me anything about
your
illustrious paramour. How fares Ghost?”

She smirked. “What you really want to ask is
where
fares Ghost.”

I frowned. She was not nearly drunk enough.

Dani crooked her finger and leaned forward, pretending to tell me a secret. I knew better than to go along with her.

“Come
,
” she cajoled. “I shall tell you where he is.” When I didn't fall for her gambit, she threw her hands into the air in a noisy clatter of chains and another brief grimace. “Here. There.
Everywhere.
He is a Ghost,
n'est-ce pas
?”

This was all a grand lark to her.

Miss Stranje had forgotten to confiscate my knife this morning. I whipped out my dagger and lunged at Daneska. Yanking her to her feet, I growled, “This is not a joke, Dani. If the wine doesn't loosen your tongue, perhaps this will.”

I aimed the tip of the blade directly at her eye. She quivered in my grasp. For an instant, she looked afraid. Then fear vanished and, once again, Lady Daneska cared for nothing. “Put down your blade, Tessika. I will tell you the truth.”

Even though her voice had lost its malicious pitch, I didn't lower my knife. I inched it closer.

“Before you cut my eyes out, look into them and see if I am telling you the truth.” She didn't even blink. “I have no reason to lie, Tess. I don't know where he is.” She didn't, I could see it.

“But you do know where he
might
be,” I said.

“
Ja,
a thousand different places. Enough to keep you running to and fro for the next century. But I can tell you this … I know where he
will
be.” She continued to meet my gaze, steady and unflinching. “He will come for me.
Soon.
”

I let go.

She leaned against the wall a moment longer. “Whether it is to kill me, or set me free,
that
I cannot tell you.” She slid down the wall and sat stiff-backed on her pallet. “He will not allow me to remain here. It is too dangerous for him. And for our emperor.” She shrugged and put her Countess of Deceit mask back on. “It is possible I may know a few things of interest to Lord Wyatt and his persuasive friends in the British government. One way or another
Le Fantôme,
Ghost, he will never let them take me to London.”

“Lucien wouldn't kill you. He's your lover, your paramour for more than two years. He wouldn't.”

“Ah, but he would.” She chuckled quietly. “Ghost weighs all things against what must be done. There is no room in his world for idle sentiment.”

I sheathed my knife and sank onto the pallet beside her. “If that's true, how can you love him?”

Her perfect brow pinched. She turned up her nose at me as if I had the plague. “Who said anything about love?”

“But…”

“Oh. I see your confusion. You thought I went away with him out of some foolish romantic notion.
Love.
” She spat the word. “Fah! It weakens the mind. Poor Tessie, you are so hungry for the stuff. Me, I would rather eat this gruel.”

And she did. She picked up the bowl and let the thick gray paste run into her mouth, like a snake swallowing a rat whole.

I stood, needing to get away from her. “I don't believe you. I remember all those nights, how happy you were when you talked about him. How desperate you were to sneak out and rendezvous with him.”

She blotted her mouth on a corner of her skirt. “How else was I to convince you to help me, and him to make me part of—” She suddenly realized what she was about to admit aloud.

As if I didn't already know.
“The Iron Crown,” I said flatly.

“
Bon,
” she answered with a slight lift of her brow. “Then you understand. Love has nothing to do with it. I do not believe in such paltry nonsense.”

Love, paltry?

“How sad for you,” I said, and meant it. What a barren existence life would be without love. I'd seen love transform my mother's face, her love for my father, for our forests, for me, and in those moments graced by that
paltry
sentiment, she'd found freedom from the horrors of her visions. I'd witnessed the joy in Gabriel's face when he'd looked up at me in the garden. Nothing would ever take that shining glimpse of love away from me. Not even death.

“No.” She sneered. “Stop! Get that hideous look off your face. You will not pity me.” She slammed her fist against the dungeon wall, and through gritted teeth roared, “Don't you dare feel sorry for me.”

I turned away, staring at the window, any place but at her. Because I couldn't stop pitying her.

I reminded myself how cruel she was, what a vicious liar, a traitor, even a murderer, and yet all I could see was how broken she was.

Daneska calmed her anger, as if a cooling breeze wafted through the stifling air of her cell. She took a long swig of her wine. “My dear, gullible Tessika. It is
I
who feels sorry for
you.
This feeble thing you call love, reality burns it off as the sun does the morning fog.” She lifted the wineglass, silently toasting the walls of her cell. “Love weakens you. It impairs your judgment. And worst of all, it forces you to sacrifice things you should not sacrifice.”

Daneska tapped her forehead. “If you must love something, love yourself. Trust in your own wits, not a man. You and your wits, these two things can be counted on not to betray you.”

I sighed. “And they won't kill you in the night.”

“
Exactement,
” she whispered, and grabbed what remained of her crusty bread, turning it round and round in her fingers. “They will not kill you in the night.”

She sat very still, still enough that I heard her shallow breaths, and a drip of moisture slide from a blackened crack and plunk on the floor. “
C'est la vie.
He must do what is necessary.”

“Will you fight him?”

She met my gaze, sober as a hanging judge. “But of course.”

“Truly? You would kill him, your lover, the Grand Knight of Napoleon's Iron Crown?”

“I don't understand this question.” She tilted her head, squinting at me, sincerely confused. It wasn't the wine. That simple question had truly baffled her “But of course I would. What else is there? I do what I must to survive.”

She would. I saw Daneska differently then, like a strange mythical beast I didn't understand. Dangerous, treacherous, but she also looked fragile, friendless, and so utterly alone.

“Then I will help you.”

She scoffed at me. “And how would you do that?”

“I could kill Ghost.”

“Impossible. You are good,
ma chère
, but not good enough to best him.” She shook her head. “Besides, there is still the chance he may decide to help me escape.”

She looked down, studying the bread she had now torn into bits in her lap. Hesitation didn't sit comfortably on her features, the muscles and pathways for it had never fully developed. “He might.”

“
Might.
Which do you think it will be?” I asked.

She masked her uncertainty with sangfroid and weighed the two invisible answers in each hand, chains clanging as the scales tipped one way and then the other. “It is too difficult to guess. I would not place a wager on either one.”

I planted my hands on my hips and smirked. “I know you better than that. More than likely you would place bets on both.”

“Ah.
Très bien.
So I would.” She laughed, not her high, fake ear-shattering titter. She laughed honestly, and the sound nearly broke my heart.

Time to leave.

I picked up the tray. “Decide, Dani. Which shall it be? Do you want me to help you kill him? Or are you going to take a chance that he will help you escape?”

 

Twenty-three

TRESPASSERS

Jane and Miss Stranje waited for me around the corner from the discipline chamber. I handed Jane the tray, and confessed to Miss Stranje, “You were right. About the two sides of the same card, I mean. I don't hate her anymore.”

I didn't. I felt sorry for her.

“I'm sorry.” Miss Stranje sighed, and then she did something she rarely does. She hugged me.

I pulled away in surprise. “I don't understand. I've forgiven Dani. I thought that's what you wanted me to do. Why are you sorry that I still care about my friend?”

“I'm not sad about that, Tess. I'm sorry that the love you have for your friend still causes you so much pain. And that it will most assuredly continue to do so.”

True, Daneska could hurt me now. Now that I cared about her again, I was vulnerable. But then I realized that whatever bad thing Daneska might do in the future would hurt whether I forgave her or not.

And I could certainly count on her to do something bad.

We walked up the stairs without speaking, until Jane asked, “Did Lady Daneska say anything of use?”

“Yes, she swears Ghost will come for her.
Here.
” I pressed my hand against the wall to steady myself, suddenly unnerved as I remembered the dream of Lucien in these very passages. It made my chest burn to think how vulnerable Stranje House was. If Daneska was right, he might show up any day.

Any moment
.

“She's convinced he won't allow her to be taken to London for questioning,” I explained. “I believe her. She also said it is just as likely that he'll kill her as rescue her.”

“Good heavens.” Jane rubbed a chill from her arm as if the shadow of Ghost were already upon us. “And this is the man she ruined herself for.”

Miss Stranje continued up the stairs, slower than before, as if contemplating one fact on each step. “Daneska has a point. Ghost will need to solve the problem one way or the other. Regrettably, killing her may prove more expedient than rescuing her.”

“We can't let that happen,” Jane blurted. “Not here. I don't like Daneska any more than you do, but we can't let him murder her under our very noses.”

“We won't.” I didn't tell Jane that if it came down to it, I would help Dani kill Lucien.

“How? Stranje House isn't fortified well enough.” Jane squeezed forward, pressing up beside us on the narrow stairs. “Yes, we've put latches on the secret entrances, but there are any number of windows. And Tess is proof, they are often the easiest access points. We can hardly post a guard at every window.”

“Calm down, Jane.” Miss Stranje opened the door out into the gallery. “We will arrange her escape before he comes. We should be able to manage that before much longer. Did you let it slip that Mr. Sinclair is here?”

“Yes. She tumbled straightaway to the idea that he's helping us build a weapon of some kind.”

“Wait.” Jane grabbed my arm. “If she knows he's here, doesn't that put him in danger? Ghost will want him out of the way, too, or recaptured.”

Miss Stranje answered for me. “It's a risk we have to take. It was the perfect opportunity to plant a clue that Britain is preparing defenses against Napoleon.”

Jane rushed out in front of us, set the tray on a side table, and stopped us with her arms out wide. “But don't you see, if Ghost could slip in here to murder Daneska, he could do the same to Alexander, I mean, to Mr. Sinclair.”

Unaffected, Miss Stranje passed around her and kept walking. “That's highly unlikely, Lady Jane. He has protection. He's almost always accompanied by one or the other of you.”

“What good is that?” She followed after her. “Tess is the only one of us with enough skills to do anything to save him if he should be confronted by Ghost or one of his hired thugs.”

“And whose fault is that?” Miss Stranje scolded. “I suggest you pay more attention in defensive arts class in the future.”

“Tess, wait.” Jane turned to me. “You have to protect him. Anything could happen. And then … then he wouldn't be able to finish his warship. We've got to keep him alive. Don't you see, he has ideas for other things, too. Steam-powered plows. All kinds of marvels. Think what a loss it would be to England—the world.” She grabbed my sleeve. “You have to keep him safe.”

“I thought you didn't like him.”

“I don't. It's
progress
I'm thinking of, you know, the general well-being of mankind.”

“Oh, yes, I see. In that case, since you love
mankind
so dearly, you play nursemaid to Mr. Sinclair. I've other things to do.”