Rook (41 page)

The clouds had cleared and the night was glowing with the north lights. Green, hazy edges tinged with purple, but there was also a stripe of yellow. A streak of fire, he realized. Like what he had seen on the A5 from Bellamy House. And now he saw that there were dozens of them, fine, thin lines racing across the sky. What were they? Pieces of stars? Or pieces of Ancient machines still flying? He wished he could show Sophia. He wondered, impractically, if they were for the Rook. If they were for her.

He rolled himself out and slid down the stinking pile, toward the cliff face and the next set of ropes his uncles kept for climbing in and out of the Lower City. He was going to be sore from that fall. He walked slowly, thinking about Sophia, and all the different ways he might like to kill Spear Hammond.

Spear ran down a back street of the Upper City in the dark, glad he had killed René Hasard. He didn’t like killing people, but if that was what it took to protect Sophia from herself, then so be it.

A woman far above on an air bridge was calling to another about the sky. He looked up and saw the north lights beginning, but there were also tiny yellow streaks, trails of sparkling fire. Like the chapel walls of his childhood. He wished he could show Sophia. Then he was approaching two wooden doors on the ground floor of a building, relieved to see they had not been broken into or torn down. He put a key to the padlock.

Aunt Francesca’s landover was right where she’d left it, now with his things loaded in. If the horses he’d stolen last night were still there, and if the forged pass for the Saint-Denis Gate he’d kept back still worked, then he would be out of the Sunken City well before dawn. He would find Tom and Sophia at the coast, and Sophia was going to be so happy that he’d reset the firelighter and blown up the prison. Everything would be just as he’d said. They would start over together. And with Hasard gone, she would turn to him. He knew she would.

She would come back to him, René thought. He knew she would. He stood looking up at the tall, narrow shaft of the water lift. He was aching and tired, but he’d gotten one look at the gendarmes around his building and taken to the sewers, then to the cellar and the water lift. René used the hook hanging beside the cistern to snag the rope and pull it toward him. Up onto the edge, and then he was climbing, swinging gently over the pool of water.

He had to get to the coast, catch Sophia before she sailed. He remembered the look on her face, right before she had hit him with LeBlanc’s ring. She was clever, and beautiful, and as hard as burnished bronze. Or at least she pretended to be. Beneath the shiny metal, Sophia Bellamy was very breakable indeed, something Hammond had somehow failed to notice. But more than rage or even pain, what he had seen when she hit him was betrayal. And after she had been so afraid to let herself believe in him. He would have taken a dozen falls not to have seen her looking that way at him.

René climbed the rope faster, glad there was no one at the top to cut it. Would she know she could believe when she saw the ships anchored on the coast? And if Sophia was there, Hammond would be, too, that much was certain. He would make Hammond pay for that trick at the cliffs, make him tell her the truth, at the point of a sword if necessary, and she would believe it. She had to. Because it was.

He paused his climb at the second floor. It was the Espernazos’ flat, and the water-lift door was partway open. René got a toe beneath and pushed. The Espernazos had probably fled the city, anyway. He made his way out of their empty flat and took the lift to the top, the bellman looking at him rather askance, opening the door of his own flat to find chaos. Crates and boxes were all over the floor, his uncles, the staff, and some of the party guests hurriedly packing them. One of the violinists was taking down paintings from the walls. Uncle Andre left a pair of candlesticks on the settee and came hurrying over.

“Where have …” He wrinkled his nose. “René, did you fall off the cliffs again?”

“What is happening? Where is Benoit?”

“Our cousin knows he was drugged and we will be arrested soon, that is what,” Andre said. “We are besieged from below, but LeBlanc has put the greatest idiot of all gendarmes in charge, and the man has forgotten the air bridges. We have all the plastic out and away and plan to do the same for ourselves, but Adèle does not wish to leave anything behind for your cousin to …”

“René!” Madame Hasard called from the window wall. “There you are. What have you done to yourself? This boy came by air bridge. He is asking …” The group around Madame Hasard, including Madame Gagniani—who had set aside her turban—the boy Louis, and the dark-skinned singer, parted to let Cartier push his way through.

“None of them will tell me where Mr. Hammond is,” Cartier said quickly.

“I would guess that he is leaving the city,” René replied.

“Leaving? Are you sure?”

“No. But should you not be gone as well?”

Cartier pressed his lips together. There was several days’ worth of fuzz on his upper one. “I want to talk to you alone, then.”

René looked at his mother and uncles, who did not move, so he pulled Cartier away, to the far end of the room, where the display cabinet stood empty. Though Enzo, he noted, was making sure Cartier was still in sight.

The boy leaned forward. “Swear to me that you mean Miss Bellamy no harm. Because if you do, I’ll come after you myself.”

René did not smile. The boy was dead serious. “I can swear it without fear of my soul, Cartier.”

He took a deep breath. “Right, then. Miss Bellamy didn’t come out of the prison. And neither did her brother.”

“What? That cannot be so.”

“She didn’t come for the last landover. She told me to go if that happened, but I didn’t. Plan B was the haularound with the coffins. But they’re still there, and the Tombs are crawling with gendarmes. There are tunnels under the walls, but you have to get out of the Lower City first …”

René was shaking his head. “No. You are mistaken. I was in the prison with Hammond. We went through every hole. The Tombs are empty. We …”

Then he turned. There had been a sound from their front doors. Not a knock but a hit. He looked around the flat and saw weapons coming out from every side, people taking up positions on either side of the doors, behind furniture and on the gallery. There was another hit, and another. Benoit swiveled on his heel, sword in hand, and caught René’s eye just before the splintering of wood.

“Down,” René said, forcing Cartier to crouch on the other side of the cabinet.

“Who is coming?” the boy asked.

“I think, Cartier, that we are resisting arrest.”

The doors gave way, Benoit shouted, and gendarmes poured into the room. And straight into the clanging of metal and shouts came discordant bells, harsh, from all over the Upper City. René knocked the sword from a gendarme’s hand, slammed him to the ground, and got the man’s arm twisted behind his back. René glanced out the window while he held the gendarme down, Cartier conveniently whacking the man on the head with a crate lid. Nethermoon. And those had been execution bells. That meant someone would die at dawn. And there were only two people from the prison who were unaccounted for.

Spear jerked the reins to a halt, half turning in the seat of the landover to look at the moon. The clash of bells echoed all around him, striking the buildings that clustered around the Saint-Denis Gate, hurting his ears. LeBlanc was going to kill at dawn. But who? The Red Rook was out. Sophia and Tom were on their way to the coast.

“No,” said Spear, “that can’t be right. That can’t be bloody right!”

He turned the landover around.

L
eBlanc
listened to the execution bells, more himself now, with wounds bound, new robes, and the white streak in his hair arranged just as straight as it should be. He smiled slowly. “When Claude brings in the prisoners from the Hasard flat, make certain he puts them in the first few holes, in case Allemande should look down the tunnels.”

Renaud glanced through the door of the office at Allemande, who was on the hard, plain couch of LeBlanc’s private rooms, feet dangling, investigating a box of sweets.

LeBlanc pulled the cork on a bottle of wine. “I will only be a moment, Premier,” he called, walking to the far end of his office. Allemande’s soldiers were waiting just outside, in the corridor. No need for them to hear anything untoward. Renaud followed, limping.

“And while I have him here,” LeBlanc continued softly, bringing two glasses from a cabinet, “go to his office and his private rooms and be sure there is not a letter informing him of the loss of the prisoners. She may have been lying, of course, but we must be certain.”

If Renaud was alarmed by an order to search the most guarded premises in the Sunken City without getting run through with a sword, he did not show it.

“After the execution,” LeBlanc whispered, “I will tell the premier that the time for the other sacrifices to Fate has changed. It was improper to use his wheel in any case, and it is evident that the Goddess wanted them on another day, since they are not here. We will begin with a quiet sweep of the Upper City, to find our missing prisoners, then the Lower. They cannot get out of the gates, so there is no hurry. No reason to bother the premier. No need for him to know at all.”

And if Renaud harbored any secret doubts concerning LeBlanc’s ability to somehow keep an empty prison, a citywide search, and hundreds of lost executions away from the ears of the premier, he did not show that opinion, either. LeBlanc returned to Allemande with the bottle and the wineglasses.

“Well, Albert,” said Allemande, “have you seen the reports? From the Seine Gate, and the Rue de Triomphe? We are bleeding rebels. And, interestingly, the mob seems to have targeted certain residences in the Upper City, addresses that we have recently spoken of. This smacks of … deliberation on the part of our government, and with no proper forms filled out at all. And what about the sky? It is raining fire out there, and the people say it is the sign of the saints, of the Red Rook. I have a feeling your dawn demonstration of two out of three is going to be crucial to the future of the city, Albert.”

LeBlanc swallowed hard as he poured the premier’s wine. Allemande meant that it was going to be crucial to the future of his Ministre of Security.

“The people are in need of a dose of terror. They must feel that they have no choice, can effect no change, or we will have more change than we currently know how to handle. And René Hasard, your cousin …” Allemande tsked. “To so publicly engage himself to the Red Rook—who is nothing but a little girl, I find—a little girl fomenting insurrection and threatening the stability of our city … Oh, no. I do not think we can have that. We must take all their heads. Put them on sticks, I think.”

LeBlanc smiled, nervous. “You will be pleased to know I have already given the order, Premier.”

“Have you? And whose name did you use on the denouncements?”

“I thought it appropriate in this case to use my own name, Premier.”

“Hmmm.” The little man frowned, and the expression made LeBlanc cold. Allemande had no Goddess but power, and playing his games was like facing down a poisonous snake. A snake with a penchant for paperwork. He would gut his best friend if it struck his fancy—LeBlanc had seen him do so to the former premier. It was one of the nicer things he’d seen him do.

Allemande pushed up his glasses. “I am also concerned about this document that Miss Bellamy seems to have been carrying. It is the denouncement of Ministre Bonnard.” He held it out. “Please, Albert, look at it.”

LeBlanc took the paper, setting it on the table nearer the light, where the premier would not see his hand shaking. He only just kept his expression calm.

“Does this seem quite accurate to you?” Allemande asked. “I thought perhaps it was not.” Then he said, “I am not confident your affairs are in order, Albert. Let me see the forms.”

LeBlanc bowed slightly. “I will see if Renaud has completed them.”

“I mean all the forms, Albert. All your files.”

LeBlanc hurried into his office. Renaud had not, of course, prepared any forms for the Hasards, or been ordered to prepare any, and he was not here now. Why was Renaud never here when he was needed? LeBlanc smoothed his white streak, trying to slow his ragged breath. He would make one out himself, for show, and give Allemande the rest of the files while he forged more. He readied his pen and ink, pulled open the left-hand drawer of his desk, and stopped. The nest of velvet where his signet ring resided was empty.

He opened the drawer farther, felt all the way to the back of it. And then his smile came out, curling to the corners of his mouth. He had no prisoners in the Sunken City. Not anymore. His search would have to extend to the coast. How had any of them thought they would get away with this and live? Because they were not going to live. But his smile left him when he glanced at the door to his private rooms, where Allemande’s shadow crossed the open doorway. And yet … Perhaps Fate had willed this night for a reason.

He hurried to the other end of the room, the bound cuts on his arms burning, and opened the plastic ritual box in the corner. There was no time for the fire and the bottles, or any of the solemn ceremony that should accompany such a question. But the Goddess would require more of him than the toss of a coin.

He selected a thick piece of paper, cut round, one side white, the other black, the swaths of color curling into each other, and laid it carefully on the center of the chalk circle he’d drawn before. Then he picked up a knife. He closed his eyes and plunged the tip of the knife into the soft pad of his forefinger. Blood welled. He opened his eyes and flicked his bleeding finger across the paper.

He leaned over and quickly counted the spatters, no matter how tiny, mouth moving, his finger dripping blood onto the floor. When he was done LeBlanc straightened, closing his pale eyes once more, this time to enjoy a moment of ecstasy. Twenty-seven drops in the black, only eleven in the white. The answer was clear, and it was death. Fate had given her permission.

“Thank you, Goddess,” he whispered, going back to his desk to snatch up a clear glass vial from his drawer. The time for this was now, before the dawn. He concealed the vial in his hand and strode purposefully to the door of his private rooms.

“Premier,” he said respectfully. “Renaud is finishing and needs just a few more moments while I gather the files. May I offer you more wine? Yes?”

“I die at dawn,” Sophia whispered, as if trying out the idea. “Is it wrong that I don’t feel terribly upset about that right now? That it almost seems easier?”

“Yes, that is most definitely wrong,” Tom replied, his voice like rubbing sandpaper. “And if I thought you meant it, I’d scold you. Severely. But if it does have to be, Sophie … then I’m glad … that I got to see you again.”

Sophia laid her head back down on his shoulder. She had always been so afraid of losing Bellamy House, her father, the Red Rook, of living with no reason to live at all. But for just a little while, she’d caught a glimpse of something different. It was the loss of the dream rather than the reality that was leaving her empty and aching.

“Did you really get all of them out of the prison, sister?”

“Yes. They should be away by now, Cartier and the twins with them. But there won’t be any ships when they get to the coast.”

“Some of them will get away, though.” Tom settled his head against the stone pedestal. “I think that makes it worth it.”

“Do you?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Yes,” said Renaud. The words came from his mouth like water dripping from a rusting pipe. “Agreed.” The big blond man he’d met in the street near the Saint-Denis Gate nodded, and they completed their transaction.

It was obvious this man knew he was LeBlanc’s secretary, but Renaud didn’t care who the man was or what he knew. LeBlanc had finally descended all the way to madness, and Renaud had decided to be his secretary no more. He was on the run. And he had just made a glorious trade. The keys to LeBlanc’s office plus certain passwords for a horse and a forged pass out of the gate. He had intended to bluff his way past the guards on LeBlanc’s authority and travel on foot through The Désolation, at least until he could hire transportation. But this was much better, much less traceable.

Renaud mounted the horse, throwing his small bag of possessions across the saddle. He smiled, an expression almost as rusty as his voice, and galloped for the gate, horse hooves loud against the paving stones.

Claude’s boots clattered against the stairs of the flat, knocking one by one as he was dragged down from the gallery, across the scene of battle, and into one of the interior, windowless rooms off the lower-floor corridor, where he was deposited with the rest of the gendarmes, none of which had their uniforms anymore. René was sweating, flushed, and still filthy, but the fight had made him feel the slightest bit better. There were some small wounds among them, though not many. LeBlanc’s gendarmes were no match for the seasoned criminals of a Hasard family engagement party.

“Where will they bring her out?” Émile asked, tossing his breeches to the floor of the corridor, replacing them with the uniform René threw at him. The entire hallway was jammed with uncles and men and dropped articles of clothing. “Which door?”

“There is only one entrance,” Benoit replied, pulling on a jacket of city blue.

“The brick building in front of the scaffold,” René continued for him. “It sits over the entrance to the prison, and there is just the one door. But there is a lift through the cliff that must go up to LeBlanc’s building above. There is nowhere else for it to go.”

“So she must come out that door?” Émile asked.

“Yes,” Benoit replied. “We can take her from there.”

“And the brother,” said René. “We must get them both.”