The Spirit Lens (56 page)

THIRTEEN DAYS REMAINED UNTIL EDMOND would return with Michel’s answer. Thirteen days until Michel de Vernase would prove friend or foe. Thirteen days to plan how I was to get Maura out of the Spindle and away from Merona.

On the first of the thirteen, Ilario and I spent the entire day with the palace steward, detailing our requirements for the Great Hall and the Rotunda, where we would place the exhibits, and the Portrait Gallery, where we would put refreshment tables. Maura’s imprint lay on every message, every name, every idea we had sketched in my journal on that one delightful morning before I’d gone to Seravain and learned I dared not trust her.

On the second day, I sent confirmation messages to the Collegiae Physica, Biologica, and Alchemistra, to the Academie Musica, and to the various artists and makers of lenses and instruments Maura or I had contacted previously. Lord Ilario’s personal invitation to the Camarilla was delivered to Prefect Angloria, along with a gilt-edged copy of Philippe’s proclamation.

On the third, I fielded at least one hundred fifty queries from interested participants at my newly installed desk in a minor bulge of the Rotunda. A more difficult task was to counter the various rumors each messenger reported: that the event was designed to mock and humiliate magical practitioners, or that it was naught but a venue for devious mages to upend the king’s righteous cleansing of Camarilla interference, or the one spreading like plague from some cult prophet that the Exposition would mark the return of a Saint Reborn.

Late on that third afternoon, a dispatch arrived from the Guard Royale captain at Vernase.

I FORWARDED THE NOTE TO Philippe straightaway. Unfortunately
northern Sabria
was much too large an area to hint as to Michel’s whereabouts. Philippe immediately summoned Lady Madeleine and her children to Merona.

Who could not grieve for the young people caught up in this wretched business: Lianelle and Ophelie, Anne and Ambrose, the missing Adept Fedrigo? And Edmond de Roble’s fate yet filled me with unreasoning dread. No matter that Gaetana was dead, we would not be done with the evils the Aspirant had wrought until he was in our hands.

On the fourth day—nine remaining until the Exposition—Ilario worked with two painters, a printmaker, and three sewing women to create banners and posters to be hung or distributed throughout the merchant fairs, guild-halls, temples, and academic halls, inviting the distinguished citizens of the royal city to visit the scientific and magical displays. I dispatched personal invitations to the most important scholars and nobles in Merona to attend the climactic events of the festival, and confirmed that the Lestarte brothers were ready to provide a grand fireworks display from a chain of barges to entertain those people we were unable to accommodate at the Exposition itself. In late afternoon, I set out for the east wing to visit the queen’s remaining mages.

 

 

“WHAT SORT OF EXHIBITION? I am no acrobat or trained dog to perform tricks for ladies, Acolyte Duplais.” Mage Orviene’s broad face had wrinkled the moment I broached the subject of the Exposition. And once I had described the aligned displays of science and magic, and introduced the idea of his participation, his wrinkles had deepened to ravines. “Dante, were you aware they wanted us to
perform
at this festival?”

Dante’s back expressed naught of his thoughts on the matter of Ilario’s Exposition. Since Mage Orviene and I had arrived for this consultation, his only comments had been addressed to Jacard, who was scraping some foul mess from the floor inside the circumoccule. The mound of yellow and green muck smelled as if it could be a dead dog dissolving in quicklime. As the adept applied a blade, a pail, and himself to the unpleasant task, Dante observed the sun-drenched landscape outside his windows as if we weren’t present.

“I’ve asked Prefect Angloria to sponsor ten fixed displays to parallel the ten fixed displays of the mundane sciences,” I said, smoothing the journal in my lap, as if the prefect herself were tucked away inside it. I needed all the authority I could muster. “Those displays will be open to all guests throughout the morning and early afternoon. But Lucan de Calabria and Aya de Gerson, the Royal Astronomers, will be presenting an optical demonstration for the late-afternoon program in front of Merona’s most influential gathering since His Majesty’s coronation. It is only fitting that we provide magical demonstrations of equal stature, something memorable, that our art might return to the position of prominence it has lacked for so many years. Who better than Castelle Escalon’s resident mages to provide them?”

Orviene’s small, neat hands kneaded each other in his lap. “But Dante and I have no idea if we hold a position in the royal household any longer, thanks to the cursed Gaetana—may demons plague her Veil journey! Naturally I had noted irregularities, certain dark tendencies in her work, but I don’t believe I shall ever recover from the shock of learning her true depravity. And now Maura ney Billard is arrested, as well. So dreadful, that lovely young woman involved with perversion and murder. Naturally, I’ve never attached the least suspicion to Her Majesty. Truly, Portier, how could we possibly participate in entertainments, even scholarly ones, with our dear mistress so cruelly detained?”

“No one recognizes that grievous situation more than Lord Ilario, sir mage,” I said. “He is confident our good lady will be free in days, if not hours, and feels that elevating her mages to parity with the king’s academicians will demonstrate her wisdom and insight before a noble audience. And what wish could she herself hold higher than that her dead son be honored with her own mages’ finest works?”

Orviene blew a resigned sigh and sat back on the couch. “Well, that makes sense, doesn’t it? We ought to honor the poor boy. Yes, certainly. I’m sure we can devise something worthy, don’t you think, Dante?”

“I work alone,” snapped Dante.

Orviene’s complexion reddened, and his mouth twitched unhappily. Dante, as a master mage, outranked Orviene. Dante’s choice would prevail.

“Demon spawn!” Jacard’s knife must have caught on something and flipped out of his slimed hand. I glanced up just in time to see the flying blade plop into the gooey middle of the mess. Face curdled like sour milk, the adept stretched out to retrieve it. But his knee slipped, causing his foot to bump the pail, which dumped its contents back onto the floor. A new wave of the vile stench rushed across the room.

Orviene gagged. I clapped my hand across my nose and mouth. Dante erupted.

Across the room before an eye could see him, the mage kicked Jacard sprawling into the muck. “Bumbling toadeater! Get out of my sight!”

The mage’s heavy boot gave the adept no time to get to his feet. Jacard, retching, scrambled straight through the mess, clawed at the door, and stumbled into the passage. Face purpled with fury, Dante spun and extended his staff, already belching fire. As Orviene and I gaped, flame consumed the stinking mess, until only charred streaks on the floor and a choking cloud of green smoke remained.

Dante strode to the windows and shoved the casements open so violently, I thought the iron frames might bend. Hands, shoulders, every part of him trembling, he heaved deep breaths of the evening air. Gods, what was wrong with him?

Orviene leapt to his feet and backed toward the door, keeping his chin up and face cold in disapproval. But his eyes were tinged with fear. Likely my own were as well. As when I’d interrupted his work with Gaetana’s book, as when he’d struck the stable lad in Vernase, Dante’s eruptive violence was no mere choleric temper, no playacting, no considered display to keep Orviene off balance and Jacard at a distance. It could not stem solely from his anger with me or in any other way from his time in the Bastionne, as the incident with the book had preceded his stay with the Camarilla inquisitors. No, this was something else again.
All sorcery requires certain expenditures
, he’d said once. Was this the price of his brilliance? I hated to consider such a destructive cost, not when I needed him so sorely.

Orviene waved a limp hand in my direction. “Acolyte Duplais, I shall pursue my own demonstration for the Exposition. Visit my chambers tomorrow, and I’ll discuss requirements.”

Dante did not turn from the window as the door swung shut behind Orviene. His eyes seemed fixed on the deepening sky, indigo and purple smeared with gold. I urgently needed a private word with him, but could not decide where to begin. And so I waited, wishing I could glimpse his face.

“Why are you still here?” Arms clamped tightly across his chest, staff tucked in the crook of one elbow, he spat the question through a clenched jaw.

I edged closer to him, skirting the swathes of charred mahogany. “I need to know if you’ll do this. Before we traveled to Eltevire, you told Ilario you’d some exhibit in mind, something that would ‘shock the twittering birds in this palace.’ ”

“You’re to attend this display?”

“Yes, certainly.” The question surprised me. I couldn’t imagine he’d care. “I can see to your requirements—materials, lamps, draperies, parti—objects to be used. Whatever you wish to be provided.”

“I’ll bring what I need. Be sure to stand where I can see you. Now, if that’s all . . .”

Angels preserve.
Unfortunately, I’d only begun, and no stomach-addling demands to stand in his sight when he worked magic could interfere with all the things I needed to say.

“Dante,” I said, fingering my journal pages, “I know you wish to be quit of our partnership, but we cannot call our work done quite yet. . . .” His simmering hostility urging me to brevity, I sketched out my growing conviction that the Aspirant would strike one more time on the anniversary of Desmond’s death.

“I will place guest registers at every entry and require each man and woman who attends to sign the lists, so that their names can be invoked in prayers for the dead prince. If you were to create one of your perimeters about the hall, Rotunda, and Portrait Gallery, crossing every exit, you could then use the signatures to match these imprints of those who come and go, could you not? We would know who leaves when. Who might be there under a false name. Other things that their . . . keirna . . . could tell us.”

“A name scribbled on a page hardly provides enough to pattern a person’s keirna clearly.”

“I understand that.” As ever with Dante, I assumed that the spellwork he had demonstrated at Montclaire was only a part of what was possible. “But it would allow us to control the scene. Gaetana could have created any number of weapons for Michel before she died, but she’ll not be here to wield them. Michel de Vernase knows we’ll be watching for a mule. Perhaps he’ll decide to try something himself.”

Dante’s head angled slightly in my direction, so perhaps I’d drawn his interest.

Without looking up, I pursued one additional avenue. “On the night we went into the deadhouse to see Ophelie, you enspelled a brass ring to foil the lock on the main door. I found the ring in a pocket the other day and wondered what capabilities it has. I’ll have guards posted about the Rotunda, and Philippe will have his bodyguards. But if we were to corner an assassin, it could be helpful if I could lock or unlock doors at will.”

“The spell breaks locks. It cannot make a lock function properly. Simple logic will tell you the difference in the two problems.”

Indeed, it was much easier to kill a man than to put an injured man to rights. But I had learned what I needed. I steeled myself. “So, Master, will you honor your oath and build the perimeter?”

So fast I could not see it, he grabbed my doublet and drew me toward him, until our noses were but a finger’s breadth apart. His green eyes smoldered, reflecting the glints of the dying sunlight. “Do not test me, student.”

I refused to flinch. Somewhere behind those eyes was the man who had tended my burnt hand and who had stretched his magic to its limits to prevent the ruins of Eltevire from falling on my head.

“The Royal Astronomers and the other exhibitors will arrive at dawn on the morning of the Exposition. I’ll be in the Rotunda two hours before. Will that give you sufficient time?”

He shoved me away. “Close enough. Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

I caught myself on the arm of his couch. Tugging my garments around straight, I clasped my hands behind my back, as if I weren’t shaking.

“From the day we began this, I’ve learned from you, Dante,” I said to his back. “You have cracked the foundation of my life, and I should hate you for it. But you’ve rebuilt that foundation with a perspective so much larger and more wondrous—a view of nature and magic that I’ve not yet begun to explore. I do sincerely regret our estrangement. My letter to the Camarilla was foolish and dangerous and lazy, and I failed to consider the risks—the considerable risks—to you. I regret that more than you can imagine, and I hope . . . Whatever is going on with you, I hope you will recognize and beware its toll.” I didn’t think an appeal to friendship would move him. Likely I had only imagined we had progressed so far as that.

He did not move. So I retreated. But as I laid my hand on the door latch, his voice rose from a frigid darkness. “I’ll serve our agreement on the day of the festival, because it serves my purposes to do so. But at middle-night after it, our confederacy will be ended for once and all. Now get out, and do not bring your mewling face here again.”

All these days, even while pronouncing Dante’s enmity irreversible and totting up reasons for it, I’d held some buried hope that I was wrong. Kajetan had always called me tenderhearted. Soft. But the chill of that dark room settled deep this time. Filled with regret and apprehension, I left him to his brooding.