In the Shadow of the Sun
Page 19
I nodded. “Go on, then.”
With a delighted squeal, Athénaïs took off, dragging me behind in an undignified procession. Laughter, shouts, and banging noises resonated in the darkened château and covered the clomping of our heels on the flagstones of the corridor.
“Now, where would he hide?” Athénaïs said under her breath.
“His own rooms?” I said.
Entering a man’s private quarters was highly inappropriate, but the spirit of the game seemed to be to do away with the usual protocol. As such, I’d rather get this over with as quickly as possible. Prompted by my suggestion, Athénaïs rushed down the corridor and up a flight of stairs, and pushed open a double door leading to the courtiers’ apartments.
Except we stumbled into the ballroom instead.
“What…?” Athénaïs gaped at the box-beamed ceiling and painted walls lit by a candle on the marble mantelpiece.
“Magic,” I replied. “The count did say the doors were enchanted.”
Our hands still clasped together, Athénaïs forced me to check the corners of the huge empty room, our wooden heels clacking against the parquet floor.
“He’s not here,” she announced after a couple of minutes.
This was stating the obvious, but I was too breathless from all our running around to mention it. I followed her back to the doors—which had slammed shut behind us—and she reopened them.
This time we spilled out into one of the galleries, a high-ceilinged oak-paneled room where a flock of young women busied themselves searching behind curtains and statues. In fits of laughter, they didn’t register our arrival, but a couple of them had had the presence of mind to bring candlesticks.
“Here.”
I took an extinguished candle out of one of the sconces and stopped a young woman with a lit one. The girl’s cheeks were flushed with wine and excitement, and her eyes widened when she recognized me.
“Your Highness.”
She curtsied and graciously lit the candle in my grasp. I thanked her and wished her luck, when Athénaïs asked, “Have you seen Prince Aniaba?”
The girl shook her head. “No. Although the Chevalier d’Angoulême is hiding under that bench over there, if you’re interested.” She giggled behind her gloved hand, as if she couldn’t quite believe she’d dared make a joke in front of me.
But I couldn’t help a smile. The chevalier was twelve, and Marguerite’s younger sister had a soft spot for him. I winked at Athénaïs. “Leave him to Françoise.”
We moved out of the gallery and found ourselves in the guardroom. Athénaïs ignored the soldiers’ startled gazes and threw her hands in the air. “It’s not fair! How are we ever going to find him?”
She marched out before I could remind her that half the fun was in the seeking part of the game. This time we ended up in the ballroom again and she dropped down on a velvet-covered bench with a dismayed groan. I sat down next to her, grateful for the chance to give my strained lungs a respite. We had to find Prince Aniaba soon or I would have to give up the game—and force poor Athénaïs to do the same in order to keep her with me.
“Wait,” I said, my mind racing for a strategy. “We need to think. There must be logic to the spell. There always is.”
I chewed on my lower lip, my thoughts churning. I had read about portal spells before. Magiciens could create a door to another place, either for themselves or for someone else. Whoever used the door, the magicien could choose their destination. Alternatively, the user could decide where to go. I had assumed the count had locked a destination for each door in the château. But maybe we could select where to go.
“Come on.” I stood up and led Athénaïs to the double doors. “Now, close your eyes and think of Jean, with the intention of finding him. Then open the door.”
Hope alight in her bright gaze, she obeyed and schooled her features into a focused expression. Our arms still linked, I waited for her to take us to the next room. To my surprise, we ended up in the chapel.
By daylight, the church was a baroque riot of colors, from the checkered marble floor to the paintings on the walls and the gilded columns. Now that it stood in darkness, however, every smooth line and every statue edge morphed into sharp-angled shapes in the deep obscurity. An eerie silence greeted us, and Athénaïs drew in a breath that resonated under the high ceiling. No candle burned here, save for the one I held before me—a glowing orange light that threw long shadows on the frescoes.
“Jean?” Athénaïs’s voice was timid, yet it echoed like a shout.
She took a tentative step forward but froze when a clunk reverberated through the chilled air. I stiffened, and my pulse quickened. We peered into the darkness ahead where the sound had come from.
The shadows moved.
Athénaïs jumped with a small cry, and I held up my candle, my hand trembling.
“Who’s there?” My uncertain question sliced through the quiet.
Then a confused mass smashed onto the altar in a resounding crash of tumbling metal ornaments. I yelped and stumbled back, but Athénaïs let go of me to throw herself forward.
“Jean!”
“Don’t!” I shouted.
Too late. In a handful of steps, she reached the altar and the writhing form atop. My vision accustomed to the dark at last, I could now recognize Prince Aniaba’s red jacket as she bent over him. But I could also see a pitch-black silhouette detach itself from the shadows, magic crackling about its formless body.
Like any child in the kingdom, I had grown up hearing tales of the dark magiciens of old—medieval wizards who killed several Sources at once and took on their power. Their life span was very limited—a few hours, a couple of days, at best—but the damage they caused in their last mad hours became legend. Wreaking havoc through entire provinces. Killing dozens of people. Disrupting the weather and the seasons. Changing the course of rivers and displacing mountains.
I had, however, never beheld a dark magicien before. They were long gone, thanks to strict laws and careful management of Sources. Yet in that split second when Athénaïs’s gaze went from Prince Aniaba’s prone form on the altar to the threatening silhouette materializing an arm’s length away, I knew that was what was before us.
A man so consumed by his own power his body was rendered immaterial in the shadows, reduced to pure magic, pulsing along its form like silver lightning and swirling through its veins like a whirlwind. He extended a limb toward the prince, an arm made more of billowing darkness than flesh and bone, and his victim’s back arched under his influence. Prince Aniaba screamed as a shimmering form peeled away from his body—a gold shadow of his silhouette that floated toward the magicien.
My instinct took over. I ran forward to hurl my candle at the prince’s attacker. One thing I knew from the legends about dark magiciens: They burned like any other beings. And if not, at least their clothes did.
The lit candle flew into a graceful arc and hit its target square in the chest. The magicien staggered back, more in surprise than because of the force of the blow. But it was enough to sever his connection with the prince and stop whatever spell he’d been performing. With a roar of rage, he sent the candle crashing onto the floor, but not before fire had caught. Stumbling backward, he flailed about to smother the small flames.
A gunshot cracked so close to me I crouched down with my hands over my ears out of instinct, just as the magicien jerked under the impact of the bullet. For a second the shadows surrounding him faltered, and Fouquet’s astonished face appeared amid the dark mass. Then his mouth formed a spell and he vanished.
Silence fell, our panting the only sound echoing in the sacred place. My heartbeat thundered in my ear, and it took me a moment to realize the threat was gone and I could move again. Fabric rustled as Athénaïs wrapped Prince Aniaba into a tight embrace and cooed against his chest.
A black-clad figure appeared in my field of vision, a smoking gun held before him.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
“Thank you,” I said, my voice just above a whisper.
He acknowledged my words with a polite nod, still hovering by me, his features stern and concerned. I wanted to say more—to thank him for his perfect timing and shooting skills, to apologize for ever doubting him, to assure him that I didn’t take his loyalty or his presence here for granted, but Prince Aniaba let out a groan that snapped my attention back to the altar.
Gold powder stained the prince’s skin in the dim moonlight.
“He tried to kill me,” he said, to no one in particular. “The bastard tried to take my magic and kill me.”
“But … why?” Athénaïs asked.
The memory of what I had witnessed in the mirror with the king flashed before my eyes then.
It has to happen this week, Fouquet had said. I’m weakening.
The Crown Magicien wasn’t killing Sources to weaken his competition. He was killing them to steal their power. The realization settled on my chest like a stone, squeezing the air out. Contrary to everyone’s belief, Fouquet had not been blessed with the unique combination of the skills of a magicien and a Source.
He was a magicien who’d found a way to steal Sources’ powers, use them, and survive the deed. But how did one stop such a man?
* * *
Athénaïs held up an opal-blue hat adorned with peacock feathers. “What about this one?”
Sat in an armchair with my feet up on a low stool, I shrugged and coughed into my handkerchief. The relentless afternoon heat stole my breath and rendered me sluggish, making it hard to share my ladies’ excitement.
In preparation for the party at Vaux-le-Vicomte, countless fabric rolls and piles of accessories had been brought into the salon of my apartments for our perusal. The tailor and his assistant spared no effort to tempt us with magically enhanced gloves, delicate-looking shoes, outrageous hats, and gem-studded fans. As they moved amid the chaos of open boxes and sprawling fabric, sunshine filtered through the half-closed indoor shutters and tinged the displayed silks and brocades with golden hues. The windows, left open in the hope to let in some air, offered little relief to my tightened lungs.
“I like this one.” Louise wrapped her chest in a length of shimmering green fabric.
Elisabeth and Françoise nodded their approval, but Athénaïs pouted. “Not really a ‘summer’ color.”
The tailor—a magicien with enough lace and ribbons on his person to rival my husband—offered his opinion, and the conversation that ensued lulled me back into my reverie. Following the spell with Fouquet’s mirror and his attack on Prince Aniaba two days ago, I dreaded attending the party even more so than before.
Since the Crown Magicien had made a very public exit three hours before the game of hide-and-seek, proving he’d been behind the attempted murder of the African prince was near impossible. Even though there had been four of us in the chapel, the prince had been too shocked to describe his attacker with any accuracy. Her mind entirely on the prince, Athénaïs hadn’t been any more of a reliable witness. Only Moreau and I could attest to seeing Fouquet getting shot, but the fact the Crown Magicien had appeared at court yesterday without a scratch on him didn’t help matters. Of course, he could have been magically healed in the meantime, but as the Queen Mother pointed out, that didn’t offer any proof.
Thankfully, Louis believed my story and seemed as eager as I was to find a way to know the extent of the man’s powers and their origin. We couldn’t hope to defeat him—or even think of entering his lair—unprepared. But we had yet to come up with a plan to learn his secrets.
“Has she fallen asleep?”
My eyes snapped open and I met Louise’s anxious gaze.
“I haven’t.” I muffled a cough into my handkerchief and straightened in my chair before giving everyone a reassuring smile. “Shall we look at the shoes?”
Delighted by my sudden interest in the matter at hand, the tailor ushered forward his assistant—a rather handsome dark-haired young man—with a pile of boxes in his arms. Athénaïs and Louise discussed color schemes and heel sizes, while Marguerite’s sisters rifled through tissue paper to produce various glittering shoes.
I was about to try on a pair when the door flew open and Philippe walked in.
“What did I miss?” His face lit up at the colorful mess around the room and he clasped his hands. “Oh dear, I’ve died and gone to heaven, haven’t I?”
I groaned. Any hope of shortening this process had just vanished in his wake. He hopped over upturned boxes and discarded pieces of fabric to reach me.
“Henriette, we’re getting matching outfits.” He landed a distracted kiss atop my head and turned to the tailor. “I’m thinking blue.”
The short man looked as if all his dreams had just come true. He bustled about the salon in search of every blue-colored piece he’d brought with him, while Philippe grabbed a glass of wine off an abandoned salver and slumped into a chair.
“Your Highness?” The tailor’s assistant brought my gaze back to the shoes at my feet. “What do you think?”
I took off the pink silk sleepers. If my husband wanted to wear blue, these wouldn’t do. “Do you have anything in white, or silver?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
He rummaged through another box. That drew Philippe’s attention, and when the young man glanced back up, their eyes met. His cheeks flushed. As swift to react as ever, Athénaïs cleared her throat.
“Have you heard from the Comte de Guiche, Your Highness?” She batted innocent eyelashes at my husband, whose features betrayed nothing. He took a sip from his wine before replying.
“No. But I’m told he’s doing well in Paris.”
“Searching for a wife, I believe?” Athénaïs said.
“Yes,” Philippe replied. “Just like you’re searching for a husband.”
The gibe hit home, and Athénaïs pressed her mouth into a thin line. Philippe resumed his staring at the young assistant, who made a point of avoiding everyone’s gaze.
“I’ve heard Moreau is back in favor,” Elisabeth said, in an obvious effort to dispel the awkwardness in the room.
I perked up. I hadn’t seen the former chief of security in the past two days, and I still pondered how best to speak with him next time our paths crossed. I wished to explain how guilty I felt for the way he’d been treated, and how grateful I was for his unexpected intervention in the chapel. Yet doing so without breaching the boundaries of appropriate behavior proved quite complicated. Mother would have scolded me for even considering speaking so openly to a member of staff who, in the eyes of likely everyone at court, had just been doing his duty.
“He still hasn’t been offered his position back though,” Athénaïs said.
“Who can blame the king?” Louise said, always quick to take her lover’s side. “The man was supposed to keep us safe, yet he failed at preventing two Sources’ deaths and an attack against the royal family.”
“It wasn’t really his fault,” Athénaïs replied. “No one could have predicted any of it. And he isn’t a very skilled magicien anyway.”
“How did he get the position in the first place?” Elisabeth asked. “If he wasn’t even a good magicien?”
Her question hung in the air, until Philippe let out a sigh. He’d put on an outlandish red hat garnished with ostrich feathers, but underneath his expression turned serious.
“Because he was with my brother at Dunkerque.”
“Oh,” Françoise said, speaking for all of us.
During the French-Spanish War that had ended with Louis’s marriage to Marie-Thérèse, one of the key battles had taken place near Dunkerque. The then-twenty-year-old king had joined his troops, and nearly died there. The whole end
eavor had strengthened his popularity to no end.
“So he was a soldier?” Elisabeth asked.
Philippe nodded. “Like his father.” He shot us an incredulous look. “You don’t know the story?” Our blank stares must have been answer enough, for he took off his hat and straightened in his seat. “Moreau’s father was a war hero. He served under my own father. But he came home … deranged. He beat his wife to death and nearly killed Moreau too, before shooting himself with his pistol.”
Elisabeth’s hands flew to her mouth and Louise crossed herself. I sat up, my throat too constricted to speak. I had often thought my own father’s fate—dethroned, branded a traitor, imprisoned, and beheaded—was the worst a man could meet, but Moreau’s terrible story challenged it.
“Moreau’s sad childhood is by no means unique,” Philippe said. “Yet for some reason, my brother felt he ought to do something for him after his exploits at Dunkerque. So he appointed him his chief of security.”
“Now we know why the man never smiles,” Athénaïs said, breaking the silence that followed Philippe’s tale.
“War is an evil thing,” Louise added.
“Sometimes it’s also inevitable,” Philippe replied.
I bit my lower lip, and the moment Moreau had shot Fouquet’s dark magical form in the chapel replayed in my mind. The deafening sound, the smell of powder, the smoking pistol. Things I’d thought never to witness outside a hunt.
Was this what it was, then? War, of a new kind—against magic and illusions? If so, how were we to win it?
CHAPTER XVII
The mechanical clock on the mantelpiece chimed twice in the quiet night and sent my heart racing.
I had been lying awake in my bed for the past few hours, too nervous to fall asleep and too worried I’d miss the appointed hour.
At the foot of the bed, Mimi perked up when I stirred. A cluck of my tongue settled her down again. My gestures slow and my breath suspended, I maneuvered out of Philippe’s grip. He let out a deep sigh in his sleep but didn’t wake as I slipped out of bed and tiptoed to grab my morning dress. Moonlight leaked through the shutters, enough for me to see Mimi lift her head out of curiosity and to make my way to the door.