by Yvonne Woon
“Who are they?” I asked, watching still more of them seep from the darkest corners of the street.
“The Court of Monitors,” Theo whispered beside me. “Their gray coats and suits are meant to help them blend into a crowd, though I’d recognize them anywhere.”
The Court of Monitors was the supreme power in the Monitoring world. They made all of the decisions—which Undead to follow, which to bury, which to watch over, which to try in the court of the land. It was made up of two factions—the elders of the High Court, and the junior Monitors of the Lower Court. The elders had the final say on all matters regarding Monitoring. They deemed who was worthy of a Spade and who wasn’t. Every Monitor wanted to become them; to sit on the High Court; to have their power and talent. Except for me.
They were here now to find Dante. My grandfather had been hunting him for a year and a half, ever since the headmistress at Gottfried Academy was killed by an Undead. My grandfather had blamed Dante, though I knew the truth—Dante had tried to save her life that night, and had saved mine as well.
The elders of the High Court surrounded the hotel across from us, blending in with the night until it looked like no one was there. All I could see was a bit of light reflecting off the metal bottoms of their staffs, which I realized were Spades. Two of them stepped inside, the gray tails of their coats disappearing into the lobby. They marched past the front desk without explaining themselves and began to search the premises.
Dante’s hollow presence beside me struck a sudden worry in my heart. The High Court of Monitors were the best, wisest, and most senior Monitors—which meant that it was only a matter of time before they sensed Dante’s existence, and realized they had chosen the wrong hotel.
“There are so many of them,” Anya said, her hair dangling over my shoulder as she watched the hotel across the way light up. “There’s no way we can get past them if they find us.”
“How did they find us?” I said.
All of our eyes drifted to Theo.
He backed away, holding up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell anyone,” he said, reading our thoughts. “Maybe they found their way to my grandfather’s tavern and forced it out of him. Or maybe your grandfather went to the airport and got our flight information out of one of the attendants. You are still a minor. There are plenty of ways to find people; believe me, I know.”
Despite myself, I believed him.
“Besides,” Theo continued, “I chose this part of the city for a reason.” He motioned to a cross jutting out between two buildings. “There’s a cemetery on the other side of that church. The Paris Catacombs are below us. And all those boarded-up triple-deckers? Well, who knows what kind of filth is rotting in there.”
Anya grimaced, but I couldn’t help but feel relieved. In the hotel across the street, the lights in the upstairs windows flipped on one by one, the stiff shadows of the Monitors stalking past the shades.
“This neighborhood is a place that Monitors who work in Paris often find themselves searching,” Theo said. “Especially that hotel, mostly because of its unsavory clientele and the...baggage...they leave behind.”
Human baggage, he meant.
“You used to Monitor in Paris?” Anya asked.
“How else did you think I knew the owner?” he asked. “He owes me a lot of favors for helping that place keep a low profile. Anyway, they won’t be sensing you tonight,” he said to Dante. “Not with the rest of the death around here. You can thank me for that.”
I flinched at Theo’s choice of words. “Thank you? If it weren’t for Monsieur, we’d be at the mercy of the High Court, and Dante would be halfway in the ground.”
“Without me you wouldn’t have even left Pilgrim,” Theo scoffed. “Besides, he’s Undead. You better get used to the idea of him being gone, because it’s coming soon. I can sense his age just as well as you can.”
I bolted out of the chair, ready to tell Theo how Dante was more of a person than he would ever be, but Dante held me back. “Don’t,” he said to me. “We need him now.” He turned to Theo and spoke, his voice so steady it was frightening. “Though we may not need him later.”
CHAPTER 5
The Cartographer
A FTER SEARCHING THE PREMISES and finding nothing, the Monitors of the High Court trickled out of the hotel, their dark overcoats melting together, a spill of gray over the pavement. They huddled together as if speaking, then peered up at the buildings around them. I shrank back from the window, catching the curtains just before they swished shut. For a moment, I thought I saw one of the Monitors look up at our window, his skin such a dark shade of brown that I couldn’t make out his face. But he looked away, flipping up the lapel of his overcoat as he scanned the rooftops.
The Monitors fanned out over the street, tucking themselves into its darkest corners. There they stood as still as lampposts, surveying the streets, the moonlight glinting off their eyes. They were waiting for us. They were here to bury Dante.
We stayed up into the early hours of the morning, preparing ourselves for the moment when they noticed Dante’s presence and swept up through our boarding house, but it never happened. I woke curled up in the chair by the desk, Dante watching over me from the windowsill. Behind him, grainy rays of sun split through the curtains, illuminating his body with a thin seam of light. I leaned toward him and touched my hand to his, making sure he was real, that he was still here with me.
“They’re gone,” he said, then added, “For the moment.”
When the others woke, we packed our things and snuck outside, Theo leading the way. The street was bright and empty, save for an old woman sweeping a stoop and a flock of pigeons pecking at crumbs by the curb. It bore no trace of the Monitors who had stood watch the night before. Their somber stance was echoed only in the stone gargoyles chiseled onto the corners of every building, watching over us with hard eyes.
Theo led us through a maze of side streets, careful to stay out of sight. The sounds of the city waking up snuck through the cracks between the buildings—trucks delivering barrels of fresh produce, shop owners cranking open the awnings over their storefronts, the Métro rumbling beneath our feet. Down an alley, I heard a bicycle bell ding. I peered back into the distance just as a girl jumped out of the way. A familiar girl.
She had deep brown skin, which made the whites of her eyes look all the more sharp. Her short hair was combed to one side and held in place with a barrette. Impossible, I thought. Could I really be staring at Clementine LaGuerre, the girl who had lived in the dorm room next to mine in St. Clément? The girl who had done everything in her power to make my life hell last year, and the only girl I knew who was as good of a Monitor as I was.
Clementine glared at the cyclist and wiped the mud off the side of her skirt. Seeing that scowl was almost comforting; it made me feel like I was back in the St. Clément dormitory, listening through the walls to her friends gossiping about me. If only that were my biggest problem now.
She called out to someone in the distance, though I couldn’t see whom. She must have come with her father, the headmaster of St. Clément.
I gripped Dante’s arm as she disappeared into the crowd. “My old roommate—she’s here.” I wasn’t sure if I should be spooked or relieved. Clementine wasn’t on our side, and yet despite our fraught past, a part of me wanted to believe that she wasn’t against us, either.
“Clementine?” Anya said, a few steps behind me. Her eyes narrowed; they hadn’t gotten along either. “Where? I’ll bury her myself.”
Dante tightened his hand around mine. “We have to move faster.”
Theo stopped in front of a sleepy storefront with books and maps displayed in its window. LA FIN DU MONDE, its sign read.
“This is it,” he said. “One of the oldest mapmaking shops in Europe. The owner has been trying to plot the Cartesian Map for decades.” Theo paused before he opened the door. “Just don’t show him the chest unless I say it’s okay. Got it?”
“Why?
” I asked.
“He’s...well, you’ll see. Just remember, I know what I’m doing.”
A bell on the door jingled as we stepped inside. The store was warm and yeasty like a museum, the dust settling on the books that lined the shelves. The walls were covered with maps. A few customers browsed through them, quiet, barely acknowledging our entrance. Theo led us past them toward the rear of the shop.
At a desk in the corner sat a stout, greasy man with a puff of hair. His mouth was stuck in a grimace, as though he’d just eaten something sour. He nibbled on a piece of bread and jam while reading the newspaper, a pair of glasses perched on his nose. He pressed them to his face when he saw us approach.
“Monsieur Pruneaux,” Theo said with a smile.
A look of surprise passed over the man’s face. He recognized Theo, but didn’t seem happy to see him. “Theodore?” he said, his neck stiffening. “Es-tu venu ici pour proposer vos services à nouveau? Parce qu’ils ne sont pas les bienvenus.”
He spit the words out, his voice so full of vitriol that I wondered if coming here with Theo was a good idea.
“Actually, this time I was hoping you could help us,” Theo said, barely ruffled by his anger.
Monsieur Pruneaux’s eyes darted to me, Anya, and finally Dante, where they rested. He could feel Dante’s presence, too. I could tell by the way he clenched his jaw. Pruneaux was a Monitor.
What was Theo thinking, bringing us to a place where Dante could be in danger? But before I could turn to leave, Theo caught my eye, the cautionary look on his face telling me to wait.
“I’m nothing more than a humble mapmaker,” Pruneaux said, his throaty French accent exacerbated by a smoker’s cough. “I do not know what kind of trouble you are in now, but I’m afraid that unless it has to do with my work, I can’t be of service to you.” He cast one last nervous glance at Dante, as though he were about to pick up the phone and report us. Instead, he settled back in his chair and raised his newspaper.
“That’s exactly why we came to you,” Theo said. “Because of your work. And not just the humble kind.”
Pruneaux lowered the newspaper until his eyes were visible over the top.
Theo gave me a slight nod. I set my bag down on the desk. I could feel Pruneaux’s focus sharpen as I unzipped it and took out the metal chest.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est ça?” he asked, glancing between the chest and the door.
“Go on,” Theo said. “Open it.”
He cast a suspicious eye at Theo, then lifted the lid. It took him a moment to notice the map. I watched him search the empty recess of the box, adjust his glasses, and tilt it forward until the light shined on the points engraved into the underside of the lid. He traced them with his fingers, counting. One. Two. Three. Four. At the fifth, he pulled his hands away, as if he had just realized he was touching something delicate.
“Non,” he murmured in awe. “Ce n’est pas possible.”
“You know what it is?” Dante asked.
Pruneaux looked up at him as if the question were absurd. “Where did you get this?” he said in a throaty accent.
“That doesn’t concern you,” Dante said. “Do you know what it is?”
“Bien sûr,” Pruneaux said, his voice trembling with anticipation. “The Cartesian Map. What every Monitor dreams of finding. When I was younger I always imagined what it would be like to find it, but I never thought it would just stumble into my shop—”
A creak in the floor stopped him, and we all turned as a customer walked in from the front of the store. “Pardonnez-moi,” he said, a bushy mustache sweeping his lips as he spoke. “Combien ça coûte?” He held up an antique nautical chart of the European waters.
Pruneaux shut the lid of the chest and gave him a startled look. “Err—il n’est pas à vendre,” he said. It’s not for sale, I translated.
“Quoi?” the customer asked, his mustache emphasizing his confusion.
Pruneaux snatched the chart from his hands, and amid the man’s protests, he escorted him to the door, telling him in French that the store was now closed. He shooed the other customers out behind him, then locked the door, hanging a sign in the window that read fermé.
While he pulled the shades down over the shop windows, we lingered by his desk.
“He’s not going to report us, is he?” I asked Theo.
“No,” he said. “We have something he wants. If he were going to call one of them, he would have done it when we first walked in.”
“That’s a comfort,” Dante murmured while he leafed through a stack of charts on Pruneaux’s desk.
Anya picked up a map of the ancient world. It looked at least two hundred years old, the pages yellowed, the continents dominated by empires, their colors fading as if they were disappearing into time. When she saw the price marked at the corner, she gaped and set it down with care.
“Five thousand euros,” she whispered to us.
“Yours is worth a lot more,” said Pruneaux, making us all jump.
He was standing behind us, a bit of crumb from his toast clinging to the stubble on his chin.
I stepped between him and the chest. “It’s not for sale.”
The phone rang. Instead of answering it, he unplugged the line.
“Un moment,” Pruneaux said, and reached beneath the mess of papers on his desk. In spite of his messy office, he seemed to know where everything was. He pulled out a pair of magnifying bifocals. “Bien,” he said, securing them over his regular glasses. “Open it.”
I lifted the lid and he leaned in. He didn’t speak for a long while. Instead, he ran his palm over the chest, barely allowing himself to touch it as he inspected each of its surfaces, its hinges, its latches. “C’est magnifique,” he said under his breath. “C’est incroyable. Je ne peux pas en croire mes yeux....”
He passed his hand over the five points, tracing their path until his hand rested in the center. His fingers trembled. In a cracked whisper he said, “The Netherworld.”
“How do we read it?” I asked.
Pruneaux didn’t seem to hear me. He held a finger to his lips, then jumped from his seat and opened one of the dented filing cabinets that lined the far wall. He thumbed through one drawer, then the next, pulling out rolls of paper until his arms were full. He stumbled back to the desk. Pushing the rest of his things aside, he unrolled the first sheet.
Sprawled across it was a meticulous, hand-drawn map of Europe, colored in the most delicate shades of green. Five towns spanning the continent had been darkened to points, and a line connected them, forming an odd geometric shape. It looked vaguely like the outline of the canary that the points on our map formed, though positioned at a different angle, the head facing upward, the wings narrow and long.
“I’ve spent decades drawing maps of where the five points might be,” Pruneaux said, admiring the sketch work. “I assume you are aware of the myth of the Netherworld?”
“Of course,” Theo said, his voice impatient. Anya elbowed him in the side. “We know about Descartes’s riddle,” he added. “If that’s what you mean.”
Pruneaux looked up at him wearily, then continued. “The riddle is important, but it is not the entire story,” he said. “You must already be well-versed in Descartes’s writings of the soul. He believed that after the body died, the soul left the body and traveled to a distant land, where it was cleansed before being reborn into a new body.” Pruneaux lowered his voice. “That distant land is the Netherworld. A place where millions of souls travel to once they leave their bodies, drifting to each of the five points to cleanse themselves before they gather in a lake of mist. Descartes believed that if he could follow that path of the soul back to this, its place of origin, he would be able to take one and live a second life.”
“Take it how?” I asked.
Pruneaux pressed a finger to his lips. “Ah, that is the question, isn’t it? Many have interpreted the final lines of Descartes’s riddle, trying to find the answer. Some believe you can take a so
ul from the lake in the form of coal. Others believe you have to breathe a soul in, or drink it like water. No one knows. All we are certain of is that the path contains five points arranged in the approximate shape of a bird. It is important to remember that the Nine Sisters did not create this map; the points have existed since the beginning of time. Many scholars believe that one of the reason why the Sisters chose the canary for their crest is because of the shape they saw in this map.
“We also are certain that each point represents one of the five human senses. To find them you must use your sense of hearing, of taste, of smell, of sight, and finally of touch. You must follow the points one by one, in the order that Descartes spoke them in the riddle; you cannot merely skip to the end.”
Why couldn’t we? I wondered, but before I could ask, Pruneaux continued.
“Aside from a few physical features—the mention of the smell of death in the third point, and the mountains in the fourth point—the riddle says nothing about where the points may be, so I was left to guesswork.”
Pruneaux turned to the map he had drawn. “I assumed that if Descartes had discovered the five points, he would have done so through his travels and work. In his entire life, he never left Europe—they must be here somewhere, the trail buried in his life and writing. Over the last three decades, I have been compiling a list of all the places Descartes traveled to or lived in—all of the places that seemed meaningful to him in some way—with the hope that they would lead me to the Cartesian Map.” He patted a worn notebook resting on his desk. It was stuffed with papers and notes, its top edge puckered and stained brown from a coffee spill. “All in here.”
Theo’s eyes lingered on it, his interest piqued, while Pruneaux leaned over his map. “This was my first attempt.”