The Revolution and the Fox

by Tim Susman

  “I’ll prepare myself. Thank you, Charles.”

  The footman bowed and left. Emily finished her roll and wiped her fingers on the lavender napkin. “I’m rather excited to see Parisian glass,” she said. “I don’t know that Boston’s glass is all that special; it’s simply where I knew to go. Having a guide around Paris will be wonderful. You’re coming along, aren’t you?”

  “I, ah, I rather thought I would stay here and practice spells.”

  Emily looked shrewdly at him. “I do think it’s important you come along with me and test the lamp glass to make sure it’s tempered well enough to withstand your fire.” When he searched for a response to that, she said, “Malcolm and Alice are doing the best they can.”

  He splayed his ears. “I was…”

  “You were thinking you might pop in and help them out. So have I. I hate that we have to do this and not devote all our attentions to finding our students.”

  Kip sighed, and then perked his ears up. “We’ll be going to the Academie, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then perhaps we could look for a spiritual sorcerer who might come back with us and protect us from Victor’s sorcerer? Or—” Excitement set his tail wagging. “Or maybe look into Victor’s mind himself. If we could get him to just think about where the students are…”

  “That’s an excellent idea,” Emily said, “and I won’t deny that I’ve had similar thoughts. So you’ll come along?”

  “Yes,” Kip said. “Let’s go.”

  When Charles had returned and they had finally dressed for travel, Emily took Charles’s hand and Kip’s paw and cast her translocation spell.

  The basement of the Academie was nothing like the peaceful room they’d seen the day before. Directly in front of them, two sorcerers argued in French, while near the doorway another strode out of the room clutching a burlap sack that looked heavy.

  “What—” Emily looked around as the two sorcerers near them jumped back. “What’s happening? I had to correct to stop running into you!”

  They stared at her as she pulled Kip and Charles out of the way, then shouted in French. Emily asked, “Charles, what are they saying? Tell them I’m sorry.”

  He called her apology to them and then, as they reached the door, said, “They are arguing about where to go. One of them wants to go to Spain, the other to Russia. They said—I do beg your pardon—‘are you crazy, don’t come here.’”

  Two more sorcerers appeared in the room behind them. “They’re leaving?” Kip asked. “What’s happening?”

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Emily said grimly. “I want to see if Master Debroussard is here.”

  Charles followed the two sorcerers, and fortunately most of the traffic inside the Academie moved in the same direction, as sorcerers appeared and left the translocation room. “Where are they coming from?” Kip asked.

  “I cannot say for certain,” Charles said. “But two of the sorcerers had a royal crest on their robes.”

  Emily forged on ahead up two flights of stairs. As they reached the ground floor, outside noises became clearer. “You hear that?” Kip asked.

  All three of them stopped on the landing. “Shouting,” Emily said.

  “And fighting. Glass breaking—there.” He listened. “They’re saying ‘Vive la France’ and something else I can’t make out.”

  Charles went pale and staggered back against the stone. “They are calling for death to the king,” he said.

  Kip searched for a window, but the narrow ones in the stairwell had been built to fire arrows out of and gave only an incomplete view of the chaos on the streets outside. When he put his nose to it, though, the thin acrid smell of smoke came to him, and when he sent his awareness out he found fire everywhere.

  “Burning,” he said shortly. Emily had already started up the stairs, but Charles was waiting for Kip.

  “This building?” the footman said.

  “I don’t think so. It’s stone; it’ll take more than fire. But—”

  Charles hurried past him, which Kip initially took as eagerness to catch Emily, but the footman stopped at the next window. As Kip reached him, he stepped back. “So much smoke,” he said, pressing fingers to his eyes.

  From this window, Kip could at least see buildings and the skyline of Paris, and indeed, multiple columns of thick black smoke coiled up into the air. “I could stop the fires,” he offered.

  “The fires are not the problem.” Charles pointed down at the street.

  Kip had to angle his muzzle downward to see the crowds in the streets. Dressed in dirty, patched clothes, they were clearly the same type as the beggars he’d seen the previous day, but where those beggars had seemed apathetic, these were energized. They broke windows and rushed into buildings. As he watched they pulled a man from a house and set to beating him.

  “We cannot stop this any longer,” Charles said. “We should return immediately to the Dieuleveults’ estate.”

  “I can stop some of it.” Kip reached out with magic and lifted the man away from his assailants into the air. He couldn’t fit him through the window, but he could deposit him on a roof far from the crowd, and did so.

  This caused most of the attackers to look up and point and cry out, “Sorcier!” They ran toward the Academie, gathering others as they came.

  “That was maybe not a good idea.” Kip backed away from the window.

  “I thought that the riots would die down,” Charles said. “Where are the royal guard? They are meant to be fighting!”

  “I don’t know.”

  They reached the second floor, where shouted arguments took the place of running feet. Emily stood at a door knocking, but stopped when they arrived. “I don’t know where M. Debroussard is,” she said.

  “If he’s a translocational sorcerer, maybe he’ll be downstairs helping others evacuate.”

  At that moment the neighboring door opened and a dark-haired man with an olive complexion stepped out into the hallway. “Debroussard?” he asked, and then rattled off a sentence in French.

  “He says,” Charles translated, “that M. Debroussard went to help the royal sorcerers and will be downstairs coming and going.”

  “Thank you,” Emily said to both the sorcerer and Charles, and made for the stairs.

  Kip hung back. “Can you tell him please that the mob is coming here and maybe he should leave?”

  Charles nodded and spoke to the sorcerer in French, and got a curt nod in reply before the man disappeared back into his office. “He did not seem terribly worried.”

  “Most sorcerers can translocate themselves,” Kip said. “I can take another person, so don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the footman said. “Shall we follow Mlle. Carswell?”

  They hurried down the stairs, catching up to Emily just after the ground floor. Kip cleared his throat as they descended. “We think the rioters are headed this way. There may not be much time.”

  “We can go back as soon as it’s dangerous,” Emily said without breaking stride, “and if they try to burn us out, I trust you can take care of that.”

  “Yes,” Kip said, “but I’d rather it not come to that. Can we find a spiritual sorcerer and maybe go back? Or stay and help the sorcerers leave…if they need the help.”

  When they got to the basement, there were more sorcerers and more arguments. They stopped for a moment and then Emily called, “Monsieur Debroussard!”

  A tall man, sandy-haired with a small nose and full beard, turned from a conversation he was having. “Mistress Carswell,” he called, and asked the sorcerers he was speaking to for a moment, then came to join them, pulling them to one side of the room.

  “This is a very bad time,” he said. “I am needed to help our sorcerers leave the palace and the military barracks. But quickly, what are you doing here?”

  “We came to Paris to—never mind, it doesn’t matter now. Can we help at all? What’s happening?”

  His mouth
set in a grim line. “The crowds this morning assaulted the palace. There were skirmishes and the guards were overpowered. The King ordered his sorcerers to kill the crowd and they did not wish to be murderers so they refused. He threatened them and they offered to take him to his wife’s relatives in the Russian court, but he refused numerous times. So we are bringing all the sorcerers back and sending them to their homes.”

  “If anyone needs a refuge,” Kip said, “our school is open.”

  Emily and M. Debroussard both gave him considered looks. “For some refugees that might be appropriate,” the French sorcerer said.

  “But,” Emily continued, “for royal or military sorcerers, it would look like our country was taking sides.”

  “Still,” Kip objected. “If it’s a matter of their safety.”

  “Yes,” M. Debroussard said. “I thank you for the offer, Master—Penfold, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bien sûr. I would be pleased to make your acquaintance at some future time. For now we must secure the safety of our sorcerers.”

  Before Kip could answer, a deep pounding echoed through the room, coming from upstairs. “Ah,” M. Debroussard said. “They are at the doors.”

  “We should go.”

  “They are defended, but yes.” He took Emily’s hand and brought it quickly to his lips. “Travel safely.”

  “Come to our school when you’re able,” Emily said as he waved and hurried back to the sorcerers he’d been talking to.

  All around them, sorcerers had been appearing and disappearing, but now the crowd seemed to thin out. “I think they have gotten most of them out,” Kip said.

  “We can wait another moment.” Emily looked upstairs.

  The pounding continued from upstairs, then silenced. A moment later, a sorcerer ran downstairs and shouted a question in French. One of the others responded, and he nodded, then he caught sight of Kip and Emily. “Américains?”

  They both nodded. He frowned and growled several quick sentences at them in French and then ran back upstairs.

  Emily turned to Charles. “What did he say?”

  “Please excuse me,” the footman said. “He said that this is your fault.”

  Kip startled guiltily. How could this sorcerer have known that he’d brought the mob to their door?

  “The American Revolution showed that kings are not invincible,” Charles went on. “You showed them a path to freedom, and now they are charging violently along it.” He coughed. “That is what he said.”

  Relieved of immediate guilt, Kip considered. “He’s not completely wrong, I suppose. We might have revolted even sooner if someone else had done it first.”

  “No.” Charles shook his head. “The country has been very poor since Napoleon’s defeat. The first year we had food, but after that it grew scarcer. Those of us who live with nobles do not experience hunger, but many of us have families and friends who do, even when we provide food to them. For many years now the people have made do with nearly nothing, and now the price is being paid. Last month the bakeries ran out of flour and there was no bread for a week. And then when all the sorcerers went to the Exposition, fights started. Now my country is dying.”

  He did not look pleased or satisfied, but spoke hollowly and slowly. “We should go back and get the Dieuleveults to safety,” Emily said.

  “If one of these is a spiritual sorcerer…” Kip looked around, but Charles cut him off.

  “The Dieuleveults will not leave their castle,” he said. “The gala will go on. The riots are in Paris and it will take them a day or two to travel south.”

  “We can’t take that chance.” Emily either had not heard Kip or was ignoring him. “They may be in danger.”

  “I know Mme. Dieuleveult,” Charles said. “I will ask her, but I am certain that unless the castle is besieged, she will insist that the gala proceed. And,” he added, “they do have money and will hold to their agreement to give it to your school, even if it is from exile, should it come to that.”

  “We’ll have another chance at Victor,” Kip said, but at that moment the pounding resumed from upstairs.

  “We haven’t time.” Emily looked around the room, which had mostly cleared out. “In another five minutes they’ll all be gone, and we should be as well.”

  “All right,” Kip said, and Emily took his paw and Charles’s hand and brought them back to their chambers.

  Claudine let out a shriek as they appeared, and even after Charles spoke to her, she crouched nervously by the window. “I will go inform the Dieuleveults of the situation,” Charles said. “Please plan to participate in the competition.” He paused. “I am sorry you could not procure your glass.”

  “It’s all right,” Emily said softly, and Charles bowed to her and then left.

  Kip made his way to the fire and sat. “I made things worse,” he said, and told her about moving the man to the roof and the crowd’s resulting surge toward the Academie.

  “I wish you hadn’t,” Emily said, “but I can’t fault you for saving a life, and I suspect you hastened things by only a short time.”

  “A short time in which we could’ve found a spiritual sorcerer and had a better chance to save our students.”

  “We’ve got Peter, if it comes to that.” Emily stared into the fire. “We’ll just have to keep a very close guard on him while he’s here.”

  “I suppose that’s right.” Kip rested his elbows on his knees. “I thought we were done with revolution. I thought France was doing well. I don’t know anything about international politics, I suppose.”

  “Napoleon upset things.” Emily brushed her hair back from her eyes. “He was outside the lineage of kings, a regent who took power but actually listened to the people and led France to glory. Fleeting, but glory. When we defeated Napoleon, we put a king back on the throne because that was the old way, but many people look at this king as the embodiment of their defeat. So it’s easy to rise up against him.”

  “Plus he was starving them. George didn’t go that far with us.”

  Emily didn’t say anything, but rested her head on his shoulder. “Everything is so tenuous,” she said, her voice cracking. “We need this money, and our students are in danger, and if it all falls apart then it’s my fault. France is crumbling and we’re no closer to finding our students and I feel so powerless that it doesn’t seem fair that it’s on my shoulders.”

  He put an arm around her. “How can it be your fault? The students were kidnapped on my watch, and the revolution has been brewing for a while, you said.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She leaned into him. “I’m the headmistress. If the school fails, that’s what’s recorded.”

  The feeling of powerlessness was relatable. There was only one thing they still could control, and that was the competition. “Let’s make sure we win this competition, then,” he said. “If we don’t have glass, maybe I can...make shapes from the fire? Some of the Chinese sorcerers were making frost shapes in the air.”

  Emily didn’t move. “That sounds intriguing. What can you do?”

  He stared into the fire and imagined it shaped to fabulous creatures. It was but a step from that to actually casting the spell and bringing wings of fire out of the fireplace. Behind them, Claudine uttered another oath, but he ignored her. He couldn’t hold a shape well, but with a little practice he hoped the shape of a phoenix would be clear, something to reassure the nobles that France would rise again. “We’ll make do without the glassware,” he said, “and the Dieuleveults are going to give us money.”

  “Before the mob takes it away,” Emily said.

  “Before then.” Kip searched for a way to make her laugh. “We’ll ask for it in gold.”

  She did laugh, and then straightened up. “I suppose we must go through with it. And we’ll find a way to get the truth from Victor. If he didn’t do it then I don’t know where we’ll look.”

  The wings collapsed back into the fire. “I really don’t think we’ll have to
worry about that,” Kip said.

  From the fireside, the view through their window allowed them to watch the carts arrive with food for the gala. Neither of them spoke as they watched the dirty people in ragged clothes drive carts loaded with vegetables and loaves of bread along the road past their window and into the palace. They exchanged a look and then returned to staring into the fire.

  Kip had removed his robes so they wouldn’t get singed by the fire, and had not yet dressed when Charles returned, announcing that Mme. Dieuleveult requested their presence before noticing Kip’s plain tunic and stopping mid-sentence. “Will you need help in dressing, Master Penfold?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.” Kip stood and fetched his robe.

  “Master Penfold has been working with fire,” Emily said. “He didn’t want to risk burning his clothing.”

  “Of course,” Charles said smoothly. “As I was saying: the other sorcerers are gathering in the parlor to prepare for the gala. The first guests have already arrived.”

  Emily stood. “We can find our own way if you have other duties to attend to.”

  “My current duty is to bring you to the parlor.” Charles smiled.

  “Should I bring Sleek?” Emily held up her arm with the raven on it. “She can as easily stay here.”

  Charles examined the raven and nodded. “If she is not essential to your demonstration, then that might be best. Some of the nobles might not understand her presence.”

  Kip finished the last fastenings of his shirt and picked up his robe. “We’re ready,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Servants had been busy at work in the parlor: blue satin ribbons hung from the windows and walls, fastened by rosettes of the same satin with additional white and red. Glittering decorations of crafted glass spun in front of each window, and the large chandelier now bore lit candles that cast playful light around the room.

  All the sorcerers present wore more formal attire than Kip and Emily, but the fanciest was Victor Adamson, who had added a peacock feather boutonniere and a stylish top hat to his elegant light blue suit. He stood next to Mme. Dieuleveult in close conversation with her, but as Kip and Emily entered the room, his blue-grey eyes met Kip’s and his mouth curved up into a smile.