by Sarah Ash
The inner door opened and Astasia came running in.
“Where's Andrei?”
“He's safe and well in Serindher, imperial highness.”
“He's alive? You've seen him?” Astasia's eyes brimmed with tears. “But why didn't you bring him back, Magus?” she cried accusingly.
Linnaius sighed. He had not been looking forward to breaking the news to the Empress. “He chose to stay behind and help the priests rebuild the mission.”
“He—?” Astasia stopped, obviously at a loss for words. “My brother?”
“It's an admirable choice,” said Eugene, slipping his arm around his wife's waist and steering her out of his study. “I can't think of a better way for him to employ his time productively. Perhaps we should appoint him as our next ambassador to Serindher…”
When he returned a few minutes later, he said quietly to Linnaius, “She's not been sleeping well of late. She claims to… have seen a ghost.”
“What manner of ghost?” Linnaius inquired, puzzled.
“Valery Vassian. The one who died protecting her from her brother's Drakhaoul. Of course, I'd normally say that it's just her imagination if it weren't for the fact that…”
“That you've seen the ghost too?”
“Not Vassian. But Margret. Here, in this very room.” A distant, troubled look had come into Eugene's eyes. “You know me well, Kaspar, you know that I'm a rational man who doesn't believe in ghosts and such superstitious stuff. I haven't told Astasia, of course, I don't want to alarm her.”
Linnaius remembered how much Margret's early death in childbirth had afflicted Eugene. “And what did the ghost say to you?”
“She said she was lost. She asked me to help her to find her way back. But back where? I thought I was dreaming the first time. But then it happened again. What does it mean, Kaspar? Am I hallucinating? It's… upsetting.”
“Lost souls,” Linnaius muttered under his breath. All the while he had been in the Spice Islands, the Rift had continued to widen, and the borders between the living and the dead must have become unstable. “This doesn't bode well.”
“So I wasn't dreaming!”
Linnaius paused a moment, wondering how best to frame his request. “There is one person who holds the key to this mystery. But she's a fugitive, on the run from the Francian Inquisition. If your imperial highness were to secure a safe passage to Tielen for her, I believe she might be able to put this matter to rights.”
“I'll get Gustave on to it straightaway.” Eugene gave the bellpull a brisk tug. “What is the young woman's name?”
“Celestine de Joyeuse.”
Eugene caught Gustave trying to smother a yawn as they went through the morning's correspondence together.
“Late night, eh, Gustave?”
“Please forgive me.” Gustave blushed to the roots of his hair. “It's just that—” He broke off, shaking his head. “No. I don't want to waste your time with such a trivial matter.”
“I know you too well, Gustave.” Eugene was intrigued. “For it to have kept you awake, it can't possibly be trivial.”
Gustave seemed to be struggling with himself as to how to proceed with the conversation. “I'm sure it was a dream. I should never have drunk that second glass of aquavit just before bed. Indigestible stuff. But… I thought that I saw my father. Or something that resembled my father.” His voice had become very quiet, very flat in tone. “It spoke to me. But how could it be my father? He died five years ago.”
“Last night?” Eugene felt his skin crawling.
“An hour or so after midnight. About the time the moon was setting…”
Gustave, the most imperturbable, rational member of the imperial household, was confessing that he had also seen a ghost?
“Is that special safe-conduct order I asked you to prepare ready?” Eugene asked. “The one for Celestine de Joyeuse?”
“I have it here, ready for you to sign and seal.”
*#x00A0;*#x00A0;*#x00A0;
When the Magus was admitted to the King of Francia's chamber, he was surprised to see Enguerrand out of bed, and sitting by the window, a rug over his legs. The feverish glitter in his eyes had gone and his skin already had a healthier glow.
“I'm glad to see your majesty looking much better.”
“I owe you my life, Magus,” said Enguerrand earnestly. He hesitated, then said, “Francia has treated you shamefully. I don't know how I can begin to make it up to you. But perhaps granting you an official royal pardon might be a good way to start?”
Linnaius paused before he replied. “What has brought about this change of heart, sire?” He chose his words with care. “Your Inquisition has treated me and my kind with the utmost barbarity—torturing and executing us, and burning all our books. The accumulated wisdom of many centuries has been lost on the Inquisitors’ fires.”
“What made me change my mind?” A distant look clouded the king's eyes. “Nilaihah? A glimpse into the Realm of Shadows? Most of all, I think, it was Abbé Laorans. I intend to dissolve the Inquisition just as soon as I have taken back my throne. And that's just the first of many reforms that I will be initiating.”
Linnaius looked at the young king with genuine surprise.
“And I look forward to a new and mutually beneficial alliance between our two nations.” The Emperor came in, rubbing his hands in a gesture that Linnaius recognized of old; Eugene was scheming again. “But first, we have to get you your throne back!”
“You think there may be resistance?” Enguerrand said with a touch of his old timidity.
“Your brother-in-law has the might of the Order of the Rosecoeurs behind him. We mustn't underestimate their influence. However,” said Eugene, grinning, “we have a significant advantage: the element of surprise!”
CHAPTER 3
The curtain came down on the final performance of A Spring Elopement to rapturous applause and many encores. Gauzia departed the next day for Tourmalise, with her dresser and her coiffeur in tow, leaving Grebin exhausted but content as he counted the month's takings.
Celestine tapped on his office door and saw him writing columns of figures in a ledger. He took one look at her and said, “Don't tell me that you're leaving us too, Maela?”
“How can you tell?”
He sighed and laid down his quill. “It's that florist of yours. Or whoever he is. Ever since he appeared on the scene, you've not been the same. There's been a sparkle in your eyes, a little smile on your lips. I've seen it a thousand times before. Oh, if I could tell you the number of promising singers lost to the stage, and all in the name of love…”
“I don't intend to give up my singing career!” she said indignantly. “But I need to go away for a short while. Please don't take me off your books, Manager. I intend to come back.”
“That's what they all say.” He waved toward the door with his pen. “Off you go, then, have a wonderful life…”
She hesitated, then darted forward and planted a little kiss on the top of his head. “Thank you,” she said earnestly. “For everything. You saved my life.”
“Don't talk nonsense,” he said gruffly, dipping the nib in the ink and staring intently at the ledger. “Take your wages and go.” As she left the office she heard him mutter, “And the latrines have never been so clean…”
“What do you mean she's not here?” Kilian had run all the way from Jagu's lodgings to Celestine's and he was having difficulty making the landlady understand him. Like many Muscobites, she had only a rudimentary grasp of the common tongue.
“She is gone,” repeated the landlady, retreating and slamming her door in his face. Kilian swore. He was hot, out of breath, and frustrated. He had Jagu—so why was it proving so difficult to track her down? And how long could he trust the captain and crew to keep Jagu confined to his cabin? He tugged open his jacket and undid his shirt collar as he set off for the Imperial Theater, not caring if he was not at his regimental smartest; who was there to see him?
A bribe to th
e old man on the stage door got Kilian backstage a second time. There was much cursing and shouting coming from the wings. The stagehands were striking the set of A Spring Elopement and Kilian had to keep dodging out of the way, flattening himself against the peeling wall as huge canvas flats were carried past in the narrow passageways.
“Demoiselle Cassard?” said a stagehand with a shrug. “There's no singers in today. Rehearsals don't start again till tomorrow. Stage Manager Grebin might know, but be warned—he's not in the best of moods.”
“I haven't got time to chat to visitors!” came an irate voice. “There's work to be done.” The stage manager appeared, a pencil stuck in his wig, brandishing another as he ticked off items on a long list with a flourish.
“I need to contact Maela Cassard,” Kilian said. “Urgently.”
“Wouldn't we all?” Grebin said brusquely. “But you're too late. She's gone.”
“Gone?” Kilian had difficulty controlling his temper. Had Jagu deliberately agreed to that “one last drink” in order to give Celestine the time she needed to disappear? “Gone where?”
“Young man,” said Grebin, “you can either move now, or be crushed to death by a twenty-foot replica of a rustic cottage.”
Searching blindly for her would lead nowhere. Outside in the busy square, Kilian heard a church clock striking. She had outwitted him. The ship was due to sail in an hour and she had vanished.
There was only one alternative left.
*#x00A0;*#x00A0;*#x00A0;
The first thing that Jagu became aware of was the pounding in his head; then a lurching, rolling sensation made him feel violently queasy.
How much did I drink last night? He made an effort to sit up but dropped back, groaning, shielding his eyes against the painful brightness. Even though he lay still, the room seemed to be moving. There was a foul taste in his mouth and his tongue was furred and dry. He craved water. He rolled onto his side, trying to reach the floor. If he couldn't stand, he would crawl…
But even the floor was shifting beneath his hands and knees, slowly rising and falling with the regular motion of a ship under sail.
Under sail? He tried to focus his bleary eyes on his surroundings. This wasn't his room in Mirom. He could hear the sloshing slap of water against the wooden walls. Looking up to the single source of daylight, he saw a porthole. It took him several attempts to stand upright for long enough to peer out. What he saw made him swear under his breath.
The ship was moving slowly away from the quay and the tavern where he had taken that fateful drink with Kilian was already receding into the distance.
“Damn it all.” He tottered toward the cabin door and tried the handle, but it was securely locked.
Exhausted by his efforts, he dropped to his knees again, pounding his fists against the wood. “Kilian!” he yelled. “Let me out!” But no one came.
They were heading toward the Nieva Estuary. Each fresh gust of wind filling the sails was taking him farther away from Mirom—and Celestine.
CHAPTER 4
Celestine began to sing softly to herself as she moved about the room, collecting her belongings, and realized that the persistent melody was the opening phrase of Jagu's Vesper Prayer. She stopped, smiling to herself, still delighting in this unexpected discovery: Jagu had a real gift for writing music.
He must have absorbed something of your skill, Henri, she thought fondly as she placed the score of the Vesper Prayer carefully on top of the folded dresses in her traveling bag with her father's gri-moire.
And then she sensed that she was not alone; there was someone else in the room. All too late, the Faie woke within her, whispering, “Kaspar Linnaius.”
The Magus stood on the threshold. “I bring an invitation from the Emperor,” he said and held out a sealed letter.
Her mind went blank with panic. He must have come to take his revenge. And she was trapped, with no means of escape. “You're alive?”
“So it seems. Please, take the letter.”
“F—from the Emperor?”
“Signed and sealed by his imperial highness himself,” he said, showing her the Rossiyan imperial seal. It looked authentic enough, yet a magus of Linnaius's skill and ingenuity could easily have faked it.
She took it from him and, breaking the purple wax, hastily read the contents. It was an invitation for Celestine de Joyeuse and her accompanist to perform at Swanholm, with a letter of safe passage enclosed, signed and authorized by the Emperor's personal secretary.
“What does this mean?” She was still shaken by his unexpected appearance. “Why would the Emperor invite me to Tielen? Especially when I've caused him so much trouble?”
“There are others at the court in Tielen who are eager to see you again, Celestine,” he said enigmatically. Celestine could not read what lay behind those chill silver eyes.
“But the singer known as Celestine de Joyeuse is dead. She had to die.”
“That's all well and good as long as your guardian spirit is able to disguise your identity. But she's growing weaker, isn't she?”
How could he tell? Celestine stared at the Magus, forgetting her earlier caution. His incisive gaze pierced through her, penetrating deep into her mind. She gasped—and at the same moment sensed the Faie repel the Magus's invasion. He staggered, his eyes clouding, one wrinkled hand rising to protect himself.
“Weaker, but not so weak yet that she can't still defend herself against an inquisitive old magus,” he said wryly. “All these years you've been hiding her. And now she's become too much a part of you for you to let her go. Or… is it the other way, perhaps, Lady Azilis?”
Celestine was so surprised by the blatant challenge that she could not reply.
“You might as well reveal yourself fully to me, my lady.” Ice-silver eyes gleamed in the dim light.
“You mustn't trust him,” whispered the Faie. “He's come to take me from you.”
“I give you my word that I won't attempt to steal you again.” Linnaius was staring at Celestine so intently that she realized he was looking not at her, but through her, his chill gaze penetrating her disguise to where the Faie had concealed herself. “But I beg you, Lady Azilis, to consider returning to Ondhessar. The balance between this world and the next is slowly disintegrating. Revenants have been seen—lost souls who have drifted back to this world because they can't find their path to the Ways Beyond.”
“Revenants,” Celestine echoed, remembering the sad, lost shadow of her first love that had returned to haunt her. “If my Faie is Azilis, then I have no right to keep her all to myself.”
“I cannot return. I'm bound to protect Celestine.”
“You were bound to protect this child… yet you may be using up too much of her life force to replenish your own failing powers.”
“I cannot break that bond.”
“But you can break it at any time, can't you, Celestine?”
Celestine did not reply. Thoughts were chasing through her mind. It would take only one drop of her blood to break the contract…
“The Emperor is offering you protection of a different kind. A full pardon, his patronage, and a new life in Tielen. The Empress is very fond of you, you know.”
“The Emperor is most generous.” Celestine felt herself wavering, genuinely tempted. She and Jagu had not planned where to go once they left Muscobar, but with the Emperor's protection, they would be able to start a new life in Tielen, far from the clutches of the Inquisition.
“This safe passage is all you'll need. Believe me, Celestine, if you could only bring yourself to put your trust in me…”
“Trust you, Kaspar Linnaius? A week ago, I'd have laughed at such a suggestion. Now I don't know whom to trust anymore.”
“I would tell you more, but his imperial highness has sworn me to secrecy.”
Celestine still could not look directly into those chill silver eyes; every time she tried, she felt as if she were standing alone on a bare hilltop, surrounded by racing stormclouds, buffe
ted by fierce winds that stripped away all her defenses.
“If you're ready to leave now, I can take you to Swanholm.”
“Or Ondhessar?” she said.
“Ondhessar?” the Magus repeated in surprised tones.
“Celestine…” whispered the Faie. “Please let me stay with you a little longer.”
“I understand now, Faie,” she said. “The souls of the dead need you to sing for them. They need you so much more than I do. Can you take us to Ondhessar, Magus?”
A strange smile passed fleetingly across his face. “Yes. Although I still have enemies in Ondhessar. I need a little time to plan my strategy.”
“I need time to make arrangements too. I can't just disappear without telling Jagu.”
“Then let's agree to complete our plans when you reach Swanholm.”
And he was gone before she could ask any more questions, leaving her holding the letter of safe passage.
Suddenly she felt so faint that she had to sit down. “Look at me, Faie, I'm shaking!” She touched the smooth waxen sheen of the imperial seal. How ironic that Eugene should be the one to offer them a safe haven.
Celestine handed over her key to the landlady and said good-bye to the cats. Then she walked to the square, hailed a carriage, and instructed the driver to take her to the Francian Embassy. As they rattled away, she took one last look back at the Imperial Theater, smiling as she remembered Grebin's parting words.
“Oh, I intend to come back,” she said. That brief taste of the heady pleasures of performing onstage had given her a craving for more. But not yet; she was far more eager to see Jagu again and tell him the astonishing news. She checked again to make sure that the precious letter of safe passage was still in her reticule.
Alighting outside the embassy, she hurried up the steps to be admitted by Claude.