Sophia wrinkled her forehead. “Why lie about that? It makes no sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense. Which is why you shouldn’t go tonight.”
“I think it’s the exact reason why I should go.”
“Put it off, Sophie. Please. Just for a night.” He reached out and straightened one of the sleeves on the gauzy pink dress. She shivered again. The corridor was freezing. “You know Tom is going to agree with me,” Spear said.
She bit her lip, thinking. “Are you sleeping here tonight, or going back to the farm?” Spear had had his own room a floor up from Tom ever since they were children.
“I can stay here.”
“Then between you and Tom, let’s make very certain that my fiancé does not leave the north wing.”
“I’ll do as I was told,” Orla said stoutly.
The hotelier of the Holiday folded two meaty arms across his chest. “I’ve no instructions about any shirts. The man said no one in his room till he’s coming back.”
“Then Monsieur LeBlanc has made a mistake. He specifically asked to have his shirts cleaned before tomorrow.”
“And you’ve come to get them in the rain.”
“I have no control over the weather.”
“And where do you come from again?”
Orla drew herself up straight, pulling her coat close around her, the picture of female dudgeon. “I don’t see how that is any of your business.”
The hotelier sighed. “Come back in the dawn, if you must.”
“Is that when Monsieur LeBlanc said he would return?”
“At the soonest. Now be on your way. I’ve things to attend to.”
“On your own head be it, then,” said Orla. She pulled her coat even closer and stepped out of the Holiday, into the inky rain and a waiting haularound. From the dark corner of the common room, where the firelight did not reach, Benoit lowered his mug.
LeBlanc lowered his eyescope. He was standing in the stable, watching sheets of rain batter the house of Mrs. Rathbone. The house was large and respectable, the light of oil lamps shining out from the windows onto a recently harvested, now soggy field. The horses whinnied, kicking at the stall doors, upset by the storm and the scent of wild dog on the cloth that LeBlanc had been waving before their noses. A house door opened, as he had hoped, and a small figure stepped gingerly into the rain. LeBlanc moved back into the shadows.
The figure entered the stable, unwrapping a shawl from around a blond head shorn short about the ears. The girl set a covered lamp carefully on a shelf, its light showing a spatter of freckles over her nose, and went to lay a hand on the nearest horse. The nape of her neck glowed bare and pale in the lantern light. LeBlanc’s smile crept wider. Luck truly was with him. He’d taken one step toward the girl when the stable door burst open. LeBlanc slid back into the gloom of an empty stall.
“Jennifer!” It was Ministre Bonnard, now shaved and looking considerably more clean, though no less fearful. “What are you doing?” His eyes darted over the interior of the stable, and he lowered his voice. “What are you thinking of, coming out here alone?”
Jennifer frowned. “It’s raining, Papa, and the horses were frightened. No one is going to be out here looking for us in the rain …”
LeBlanc shook his head. Women were so foolish.
“… and I thought I would go mad inside. The walls are too close …”
“It’s not safe, Jen, rain or no. Come back to the house. Quickly, now.”
Ministre Bonnard took the lantern in one hand and his daughter’s arm in the other, pulling her away from the stamping horses. They left the stable in darkness.
LeBlanc rose up from his crouch, still smiling, and when the door to the Rathbone house had closed, he stole out into the rain and back to the woodlands beyond the fields, where he’d left his own horse tied beneath a thick canopy of branches. Fate, he sensed, was moving her divine fingers.
Orla flexed her cold hands, a towel beneath her dripping steel-gray hair. “I argued with the man, but there was nothing doing,” she said.
Sophia was tugging her boots over tight breeches while the rain beat the roof tiles. “LeBlanc is being cautious, that’s all,” she said. As he should be.
“I don’t like it, Sophie.” Tom leaned on his stick, frowning at the pale pink, gauzy gown she’d left in a heap on the floor. He said no more words, but Sophia discerned the rest of his thoughts clearly. Too bold. “What Hasard said tonight was odd,” he continued. “There’s too much here that we don’t know.”
“Which is exactly why we must know what LeBlanc knows,” Sophia said, now tying back her hair. Her ringlets were brushed away, a knife worn sheathed at her side. With a very deliberate fit of shirt, she stood on the hearth rug looking for all the world like a slightly younger copy of her brother, and she understood his hesitation; she was feeling it, too. A net, coming from all sides, and drawing tighter. “Really, Tom. You know there’s no choice.”
The truth was, she’d been hoping Orla’s part of the plan would fail. Counting on it. She’d been sitting in the house playing polite for far too long. She wanted nothing more than to be out alone in the night and the rain. She tugged on an oil-slicked coat. “Do you have Mr. Lostchild’s gloves, Orla?”
Orla handed her a package wrapped in a freshly laundered piece of wool with leather over that, the bundle tied tight with string. Sophia tucked it into her vest.
“And here, child,” said Orla simply, holding out a leather string. Sophia nodded, twisting her ring from her forefinger, its large, pale stone winking in the lamplight. She strung it on the leather and pulled it over her neck, letting it dangle beneath her shirt.
Tom sighed and turned the iron latch on Sophia’s window, letting in a wet and salty wind. “The rain is unfortunate,” he commented. “Cartier won’t be able to start his run until it lets up or the foxes might lose his scent. He won’t have enough of a start.”
Cartier had been born in the Sunken City, along with an elder brother who’d gone beneath the Razor a year earlier. Tonight Cartier was running all the way to the hills above Mainstay in Mr. Lostchild’s shoes, coat, and pants, leading LeBlanc on a chase that would hopefully turn the man’s gaze from Bellamy House.
“Cartier’s fast,” Sophia said. “And willing, and you know as well as I do that the storm will have blown itself out before dawn. It’s a good plan, Tom.”
“I think we should be sending Spear.”
“Spear drinks at the Holiday much too often for this!”
Orla shook her wet head. “Do you think your sister is going to pass up the chance to have all the risks to herself?”
Tom’s frown deepened, and Sophia nearly stomped a foot. “Stop being such a grandmother, Tom! When will we have another opportunity to search LeBlanc’s room and put him off the scent?”
Tom shook his head. He knew there might not be another opportunity. “By dawn,” he said. “And don’t be reckless.”
“Reckless? Of course not!” She hopped onto the windowsill. “And keep an eye on my fiancé!”
“Two of them,” Tom replied.
Sophia gave them both one last grin, and jumped out the window.
The roof tiles were slick with rain, but the slope was gentle, and even in the dark Sophia knew exactly when to turn and how far to slide to the edge. She made another jump and landed softly on the flatter roof over her father’s study, ran across this, shinnied down a gurgling drainpipe, swung herself around to a window ledge, and dropped. Her boots thumped on a flat stone, placed there years ago for the purpose by Tom. She had the instinctive urge to move to one side so Tom could jump down after her. But there was no need for that, not anymore. She knew he missed it, the same way she missed him now. It had always been the two of them. And Spear.
The sea boomed on the edge of hearing, churned by the rain, filling the air with the smell of brine. Sophia lifted her face, letting the water pelt her cheeks until they stung. Then she took a deep breath and ran full tilt through the n
ight, splashing across the lawns, around the derelict print house, taking the fence in one leap. She sloshed her way toward the woodlands, where her horse stood sheltered, saddled, and waiting for her.
It was well after middlemoon when Sophia tied her horse in another woodland, this time in a thick copse well off the road. The rain had finally poured itself out, only the occasional fat drop smacking against her shoulders and back. She left her wet coat on the horse, making the final part of her journey on foot. There was little danger in this. To come down the A5 was to take the long way around to anywhere unless you were headed to the Holiday inn, and even that was more of a pause than a destination, a place to stop on your way to somewhere better. No one ever used the lane except the vicar, and that was only after chapel, because he liked to shuck off his robes and have a dip in the sea on his way to the pub.
She was passing the last of the empty printer bungalows, at the place where the sea cliffs had eroded nearly to the road, when a glow caught her eye, up in the sky and far out to sea. Sophia slowed, and then stopped. There was a faint rumble, a short pop of very distant thunder, as if the storm had returned, and then the glow grew brighter, sharper. All at once a ball of light shot beneath the clouds. Sophia ran to the side of the road and jumped up to the first branch of a short, stunted tree, watching yellow fire make a streaking arc across the blackness.
She’d seen paintings that looked like that. On the walls of Parisian chapels. Fiery streaks of light that had led the dying to the underground of the Sunken City, sent to them by the saint that took the form of a rook. They were drawn as symbols of hope on those walls, like the black feather. But not long before her mother died, when Bellamy had been a different man, her father had told her that during the Great Death the nighttime had been filled with such streaking lights. That when technology failed, all the Ancient machines of the sky, the satellites, burned as they fell, rushing to the ground in pieces of flaming metal. So many machines that they’d fallen for years.
And she’d looked up into her father’s face and asked him why the satellites fell. He said he didn’t know. So she’d asked him what they were for, and why the Ancients had put machines in the sky at all, and he said he didn’t know. Did they keep them on the moon, to be tidy? And how could the Ancients climb a ladder high enough to put a machine up there in the first place? He’d said he didn’t know. And so she, in her seven-year-old wisdom, had decided that if he did not know, then she did not believe him.
Now she was not so sure. She watched the blazing light narrow to a pinpoint, falling away somewhere beyond the horizon. What would it be like, she wondered, to live in a world where everything that must have seemed so permanent was suddenly stripped away? Where the things you’d built dropped like fiery rain on your head? Would it be like waking up and finding no sea beyond the cliffs? Or that Bellamy House had disappeared in the night?
Sophia climbed down from the tree, feeling the chill of the wind now that she had been still. She stole quickly down the lane, wondering if she should take that streak of light in the sky as a sign of hope, like some had, or a sign of despair? Or maybe it wasn’t a sign at all; maybe it was just a streak of light, and the difference between the hope and hopelessness was entirely up to her. On her left she could just see the outline of the Holiday coming into focus, standing well back from the road. She decided that it was up to her. But that didn’t mean the light had no significance.
She cut across a field to the yard of the Holiday. The inn was dark, no lights showing, the squelching of mud beneath her boots the only sound beyond distant surf; even the fox kennels were quiet. Sophia circled the building, counting the second-story windows. Orla may not have gotten into LeBlanc’s room, but she had found its location. When Sophia saw the window Orla had described, she drew out a pair of gloves—her own, not Mr. Lostchild’s—and a thin rope with a small iron hook from beneath her vest. She tossed the hook lightly upward, landing it in the roof thatch.
She dragged the hook, looking for purchase, and on the third time the hook found a piece of the wood framing beneath the thatch directly over the window. Sophia leaned back, testing the rope. When she was sure it was snagged well she slid one foot from a mud-caked boot, snaked the rope around it, and pulled herself upward, using the wrapped rope like a stair. She pushed off the other boot, and then she was climbing, quickly, rewrapping her foot, scooting and pulling herself up the rope until she had reached LeBlanc’s window.
She got one stocking on the casing, then the other, and crouched, a hand still clutching the rope. She drew her knife from the sheath and slid it down between the two panes of glass until she heard a click and felt the latch give. The windows pushed inward, and Sophia dropped silently into LeBlanc’s room.
Even with her eyes adjusted to the night the room was black. But it was also empty. She could feel that. Or maybe hear it, or smell it. Sophia hauled up the rope, winding it carefully into a pile on the windowsill, and again went to the supplies she kept beneath her vest. She would have to risk a small fire, and a light. As soon as she had a taper lit, she smothered the flame she had begun in the hearth and drew the curtains over the slightly open window. She tucked away the steel and flint and went straight to a traveling trunk in the corner.
Careful to put her damp knees on the matting, Sophia opened the trunk and sifted through LeBlanc’s clothes—much less interesting than René’s—and then a box containing his correspondence—every bit as dull as René’s. The box was expensive, plastic that had been melted and reformed, its color dull and without a name. Something Ancient and irreplaceable had been destroyed to make that box, which was yet another crime of the Sunken City, in her opinion. At least the Commonwealth didn’t allow melters to operate within its borders; everyone would know it if they did. It was impossible to hide the stench.
She set the box away, studying the room. Bed with curtains, no canopy, small table with an empty drawer, plain chair. Nothing under the mattress, no wall hangings, just an imperfect cube of plaster riddled with tiny cracks. Nowhere to hide anything. Maybe LeBlanc kept important things with him. Or maybe he kept everything important inside his head.
She went back to the plastic box, took the papers out again in a precise stack, and held it close to the candle. The outside of the box was satin smooth to her fingertips, and so was the inside. Except at one end. Her finger paused, pushed, and the bottom of the box flipped up and open, showing a shallow compartment underneath. Inside was a stack of letters. Sophia smiled, and then she froze, one hand full of papers. A board had creaked in the hallway, just beyond the door.
She lifted her other hand to the candle, ready to grab the telling light and blow it out if a key went into LeBlanc’s lock. But the moments passed and there was no other noise. The old wood settling, most likely. She went back to the papers, scanning each one quickly. She needed to be gone.
The letters were written in Parisian, just like the rest of LeBlanc’s papers. One was from Allemande, making LeBlanc aware of governmental minutiae, and one was from Renaud, his secretary, with the city’s most recent list of traitors. None of her relatives or childhood friends were on the list this time, but seeing the names made her fingers itch for a set of picklocks all the same.
The next letter was an ill-written report from Gerard—the Gerard of the Tombs, she realized—giving LeBlanc a somewhat sketchy description of the Red Rook. Young, medium to smallish height, and in the robes of a holy man. Sophia cursed once beneath her breath. The holy man was not her only disguise, but it had been one of the most useful. She wondered what Gerard had promised the poor wretch who’d told him this. Freedom? The freedom of his family? But promises or no, now that Gerard knew he hadn’t just been bribed, but bribed by the Red Rook, whichever prisoner had given this information would surely go straight to the Razor. The fact that Gerard was even mentioning it to LeBlanc made her feel certain this was already a truth.
She shifted the papers. The last letter was half-finished, and written in a hand that had to
be LeBlanc’s. Small, precise, and somehow ferret-like, just like him. Her eyes widened, nose moving closer to the paper as she read.
My dear René,
I am certain your instincts are correct, and your ingenuity is appreciated. But let me suggest yet another step in your plans. Gain the young lady’s trust; befriend her. Use your charms as you always do and I am sure you will get the information we seek. I will try to do the same. Taking the traitor Bonnard back to the City of Light is preferable, but as you say, it is the Red Rook that must be snared. The divine authority of Allemande and the Goddess cannot be questioned. I am happy to know that you are willing to sacrifice so much for the cause if this comes to marriage, but do not take such drastic measures too soon. The Red Rook is close. Write as soon as you have information. And tell your mother I …
Sophia stared at the words, barely resisting the urge to crumple the paper. Instead she put the letters in the same order inside the false bottom and pressed it closed. She replaced the stack that had been on top, shut the lid, and set the box exactly where she’d found it. Then she stood, breath coming hard, candle held high to check the room. Her hand was shaking. Not from fear, or even a bout of temper. This was rage.
René and his cousin had planned this from the beginning, never intending to have René marry her at all, or at least not for the reasons they had assumed. René had come for the Red Rook, and was using her father’s financial circumstances to do it. LeBlanc must have already had his suspicions before the night she’d rescued the Bonnards. And then he’d played her from both sides, actually threatening her with the loss of René’s fortune when he knew she was never going to get the marriage fee in the first place.
She took a long breath. How ironic to be so angry that there would be no marriage, when marrying René Hasard was what she had so desperately not wanted in the first place. She thought of him playing games in the sitting room—what a time to give in to pique and spout all those things about Mrs. Rathbone!—and the way he’d been looking at Tom’s leg, as if trying to judge its fitness. And LeBlanc thought the Red Rook was a man. Sophia bit her lip. A net, indeed, and it was closing tight around her brother.
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