“Yes, Premier. I do have a question for the Goddess.”
“Well, by all means,” Allemande replied. “Let’s hear it, then. I am always in need of amusement.”
Renaud stiffened in the corner where he had retreated, watching his master carefully, but LeBlanc only smiled, a creeping crack that widened across the bottom half of his face. He stood a little taller. What did he have to fear from an unbeliever like Allemande? Was he not fated to become all that Allemande was, and more? Was he not marked by the sign of the Goddess in his own hair?
“I will be happy to, Premier. Perhaps you would allow me to show you.” LeBlanc picked up the Ancient plastic bottles as Renaud seated Allemande in a chair. “Yes,” LeBlanc said, holding up the bottle of white liquid, “and no.” He raised the bottle of black. “Life and death. Those are the answers of Fate. One of these answers she will give us, and show us what is to be.”
He looked to the air, where the steam from the pot was rising. “Goddess, is it your will that I kill now, while the Red Rook is in my hand? Or do I wait, and grant life until the proper time, that the Rook may become a sacrifice to you?”
He waited, bottles raised to the Goddess, then dropped them simultaneously into the bubbling pot.
Sophia paused on a small stone bridge, water churning and splashing beneath her feet, rushing on its way to the sea cliffs. She thought she’d heard a faint rustle in the trees to her left, but the noise did not come again. She looked skyward. The north lights were muted tonight, faint undulating waves of pale green and a bit of red, the sky behind them spangled with the last of the stars. That’s what Tom had always said: spangled with stars. The stars, he said, were from Before. She wondered if Tom had gotten her note, if he knew she was coming for him. If he didn’t, then he didn’t know his sister at all. But she’d wanted to make sure he hadn’t forgotten to hope, like their father. Their father had forgotten everything but despair.
She’d sat for a long time on the floor of Bellamy’s room, coming up through the trapdoor beneath his rug—Bellamy House was full of such oddities—watching his back as he gazed out the black and empty window. It had been very quiet, only Nancy snoring faintly in the other room. She thought her father had been asleep as well, but it was hard to tell. Nancy said there wasn’t much difference either way.
But strangely enough, she’d felt better sitting there, huddled on the floor. Her father was ill in his mind and becoming so in his body. Seeing that had made it easier to let go of words that reflected nothing more than sickness and grief. She decided not to remember them. And so instead she’d thought about what René Hasard had said in Spear’s kitchen, just as she’d thought about it while he swung his scythe in the cornfield until there were no more stalks. The way she’d thought about it when he sat down in the kitchen, doggedly finishing the invitations, while she made her escape from the roof and into the toolshed, where she’d spent the entire span of highsun sharpening her sword and every one of her knives. After that she’d shut herself up in her room, sewing her picklocks into the seams of her gloves, not thinking about what René Hasard had said at all. Instead she thought about what he’d done: his slightly calloused hands on her hair and her neck, the way his thumb had moved, as if he liked the feel of her. She paid zero attention to Orla’s shaking head and knowing looks.
And when she finally had encountered him, coming up the stairs as she was going down, she hadn’t been able to think about anything at all; her eyes had dropped immediately to her feet. “I owe you an apology, Miss Bellamy” was all he’d said before moving past her up the stairs. Thinking about that had kept her restless and kicking the furniture until, when the much too observant Orla had finally fallen asleep in her own room, Sophia had thrown open the window, dropped out a rope, and taken off to Bellamy House.
The water beneath her feet was noisy, the rookery sleeping and quiet, the north lights fading almost to nothing. There were no portents, signs, or balls of fiery machinery shooting across the sky, either. Mostly there was the wind, which smelled just a little like the sea. And winter. Sophia pulled her coat closed over the filigree belt she wore, just in case, and glanced once at the trees on her left.
“Benoit,” she called, raising her voice, though not enough to wake the rooks. “Come walk with me.” She waited, standing still in the breeze, then switched to Parisian. “Wouldn’t it be easier if we just walked back together?”
She heard the faint rustle of leaves, and the rustle became the shadow of a man materializing from the woods. Sophia smiled as Benoit stepped into the road and followed her across the footbridge. They walked side by side down the A5 lane.
“I’ve been to see my father,” she said, still in Parisian. “Though I’m sure you know that already.”
Benoit didn’t say anything, just walked, hands in pockets.
“I’ve wanted to … I should have said it sooner, but I wanted to thank you for what happened at the Holiday.”
She saw the movement of his nod. Benoit was thin, unremarkable, perfect for his job, but his walk struck her as unhappy. She said, “You didn’t do anything wrong, you know. I didn’t know you were there. I just assumed that one of you must be. I wouldn’t have let me go sneaking off in the middle of the night on my own.” Benoit shuffled along beside her, silent. “Your master really should let you get some sleep.”
“René does not sleep. And he is not my master.”
“I see.” Sophia considered this as they made the turn onto Graysin Lane. Parisians were usually so clear about the lines between classes, but nothing about René seemed to follow the usual. “If he doesn’t sleep, then why doesn’t he follow me himself?”
“Because he is being a fool.”
“Oh, so he thinks I don’t need following? And this upsets you?”
“I am not used to seeing a Hasard act like a fool.”
Sophia smiled, thinking of René running about Bellamy House, finding ingenious ways to be annoying so he wouldn’t have to marry her. “I would’ve thought you’d be quite familiar, actually.”
Her words had been teasing, but Benoit’s were not. “Now you are being the fool, Mademoiselle.”
She looked at him sidelong. Probably he’d be surprised to know that, generally speaking, she agreed with him. “I don’t think you like me, Benoit.”
“No. I do not.”
“And why is that?”
“Because you care for nothing but the money.”
Sophia stopped in the road. “Once you get going, you are very free with your opinions.”
“I am truthful. That is all.”
“You may think you’re being truthful, but you are just being wrong.”
“As you say.” He started down the lane again, hands in pockets.
Sophia caught up to him. “I didn’t ask for this, you know. No more than he did, and of course I care whether my father is in a debtor’s cell and if we lose our land. But I will get Adèle Hasard out of the Tombs whether there is a marriage fee or not.”
The trees thinned, the farmhouse looming dark on their left, one window showing a faint candle-glow. Sophia felt her spurt of temper evaporating. “I said I would get his mother out and I will. But whatever happens afterward, I don’t mean him any harm, Benoit.”
His soundless footsteps ceased. “And yet you are causing it, are you not? René does not show himself easily, Mademoiselle.” And with that Benoit turned and walked away, taking a smooth, quick stride to the farmhouse, uninterested in anything else she might have to say.
Sophia looked up. The candlelit window was René’s room, a figure moving back and forth behind the curtain. What did Benoit mean? And could she really have the power to hurt him? She’d thought any danger of that was the other way around.
She watched Benoit’s shadowy form slip around the corner of the farmhouse, then turned and looked behind her. Branches were moving, and Cartier came out of the woods on the other side of the lane.
“You’re lucky I got him to walk with me,” Soph
ia said as he came trotting up.
“I reckon he would’ve spotted me for sure, Miss Bellamy.”
Sophia grinned at the top of Cartier’s mop-like head. You would never guess that Cartier was Parisian. He’d taken to the Commonwealth like a little chameleon, embodying Parliament’s ideal of the resourceful survivor better than most men she knew. Even though he hadn’t quite hit his growth spurt.
“I’ve left you three more kegs,” Sophia said. “In the print house, in the usual place. You can get all eight of them sent on to the city tomorrow? And they are all correctly marked?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“And this is still our secret, even from Spear?” The boy looked so affronted she didn’t wait for an answer. “Right, off you go, then. And … No, wait.”
Cartier dropped out of his runner’s stance and looked up at her inquiringly. She reached into her jacket and handed him a small sack of quidden.
“This isn’t all of it. Money is … a bit scarce at the moment.”
“Well, that’s no secret, Miss Bellamy. My mum told me that.”
Sophia sighed. That should not have surprised her. “Will your mother be all right? Until I can get the rest?”
“Not to worry, Miss.”
She grinned again. Cartier was an absolute brick. “Careful, then!”
“Double to you, Miss Bellamy.” He took off like a young fox into the trees.
Sophia looked up again at the farmhouse, the vague silhouette walking back and forth between the candle flame and the curtain. She supposed she’d always thought of things like marriage and love as a trap, like René had said, something clever girls didn’t let happen to them. Mrs. Rathbone, for all her prattling, had never struck her as happy. Nancy she could envision nowhere but in a kitchen, and the loss of her mother seemed to have all but destroyed her father. Not, perhaps, the best of examples on which to form all her judgments. But now she wondered.
Leaves rustled, and Sophia turned her head, thinking Cartier had come back. But he hadn’t. She went still, eyes scanning, hand to her belt buckle. She waited, but there was nothing, only trees combing the wind with half-naked limbs.
She took Benoit’s route back to the farmhouse, watching black shadow arms stretch up high behind a head in a room filled with candlelight. She wanted to know if what René had said could be true, and if so, what she would risk to have it. She wanted to know if Benoit meant what she thought he might, that René was showing her something real. She wanted to know if he was real. Preferably before she risked death in the Tombs.
Life. Or Death. LeBlanc pressed his hands together, waiting for Fate to declare the Red Rook’s destiny as the Ancient bottles bobbed in the boiling water, warping and collapsing in on themselves. It took some time, as if the Goddess was suffering a fit of indecision. But then, suddenly, a bottle broke.
LeBlanc straightened. “The water is white. The answer of the Goddess is life.”
Renaud’s face showed a slight eye-widening of surprise from his place behind Allemande’s chair.
“I am of the same opinion, Renaud. I …”
Allemande got up, voice smooth and even softer when annoyed. “So you wait to send Tom Bellamy to the Razor until the last day of La Toussaint. That was the answer of your Goddess? Isn’t that the date you have already set, Albert?”
LeBlanc ignored Allemande’s pique and bowed over the pot. “The will of Fate is absolute.”
“I think you will find that my will is also absolute. The Red Rook dies at the appointed time, no matter how many more rituals you perform. Is that understood?”
Allemande turned to go after LeBlanc had directed another bow his way, spectacles flashing with the tiny flames of half-burned candles. But then he paused and turned back, using a voice so muted it forced the attention of the room.
“I am glad to have seen this little demonstration. I believe the idea of being fated to die will capture the imagination of the people nicely. Set up something especially dramatic when you reduce the population of the Tombs, Albert, and I don’t think you’ll have trouble filling the chapels with your believers. What think you of a lottery wheel?”
“A wheel,” said LeBlanc quietly, “is not an object of Fate.”
Allemande dismissed this with a hand. “Present your ideas to me, then. Tomorrow, if you please. I hope your paperwork is in order?” LeBlanc nodded, lowering his eyes. Allemande looked him over for a few moments more, then opened the door and left with his escort, weapons jangling as they filed out of LeBlanc’s office.
LeBlanc waited until he heard the bell of the lift taking Allemande back down the center of the white stone building. Then his smile curled, long and slow.
“And now we let her come to us, Renaud. Every move that Sophia Bellamy makes is one step up the scaffold.”
Sophia came down the steps of the farmhouse, turned at the landing, and immediately turned again and went silently back up. Mr. Halflife was coming through Spear’s front door, and René was letting him in. Sophia froze on the stairs, out of sight around the corner of the landing, but trapped by the creakiness of Spear’s floors.
“Good day to you, too, Monsieur Hasard!” Mr. Halflife’s posh Manchester accent was strange in the house, especially in comparison with the ballroom Parisian René was affecting while inviting him in. “This is such a pleasant surprise, such a pleasant thing. I had thought you and Miss Bellamy were holidaying in the Midlands … discussing. I am happy to find I was wrong. Might I speak with Miss Bellamy? I have business with her that I want to conclude posthaste.”
“I wish that I could help you, Monsieur. But Miss Bellamy still travels. I came before her, to stay with my good friend Monsieur Hammond. He is nearly a brother to me now, of course.”
Sophia stood silently, hearing the pause this last sentence gave Mr. Halflife. She stuck one eye very carefully around the corner of the landing, where she could see the back of Mr. Halflife’s slicked head sitting on the couch. He was wearing a gray jacket, very tasteful, the cut of which was not at all Ancient, René nearly facing her in the other chair. He was sweaty, wood chips sticking all over his shirt, and yet somehow managing to pull off ballroom René very well. She saw the blue eyes make a quick, general sweep of the room that included the stairs.
“Then, I am to suppose …” Mr. Halflife collected himself. “I take it you are still contracted to marry Miss Bellamy, despite her brother’s misfortunes, and your cousin’s …”
“But of course! We are so very in love.”
“And what does Mr. Hammond think …”
Sophia watched René make an elegant gesture with his hand. He slid so easily from one role into another that it gave her pause. Then she felt her stomach tighten. Her silver shoes for the second engagement party, with the heels so high she’d had to practice walking in them, were still on the floor at the end of the couch, just out of Mr. Halflife’s sight. She focused her gaze, willing René to see what needed to be done, and then she heard St. Just’s claws come clicking down the stairs.
She reached out to catch his collar and thought better of it. He wanted out, and would have protested. Vigorously. Mr. Halflife began to turn at the noise and Sophia ducked back around the corner. She heard René get up from his chair as St. Just went yelping and barking into the sitting room.
“Ah, St. Just!” René cried. Sophia could hear her fox resisting having his ears scratched. He really was desperate to get out. “He is such a good pet, is he not, Mr. Halflife? But you must excuse his wild behavior. He is not a happy fox. He has the trouble with the … how do you say, the vermin.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
“Monsieur Hasard, I would be so grateful if you could tell me when I might have the pleasure of speaking with Miss …”
“Oh, pardon, Monsieur! Please … No, no, allow me …”
Sophia peeked around the corner to see St. Just leaping about the room like mad, her silver shoes gone, and René pulling pretend fleas off Mr. Halflife’s gray coat. She pulled her head
back, biting her lip against an urge to laugh.
“We will have this attended to in a week or so, I am certain,” René was saying. “But they are stubborn creatures to be so small. Very vexing. A thousand pardons …”
The front door was opening. “When does Miss Bellamy return from her …”
The voices and barking faded as everyone moved outside. Sophia waited, then hurried upstairs and into René’s room, which had a view of the front. She put a finger to the wavering crack between the two curtains and watched Mr. Halflife practically on the run, brushing at his sleeves. A sleek landover stood waiting a long way down the lane. It seemed Mr. Halflife had hoped to catch someone unawares. He nearly had.
She heard boots on the stairs, and René came in, Benoit just behind him. René paused in the doorway. He’d been avoiding her when he could, and she had just made that impossible. Good. Sophia peered once more through the curtains. “He’s at a trot,” she said, speaking Parisian for Benoit. “I’d say that was very well done. And where are my shoes?”
“Under the couch,” René replied, tossing clothes from the bed onto a chair, brows drawn down. He looked tired, as if someone had pulled the cork and let out all his effervescence. She glanced around. His room had so many foreign things in it. Large boots, an eyescope on the table beside the bed. A little bowl of soap for shaving a face. So was this the real room, she wondered, instead of the staged one he’d left for her in Bellamy House? Or only another carefully constructed set? She watched Benoit taking away the clothing René had put in the room’s only chair.
“And here,” René said, emptying his pockets onto the cleared bed. She came to look. Her necklace, a list of food items in her handwriting, a few letters, a brush with brown spiral hairs sticking out of it, and a pencil. She stared at the pencil.
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