He reached beneath his black jacket and pulled out a crisp piece of paper with the seal of the Sunken City showing through. He offered it to her, and Sophia came and took the paper reluctantly, reading the first few lines before she looked up again, confused.
“The denouncement of Ministre Bonnard?” she asked.
“Yes. Signed by a citizen of the Sunken City, swearing the Bonnards committed treason against Allemande. The reason the entire family was arrested and nearly executed, right down to their toddling children.”
She read, her eyes glossing over the words until they reached the signature at the bottom. And when they did Sophia stepped back, and then back again until she bumped into the gold-papered wall. She stared at the ink, a hand reaching up to cover her mouth. The name on the bottom was René Hasard, the same looping signature she’d seen on one hundred and thirty-eight engagement-party invitations.
“I was surprised to see your name on my invitation, René. Surprised and pleased, of course. But where is your charming fiancée?” LeBlanc’s grin was a long, thin gash in his face as he tightened his grip on the limp girl beside him; she made the slightest motion of leaning away. “I was so looking forward to seeing her before I go.”
René drained a glass of wine. “But surely you will not go before the entertainment, Monsieur? We have made such special plans, and with you in mind.” LeBlanc glanced toward the windows and their spectacular nighttime views of the Sunken City, where a full, rising moon hung low on the horizon between buildings.
“Yes,” he said, smile becoming contemplative. “Fate has destined a very entertaining night for us.” The girl at his side squeaked slightly as her arm was squeezed. “And the new Festival of Fate is also cause for celebration. Though those who set themselves against the Goddess may not find it so. Do you not agree, René?”
“Oh, yes. When the gates open, that will be very amusing. I noticed the armed men at the street door. You are careful with our assets, Cousin, that they do not receive too much celebration.”
“We worship Fate, René, but we do not tempt her. Your little fiancée should take those words to heart.”
“I am certain she will.”
Sophia slid down the wall, crouching on the floor, staring at the handwriting on the parchment until her eyes watered, aching to blink. The name on the page pierced straight through her chest. She could have countered Spear’s arguments, every single one of them, disputed his interpretation of events. Except for the document in her hand. How could this be? And why? Someone knocked at the door, but she ignored it. She looked up at Spear, questioning.
“They’re smugglers,” he said simply, “and Bonnard was Ministre of Trade. He was going to shut them down.”
The knocking came again. “Mademoiselle?” It was Émile.
Spear whispered quickly, “Tom was looking into Hasard’s background before he ever got to Bellamy House. He made me swear to look out for you, to find the proof, and I promised him I would. But Hasard has been reeling you in like a fish on a hook ever since. He wants the Red Rook, Sophie, and he and LeBlanc, they know it’s not Tom. They’ve known for a while now. They want you, and they want you in the Sunken City, with your hands dirty with prison filth. It’s a … it’s like a religious thing with LeBlanc, but the Hasards just want their fortune. Hasard convinced you to wait until La Toussaint because LeBlanc wants to make a ritual out of you. LeBlanc took Madame to the Tombs for insurance, and the price for getting her out was to bring you to the city. And little by little, Hasard convinced you to tell him everything …”
Some part of her mind registered that Émile was still knocking. “Mademoiselle? Are you there?”
She sat all the way down on the thick carpet, staring at the huge, looping R. She was stunned, blindsided, hit so hard she couldn’t think. No matter what Spear said, no matter how she untangled truth from lies, the reality was that the man she knew as René Hasard and the man who had signed the paper in her hand could not coexist. He wasn’t real. Nothing was real. This moment was unreal. And she’d known he was good at the game, known she was an easy target. She’d seen the danger and even guarded herself against it. And what had she done in the end? Chased him down. Offered herself up. He wasn’t just good, he was a master. She’d known deep down that it didn’t make sense. She had been incredibly stupid. Because she’d wanted to be. She’d wanted to believe. Because she’d wanted him.
“Did you send the hotelier?” she whispered.
Spear didn’t answer. The room sat quiet, the knocking on the door long stopped. She discovered Spear’s hand near her head.
“Here, Sophie. Come up here.”
She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet, put his arm around her, guided her to the edge of the bed, where they sat, her face against his chest. He held her, his other hand stroking her back, up and down. Spear was so big you could drown in him. She wished she could drown.
“Here’s what I think we should do, Sophie,” he said quietly. She could feel the words in the chest beneath her ear. “LeBlanc will know exactly what you mean to do. He’ll be expecting you to leave the party and come back, like you planned with Hasard. So let’s go now, as soon as we can. We’ll do what we’ve done before with the coffins, before anyone is the wiser. Did you ever mention the coffins to any of them?”
She wasn’t sure. She didn’t think so.
“LeBlanc knows you’re coming, but he thinks it’s from one direction and not the other. We’ll take the tunnels out, and if something goes wrong, there’s always plan B and the forged passes and the tickets to Spain. We’ll get to the coast, just like we’ve done before.”
No, Sophia was thinking. You don’t understand. You don’t know what I was really going to do at the prison. What I thought René was going to help me do at the prison. Plans are in motion that cannot be undone.
Or were they? If they involved René, then perhaps those plans were never going to happen in the first place. Spear had a finger on her cheek now, sliding it down to beneath her chin.
“We’ll get Orla and Bellamy, take Jennifer to her parents, and then you and me and Tom, we’ll all go away together, maybe up west, or to one of the islands, somewhere they won’t bother to look for us.”
She closed her eyes. She could save Tom and Jennifer, but what about the rest of them? How would skulking off to the coast save two out of every three prisoners? Running wouldn’t break the pattern, and it wouldn’t take down LeBlanc.
“Don’t you think we could do that, Sophie?”
She was a burning thing, streaking fire and making thunder across the sky. The finger beneath her chin pushed upward, and Spear leaned down, touching his mouth to hers.
And she woke up. Sophia leapt away like a startled deer, the paper with René’s signature landing softly on the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Sophia. Sophie …” Spear reached for her hand, but she moved it away. He was being incredibly gentle, as if she were a wounded animal. Maybe she was. “This … thing with Hasard. It’s over now. It never was in the first place. You’re free of it.”
A bolt of white-hot pain shot through her middle, making her flinch. She had never wanted to be free of it. She wrapped her arms around her waist.
“And now that you’re free, we can …” He hesitated, and her eyes snapped wide.
“We can what, Spear?”
“We can … be together.”
Sophia felt her mouth open slightly. “Do you really think …” She breathed, searching for her words. “Do you really think that because I have been betrayed, been a fool, been the biggest arse the Bellamy family has ever seen, that because of all that I’m going to suddenly fall into your arms?”
Spear leaned forward from where he sat on the edge of the bed, fists clenched.
“Spear, I don’t love you.”
It was silent in the bedroom, and then all at once Spear exploded, jumping to his feet and kicking the table where she had been forging the passes to the floor. Sophia shrank back.<
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“Why?” he yelled. “Why the bloody not?”
Sophia watched him, hand hovering near the sword she had strapped to her leg. She’d beaten Tom in a fight, but she had never beaten Spear. She didn’t want to try now. But when he just stood there, waiting, hands hanging loose at his sides, she went to him and put a hand on his heaving chest.
“What I said just then wasn’t true. I do love you. I’ve loved you ever since I can remember. It’s always been Tom, and Father, and Orla, and you. No one else mattered. Just my family. And that is how I love you, Spear. Like my family. I don’t know why it’s different for you than for me. But you need to understand that it’s not going to change.”
She could feel the tension inside him, though whether fury or pain was dominant she could not say. Everything she felt was firmly under lock and key. She was like the firelighter now, moving toward the inevitable explosion, but until then, ticking on and on automatically.
“You’re going to have to let this go, Spear. And if I don’t do what is needed right now, Tom and Jennifer are walking to the scaffold at dawn. You know I’m right.”
Spear nodded slowly, his cool blue eyes staring at the floor.
“Then what I need is for you to get those passes to the gates. You know what to do after that, and what to do if we don’t come.”
He nodded again. Sophia left the passes on the bed, picked up the paper with René’s signature from the floor, and left Spear standing by the overturned table, shutting the bedroom door quietly behind her.
The corridor was a tunnel of dim, flickering shadows, only a few sconces lit. She stood still and dry-eyed, watching the light quiver. She hurt. In her chest, in her fingers, the backs of her legs, and behind her eyes. Every inch of her insides bruising and sore. But she knew this was nothing, nothing at all, compared to the pain and humiliation that awaited her when the ticking inside her reached its appointed time.
She took a step toward the water room, toward Jennifer and Tom, and then she paused, wavering like the candlelight. She was thinking of horrid masks and pale eyes and cemeteries full of the dead. Of the red-tipped feathers she had slipped into her bodice, and fighting in the streets, and the Razor, and LeBlanc’s hands. His bloody, bloody hands. Fire replaced her pain. The blessed heat of rage. She was still going to break him. Without René. Or Spear. But there was something to be done before she left.
She folded the paper that had changed everything, shoving it far down into her dress with the feathers, adjusted the dark hair on her head, and slapped her cheeks, once each in case they were drained of color. Then she turned and walked fast down the hall, opening the door onto the gallery and her engagement party, a reckless smile on her face. She needed to see LeBlanc.
And as she was entering the gallery, Benoit slipped out of Madame Hasard’s door. He went fast down the hall, away from the gallery, a crease in his forehead. He needed to find René.
Sophia came down the stairs, blinking in the dazzle after the dim. René’s criminal friends were very cordial, and she smiled back at them, as if she were happy and brilliant and not a walking firestorm. She spotted her quarry—a black-as-death billowing robe and a streak of white hair—held up her skirts, and made her way through the crowd; she’d forgotten her fan somewhere.
“Monsieur LeBlanc,” she said.
His eyes were nearly slits when they turned to her. “Mademoiselle Bellamy,” he said softly. He reached for her hand, and she immediately offered him the other one. She’d forgotten she was wearing his signet ring, now hidden in the clutched fabric of her silver-gray skirt. Some part of her realized she was out of control, and that Tom and Jennifer were depending on her not being so. But she also didn’t seem to be able to help it. LeBlanc’s lips were cold evil on her free hand. “Allow me to introduce Amber,” he said, “my … friend for the night.”
Amber curtsied awkwardly, not looking up from beneath the hanging front curls. She was even younger than she had looked from across the room. Sophia saw Émile over to her left, inching just a little closer. Too bad, Émile, she thought. The ring is on my finger, and this dress does not have a pocket.
“What a pleasure it is to finally have you in the City of Light, Mademoiselle,” LeBlanc was saying. “Now that you are here, I think that you will never leave it.”
Sophia kept her face pleasant.
“It must be agreeable to your brother,” he added, “to finally take credit for all his deeds. Do you not think that it must be very relieving, to give credit where credit is due?”
Amber raised her head a bit at this, but Sophia just stared back into LeBlanc’s pale eyes. It was true, then. He did know she was the Red Rook. Of course he did. How could he not? She could hear René’s laugh somewhere near. She smiled.
“What a strange thought, Monsieur. But I can honestly say that as long as the goal is met, I do not mind in the slightest if no one knows what I am up to. Or if they do.”
LeBlanc’s slow smile curled, and she matched it. He would be in a million tiny slivers by the dawn, and so would his prison. She glanced past his shoulder and saw René, his arm around a rather lovely young woman in a blond wig. Lies, lies, and lies, served up with more lies. Promises whispered in her ear, arms around her on the roof and just that middlesun, in this very room. I had thought of you living here someday. With me.
René was swaying on his feet a bit now, as if he were drunk. Just as they’d planned. It was almost time to slap him. Just as they’d planned.
“… might injure your health, Mademoiselle?”
She jerked her eyes back to Amber and LeBlanc, who were both watching her curiously. She hadn’t been listening. Émile inched closer on her left.
“I …” And then she gasped. A strong burst of laughter from the group around René made several heads around the room turn. René was leaning down to the young blond now, whispering something in her ear while she giggled. “Did you see that, Amber?” Sophia said loudly. “Did you see him?”
Émile went still, and both Amber and LeBlanc craned their necks to look behind them. As soon as they had both turned back to her Sophia yelled, “Oh, there! He did it again! Come with me.”
She snatched Amber’s arm with her left hand and marched past, wrenching the girl from LeBlanc’s grip, pulling her at a trot toward René. René saw her coming and got ready.
“My love!” he called, much too loud for politeness, especially with his arm around another woman. Émile was sidling along, still on their left, Benoit now with him and speaking into his ear.
“Friends!” René slurred. “This is my fi … my wife … my fiancée! Sophie, my love, have you met …”
“How could you?” she said. “How?”
It was what they’d planned for her to say. Ask him “how could you,” step one, two, three, and slap. But now she meant it. The talk around them fell away, a rippling tide of silent air. She paused, still clutching Amber, then came forward one, two … and slapped René’s face with everything she had. She caught him full force, LeBlanc’s ring still on her finger, the sound of her palm on his cheek reverberating, snapping his head around, making the signed paper with his signature rustle against her chest.
He turned his head slowly back, hand to his cheek. She met his eyes, such a hot fire-blue against the white hair, and for one brief moment was confused by the confusion she could see inside them. His lip was bleeding.
Amber made a feeble attempt to move away, but Sophia didn’t allow it. She was supposed to berate René now, to complete the scene they had created, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything. Everything that had been making her tick was stuttering, all her inner workings grinding to a halt. And when they did, she would detonate. She walked away, forcing Amber along beside her, her high heels clacking on the polished floor.
“Comfort me,” she ordered Amber, in barely a whisper. “Don’t make me drag you. Do it. Now.”
Amber whimpered, but she put an arm around Sophia’s shoulders, walking her to the corridor door
, the crowd parting for them like wheat in the wind. Sophia opened the door, shut it behind them, and then grabbed Amber’s hand.
“Run,” she commanded.
They ran around the curving hall, past the noisy kitchen full of people Sophia had never seen, and to the door at the very end. Sophia pushed up the drop bar, opened the door, and shoved Amber through it.
“These are the stairs to the ground. You can go all the way down to the street, or take the air bridge on the eighth floor.” Amber stared at her, goggle-eyed. “Unless you want to stay here with LeBlanc?”
The girl shook her limp curls. Then she shook them harder.
“Do you have somewhere you can go? Can you hide, or get out of the city?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle, I …”
“Then go. And here.” Sophia reached between the edge of her bodice and the top of her skirt and drew out one of her sheathed knives, shoving it into the girl’s hands.
“Thank you,” Amber whispered.
“Go!”
When Amber started moving, Sophia shut the door, dropped the bar back into place, and ran again, down the hall and up the back stairs, pausing before the corridor that led to her room. She darted her head around the corner. What she could see of the hall was empty, so she flitted quickly through the shadows, drew out the knife strapped around her ankle, put an ear to the door of her room, and then opened it cautiously. Except for the table on its side, the room sat ordinary and deserted, as if it hadn’t just experienced the catastrophic collapse of her entire life. Spear and the forged gate passes were gone.
She jerked open the cupboard, found her fluffy underskirt hung among the other dresses, and drove her knife into the white cloth with a ripping tear. The firelighter was in a sack of burlap that was now in her hand, and there were men’s voices coming to her door. Benoit, she thought, and probably Émile. She darted silently to Madame Hasard’s connecting door and slipped through it just as hers was opening. When both men were in her room, she dashed out of Madame Hasard’s and down the stairs, around the curve and to the linen closet, where she’d left a covered lamp burning. She shut the door behind her.
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