She would burn it when she was done as she did with all her art, leaving behind no evidence that she’d been in the world. It would also be a way to say good-bye. Mouse pushed back against the wave of sadness that pulled at her—that she would never see Angelo again, never get to hear him play.
Angrily, she threw the unfinished needlework onto the seat beside her. There was no time to wallow in self-pity. Her father said he was busy, which seemed to confirm the Bishop’s conclusion that something was about to happen. And if her father was planning to unleash a storm of evil on the world, Mouse had a responsibility—not only to ensure that she wasn’t the tornado at the epicenter of that storm but also to stop the storm from coming at all. If she could.
Later, from her room at the Red Lion, Mouse watched the sun rise over Prague Castle for the first time in more than seven hundred years. She had expected to feel something—nostalgia or loss or a sense of coming home—but she just felt empty and odd. Once, she had known the city streets and the market vendors; she and Ottakar had claimed the place as a playground when he wasn’t plotting some new conquest or wrestling with the duties of state. But there was nothing left of the Prague she knew.
She was just another tourist when the castle opened that morning. She stepped though unfamiliar gates built in the 16th century with not even an old stone left of the ones she had ridden through so many centuries ago. The courtyard that had once been full of the smells and sounds of castle life—the clang of swords and the bawdy jokes of the soldiers, the whinny and bray of the animals and the sourness of the mud—it had all been encased in stone, flat and level and dead. Even Ottakar’s mother’s garden, where Mouse had shed her childhood and left it among the withered roses, had turned to ash and lay buried under concrete.
All of the basic pieces were still here—St. Vitus’s, the palace, St. George’s—but they all wore different faces. Mouse was just the opposite. Her face was the same, but everything else about her was different from when she’d been here last. Was there even a sliver left of that long-ago Mouse who had been full of courage and hope? Angelo had made her think so. She wondered if the ghosts of old Prague also still lived in the ruins beneath the castle where the archaeologists excavated pieces of the life she’d shared with Ottakar.
In the quiet splendor of St. Vitus Cathedral, Mouse walked past the tombs of people she once knew—all of them bone dust in empty boxes now. The words of a requiem filled her mind. It was Dies Irae, the Day of Wrath. She waited for the heaviness of grief to settle on her as she approached the Chapel of Relics where Charles IV had moved Ottakar’s tomb when St.Vitus’s had been expanded from a basilica to cathedral. The sarcophagi of Ottakar and his grandfather flanked the enclave that had also once held Charles’s most treasured holy relics. Ottakar’s father, mad King Vaclav, had been left in obscurity at St. Agnes’s convent. Mouse couldn’t help the flush of satisfaction and taste of revenge that crept into her smile.
The smile faded quickly when she reached the gate to the enclave. It was locked. She took a quick look around—most of the tourists were on the front side of the altar. She’d seen a guard roaming the nave, but Mouse only needed a few minutes. Tensing, she pressed against the gold metalwork atop the dividing wall and jumped. She landed silently and then quickly crouched behind Ottakar’s tomb. The steady hum of tourists marveling at the beauty of the church confirmed Mouse’s hope—there were no hidden alarms and she had not been seen.
She lay her forehead against the sarcophagus for a moment, steadying herself, and then she stood and looked down on the man who had once meant everything to her.
She touched Ottakar’s face again and ran her hands along his stone effigy, her fingers dipping into the carved hollows of his eyes no longer hyacinth blue. Again, she waited for the flood of emotions, but they never came. The memories, good and bad—his face the first time she saw it, bathed in sunlight, the feel of his arms around her, the smell of him as he bent to kiss her, the torment in his eyes when he told her he was to marry Margaret of Austria to keep Bohemia safe, the look on his face before she whispered those last merciful words—all the memories were still perfect in detail in Mouse’s uncanny mind, but the deep, rich passions first painted in vibrant oils had now softened into watercolors.
Quite suddenly, Mouse realized that her grief for Ottakar had passed. She wondered when that had happened. But she couldn’t afford to think about that now. She needed to concentrate on where her father might have hidden the pages of the Devil’s Bible. She searched the tomb’s base for hiding places and slid her hand into the crevice between Ottakar’s back and the slab of stone, searching for leaves of parchment. To her touch, the stone felt warm, almost alive.
Mouse snapped her head up at the sound of shuffling feet coming nearer. She made for the divider but not quickly enough. The group of tourists turned the corner to stare at the girl standing on the wrong side of the dividing wall. The group’s guide stopped midsentence.
Mouse hopped over the gate, smiling. “Dropped my phone,” she said, shrugging apologetically.
The tension eased instantly, and the group slid past her toward the enclave.
“Which dead guy is this?” one of them asked.
“Just one of the early kings from before Charles IV. His name was Ottakar. But if you’ll follow me, St. Wenceslas’s Chapel is just up here on the left.” The tour guide was already moving past the enclave. One of the tourists had started humming “Good King Wenceslas.”
“No.” Mouse had meant to slip silently away, thankful at not being caught, but the word came out anyway.
“No,” she said again as the tourists and the guide turned to stare at her once more. “This is Ottakar. He was a good man. He was funny and kind.” She swallowed, suddenly aware of the awkwardness. “He was the Golden and Iron King,” she said reverently, her last good-bye to the man she had loved.
She spun and ran out of the church, stumbling in a daze across the cobblestone square toward St. George’s and Ludmila’s Chapel. Mouse had no reason to come to the chapel. She would find no hidden pages here. Her father didn’t know about this place or its meaning for her—no one would except her and Ottakar. And Nicholas.
Mouse leaned into the memory of the weight of the baby she’d once carried on her hip, his blonde curls catching the candlelight as he played with the pearls on her dress. The intensity of this memory would never fade; it would never lose its bright agony. The ghosts of her past seemed to have found her at last.
She had brought Nicholas here for the last time on her last night in Prague—until now. It had been her last night as a mother. Even though she had given away her son to save him, his cries—“Mama! Mama!”—as he reached out his little hands for her still broke her with grief and guilt.
She fell to her knees at Ludmila’s altar. The words of the Dies Irae again came to her lips because she had no prayer of her own. “I meekly and humbly pray. My heart is as crushed as the ashes. Perform the healing of mine end.” She lifted her hands to her face, the sweet smell of her infant son still fresh in her memory after seven hundred years.
Mouse wept.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He found her in the chapel. They spoke in the hushed tones of confession, she and the almost-priest.
“I missed the train,” Angelo said. “I’ve been on a bus all night.”
Mouse kept her eyes on the floor. She was reeling from the suddenness of his arrival and the wash of joy breaking against her remembered grief.
“I had to convince the concierge at your hotel that you were my sister so he’d tell me which direction you’d headed. I’ve been searching the grounds for an hour,” he whispered.
Mouse nodded. The rush she felt was as close as she could get to being drunk. Angelo had not been frightened away. He knew some small piece of her darkness, of the things she had done, and yet he had found her again.
“Won’t you absolve me?” He bent as he spoke, trying to see her face past the curtain of her hair.
&nb
sp; She nodded again.
“So where are we?”
“The Chapel for St. Ludmila,” she whispered.
“What happened here?”
Mouse stood and walked past him to get out of the chapel. He reached for her hand but she pulled it away. He followed her through the heavy wooden doors into the courtyard. They both squinted at the suddenness of the light.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“On the bus. I told you, I missed the train.”
“I see.” Mouse had lots of experience with half-truths. She had no reason to expect answers from him when she couldn’t give him any either, but he was clearly hiding something, and it made her question the reason he came looking for her again.
“Where else should we look?” he asked.
“The pages aren’t here.”
“You’ve searched? The whole castle?” Angelo asked.
“They wouldn’t be just anywhere. There’s only one place my father would have left them, and they’re not there.”
“Where was that?”
“A tomb.”
“Whose?”
“Someone I knew.”
Angelo waited for more, but when it was clear he wasn’t going to get it, he sighed and held out his hand to her. “I’m starving. Let’s get something to eat.”
Mouse hesitated a moment and then let him pull her to him as they started walking.
“I watched you a little before I came to you,” he said. “Why were you crying?”
“It’s nothing.” Her words were clipped. She wanted to revel in the reunion but Angelo seemed to be all questions, and she knew she was going to have to send him away again anyway. This game was too dangerous for Angelo to play.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted it so he could see her eyes. Mouse felt her face warm as he studied her for a moment until she gently pushed his arm away.
“You thought I left you.” It wasn’t a question.
“It made sense after what I told you.”
Angelo shook his head. “We’ve covered that. Whatever happened out in that field, I know you’re not a murderer.” He said the last words softly so no one but Mouse could hear.
“You should’ve gone home.”
“Is that why you were crying? Because you thought I’d gone?”
“No.” She sounded indignant.
“I’m not going to leave you, Mouse.”
She shrugged. “I was crying about something that happened—”
“A long time ago?” He chuckled.
“I gave up something there.” Her fingers tightened around his as she said it.
“What?” He was serious again, responding to her tone.
“My son.”
Angelo paused for only a moment. “Where is he now?” he asked as they stood in the sunlight of the courtyard.
“With his father,” Mouse answered. She told Angelo the story but with none of the details. No dates. No names. It was just a common, sad story—a mother who gave away her child.
“What was his name, your son?”
“Nicholas.” Mouse ran her hand along her cheek, remembering the touch of his skin, the softness of his baby hair. For all the grief, there had been joy, too, and though the joy hurt worse than the rest, it made her feel alive again—just like Angelo did, waking her up and making the world seem new. But she’d given Nicholas away to keep him safe. She’d have to do the same for Angelo.
“My son was in danger. I couldn’t help him so I gave him to someone who could.” She pulled her hand free of Angelo’s as she thought about how easily her father had caught her yesterday. “Angelo, you’re in danger, too. What more can I do to make you believe me?”
“Answer my questions, Mouse.”
“You first. What were you doing last night?” she countered.
“I missed the train.” He looked away as he said it.
“Another one left less than two hours after mine. Where were you?”
“You know the whole damn train schedule?”
She just looked at him.
“I missed that one, too,” he said.
She reached toward him and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “You couldn’t call the hotel?”
Angelo locked his hands behind his head and looked down at her in frustration. “You won’t answer my questions. I won’t answer yours. I guess we’re at a stalemate.”
“This isn’t a game, Angelo. It’s your life.”
“I know.” He reached for her and pulled her against his chest. “I know. And I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Me neither,” she mumbled.
She stepped back and started to hand him his phone, but then she saw the text still lit up on the screen. It was from Bishop Sebastian.
“Your keeper has a question for you. The Bishop wants to know: ‘Why Prague?’” Mouse tossed the phone back at Angelo.
He threw his hands up to catch it. “What are you talking about?”
“He knows where we are. What else have you told him?”
Angelo squinted as he read the text for himself. “I haven’t talked to him since we left Rome. I don’t know how he knows where I am.”
“Why should I believe that?” She wasn’t looking at him; she was scanning the crowd for the Bishop’s spies and starting to move slowly toward the gates that led out into the city. “You’re lying to me about where you’ve been. All you want to do is ask questions. Makes sense that you’re feeding him information. That’s why you came. He sent you.” She turned away.
“Bishop Sebastian did not send me.” Angelo was angry now, too. “And I haven’t talked to him since we left Italy.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her into the shadow of the wall. He was pushing buttons on his phone with his other hand. She started to walk away again. “Please, Mouse. You owe me this. Just wait a minute.”
Mouse finally looked at him, trying to find a lie or a truth in his eyes, but she couldn’t read him. She felt that thrill in her again, like the ground dropping out from under her, and leaned back against the wall, tensed in readiness to run or fight.
“Father,” Angelo’s voice was cold and hard. “I want to—” His mouth snapped shut as he listened for a moment. “No, Father, I’m the one asking the questions this time. How the hell do you know where I am?” Angelo turned toward the wall, letting go of Mouse’s arm and pressing his hand against the stone beside her.
“The what? I don’t know what that is. Novus Rishi?” Angelo turned to Mouse, the question in his eyes. She looked away quickly—her best guess was that Novus Rishi was the name of the Bishop’s demon warriors, but she couldn’t say that to Angelo.
He held the phone to his ear for a moment more and then shook his head. “I want you to leave me alone, Father. I’ll come back when I’m ready.” He slid the phone back into his pocket and looked angrily down at Mouse. “I can see you know what he’s talking about. How? And what’s the Novus Rishi?”
“The Rishis are seers of truth or thought in Hinduism, kind of like prophets,” Mouse said.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“I should think you’d be more upset about your master’s tight leash than what I know or don’t.”
“Whatever he may think, I’m not on his leash. Or yours either. I’m sick of you both trying to maneuver me.” He looked out over the courtyard.
“I’m not, Angelo. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”
“I’m sure he’d say the same thing. But I can take care of myself. These are my decisions to make—not yours or his.” He blew out a frustrated sigh. “He had another cryptic message for you, by the way. He said to remind you that Jonah had three days in the whale. Even I’m clever enough to understand that one—the Bishop’s giving you three days to ‘Act and God will act.’ Right?”
Mouse relaxed a little. She had one more day to play this her own way before Bishop Sebastian and his Novus Rishi tried to make her choices for her.
“So what’s next?” Ang
elo asked.
“It’s too dangerous, Angelo.”
“That’s my choice to make.”
She knew he was right, but he also didn’t really know what he was getting himself into. “This isn’t a mystery for you to solve. This is—”
“I am coming with you, Mouse.”
“All right,” she said, defeated. “But we’ll need more daylight than we have left, so it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.” She squinted up at the sky. “Besides, I’m hungry.”
Mouse couldn’t tell Angelo what she was, but maybe she could show him some part of who she had been—before even she had known the truth about herself and her father. She let go of the breath she was holding and stretched out her hand toward Angelo.
“I lived here, in Prague, for a while. Would you like to see my city?”
As they walked toward the Charles Bridge, Mouse warily searched the faces of passersby, but with every step she and Angelo took into Old Town, she felt the present and all its dangers fade as she threaded Angelo into her past.
Celetná Street smelled of baker’s yeast rising as it had when she was young, but the sounds of merchants hawking their wares in the old market at the Town Square were just echoes in her mind. The sharp spokes of the Tyn Church. The towering Astronomical Clock with its ticking and grinding. The massive monument to Bohemia’s heretic, Jan Hus, dusted in an eerie patina. All of it was new to Mouse and it closed in on her, clashing against her memories and reminding her that this Prague was not her Prague.
For a moment, she felt lost, a ghost dislodged from time. Mouse spun around looking for something familiar to ground her again. She saw a sign outside a coffee shop chalked with the day’s special—strawberries covered in cream, the last of the season—and Mouse took a slow breath. She and Angelo sat at a little table at the edge of the square, and as her mouth burst with sweetness and the thick texture of cream, she smiled at the thought that some things never changed.
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