A cave-in had almost engulfed the next stretch of the tunnel. Léandre got down on his stomach and squeezed himself into a tiny space at the bottom. I took a deep breath before I followed.
Broken rocks were packed tight above us. I hooked the strap of my rucksack around my ankle and crawled on my stomach after Léandre, the ground almost scraping my cheek. Sweat coated my nape. I imagined all the buildings of Paris cracking the thin shell of the pavement, falling into the hollowed-out earth, crushing this sliver of musty air. Mouth dry, I pressed on, holding onto the same thing that had kept me alive in the Westminster Archon. A single ember of resolve.
At last, I emerged in a tiny cave. To the left was another crawl space, into which Léandre had already vanished. Straight ahead was a jagged opening. When I shone my headlamp into it, the beam picked out a steep, wet incline. The rest of the Passage des Voleurs.
“Paige.”
Ivy had stopped halfway into the chamber. The change in her was startling. She was sweating marbles, quivering all the way to her lips.
“Can’t go on.” Strands of hair stuck to her brow. “I can’t.”
I helped her out of the tunnel so Ankou could get through. There was no room to stand in this pocket of space. “What is it?” I said softly. “You seemed fine at Apollyon.”
“Lost my bottle.” Ivy looked at me with bloodshot eyes. “I thought I needed to do this. Face him, at least, so I can get him the fuck out of my head.” Tears of frustration welled up. “But I’m just doing his job for him. Torturing myself. Every inch I move takes me closer to him. I’m n-not ready.”
I recognized the haunted look I had seen in my own reflection.
“Okay,” I said. “Do you want to stay here?”
“No. The cavern at the bottom of Apollyon.” She wiped her brow. “I’ll wait for you there.”
Léandre soon returned to see what the holdup was about. Once he was abreast of the situation, he was good enough not to grouse about it. “My people need rest,” he said shortly to Ivy, “but the way back to Apollyon is not difficult. Keep to the main path.”
“I remember it.”
“Good.” He passed a cylindrical pack to her. “Sleeping bag. You have enough food and water?”
Ivy nodded and shouldered the pack. Before she left, she turned to me and gripped my arm.
“Burn that place to the fucking ground,” she whispered. “Promise me, Paige. Don’t let anyone else have to live with these memories.”
Ducos had instructed me only to kill Jaxon, not to burn anything to the ground. I couldn’t please both sides forever.
“I promise,” I said.
Ivy gave me a quick, one-armed hug. I wished she could stay, to lend me a bit more strength than I had. Now I was the only human survivor of the colony to go into the next one.
Once everyone had emerged, Ivy slid back through the opening, hauling her supplies behind her. Léandre led the rest of us along the sandy passage to the left. I inched after him until we came to a dry space, just about high enough to sit up in, wide enough for us all to spread out. Léandre laid his jacket on the floor, and I realized he must have given Ivy his own sleeping bag.
“We will rest here,” he said. Now that Ivy was gone, he switched back to French. “You have five hours.”
Renelde lit a mining lamp, while I shed my gear and melted to the ground like heated wax, my head aching and stuffy, physically and mentally drained. I bundled my oilskin into the corner as a pillow.
Arcturus sat beside me while the others conferred among themselves. I dug out a can of barley soup, a sticky malt loaf wrapped in paper, and a bag of nuts and sundried berries.
“Are you holding up all right?” I said to Arcturus. “I’m surprised you haven’t whacked your head.”
“Fear not. My skull is strong.”
I drank the soup cold from the can. It was lumpy and tasteless, but it would wad my hollow stomach.
“We should consider what will greet us in the colony,” Arcturus said while I ate. “There may not be enough clairvoyants in the city for the next Bone Season to have begun. Usually, they are abducted over a decade.”
“So there shouldn’t be any red-jackets. Or harlies,” I said. “If no one has been tested yet.”
“No. For now, the human guards are likely to be well-paid Vigiles.”
“Hopefully we’ll have bypassed most of the main defenses. The traps and mines.” I found my box of medicine and slid out a blister pack. “There were no surveillance cameras in the first colony, were there?”
“No. The risk of exposure was too great.”
“Good.” I cracked a capsule from the pack. “Just the enraged Rephaim to deal with, then.”
Arcturus let me wash down the medicine and finish the loaf before he spoke again. “Can you feel any voyants?”
I hefted my attention to the æther. My tiredness rendered it woolly—a haze of distant spirits—but when I sensed the cluster of dreamscapes, gooseflesh sprung up on my arms.
“Yes,” I said, “but no one familiar yet.”
When everyone had wolfed down some food, the others joined us in our corner, forming a circle.
“We have a map of Versailles.” Léandre rolled it out and brought the lamp closer. “We will surface in the Cimetière Notre-Dame, northeast of the palace.” He signed as he spoke. “You say you have been to a penal colony like this before,” he said to me. “What can we expect there?”
“Guards,” I said. “Impossible to kill.”
Malperdy nodded to Arcturus. “Like him?”
“Yes, but armed. And murderous.”
Across from me, Ankou finished his mouthful and cleared his throat. “We stored some weapons in the cemetery,” Renelde translated for me. “A few guns and blades, but not many.”
“Stealth, then.” I tapped the map with one finger. “This place is a Type A Restricted Sector, so it will be heavily defended, but we do have the element of surprise. I’m hoping most of the defenses will be on the outskirts, like they were in the first colony. By traveling underground, we should avoid those and have a clear path to the château.”
“We should go to the front gates first, to assess its external fortifications,” Renelde said. “The best way in is through the gardens. They are very overgrown. Good cover. We have all explored them and know the routes. We also have a floor plan of the palace.”
Ankou spread it on the floor and smoothed the crinkles. I took in the names of each room in the vast palace. Seeing the section marked l’appartement du roi, I noted its location.
Renelde laid out her proposed approach. We would enter the gardens to the east of the palace, cutting across the long-neglected groves to reach the building itself.
“We used to get in through a broken window here,” she said, pointing it out. “Mal will climb up to it and let a rope down for the rest of us. Once inside, we should split into two groups to search for the prisoners. It will take us too long to cover the place otherwise. How many prisoners do you think there will be, Paige?”
“There could be up to forty,” I said, “not including amaurotics and unreadables.”
Renelde looked to Léandre, whose face remained stony.
“It goes without saying that getting the prisoners out will be difficult. Most of them will be weak and injured. As I said, we need to do this quietly.”
Chewing her lip, Renelde nodded.
“I have an exit strategy,” she said. “There is a reservoir under the main parterre, and tunnels for the pipes that once carried water to the fountains. I know a way down to those tunnels from the north wing. We never had the chance to explore them, but they most likely come up here.” She indicated a street marked rue des réservoirs. “We found a hatch on this street. I suspect it can be opened from below.”
If the reservoirs were disused, they would most likely have dried out. The thought calmed me a little.
“Fine,” I said. “The reservoir.”
Renelde showed us where the entrance to
it was hidden, behind a near-invisible door in the north wing.
“Moving prisoners in the north wing should be easy. Shorter distance to cover. We can escort them quietly, in very small groups,” she said. “For the south wing . . . I think we will need a distraction.”
At this point, Ankou took over. Among the weapons he had stashed in the cemetery, there was a Scion-made flare gun. Someone would fire it over the gardens when the north wing was clear of prisoners. The flare would both draw the guards and signal to the group in the south wing to get moving. Having the best knowledge of the gardens, Renelde volunteered.
We decided who should go in which group. Since I was most sensitive to the æther, best-placed to sneak prisoners past the guards, I chose the more dangerous south wing. As it turned out, the device Ankou carried was a motion sensor—military technology, which could detect movement, even through walls, at up to thirty feet. He would use it to escort prisoners through the north wing. With a radar on each team, we had a decent chance of getting everyone out alive. Or so I told myself.
Once we had run through the plan one more time, they retreated to their sleeping bags. There was no need for them to know about my other mission. I lay down alongside Arcturus.
“Are you ready for this?”
My voice was the softest of whispers.
“To return to hell,” Arcturus said. “Yes. It is time.” He was on his side, facing me. “Are you ready for this?”
“I don’t know.” I gazed at the ceiling. “I’m afraid of walking into a trap. Kornephoros could have set us up. Any of us could die, and at this point, I have no idea if it would be my fault.”
“We have more evidence than rumor this time.” When I said nothing, he continued. “It is your nature to act, even in the face of uncertainty. I know that I have warned you against your impulsiveness, but it has served you well before.”
“I suppose Rephaim consider every risk and possibility before they dive in headfirst.”
“Immortals have the luxury of time. Our councils often seemed interminable,” he said, a little dryly. I managed a smile. “Can you complete your assignment from Domino?”
The question hung over us. I remembered Jaxon in his boudoir, smoking a cigar. Imparting wisdom.
A squandered opportunity is death to the thief. Should he feel even an ounce of pity for his victim, he will go hungry that night. He had stared out of the window. Morals, O my lovely, are for the lucky ones.
Without knowing it, Jaxon had given me his blessing to kill him that day. The assignment was an opportunity I could not squander.
“I have killed before,” I said. “More than once.”
“In self-defense,” Arcturus reminded me. “This would be an execution. And someone you know very well.”
“I don’t know Jaxon. I never knew him.”
As I spoke, memories gleamed. Shattered pieces of the past. All the good times I had shared with Jaxon, before I learned the truth. His rich chuckle. The spark I had longed to ignite in his eyes. Our first meeting, when he had revealed to me that I was clairvoyant, and all the things about myself that had once frightened me were rendered new and marvelous.
He had taught me to love what set me apart. If not for him, I might still fear myself.
Then came the ugly memories. When he had threatened me for trying to leave his service. All the times he had thwarted and belittled me. His betrayal after the scrimmage. The revelation of exactly who he was, and what he had done. He was a dangerous trickster who served no one but himself, capable of grave violence and utterly cold-blooded scheming.
“I don’t want to fail this assignment. Not when Ducos is starting to listen.” I pillowed my head on my arm. “I’ll find him.”
“If it comes to a choice between helping the prisoners and completing the assignment—”
“I’ll choose the former. This has always been about Sheol II.” My voice was little more than breath. “If that scuppers any alliance with Domino, I’ll have to make my peace with it.”
Arcturus reached into his coat and withdrew a familiar pendant on a chain. The protective relic he had given me, the one I had thrown back to him just before I was captured.
“Some protection against Jaxon.” He offered it to me. “It may also ground you. Should you find yourself returning to your dark room, hold onto it. Remember that you are no longer there.”
The pendant sent a small vibration through the æther when I took it, as if it recalled my touch. It was the last object I had held before the waterboard, a connection to before and to now. I sat up a little to clasp it around my neck and freed my hair from under the chain.
“Thank you,” I said. “It will help.” I coughed and lay back down. “We should get some rest.”
“Yes.”
His eyes were the only light. Perhaps it was because I was too weary to care about keeping my distance, or because I was starting to feel the cold of the abyss, but I shifted closer to his chest and fitted my head under his chin. His heartbeat kept the dead silence at bay.
I hoped Ivy would be all right. She had moved through the tunnels with ease, unafraid of everything except what might be in Versailles. As I began to drift off, trying not to cough too loudly, I thought about just how far we were from the world above. Ménard could hunt forever, and he would never find us here. As disorienting as la ville souterraine was, I knew now why it appealed to the outcasts of this citadel.
Exhaustion towed me into a deeper darkness. I had thought last-minute nerves would keep me awake, but after such a long slog, it was impossible not to fall asleep.
When I stirred awake, I reached instinctively for Arcturus, my palm finding his chest. I could sense that he was sound asleep, feel his heavy watchcoat over me. When I emerged from my warm nest, I found the air and my skin much colder than they had been when I drifted off. Everyone was still and quiet.
Everyone, that is, but Léandre.
He had dialed his headlamp down to the lowest setting and was sitting in the corner, knees pulled up to his chest, next to a plaque I had failed to notice when we arrived. Keeping the coat around me, I sat beside him. He spared me a look as I read the plaque.
“I carved this here,” he said, low-voiced. “When we found this place.”
To disappear between shadow and stone. I traced the letters. To walk the buried places of the world and still draw breath. To be everywhere and nowhere, seeing all, known and unknown. To rise from the depths, never seeking the sun. To live as one already dead, and with the dead beside.
“It describes the desire in the heart of an unnatural.” Léandre shifted. “Or maybe just in mine.”
“No,” I said. “I think I get it.”
“Okay.” He tightened his jaw. “I apologize for being short with you earlier. I did not know you had been tortured.”
“I understand. Your sister and lover are in danger.”
He shot me a fleeting look of surprise, which was swiftly papered over. “Renelde told you.” A tiny huff escaped him. “She wants to get there just as much. To reach my sister. Camille.”
“La Tarasque,” I said. He grunted. “Are they . . . âmes jumelles, like you and Le Vieux Orphelin?”
“In a different way. They are like sisters, toujours collées,” he said. “You also have friends in Versailles.”
“Yes.”
“What are their names?”
“Zeke Sáenz, Nadine Arnett, and Michael Wren.”
“We will find them. We will give them a safe place.” He placed a hand on the plaque. “This day, Underqueen, we walk the buried places of the world and still draw breath.”
“So we hope.”
Léandre didn’t smile.
“Yes,” he said. “So we hope.”
****
Not long after, the others began to stir awake. We ate a little. With our strength restored, the six of us set out again, through the final section of the Passage des Voleurs. I crunched the stimulant between my teeth.
We slithered
down to the deepest known part of the carrières, where the air was soup and water fell like tears from the ceiling. I strode after Léandre, dull pain and trepidation climbing in my chest.
Eventually, our course took us upward once more. We scaled a series of broken metal ladders. At last, Léandre stopped. He gave me a leg up, and I grabbed the edge of a crack in the wall, lifting myself into a corbeled room. For the first time in two days, I glimpsed natural light. Léandre moved past me and unlocked two rusted wrought-iron gates.
I stepped out of a mausoleum, into Versailles.
18
Song of Swords
Dusk had almost swallowed the last smoldering of day. Over the city, the moon waxed bright and clean. It hung like a shaded lamp, offering enough light to guide our steps and enough darkness to hide in. I breathed in the still of the night and found that I was not afraid.
More than five months ago, I had escaped the first colony. Now I would take down the second.
Only spirits—and the stars—kept watch over the cemetery. Shadows drew their fingers through the snow. We gathered around a tombstone, which Ankou shunted aside to reveal a stockpile of arms. Among them was the flare gun, which Renelde tucked into her waistband. I reached into the grave and picked up a combat knife.
Ankou lifted out a shotgun as if it were his firstborn child. Only when he set it aside and removed an axe from his backpack did I realize he was an axinomancer; that weapon was his favored numen. Its handle was etched with feathers and bones and patterns that looked distinctly Celtic. He pressed a tender kiss to the blade.
I took note of the others’ auras. Léandre, who armed himself with knuckle-dusters and a pistol, was a physical medium—if possessed, he could be a help or a hindrance in a fight. Renelde was a fury. As I tried to get a handle on her aura, I realized why it felt so familiar. She was like Danica.
“Renelde,” I said to her, “your aura—it reminds me of someone I know. Can I ask what kind of fury you are?”
“I would love to be able to tell you.” She took a pair of knives from the tomb. “No one is like me. I go into long trances, sometimes glimpse the future. Even in Des Mérites de l’Anormalité, I could not find myself. Is your friend in London?”
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