As Le Rêve turns back to shore, the city lights blur and shimmer like a mirage. I have never abandoned hope, but at times, hope abandons me.
I can feel it now, trying to escape, like the spark of my soul, all the light in me. I clench my fists as though I can hold it close, but it slips out in my protests, my pleas, and finally, my bitter laughter. One of the soldiers sneers down at me as though he knows I’m mad—but I have never felt more sane. It is the rest of the world that doesn’t make sense.
Was reaching Aquitan ever possible, or is it only an illusion? Perhaps the search for a cure was the real lunacy. To travel to the edge of the world I knew, only to be turned back on the water. To give everything for a better life and still come up short. To try to stop the rebels and be accused of being one.
I should have listened to Leo.
My laughter only fades when the soldiers haul Papa to his feet. He moans when they touch his wounded arm; he cries out when they tie his hands. I try to stay close to him—just to give him a warm look, a bit of comfort—but when the boat returns to the dock, the soldiers pull us apart to march us down the gangplank. The riot has dispersed, leaving nothing but a line of soldiers and a black smear of blood on the wharf. Desperately, I search the face of each man in uniform, looking for my brother among them—or the man I’d thought was my brother. But if I found him, would he help us?
Either way, he does not appear. The soldiers drag us through the streets. The city is dim, subdued; the revelers gone. But when Maman sees our destination loom out of the dark, her cries split the air.
“You can’t take me in there! You can’t!” Maman struggles, but the soldiers march us inexorably along the carved stone path toward the black temple—Hell’s Court—where Le Trépas lurks in the dark. As they haul us over the threshold, Maman’s protests turn to screams. They echo in the long hall, over and over and over, wordless shrieks like a hammer to glass. Somewhere, off in the dark, a man starts screaming back.
Shadows flee before us. The only light comes from the smoking torches tacked to the walls, their feeble light swallowed by the blackness of the cavernous vault. At the far end, a stone statue looms, stripped of its gold. Its face is lost in the darkness near the distant ceiling, but his lamp is there, empty at his feet. The King of Death. There are no offerings here, and no souls either, though I can smell death in the air.
At the foot of the statue, a jailer rests his feet on the black stone altar. As we approach, he stands, taking a set of keys and a lamp from his makeshift desk.
“What did they do?” he asks, barely curious, as he leads us down the long hall.
“Traitors,” the soldier grunts. “Like the rest of them in here.”
The jailer shakes his head as I whisper prayers to our ancestors—but can they hear me here? And if so, which ones are listening?
We trail down the hall, past rows of cells, small square hollows with tiny windows and scarred wooden doors: the rooms where monks once slept. Now they are full of prisoners. The smell is almost a physical assault—joined soon enough by voices. Curses, threats . . . prayers. I shudder. Is it his voice I hear? Which cell houses Le Trépas?
Finally we stop before a cell just like the others, only empty. The guards thrust us through the door. When the jailer shuts it behind us, the dark comes down like a curtain: stop the show. There is no light—there never has been, and will never be again. But Maman’s screams go on and on, reverberating in the room, making the blackness come alive. Then comes a thudding sound, over and over and over, as she flings herself at the door.
A thought—fleeting: at least we are together. I reach out with trembling hands and find Papa first. To my surprise, he is standing—though he’s still hunched, his wounded arm hanging at his side. With the other, he pulls Maman close, folding her against his chest, muffling her cries till they turn back from sounds to words.
“He’s here,” she says, over and over. “He’s here.”
His arms around us, Papa leans against the wall; we slide down together to huddle on the floor. But then, over her sobs, Papa starts to sing.
He sings songs from our shows, old airs from the valley, lullabies and reels about home. Songs for remembering, for resting, for laying down to sleep; even songs for children’s clapping games, for threshing rice, for herding water buffalo—he sings them all, over and over, all through the night, as hopelessness circles like a vulture and eternity falls into the chasms between hours. I hold on to his voice—no, it holds on to me, wrapping me like a blanket, warming the cold stone. Maman goes quiet too, finally calm or exhausted. And it isn’t only her. When Papa sings, the other prisoners are silent in the dark, even the screaming man.
What about Le Trépas? Can he hear Papa’s voice? Does he smile at the music?
Finally dawn arrives, a sickly, crepuscular light seeping into the prison through cracks and around corners. Papa brings his performance to a close, looking somehow smaller, as though he’s poured something of his substance into his song. As the light grows, it heightens the pallor of his skin. He slumps back against the wall, his shirt stiff with dried blood. I have never seen him look so diminished, and it is somehow worse than the whispers in the walls.
But there is nothing I can do to help him. The cell is bare—there is no water to wash his wounds, no clean cloth to bind them, no betel or alcohol, only stone floors and filth in the corners and the bones of vermin who have died here in the dark. If only their souls had stayed, I could break the lock, twist open the door. But nothing dares come near, not even when I pick at my wounds and blood beads on the skin. Even the dead fear Le Trépas—except the ones who serve him. A brief spark of gratitude for the dark; I’d rather have no light at all than a flicker of blue fire.
Hours pass like years. No one opens our door—why? Had they searched our rooms? Found our bags? Found Leo? Has he told them what I am? What I can do?
Maybe they will never open the door again.
We haven’t eaten since yesterday, but I am not hungry. The thirst, though . . . it’s like a file in my throat. Worse for Papa—it must be—but he doesn’t complain. And what about his arm? It is swollen, limp, hot to the touch. Pain flickers like a flame across his face, and even in the cold of the cell, sweat glistens on his brow.
Now that he is quiet, the sounds of the other prisoners creep in: men whispering, weeping. Someone coughs and coughs with a sound like tearing flesh. The hours pass, and eventually I hear sobbing, soft and close—and I think it’s Maman until I touch my face and find the tears, hot as blood.
At least Maman is no longer screaming. She only lies with her head in Papa’s lap as the hours pass. Gently he strokes her hair, and her breathing is shallow and even. I think she’s sleeping until she speaks. “Do you see them?”
Her voice is so quiet; her lips barely move. But Papa heard her too. “Shhh, Meliss,” he says, but I crawl closer.
“Who, Maman?”
“Your brothers and sisters.” Her whisper is softer than a dying breath; it chills me more than the stone. “Can you see their souls?”
“No,” I say, still cautious—but why? If we cannot talk about it now, when? I may never have another chance. “Not here.”
“In the middens,” she guesses, with such clarity that I wonder if she’d seen them too, so many years ago.
“In the tunnel,” I tell her. “Something like n’akela. But he put himself into a body like I put souls into fantouche.”
“Jetta . . .” Though Papa’s voice is quiet, there is a warning in it. But I take Maman’s hand, unwilling to be silent now.
“What are they, Maman?”
“A perversion,” she says with a shudder. “They use the power to give life to take new bodies for their own twisted souls.”
My lip curls at her words—but these are my brothers, she said. My sisters. If they are perversions, what am I? “How? Is it Le Trépas’s blood that makes us this way?”
“It’s the deaths,” she murmurs. “Three of them. Drowning. The hole in the earth, to swallow you up. I stole you away before the fire. You survived.”
I swallow. When I had walked through the graveyard, had I passed a stone carved for me? “If I hadn’t . . . ?”
“You’d be one of them.”
I sit back against the wall, the stone cold against my clammy skin. Under the damp rags of my uniform, my scar itches. The fire two years ago—my third brush with death. What will happen to my soul when the King of Death finally comes for me? Will I seek out the bodies of the dead and wear their rotting flesh till it falls away?
The image curdles in my head, but then Papa clears his throat and starts another song. Though his voice is raspy and softer than it was, it is more compelling now than the shadows whispering in my ear—more familiar. What we share is more than blood.
He sings the hours away. It is grueling, to sing without stopping, without food or water, without care for his injuries—and even a performer like Papa can’t keep it up forever. But he doesn’t stop to complain, and I am carried away by the melody as my heart beats in time to the song.
Time passes—how much? I don’t want to guess. What if this all the time I have left? But then, over the song, another sound: footsteps in the hall, and the jingle of keys.
I hold my breath. Is the jailer coming for us? Hope returns, though I hesitate to welcome it. Then again, it is oh, so sweet while it lasts. It grows as the footsteps stop outside our cell, then blooms when the tumblers turn in the lock. As the door swings wide, I stagger to my feet, weak and dizzy but propelled by need—for what? Food, freedom? And water. A sip of something. But the man does not carry a plate or a cup, nor does he say a word. He only steps aside to make way for two grim-faced Aquitan soldiers.
One raises a lantern and peers at our faces—Maman, Papa, and me. The light is painfully bright. I cringe, like a worm pulled from under a stone, but dirtier. My hair is lank and tangled, my skin streaked with muck, and the servants’ livery hangs off me, stained with water and worse. I must look like the worst sort of person—a criminal, a convict . . . crazy. But the soldier jerks his chin at me. “Come with us, girl.”
My heart judders; my gut twists into knots. “What’s going on?”
“Just a few questions.”
“Why? What about?”
They do not answer. They only take my arms and march me down the hall, and while a moment ago, I longed for freedom, all I want now is to race back to Maman’s arms. But the jailer slams the door behind me, the heavy wood muffling her cries. I struggle as the soldiers lead me down the hall, fighting with a strength I didn’t know I still had. I’ve seen how the armée questions prisoners. In my mind’s eye, the rebel’s face appears, spitted on a bamboo pike. Help me.
But at the end of the hall, the soldiers stop. Instead of a questioneur, General Legarde is waiting beside the altar, under the impassive gaze of the old stone god.
I stiffen, going still. What does he want with me? I can’t imagine the general himself is questioning everyone from the ship. Does he remember me from the road in Luda? Has he recognized my description from the recherche? Does he know about the guns I helped smuggle?
Has he found my fantouches?
But whatever he knows, whatever he says, this is my chance to try to convince him we are innocent. Perhaps my only chance. So I shrug off my captors and take a deep breath, lifting my chin, just so, and set my jaw, like this, as I stride toward my impromptu performance. But a laugh bubbles up in my throat. If only I’d known in Luda that I’d see Legarde again. That this would truly be the most important show of my life. And as I approach the altar, I stumble at a new distraction.
The surface is bare—cleared of the lamp, the inkwell, the jailer’s papers, his keys. Instead there is only a glass of water, placed directly in the center. It sparkles in the torchlight like a flute of champagne; in my ears, a ringing sound, as though someone were running an invisible finger around the crystal rim. I can hardly take my eyes from the glass.
“Is that for me?” My voice is a croak. The silence stretches. Legarde gives me a thin smile. He doesn’t answer my question.
“How do you know Leo Rath?”
Of course. His son. Legarde must know Leo is involved with the rebels. That is why he would question me personally—here, in the privacy of the prison. Did the soldiers find Leo in my room? And if I admitted to leaving him tied there, would that help or hurt my cause? The general has disowned him. . . . “Leo Rath,” he said, not Leo Legarde. But what about Theodora’s letter? You are my brother always, no matter what he says. I blink, trying to gather my thoughts—but the general takes my hesitation as equivocation.
“I can see by your face you know who I mean. Don’t try to be clever, and don’t bother protecting him. He’s a traitor. A pimp. Familiar with loose women.” He gives me a significant look, just short of mocking, and I use all the power of the muses not to change my expression. The man gives no indication that he’s speaking of his own son, but the words gall me—this, from a man who kept a mistress in a dance hall along Le Verdu.
Or is he only saying as much to draw me in? To get me to insult his son to his face? “We traveled together,” I say at last. “For safety on the road.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Aboard Le Rêve,” I say—truthfully. Should I tell him what Leo had said to me there? That he was involved with the rebels? Would Legarde show mercy if he knew I had tried to fight back? I take a breath, but I can’t get the words past my teeth. What’s stopping me? I want to believe it is caution. “May I have some water, please?”
“Leo was seen leaving the ship aboard a fishing boat with another person of interest.” Legarde puts his hand on the glass. My tongue curls. “Where is he going next?”
“I wish I knew,” I say, also the truth, though it sounds like a lie. “Maybe Luda? If I knew exactly what you wanted to know, I might be able to help better.”
Legarde watches me awhile. I watch the glass, and grit my teeth as he moves his hand to gesture at my filthy costume. “That is the uniform the rebels used to steal aboard the ship. A servant reports you threatened him with a gun. But when we questioned the surviving rebels, none of them knew anything about you. What’s more, you were invited aboard at Leo’s request. You must know each other well.”
I open my mouth to refute the claim—there was so much I didn’t know. So much I hadn’t suspected. But why, then, can’t I lay the blame at Leo’s feet? “He wanted to help me,” I say at last, and at the thought, the words finally come. “We met in Luda. I was there for La Fête. I’m just a shadow player. We’re . . . I was trying to get to Aquitan. To bathe in Les Chanceux. To find a cure for my malheur. Leo said he would help me get there. He said I reminded him of someone he knew.”
His mother, I do not say. The woman you left alone with your gun. Was Theodora right? Was Legarde as bereft as Leo at her death?
But if he thinks about her, he does not show it. “A shadow player from Luda,” he murmurs. My heart drops—the recherche. “A girl and her mother, if I recall correctly. We’ve met before.”
“Yes, sir.” Inside I am cursing, but I paint gratitude on my face thick as stage makeup. “You remember my little performance. Strings the thinness of a spider’s web. You gave me five étoile. Thank you, sir. Thank you.”
I bow low, but his expression does not change. “That same night, did you happen to meet Capitaine Legarde?”
“Not that I recall,” I lie, and a smile touches his lips, then fades.
“I will telegram him to ask,” he says then—a warning. But hadn’t Siris said the telegraph building was damaged in the fire? How long would it take to repair? I widen my eyes, just a little, as though I’m confused.
“Yes, sir?”
Legarde watches me for a long time. But I do not break—never show, never tell. Finally, he nods a little, and relief nearly makes my knees buckle. But then he motions to the guards. “Show her back to the cell.”
“To the cell?” Panic rises in my chest, sharp and strangling. “But I’m not a rebel!”
“I know,” Legarde says. He sips from the glass of water as the soldiers clamp their hands like vises on my arms. Gone is my stiff back, my brave face. I make them drag me down the hall, fighting the whole way. My own screams are answered in a chorus from the cells as we pass.
I should have given Leo to the general, told Legarde everything I knew. But would it have mattered? He believed me, he said so—I saw it on his face. But he hadn’t brought me out to hear that I was innocent . . . only to learn who else was guilty.
Who was the person of interest who left with Leo? Another rebel? If I’d made a different choice aboard Le Rêve, it could have been us.
Maman and Papa are both waiting, breathless and afraid, as the guards throw me back through the door. We cling to one another, and I don’t know which of us is comforting the other.
“What did he say?” Papa murmurs into my hair, his voice like a rasp over bark. “What’s going to happen?”
“They’re letting us out in the morning,” I lie, and if they don’t believe me, no one says it. “Only one more night.”
At the door, the jailer clears his throat, but I’m grateful he doesn’t disagree aloud. He lingers in the doorway though the soldiers have gone. “I like the singing,” he says at last, pulling a metal flask from his jacket and setting it on the floor.
I snatch it up as he shuts the door. It’s cool and slick in my shaking hands and nearly half full. At first I wonder if it’s liquor, but when I unscrew the cap, I can smell the sweet, pure scent of water. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done to pass the flask to my father. But Papa only gives it to Maman with a gentle smile. She hands it back to me, and I shake my head. “You first. The general gave me some,” I lie.
She takes a drink so deep I can almost hear it—the sound of water rushing by, like the rising tide as the king called the sea, or the floodwater through the lava tunnel as I stood at the broken stone lip. But then Maman hands the bottle to Papa. He only takes a sip. We pass the flask between us, alone again with the dark. At least for tonight, we have one another.