The drawn swords parted, and Allemande stepped through. “Premier,” LeBlanc said. “I have only just arrived. Could I ask for a few moments to assess the situation? And I would prefer to have you wait in my office.”

Allemande’s eyes blinked beneath the glasses, a few of the guards showing surprise.

“For your safety, of course, Premier. I would like to be certain the area is secure.”

“Yes,” said Allemande slowly. He looked about, and then chuckled. “I would like to be present for your interview with the commandant of the Upper City, I think. He has much to answer for. As do you.” The premier put his hands behind his back. When LeBlanc had bowed he strode away with his jangling men, looking a bit like the runt of a litter. A very cunning runt.

LeBlanc watched him go. He had no need of a guard; he was in the hands of Fate. He put his pale eyes on a gendarme standing before a little stone and concrete chapel, unbroken, vibrant red glass showing behind the boarded-up windows. The greatest concentration of the dead were piled before its door, city blue scattered among the other varying colors of cloth. LeBlanc approached cautiously, holding his robes above the blood and muck.

“They tried to take back a chapel, Ministre,” the gendarme said. He was young, voice a little high.

“Are there any live ones?”

“I don’t think so, Ministre. They fought to the last.”

How wise of them, LeBlanc thought. “And who are they?” He looked down at the body in a stained brown shirt near his feet and pushed gingerly with the toe of his shined shoe. The body turned, the man’s eyes wide open and vacant, a gaping sword wound in his chest. Beneath the bloody grime on his face, painted on one of his cheeks, was a red and black feather. LeBlanc looked at the man for a long time, then raised his eyes to the shaking gendarme.

“Tell your commandant that he is to come to my office,” LeBlanc said, voice oily soft. “That he may give me a full report on his failure to maintain order in the Upper City.”

The gendarme scuttled off, nearly at a run. Renaud stepped up from the shadows as LeBlanc reached into his robes and removed a small black sack from the inner pocket. He emptied a single Ancient coin onto his palm, stamped with the year 2024, cupped his hands together, and shook. The coin inside his hands rattled against his skin while he closed his eyes, lips moving silently. Then he pressed the palms flat, the coin still between them, and slowly opened his hands, presenting them to the air like a supplicant. Renaud leaned forward to see. The coin was on facade.

“The will of Fate is no!” LeBlanc snapped. “The Rook lives until the appointed day.” Renaud stepped back a pace, but LeBlanc’s voice regained its preternatural calm. “I believe the Goddess wishes to increase my enjoyment of the Red Rook’s death with each delay.” He put the coin away and turned over another body, blotting the shine on his shoe, showing another face with a painted feather. This time it was a woman. LeBlanc stepped back.

“She is responsible for this,” he hissed. Renaud nodded, aware that his master did not mean the dead woman. “She has begun this and she will pay. Get another report from our informant. I want to know when she walks from her door. Be certain I have an answer before highsun.” He looked to a group of gendarmes putting out the barricade fire, and the little chapel with the red-glass windows and red-stained door. “And if there is an altar in there, tell them to bring it to me …”

Renaud raised his eyes. Faint and ethereal above the white running through the dark on LeBlanc’s head, a yellow light streaked fire across the night sky.

René and Benoit were watchful as they took turns pushing a handcart of Bellamy fire—packed inside one of Sophia’s traveling trunks—back down the A5. Spear Hammond was on his horse a little way ahead, his bags on either side and the bundle in his lap, Sophia and Orla with him. So far there had been no telltale rustles, no mysterious figures in the woodlands. The Rathbone cows lowed in a nearby field.

When they had dropped far enough behind, René said beneath his breath, “He has the project he was working on in Kent. He said it was for her, though I would say that he does not know what she really wants it for. She plays her game close. There is nothing new?”

“No.” Benoit made room for René to slide over and take the handles of the pushcart without breaking the rhythm of the wheels. “Our man in Kent has seen nothing that should not have been, but Hammond may be more clever than you allow.” Then Benoit went still and said, “Look.”

The handcart paused. High above them, a light was shooting across the stars, drawing a yellow line in the sky. René watched in silence, then shoved the cart hard through a rut. Benoit shook his head, keeping pace with the cart.

“You, Monsieur, are a wreck. You know this?” When René didn’t answer, Benoit said, “Is there nothing you can do about it?”

“No,” René replied. “I think not.”

Sophia walked with Orla down the lane, grateful for the dark even if she was stumbling over the ruts. It hid the fact that she had tears on her face. Why did she never, ever know the right thing to say? She certainly had no trouble speaking out when she should keep her mouth closed.

She pushed back her hair and paused. A light was streaking above her, a trail of fire across the sky, exactly as she’d imagined in her bedroom. She watched its path as she walked. René had asked her once what she would be willing to risk for a life she could want. She hadn’t known how to answer him then, either, and now she knew why. She hadn’t known how to answer because she hadn’t known just how much she would want it.

“Really, child,” Orla chided. “You’re a mess. You know you are. What are you going to do about it?”

Sophia shook her head. She didn’t know.

Spear was quiet as he rode down the lane, watching Sophia’s slim back move wraithlike through the dark. What did Sophie see in this Parisian with his sly city ways? What could she be thinking? Sitting there alone in her bedroom, talking so close he couldn’t hear. And he’d seen the way she looked at him. If Sophia Bellamy had looked at him like that just one time, he would have forced Bellamy to let him marry her, at knifepoint if necessary. And this man was cousin to LeBlanc!

What did she think was going to happen when Tom came home? Bellamy wouldn’t live much longer; he felt certain about that. And sorry. But Tom wasn’t going to let this marriage happen, even if Hasard did scrape up his blasted fee. Tom had said he’d let the land go first. That they would all start again. Spear adjusted his weight in the saddle, making a crisp, clean paper with the seal of the Sunken City rustle just a bit in his shirt pocket. He’d been right to be prepared. Sophia needed looking after, whether she knew it or not.

He watched her push the hair back from her forehead, watched her staring up into the sky as she walked. But it wasn’t the Rook in the man’s jacket and breeches he was seeing. He saw the Sophia of the sitting room after dinner, in gauzy pink with her feet tucked up beneath her, St. Just in her lap, hair done up in ringlets. She’d been happy like that; they’d all been happy like that. And she would be happy that way again. Add two or three children playing on the floor, and that was exactly what Sophia Bellamy would want. Just as soon as this Parisian was gone.