A Drop of Night(33)

“Hey,” I say. “Faites attention. We’ve been kidnapped. We’re American citizens, and we need to get out of here. We need to know what’s going on.”

My heart is pounding ridiculously loudly. The pale man doesn’t answer. Doesn’t look at me.

New tactic: “Je m’appelle Anouk,” I say. “Et vous?” Psychology 101. Treat your subject like he’s a human being. Pleasantries before business. Better yet, business disguised as pleasantries.

“Moi?” the pale man rasps. Still watching the door. And again, softly: “Moi. Qui suis-je. . .”

Who am I . . .

His eyes widen. He looks lucid, frightened, like someone waking up from a nightmare. “Je suis perdu,” he says. “Perdu dans l’ombre.”

I turn to the others.

“He said he’s lost,” I say. “Lost in the shadows.”

“That’s a terrible name,” Jules says, and almost simultaneously Lilly twists her hands together and whispers: “Uh, fantastic, so are we.”

I turn back to the pale man. “Fine. You’re Perdu. Pleased to meet you. Were you kidnapped too? How do we get out of here?”

Perdu starts to giggle, his head tipping back. An ugly sound crawls out, like his throat is full of broken glass.

“You cannot leave,” he says. “You cannot leave!”

“Why is he laughing?” Jules says, eyes wide. “Shut him up!”

I feel sick. “We had a deal—” I start to say.

“Shhh,” Perdu whispers, and places a long thin finger to his lips. “He is close.”

Will stiffens. I look over my shoulder at the doors, my heart squeezing up into my throat.

“Who?” I prompt. “Dorf?”

“No.” Perdu wraps his arms around his bony shoulders. He seems to shrink, twisting. And as he turns, he points down the length of the library to the closed doors, silent behind their cage of furniture. “L’homme papillon,” he says, in a guttural, piercing croak. “L’homme papillon!”

“What’s he saying?” Lilly hisses.

“The butterfly man.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Ask him what we’re supposed to do!”

“Perdu?” I whisper fiercely, and he jerks upright, jittering. “Perdu, what do you know? Who are you?”



Perdu rises slowly, facing us. “I crawl through the dark,” he says. “Through the forest of gilt and crystal I wander. Friend to the friendless, savior of dead and broken things. I am the watcher in the treetops.”

I turn to the others. “He’s crazy.”

“Great,” Jules says. “No, really, that’s good to know now that we’re locked in here with him.”

I spin back to Perdu. “You said you would help us,” I say in French. “Does this room have another exit? Do you know the way out?”

Perdu’s watching me, wheezing. I can’t read his gaze. Usually I feel like all those books about psychos paid off and I have a really good idea of the depths of people’s depravity, but I can’t tell with him. I don’t know if that gaze is dangerous or imploring.

“If you leave now,” he says, and saliva flies between his lips with each breath, “You will die. You will step through those doors and he will see you. His eyes shall eat you like mouths, and you will lie on the floor, and ants and wasps and nits will crawl from your wounds like drops of night. Four little plums, all chewed up.”

He says that last sentence so casually that for a second I swear he’s sane. And now his hand swings around, smacking Will right in the temple, and he scuttles away, cramming himself into the space between a chair and the wall, like he’s trying to hide. He looks out at me from under the armrest, eyes glinting. “I am the only one you can trust,” he hisses.

I look over at Will. “Are you okay?” I ask.

He nods quickly, like he didn’t even feel it. “What was he saying?” he asks. “Prunes maché, what does that mean?”

“That if we leave now we die.”

“All those words meant ‘You’re going to die’?” Jules says.

“Basically.”

Lilly nudges me sharply. “He’s moving. What’s he doing?”

Perdu is out from behind the chair, standing up. Will is about to dive after him. I grab Will’s shoulder, stopping him. “Wait.”

The shadows swallow Perdu. He’s just a slight variation now, another shade in the dark-to-black spectrum. It sounds like he’s pawing through a drawer. He’s coming back toward us, and he’s holding something tightly in his fingers. He walks up to me. Opens his fist. It’s a compass, the surface scratched and pockmarked in a million places, like a pirate’s.

“A token,” he says, and his voice is human again, gentle. “A token of my loyalty. I will lead you to safety. There is a secret way. A way they cannot know. Due north as the wren flies, straight as an arrow and straight as string.”

I don’t take the compass. “Then why are you still down here? You said you don’t want to stay, so go. What’s stopping you?”

“Everything,” he says, looking terrified again. “Fire and blade and bolt and poison. The palace is not easily breached, neither from within nor from without. But my time here is coming to an end. My usefulness is spent. He will kill me soon. But you will help me.” His gaze flicks from me to the others, and he smiles that awful, limp-lipped grin. “You will take me with you, oui? You will not leave me behind.”