A Drop of Night(34)

“When does he want to go?” Will asks. “If it’s up to him, when would we leave the library?”

“Perdu,” I say. “Combien du temps voulez-vous que nous restions ici?”

He holds out the compass, trying to get me to take it. “In the morning,” he whispers. “Tomorrow is a new day, a bright day.”

“How do we know when morning is?”

“The hands will tell you. Seven times they will turn, round and round. On the eighth it will be morning.”

“You mean in eight hours? We’re supposed to stay in here eight hours? What makes you think we’ll be safe that long?”

“I will keep you safe,” he says. “I will hide you in the shadow of my wings.”

That’s not comforting at all. Perdu’s eyes are alight, fingers squirming along the edges of the compass, leaving a greasy film. I grab it and turn to the others, translating as fast as I can. They listen, their faces getting darker by the word.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Jules says. “What if he’s lying? What if he just wants to keep us in one spot until the trackers can get here?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Look, it’s up to us. We can either wait with him, or go and risk whatever’s out there. They’re both worst-case scenarios, so take your pick.”

I already know my answer. There’s no telling what Perdu would do if we dragged him out there now. We’d have to leave him behind and then we’d be running blind, pushing off into the palace on a teeny-tiny slice of hey-let’s-hope-we-don’t-die. We’ll be doing that either way, but the slice seems bigger with Perdu. We need to trust him. We need to trust something down here, even if it’s just an insane bleeding guy.

“If we wait, someone’s going to have to be awake,” Lilly says. “The whole time.”

“We can take turns keeping watch. Two hours each.”

“I’m not sleeping anyway,” Jules says. “Not a chance.”

And so we wait.



We’ve built our own personal bubble of warm light and coziness in front of the fireplace. Will found a light switch behind a panel next to the mantel. Jules and Lilly have a fort—possibly a full-on mansion—out of chairs, pillows, carpets rising slowly into existence. It’s kind of morbid if you think about it, setting up camp down here in the palace of your psycho captors. Like a zombie-murder-sleepover. But the alternative is cowering in the dark, so we might as well make the most of it, right? Also, there’s some satisfaction to be had from using the Sapanis’ stuff. I’m assuming this is their library, if the Sapanis are real people. I’m also assuming this place is not a two-hundred-year-old archeological site. It’s their house. Their huge, pristine, underground home. And I bet they really don’t want their murder-victims-to-be pawing through their books and using their furs and putting butt prints on their chairs.

I grab a pillow and mush it up behind my neck, leaning against a desk leg.

Will has wandered off to scout out the library. Lilly and Jules are busy with home-improvement matters. Perdu’s hiding behind the chair again, eyes pinched shut, curled up like a dead spider. His velvet bandages are black and crackly.

“Perdu,” I say quietly. His mouth twitches open. Wet, gray teeth flick into view, squeezed together, haphazard and gross. He winces, as if the word hurt him. “Where are you from?”

“Péronne,” he breathes.

I’m trying to unstick my pant leg from my ankle. The blood has started to cake where the wire caught it.

“And how did you get down here?”

“C’est ma maison,” he whispers. “Il me garde.”

“This is my home,” I translate for Jules, who is looking over at us from behind his wall of chairs. “He keeps me.”

“What is he, the house pet?” Jules asks.

“Hey,” Lilly’ says, frowning at Jules. “You don’t know what he’s been through. He might have been down here way longer than us. It’s probably messed with his mind.”

“Below,” Perdu mumbles, and I raise my hand, signaling Lilly and Jules to be quiet. “Down. Far into the earth. To good luck and safety and everlasting peace, they brought me. But I will be leaving soon. When the war is done, that is what they told me, when the war is done you may go. But it stretches on and on. It never ends.”

“What war?” I ask.

“That war.” He uncurls a finger toward the ceiling. “Up there. They are cutting off heads in the Rue du Fauconnier. Can you not hear the screaming?”

“There is no war up there,” I say. “At least, not one you’d hear down—”

“There is always war.” He’s crying again. I can see the tears, glimmering tracks down his cheeks. “Everywhere is war. Up there. Down here.” He taps the finger against his head. “In here.”

“Uh-huh.” I glance at Jules and roll my eyes. “How old are you, Perdu?”

His hands come up, fingers splayed like twin fans. He closes his fists, opens them, again and again, and I realize he’s showing me—ten fingers, ten years—decade after decade flickering past.

“You’re not that old. When were you born? What year?”

“1772.”