A Drop of Night(6)

Walking between them is a fifth man. At least fifty. Elegant and scholarly looking, huge as a boulder. He’s got a neatly trimmed beard, silvered glasses, a hat. A colorful silk foulard is knotted under his chin. He looks like Indiana Jones if Indiana Jones got old and fancy and bulked up on several hundred pounds of broccoli and protein shakes. He also looks like his picture: Professor Dr. Thibault Dorf.

“Hello, hello!” he calls out. His voice isn’t loud. It’s deep, a raspy, rich, velvety sort of voice that makes everyone within ten feet turn and stare. Us included. The bodyguards are picking up our bags. Red Spikes is behind us, herding us through the metal door and down the skywalk, and Dorf is saying: “It’s wonderful to meet all of you. And all on time! Welcome to Project Papillon.”

He has a trace of an accent. Not French. Not British either. I don’t know what it is. Lilly immediately latches onto his arm and starts explaining to him how unbelievably excited she is to be here. I look over at the nearest bodyguard type. Vulture eyes. Blond stubble up his face, so pale it’s almost gray. He looks like a Norse god. He brings a hand up to his ear, and he’s got a headset there, running down his jaw. A light is blinking in it—a thin red strip, throbbing silently, like he’s getting a message now. A whisper plugged straight into his skull.

The others are starting to talk, warming up to each other, making friends. I watch the light, and I watch the guy, and I wonder what he’s hearing.








Aurélie du Bessancourt, August 27, 1789


Mother was invited down today. No one has seen the Palais du Papillon yet, no one but Father and Havriel and the legions of craftsmen who live in the depths, heedless of night and day, working and painting and sculpting tirelessly by lamplight.

The invitation arrived with much pomp: three footmen in full livery—scarlet coats, gold braid, and silk stockings, the center one bearing a small gilded casket—knocked on the door to Mama’s chambers. Mama was in her boudoir, asleep in a patch of sunlight like a cat, and so it was I who leaped up to receive the gift, and it was I who snapped open the lid and peered inside like a great nosy peacock. A single square of paper lay within, cushioned with dried posies and apple blossoms.

My darling, my treasure, my heart, I read. The card was edged with gold, and it smelled so sharply of cloves and rose oil and thick perfumes that I almost gagged.

I request your most excellent presence at the gates to the Palais du Papillon, on this day the 27th of August, 9 o’ clock.

Forever in love, Frédéric du Bessancourt

I replaced the card quickly and dropped into a chair. The reason for the invitation is clear: Father’s mysterious palace is nearing completion, and he is eager to show it off.


I hand the invitation to Mama when she wakes and feign surprise when she tells me what it says.

“May I go, too?” I ask, perhaps too bluntly; Mama peers at me, startled.

“No,” she says. “No, my sweet, he did not say to bring anyone. He is very particular.”

“I am particular, too,” I say, frowning in mock seriousness. “Particularly curious.” And I laugh, but Mother’s smile is weak as watered brandy, and so I do not press the subject. Her quietness does not trouble me. I am as excited as if I were going myself. Last month, Charlotte, Delphine, and I watched the armored coaches approach down the avenue, the horses sweating, gleaming in the August sun, the drivers shouting merrily down to the gardeners as they passed. We saw sofas from Paris, spinets from Vienna, bolts of silks and brocade from London and Flanders, so heavy they bent the servants double, loaded down into the lower passage and disappearing into the shafts and the dark, as if swallowed by some insatiable beast. The palace will no doubt be a wondrous sight. And vast. There were so many coaches. An endless snake of them, all filled to bursting. It seems Father can afford anything he pleases: to grow fat on honeyed quail and petit fours; a wife as beautiful as Mama; four daughters and no sons. A palace that would put the king of France to shame. I wonder if there is anything he cannot have.


Mother passes me on her way out, dressed in splendor like a Venetian Madonna. Her gown is deep, rich crimson, finest velvet, like poppies, berries, roses. Her sleeves and bodice are weighted with pearls. Her wig is a mountain of smoke-gray locks, pinned with silver flowers. She is going alone down to the gallery. There, Father and Lord Havriel will meet her. Not even Madame Kretschmer or the maids have been allowed to accompany her. She does not see me as she passes, and I want to call out to her, to say something, wish her luck, but she is gone already, tapping slowly down the stairs. I keenly await her report.



We’re greeted on the plane by a spindle-thin Asian woman in a pencil skirt and high-collared white blouse. Her eyes are amazing—mismatched green and gray vortexes, the pupils wide and black, like someone took a hole punch to a starscape. She’s sizing us up, and her gaze is borderline rude, like she’s weighing meat.

“Miss Sei,” Dorf says. “Chief science officer from the Sapani Corporation. She’ll be assisting with the expedition.”

Her tongue clicks against her teeth and she strides away down the body of the jet, waving for us to follow.

We do and I watch her shoulders moving in a square under her blouse. Next to me Jules lets out a low whistle. “We are definitely traveling first class.”

I’m assuming he’s referring to the iPads in the armrests, the flat-screens showing screen savers of beaches and waterfalls, the random potted mango plant next to the jump seat.