A Drop of Night(61)

And now we get to the last room. It’s a complete dead end. One door in, one door out.

“Whoa,” Jules says, drawing up short. “Wrong way—”

We all spin, jostling against each other. I throw a glance back over my shoulder, glimpse a desk, shelves. An operating table? I pause. Jules runs into my back.

It is an operating table. It’s standing in one corner of the room. The surface is covered in ancient, tightly stretched leather. It’s spattered in places, marked with dark rings and stains.

“Is that blood?” Will has stopped, too, now, peering around.

“Coffee stains,” Jules says. “Let’s go.”

But all of us have stopped now. It’s like a little laboratory. Not a creepy, Frankenstein one with pig brains on the shelves. A neat, organized study, almost cheery. Glass ampoules line the shelves, stoppered with cork. Stacks of books, some of them marked with feathers and silver pins. Old paper everywhere, crinkly heaps of it.

I look again at the desk. My skin goes cold. A glass of red wine is standing next to the pen stand, still half full. The rim stained a little like someone just drank from it.

“We need to go,” I whisper. “Someone was here. Like, minutes ago.”

If they come in, we’re stuck. Done for.

Will has gone over to the operating table. He’s leaning over it, and I see there’s an enormous leather-bound book lying open on top of it, cracked bindings, the paper old and yellowed, wavy with moisture and age. Will places a hand on it, brushing a finger down the page.

“Will, we need to get to Rabbit Gallery,” Lilly says. “You heard Anouk; someone was here—”

“Look,” Will says. “You guys, look at this.”

I walk to the table and peer over his shoulder, but Lilly’s right. We need to get out of here. This room feels tiny, claustrophobic, like any second the walls will collapse and the ceiling will fall and we’ll be crushed under the weight of the soil and stone. What if someone walks in? The others are gathering at my back, shifting nervously.

I see the page Will is pointing at. Three columns—lists of names, numbers, then a wider column of notes. The handwriting is spidery, a little bit shaky.

Jean Leclair. Age 67. Failed.

Monsieur Mascarille. Age unknown. Failed.

Eleanor McCreery. Age circa 27. Failed.

“Stonemasons,” Will mutters. “Maids. Painters.”

“What is it?” Lilly asks. Words pop out at me from the scribbled notes. Se détériore. Le sang souillé. Manqué. Manqué.

“Failed,” I say quietly. “All of these are failed.”

But what does that mean exactly?

Will starts flipping through the pages. He reaches the beginning of the book. Taps a name with two fingers. “These are scientific notes, surgical procedures. It is says they started in 1760.”

He starts reading aloud: “‘Guillaume Battiste, Age thirty–thirty-five. Beggar. We . . .’” He swallows. “‘We caught him on the roadside. He was stronger than he looked. Struggled, much blood. Frédéric brought him back to the chateau. He had the pox. Failed.’”

Will looks over at me. “There are hundreds of names in here.” His eyes run up and down the columns. “Hundreds of experiments.”

I see an entry about halfway down the page, circled in a thread of bright red ink. I grab Will’s hand, stopping him from turning the page. Let go again quickly and squint down at the writing.

July 7, 1788. Le petit ma?tre XX. Success.

The little master.

There are more words after it, hurried French, blotted with ink.

He has awoken. We took him from his glass cistern yesterday. He has already begun to walk and imitate us. He learns swiftly, quicker than any child. What will he be tomorrow, in a week’s time, in a month?

The lists continue. One success. Hundreds of failures.

Monsieur Vallé, head butler. Experimented on by XX. Failed.

Aimée Boucheron, saucier. Failed.

Célestine Bessancourt–– Whatever’s been written after her name has been scratched out violently, but I’m pretty sure it says “Failed,” too.

Behind me, Jules sucks breath in through his teeth. “Are we in there? Are we one of their experiments?”

Will flips forward again. Nods slowly.

“Here,” he says, and we’re all looking now, staring at our names listed in this ancient book.

Anouk Peerenboom–17. NYC

Jules Makra–16. San Diego

Will Park–17. Charleston

Hayden Maiburgh–17. Boston

Lilly Watts–16. Sun Prairie

No notes. No explanations. After 1808, all I see are lists of names and ages. Maybe twenty people.

“They’re all teenagers,” I say quietly. “Everyone is under nineteen.”

“And look at the dates,” Will says. “Five victims in 1862. Five in 1908. Five in 1970.”

And now us.

Something is nagging at the back of my mind, some connection I feel I should be making but can’t quite grasp–– “We need to go,” Hayden says. He’s practically bounding from foot to foot, his gun out. “Come on, move it!”

We slip out of the room and run for the stairs. My lungs are heaving, scraping me hollow. We don’t stop until we’re back in the palace and the study feels miles above us.