Stepsister(71)

Isabelle desperately wanted to kick free, to surface, to find something hopeful in the dark, roiling water and use it to pull herself out. Could she?

She put a hand on Felix’s chest. Over his heart. And then she kissed him.

“Are you going to walk away again?” she asked afterward, leaning her forehead on his chest. “Don’t. Promise you won’t.”

“I can’t promise that, Isabelle,” he said.

She looked up at him, stricken, and tried to pull away, but he grabbed her hand and held it fast.

“I’m leaving Master Jourdan’s. And Saint-Michel. I’m leaving France,” he said, all in a rush.

“I—I don’t understand …”

“I’m going to Rome, Isabelle. To become a sculptor like I always wanted to.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Come with me.”





Seventy-Seven


Isabelle and Felix walked down the road in silence, Nero clopping along behind them.

Half an hour had passed since he had asked Isabelle to go with him to Rome.

At first she’d laughed, thinking that he was making an impulsive joke, but she’d soon learned that he was serious.

“I have a place with a master sculptor,” he’d explained. “He wrote to me a month ago. I’ll be doing the worst jobs, the ones no one else wants to do, but it’s a start. I’ve given my notice, bought my passage.”

“Felix, when … how …” Isabelle said, dumbfounded.

“I’ve been saving money from every job I’ve had for the past two years,” he’d told her. “From all the feet and hands and eyes and teeth I’ve carved on the side. And from my wooden army. I sold it. A nobleman in Paris bought it. He’s already sent the money. I’ve only three officers left to finish. As soon as I send word, his servant will come to collect it.” He paused, then said, “It’s enough. To buy you a passage, too. To rent an attic room somewhere. Come with me.”

Isabelle wanted to say yes more than she’d ever wanted anything in the entire world, but it was impossible and she knew it.

“I can’t go, Felix. Maman has lost her wits, and Tavi’s head is always in the clouds. If I leave, who will take care of them? We’re barely surviving as it is. They won’t last a week without me.”

“I can’t get you back just to lose you again,” Felix said now, dispelling the silence. “There must be a way. We’ll find it.”

Isabelle mustered a smile, but she couldn’t imagine what that way might be. “I have to go,” she said. Felix was spending the night in the city, at the home of the captain for whom he’d made the mask, but she needed to get to Paris, and get back to Saint-Michel, by evening.

“Stay with me for one more mile. There’s the sign.” Felix nodded ahead at a whitewashed post ahead of them. “We’re nearly halfway there.”

“All right,” Isabelle relented. “One more mile.”

A moment later, they passed the post. On it, a bright, newly painted sign pointed left to Paris. Another pointed right to Malleval. With barely a glance at it, Isabelle and Felix headed left.

Had their emotions not been running so high, had they not been so distracted by talk of Rome, had they not stopped, right in the middle of the road, for another kiss, they might’ve noticed that the white paint on the signs was not just new, but still wet. And that black block letters ghosted through it—Paris under Malleval, Malleval under Paris.

They might’ve seen boot prints around the base of the signpost, and freshly disturbed dirt a few feet away from it. Had they cared to dig in that dirt, they would’ve found two empty paint pots and two used brushes—all of it stolen earlier that morning from a nearby farmer’s barn.

But they did not see any of these things, and so continued on their way.

As soon as they were out of earshot, the coal-black raven, who’d been perched out of sight on a leafy branch, flapped her wings noisily and flew off.

There was no need to stay. Her mistress had told her so.

The girl, and the boy with her, would not be coming back.





Seventy-Eight


It was the smoke that first got Isabelle’s attention.

A burned-hay smell. Sharp and out of place on the summer breeze.

Farmers burned their fields to rid them of weeds and stubble in autumn, when the harvest was in. Not in August.

“Do you smell that?” she asked Felix.

“I do,” he said, looking around for the source of the smoke.

Nero whinnied uneasily. He pulled at his reins. Isabelle realized nothing around her looked familiar. She had been to Paris before, several times, on shopping trips for dresses with Tavi and Maman, but she did not recall the huge apple orchard on the right side of the road. Or the old, tumbledown stone barn on the left.

“We took the right road, didn’t we?” she asked Felix, realizing that she’d barely glanced at the signpost.

“I’m sure we did. I remember seeing the sign for Paris pointing left. That’s the way we went.”

They walked on. A few minutes later, they spotted another signpost. A man was sitting under it, his back against the wooden post, his head down, clearly taking a rest. He was wearing the rough clothing of a farmer—battered boots, long pants, a red shirt. His straw hat was tilted over his face.