Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove, #1)(40)

Ansel turned to me hesitantly. “Do you still want to finish your tour?”

“About that.” I squared my shoulders, determined not to waste another day learning about a bone that might once have belonged to Saint Constantin. “As thrilling as our excursion was yesterday, I want to see the Tower.”

“The Tower?” He blinked in confusion. “But there’s nothing here you haven’t already seen. The dormitories, dungeon, commissary—”

“Nonsense. I’m sure I haven’t seen everything.”

Ignoring his frown, I pushed him out the door before he could protest.

It took another hour—after feigning interest in the Tower’s stables, training yard, and twenty-three cleaning closets—before I finally managed to drag Ansel back to the metal spiral staircase.

“What’s up there?” I asked, planting my feet when he tried to lead me back to the dormitories.

“Nothing,” he said swiftly.

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He tugged on my arm harder. “You’re not allowed up there.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not.”

“Ansel.” I stuck out my lip, wrapping my arms around his skinny bicep and batting my lashes. “I’ll behave. I promise.”

He glowered at me. “I don’t believe you.”

I dropped his arm and frowned. I had not just wasted the past hour waltzing about the Tower with a pubescent boy—however adorable he might be—to trip at the finish line. “Fine. Then you leave me no choice.”

He eyed me warily. “What are you—”

He broke off as I turned and dashed up the staircase. Though he was taller, I’d guessed correctly: he wasn’t yet used to his gangling height, and his limbs were a mess of awkwardness. He stumbled after me, but it wasn’t much of a chase. I’d already raced up several flights before he’d worked out how to use his legs.

Skidding slightly at the top, I peered in dismay at the Chasseur sitting guard outside the door—no, sleeping outside the door. Propped up in a rickety chair, he snored softly, his chin drooping to his chest and drool dampening his pale blue coat. I darted around him to the door, heart leaping when the handle turned. More doors lined the walls of the corridor beyond at regular intervals, but they weren’t what made me lurch to a halt.

No. It was the air. It swirled around me, tickling my nose. Sweet and familiar . . . with just a hint of something darker lurking underneath. Something rotten.

You’re here you’re here you’re here, it breathed.

I grinned. Magic.

But my grin quickly faltered. If I’d thought the dormitories were cold, I’d been wrong. This place was worse. Much worse. Almost . . . forbidding. The sweetened air unnaturally still.

Two sets of clumsy footsteps broke the eerie silence.

“Stop!” Ansel tumbled through the door after me, lost his footing, and crashed into my back. The guard outside the door—finally awake, and much younger than I’d first assumed—followed suit. We fell in a whirl of curses and tangled bodies.

“Get off, Ansel—”

“I’m trying—”

“Who are you? You aren’t supposed to be up here—”

“Excuse me!” We looked up as one toward the tinny voice. It belonged to a frail, teetering old man in white robes and thick spectacles. He held a Bible in one hand and a curious device in the other: small and metal, with a sharp quill at the end of a cylinder.

Shoving them both away and climbing to my feet, I searched frantically for something to say, for some reasonable explanation as to why we were wrestling in the middle of . . . whatever this was, but the guard beat me to it.

“I’m sorry, Your Reverence.” The boy shot us each a resentful look. His collar had creased his cheek during his nap, and a bit of drool had dried on his chin. “I have no idea who this girl is. Ansel let her in here.”

“I did not!” Ansel colored indignantly, still out of breath. “You were asleep!”

“Oh, dear.” The old man pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose to squint at us. “This won’t do. This won’t do at all.”

Throwing caution to the winds, I opened my mouth to explain, but a smooth, familiar voice interrupted.

“They’re here to see me, Father.”

I froze, surprise jolting through me. I knew that voice. I knew it better than my own. But it shouldn’t have been here—in the heart of Chasseur Tower—when it was supposed to be hundreds of miles away.

Dark, devious eyes settled on me. “Hello, Louise.”

I grinned in response, shaking my head in disbelief. Coco.

“This is highly unusual, Mademoiselle Perrot,” the priest wheezed, frowning. “Private citizens are not allowed in the infirmary without advance notice.”

Coco motioned me forward. “But Louise isn’t a private citizen, Father Orville. She’s Captain Reid Diggory’s wife.”

She turned back to the guard, who stood gaping at her. Ansel wore a similar expression, his eyes comically wide and his jaw hanging open. Dumbfounded. I resisted the urge to stuff his tongue back in his mouth. It wasn’t as if they could even see her figure beneath her enormous white robe. Indeed, the starched fabric of her neckline rose to just below her chin, and her sleeves draped almost to the tips of her fingers, where white gloves concealed the rest. An inconvenient uniform if I’d ever seen one—but a most convenient disguise.