Rook(106)

“Yes. You have. But, then again, you always were going to lose. You lost before you were born, because Fate has determined it.”

LeBlanc’s slow smile curled at her, and again she matched it. Reckless, that’s what René would have called it. She was probably going to die here, if not from Bellamy fire, then from a knife or sword in her back from that rat Renaud. But either way, she would try to take LeBlanc with her. She felt the tiredness drain away from her bones, replaced with the tingle of hate.

“Sophie,” Tom said, a soft warning. But she was spoiling for the fight. And in any case, she needed to keep LeBlanc distracted while Tom worked the picklock on his other shackle.

LeBlanc took a quick step forward and she turned her sword to defend, but he did not strike. Instead he circled left, and she went with him, staying between him and Tom.

“Tell me, Rook,” LeBlanc said, “where are my gendarmes?”


Another quick step and this time his sword came at her, but she merely moved her body to the side. He backed away again as she said sweetly, “Your gendarmes? Have you lost them?”

“I have not lost them. They seem to have lost themselves. As has every criminal and traitor in the Tombs!” His last word echoed around the yellowing bones, as did the clash of steel as Sophia blocked his next attack.

“Don’t be sad, Albert. You still have us,” she said. Her smile widened. The landovers must be away, then. He hadn’t arrived in time. That must have been a surprise to him. She blocked him again, then twisted her hilt over his sword and got in a quick slash to his upper arm.

LeBlanc gasped. It had been a glancing blow, but the sleeve was cut, blood already beginning to stain from underneath. LeBlanc wasn’t smiling anymore. Instead he had his head tilted to the side as he again began to circle her, the ends of his robes leaving trails through the thick brown dust.

“It took much to convince me of your true identity, Miss Bellamy. And yet I was skeptical, and had to ask Fate. I was unsure whether a woman had the physical …”

This time she came on the attack, and LeBlanc blocked, but only just.

“… and mental capabilities for the strategy and …”

She came in again, and put a scratch on his hand.

“… swordplay.” LeBlanc glanced at the small cut, an analytical appraisal. “I think you must be an aberration, Mademoiselle. Something … unnatural.”

“Is that what you think?”

He came at her, this time across the body. She stepped out of the way and just missed cutting off his hand. They both went back on the defensive, and he watched her movements carefully, again with the look of analysis.

“I am curious,” LeBlanc said, “how often a woman will choose to attack or defend.”

“I think, Albert, that it could have quite a bit to do with how much a woman wants to live, and how much she wants you dead.”

She came after him again, fast. He blocked her first and second, and then she caught him on the shoulder. Blood wet the robes. “Fascinating …,” mused LeBlanc.

Sophia bit her lip. LeBlanc was not acting like a man who thought he was about to explode, or even a man who had an execution planned at highmoon, which had to be upon them. Did he doubt her ability to blow up his prison? Or had the firelighter already been unset? She shook her head. She was dealing with a lunatic, and needed to stop requiring any of his actions to make sense. If she could kill or maim him, or get his sword to Tom, then maybe they could still get out before the blast.

She watched LeBlanc’s feet and his sword arm carefully. He might be insane, but she was no better. Why did she keep hoping against all reason and every shred of her common sense that René had not unset that firelighter? That he had not betrayed her? Especially when leaving it set meant they were all about to die.



“Hammond!” René yelled. His hands were gray and stained with powder, but this time he had hit something hard inside the barrel. He felt carefully and realized it was the lid, a few inches of the black powder concealing it. Spear came running. “She has made a space beneath,” René said, his fingers scrabbling at the edges of the lid, where she had left it tilted inside.

“Try not to spill it,” said Spear as René lifted the lid away. The firelighter was beneath, nestled in powder, the burlap sack Sophia had carried now arranged beside it, the edges exactly where the flame would come. Spear put his hand around the machine and swiftly pushed the knob back in.

René set down the powder-covered barrel lid, sweat dripping from his face. “What time was it set for?” Spear picked up the firelighter and looked at the back.

“Highmoon,” he replied.

And then, in the quiet of the empty prison, they heard, very faint, the sound of the highmoon bells falling down through the drains.

René laughed, and then Spear laughed with him.



LeBlanc felt his cheek, bleeding from a small cut, and chuckled once. “Tell me, Miss Bellamy, do you consider yourself clever? Did you do well with your schooling?”

“She seems clever enough to beat you in a sword fight, LeBlanc,” said Tom from behind her. But she wasn’t beating him, not quite. LeBlanc was covered in blood and sweat, but he was on his feet. She could cut him, but not incapacitate him. Or at least not yet. She was sweating as well, one small prick stinging on her forearm. And she had lost sight of the rat Renaud. She hoped he had run. She hoped Tom had gotten the lock picked on his other ankle. She grinned at LeBlanc.