Rook(119)

The mob had gone truly quiet again, such an odd silence spreading far and wide below her. René stretched his arm up as high as it could reach, something glinting in his hand. It was a coin. Sophia let out her breath. She knew what René was about to do.

“I will spin this coin, and ask the Goddess Fate to reveal herself and answer the question, ‘Are you real?’ ”

But wasn’t René’s coin weighted to fall to face? Wouldn’t that make the answer yes?

“If the Goddess is real,” he continued, “then LeBlanc rules. He can put the Red Rook, her brother, and me to the Razor. If she is not real, then the Red Rook will destroy the Tombs.”

Sophia felt her mouth open just a little. She turned her head carefully to look over her shoulder toward the prison entrance, then back to René. He hadn’t disabled the firelighter; he had reset it. It was a strange time to feel that little rush of happiness, but joy did not think logically. What time had he set it for? Then she looked out at the rosy half-light spilling from the northeast. It was almost dawn. And the prison yard was packed with people.

“The Red Rook is not a spirit and she is not divine!” LeBlanc was shouting. The people were murmuring again, some looking up to the path of smoke still hanging across the sky. “She is nothing but a woman! A girl! She cannot destroy a prison!”

“She has already emptied it!” Tom shouted, but his voice was weak.

René turned again to the crowd. “The Tombs are empty! Fate was to have two out of three in the prison, but she cannot. The Rook has led them out, on La Toussaint, because their city, because he …” René pointed at LeBlanc. “He would put them to death! Not Fate!”

“Enough!” said LeBlanc. He spread out the black arms of his long hanging robes, the streak in his hair bright in the dim. “I am the premier of the City of Light, and the instrument Fate has used to make her will known!” His voice was authoritative and sure as it echoed. “The Goddess has decreed that the Red Rook dies. It is already done!”

“And who did Fate decree should die at highmoon?” Tom shouted.

René shouted it louder. “And who was supposed to die at highmoon? Did anyone die?”

“Gendarmes! Remove these men and let Fate’s will be done …” The gendarmes did not move. It was as if the entire prison yard had been cursed with doubt. Except for Sophia, who had never been more certain of anything in her life. René was here, he was real, and he knew what he was doing.

“Let the Goddess speak!” she cried out. “Spin the coin. If the Goddess is real, she will tell us. But if not, then I will destroy the Tombs, and the people of the Sunken City will choose their next leader, Upper and Lower together. Do you accept the challenge, Premier?”

LeBlanc leaned out the window of his box, looking up at her on top of the scaffold like a fly he wished to swat. She could see his hands shaking. She could also see two or three of the ministres moving quietly down the steps of the viewing box and away. Like rats from a sinking ship. Then LeBlanc’s face became suddenly serene, and he raised his arms again.

“I accept! But we will toss the coin, not spin. The toss of the coin is the proper way to speak to the Goddess!”

Sophia’s heart banged hard in her chest. René was good at flipping that coin. But she had only ever seen him purposely catch it on face, and they needed it to say facade. He looked up at her, and smiled with half his mouth. Sophia smiled back. “Move the people away from the prison!” she yelled, looking down. “Move them away from the prison building!”

To Sophia’s surprise, a group of gendarmes near the prison doors obeyed and began scooting people forward, shifting the crowd, a remarkably silent process.

René held up the coin again. “Who will witness the toss?”

The executioner and his men seemed to have slipped away as well, but a man with the arms of a metal worker or a liftman climbed the steps. He had a mask of Fate swinging by its strings around his neck. “I will witness.”

The mob was still shifting, making room for those trying to move away from the prison building. Sophia looked up at the sky. The torches almost weren’t needed now. She concentrated on her balance, legs aching from the strain as René went to stand behind the stone altar, the man with the mask of Fate with him. Tom had sunk down to sit on the scaffold, still trying to work his hands free.

“Are you ready, Albert?” René yelled. “Will you call the toss?”

The two ministres still left in the box sat forward. “Face is yes, and facade is no,” LeBlanc shouted. “That is the proper way!”

“Face yes, and facade no,” René repeated for the crowd. “Then ask her!” he said to LeBlanc, holding the coin aloft. People were still finding places to stand, some crawling up onto the scaffold itself, eager to see the truth.

“Ask her, LeBlanc!” said Tom.

Sophia held her breath.

“Goddess!” LeBlanc cried, his eyes closed. “Answer the Sunken City! Are you real?”

René flipped the coin and it went sailing into the air, glinting in the first ray of the dawn that came shooting over the cliff edge and between the buildings.



Spear stood in the stinking dark of cell 522, the firelighter in his palm, the wheel in the back pointing to the symbol of the rising sun. The soft tick, tick, tick and his thoughts were all he could hear. He’d pushed the knob in. There would be no explosion, and now there was nothing. He could not cry; he could not even feel. Sophia was gone, and probably Tom, too, by this time. And what was he without them? Nothing. Just like what he felt. Nothing.