Rook(129)

“René,” Sophia said. “If you could be anywhere you wanted, do anything you wanted, what would it be? Where would you go?”

He propped himself up on one arm, thoughtful, holding up the blanket with his head. “I would be in the Sunken City, I think, where there was no revolution, sitting around the table in the flat with my uncles. And you would be there, seated well away from émile, and we would be making plans for our next trip to liberate an artifact from the melters.”

“Our trip? You mean you and your uncles’?”

“No. This is my fantasy, and in my fantasy you would wish to come. You would, would you not?”

“Of course. Now go on. We’re about to go nick things.”

“So we lay out our plans, and our plans would go almost right, but not quite, though we would acquire our item in the end, and then we would hand it over to Benoit and émile and go … somewhere else. For a time.”

She leaned up, trying to see the hot blue of his eyes in the darkness beneath the blanket. “Somewhere else?”

“I think so. I enjoy the game, but it would be good to know I do not have to play it, not all the time. Not if I do not want to.” He ran a hand over her damp head. “Tomorrow at highsun I am going to tell Maman that I am not going back to the city. That you and I will see your forger and that we will go to Spain, where they do not look at papers with such a close eye. What do you think of that, my love?”

“That you have no interest in living in Spain, and neither do I.”

“Ah, but I am very interested in living there with you. Come with me, Sophia. We will take Tom with us, so the Commonwealth will not find him.”

She thought of Madame with her perfect hair and pursed lips, and it occurred to her that a woman did not often rise to the place that Madame Hasard had, and she certainly did not do it by indulging in petty dissatisfactions. The woman had some sort of private agenda, and it was not about her son. It was about Sophia, and it was personal.

She peeked over the blanket and whispered, “Look.” René lifted his head.

Madame Hasard had come out of the print house and was picking her way back across the lawn with the covered lantern. If Madame dug her high heels in for a fight, which of them would come out on top? Sophia wasn’t sure, but she was going to find out. Starting tomorrow.

“Will you go with me?” René whispered. “Say that you will come.”

Sophia brought the blanket back over their heads. “Ask me tomorrow. But for now, I am staying right here.”



It was well after middlesun when Sophia entered the kitchen of Bellamy House, her head tied again in a kerchief, face dirtied behind round spectacles, wearing a plain cotton dress that was a little frayed. Nancy and her daughters were at a near run, sweating in the heat of cooking.

“Could I bring some soup to Madame?” she asked in loud Parisian. Nancy did not speak Parisian, but she knew what “Madame” meant. She pointed to a pot on the coal cooker, wiping the tears away as she chopped more onions while one daughter frantically washed dishes and the other left with the water bucket. Sophia shook her head as she ladled soup. Nancy’s family deserved a medal, or at least a lot of money. But their distraction with a house full of strangers was serving her purpose. If this went badly, it was best that none of them knew a thing about it.

She put the bowl on a tray, left the kitchen behind, walked about halfway up to the north wing, where there were no former prisoners milling, and set the tray on a small table. This was a bizarre way to behave after her father’s burial rites, she knew. She should have been spending the rest of her day in quiet mourning, if not helping poor Nancy in the kitchen. But the Bellamys were a bit too desperate for that. Tom would be arrested tomorrow, if they could find him. And she’d already determined what she would risk for René. Which was everything.

She looked left, right, and then emptied the contents of a vial—what she normally kept for filling her ring—into the soup, stirring it in well. She’d really been going through the stuff lately; Tom would have to get more from the hospital in Kent, assuming he wasn’t in prison. She picked up the tray, went to the north-wing door, and knocked.

“Enter,” Madame called. Sophia stepped inside and Madame glanced up from the letter she was writing, eyes brushing once over the tray, but never high enough to see Sophia’s face. “Set that down and you may be on your way.”

Madame needed to learn that they asked, not ordered, in Bellamy House, Sophia thought. “Enjoy your soup, Madame,” she couldn’t help adding in husky Parisian just before she closed the door.

She waited in the dim end of the corridor, biding her time, surprised when not too long after, Madame Hasard opened the door and began a teetering progress down the hall, a black bag in hand, her unbalance having nothing to do with the height of her heels.

Sophia bit her lip. She had intended for Madame to be snoozing on her bed or on the floor. Why could no Hasard ever be drugged properly? Hopefully, anyone who encountered Madame would just think she’d been in the wine. Hopefully, she’d be able to negotiate the stairs. Hopefully, she’d never remember receiving her soup in the first place. In any case, Sophia thought, now was the opportunity. Her only opportunity. When Madame had indeed made her way safely down the stairs, Sophia dashed into her room, locked the door, went straight to the desk, and began to ransack.