Rook(62)

“You were not in the Lower City during the Grindstoners’ Riot?” he asked.

“The place had gone mad, like looking out a window at a view you see every day, only on this day the glass has warped, or been colored red. It was the place I knew, and then it was not. Tom was nearly killed, would’ve been if Spear hadn’t fought so well. And gendarmes were everywhere, and they were just … hacking at everyone, rioters or no … We had to jump the bodies in the streets. I cut Tom’s and Spear’s hair with a knife behind the weaver’s shop, just so we could get back to the cliffs.”

“What happened to the woman Annette? Mémé?”

Sophia looked up. “She died. The night of the Grindstoners’. How did you know to ask?”

“I heard it. In the way you said her name.”

She nodded. “And within a year there was revolution, the premier was dead, and Allemande was in power. People I’d called friends in the Lower City hated me because I was Upper. And the people I knew from Upper were going to the Tombs, to the Razor, students from the Scholars Hall, our neighbors, Aunt Francesca. They set fire to the chapel with the rook paintings on the walls, on Rue de Triomphe, where Father used to stop and leave coins. Everything was changed.”

It was the sadness that had made her so angry, she supposed. Started her pressure cooker of rage.

“And so that whole first winter of Allemande, while Tom was nursing his leg, I dreamed up outrageous plans to break people out of the Tombs. It kept Tom’s mind from the pain. But Tom said they weren’t bad plans. In fact, he thought one might work, and then I remembered the pieces of the Ancient story, and I wondered exactly what I was doing that was so worthwhile, anyway.”

“And so you did it.”

“We got Aunt Francesca. She’s Mrs. Ellington, now, living up west.”

“And you did it again.”

“And again, and again.”

“And you loved it,” he said.

She looked at her hands, dirty with dust and black powder, and felt the little line appear between her eyes.

“Of course you did what was right,” he said, as if she’d argued. “They were innocents. It was justice. But justice was not the only reason you went back.” He tried to make her look at him, his voice lowering further. “Come, Sophia.” She lifted her gaze. “You loved taking them from the Tombs because you loved the challenge. You loved outwitting the ones who would destroy so much. And you love it now. Tell me I am wrong.”

She bit her lip. She couldn’t tell him he was wrong.

René breathed out a small laugh. “You act as if you have just confessed a crime. Why should you not love it? Do you not think I love snatching artifacts from the hands of the melters? Smuggling them to safety under the very nose of the gendarmes?” He looked down at the Ancient paper in his lap, touching the words “bloodthirsty revolution” behind the glass.

“Have you ever thought,” he said after a moment, “that perhaps … all of this could have happened before? That the people of the Time Before, no matter how weak we think them, that they were only making the mistakes of their ancestors, and that we, in turn, are only making the same mistakes as them? Technology or no? That the time changes but people do not, and so we are never really moving forward, only around a bend? That the world only ever turns in circles. Do you think that could be so?”

She met his gaze, fascinated. “I don’t know,” she said. “But even if that’s true, then don’t you think there is always someone who can change it? Who could break the pattern? Or who could try? If they chose to. Don’t you think that has to be true as well?”

“Yes,” he said, “I do think that.” The tiny fire went out, leaving only the candles. “And I would help you.”

“You are helping me,” she said, voice small. “Isn’t that our agreement?”

“You know that is not what I mean. I would help you.”

She did know. She knew exactly what he meant, and it was loud inside her, like the shattering of glass, like the shifting of the poles, swinging the world into a new alignment. He thought she was someone who could break the pattern of history. And he was offering to break it with her.

And just like that, there were no more questions about games or what was real or whether René Hasard was telling the truth. She just knew he meant what he said. She chose to believe, and with her belief came a pull to him, such an irresistible force, that she wondered if this was how it would feel to be an Ancient satellite, forever circling in the sky. Always kept from flying away by that magnetic draw, always kept from drifting too near by the uncertainties of the atmosphere. She clutched her knees, breathing deep, and breathing deep again, afraid to look at him, this time because she didn’t know what would happen when she did.

Then René said, “I owe you an apology again, Miss Bellamy.”

Her head jerked up. René had gone rigid, expression hard, careful as he set the glass panes back into their crate. He’d completely misinterpreted her silence.

“I have thought of what you said,” he continued, voice still very low, “or what you did not say in Hammond’s kitchen, and I want you to know that I think you are right. This arrangement is … insecure at best, and if another marriage fee can be had, of course you will be obligated. Of course you will do what is needed for your family.”