Rook(75)

She exchanged a glance with Spear. His look told her clearly that he thought this was why they should not have waited to come. That they’d left themselves no time to adjust, no time for mistakes. He was worrying about his part of the plan, of course, about getting Tom, Jennifer, and Madame Hasard out of the gates and to the coast; she was worrying about those three, plus hundreds of prisoners more. There was another way beneath the walls, but the tunnels were small and difficult, often wet. It would take much too long. Most would not have the strength for it. So it had to be the gates, even if the Upper City was in chaos. She turned inside René’s arm and found that he had been watching her think.

“You pick pockets, don’t you?”

“On occasion,” he replied.

“Are you good?”

“My uncle Andre says I am.”

“Can you steal a ring off a man’s finger?”

“Ah. But do you want this man to know his ring has been stolen?” he asked. Sophia felt her brows draw together. “Perhaps what you really want is to borrow a ring, Mademoiselle? From my cousin Albert?”

“Yes,” she said, brightening. “That is exactly what I want.”

“Then you can leave that to me, I think.” She turned, settling back into René’s encircling arm.

“What are you thinking, Sophie?” Spear asked.

“That we’ll drive them straight out as planned, and that LeBlanc is going to open the gates for us.”



LeBlanc twisted off his signet ring, dropped it into the drawer, and opened a report from the Berck dock, laying the paper flat on his desk to read. He frowned a little, then opened three separate envelopes sent express from varying points on the landover road. His pale eyes widened, then narrowed. This was unexpected. And suspicious. And intriguing. Could his ridiculous young cousin really be so half-witted as to have fallen in love with the Red Rook? He took out his black bag with the Ancient coin, cupped the coin in his hands, shook, opened his fingers, and looked at the answer of his Goddess. Face. He was more surprised. He had not thought that even René could be this stupid.

LeBlanc picked up the invitation still on his desk, thoughtful, slipped it into the inside pocket of his robes, and left his office, Renaud stepping softly just behind. They took the lift down through the white building, then down through the cliffs, opening the door to the first level of the Tombs. But LeBlanc did not go into the prison. He passed Gerard’s office and opened the door into the prison yard, where the scaffold and the Razor cast deeper shadows across the darkness.

On the far side, where partially derelict buildings created one edge of the space around the scaffold, LeBlanc opened the door to an empty warehouse, Renaud closing it behind him and turning the lock. Inside, in the orange flicker of torchlight, stood Gerard and a gendarme with a tiny mustache. Gerard appeared a little ill. The man with the tiny mustache did not. That was something to note. Behind them were two guards, both with crossbows, and on the far wall, six men and women, gagged, blindfolded, tied, beaten, and bloody. One still had the remnants of a red-painted feather on his cheek.

LeBlanc sighed. The Razor was a superior method. This was likely to take a little time. But Fate had instructed him to have it done this way, and she was a wise mistress. There would be no Allemande or other ministres to hear. He sighed again. Inefficient. He raised a hand, the crossbows aimed, and when he lowered it there was a soft swoosh of arrows.

He ignored the noises from the other end of the warehouse while the gendarmes reloaded. She would be here by now, wandering through his streets. The Red Rook was in the Sunken City. And it was time to move Tom Bellamy.



Just like in the cemeteries, Sophia was not seeing what she had expected in the Upper City. After dusk was when the restaurants filled, the last of the stores closing and theaters opening, when the fashionable people came out to see and be seen. It was the time she’d always been meandering back to Aunt Francesca’s with Tom and Spear, so Father wouldn’t realize where they’d been. But even though the sun had fallen away behind the buildings, these streets were empty, some unlit, more and more so as they followed the sloping pavements deeper into the Upper City, moving closer to the sunken center. They began passing windows that were boarded over, and charred barricades, broken glass, patrolling gendarmes, and a few buildings burned to an empty shell. The columns of the concert hall and the hospital were both splattered with circles of half black, half white. The sign of Fate. Obviously the Monde Observateur had not been reporting everything that was happening in the city.

René said, “I think I should ride outside with Benoit …”

“No,” Spear replied. “I’ll go. You’re a target with that jacket.” He half crouched as he left his seat, loosening his sword before pushing down the handle of the door and swinging himself onto the outdoor rungs that led up to the luggage rack. René pulled the door shut as the landover tilted and lurched until Spear got on top and evened out the weight.

“He is right,” René commented. “But I think we may be a target either way.” He settled Sophia back beneath his arm, staring out the window again. The city seemed to be in a state of unquiet calm, the kind that comes right before a storm. He pulled her a little closer and said, “Look, up on the high ground.” She craned her neck to see an industrial building of dark, brown brick on the top of a hill. She could just make out the enormous sign across its front in the light from the upper floors of other buildings. Hasard Glass. “I am glad to see it still standing. I …”