“I don’t want to hear any explanations from you.” Her eyes roved over me, repulsed. Betrayed.
“You know a demon is causing les Morts. What if it’s him?”
“What?” Oliver straightened. “How ridiculous—”
“Really?” She thrust her chin at him and then at me. “For all I know, you’re both raising the
Dead . ”
“Jie!” I reared back. “How can you say that?”
“Easy. We think a demon is murdering these people, and what do you show up with? A demon.
And on top of that, you’re learning necromancy. It’s not a hard conclusion to make—especially when the moment you came to Paris was the moment les Morts started rising again.”
“No.” I grabbed the sides of my face. “Jie, you know me! I’m not a murderer!”
“I knew you,” she spat. “And that Eleanor wouldn’t do necromancy. But fine.” She threw her hands up in defeat. “You wanna keep secrets from me, then keep ’em. But Joseph has to know about this.”
“And I’ll tell him!” I blurted.
“Why should I trust you?” she sneered. “You’ve lied to us—lied to me.”
“No!” I shouted, anger rising over my fear. “It’s not Oliver. It can’t be Oliver. He was in America.
With me.”
She shook her head, her lips clamped tight. “You’re a necromancer now, Eleanor, and that makes us enemies.”
Then, with a final jaw clench, she pivoted around and burst into a run. I immediately shoved after her. Oliver shouted for me, but I didn’t hear. I had to stop Jie. Had to make her see things my way.
I pushed my legs faster. By the time I reached the open courtyard, I had broken into a full sprint.
My ankles twisted on loose stones and white dust puffed onto my skirts, yet Jie stayed far ahead.
So I ran harder. My lungs seared and my vision turned hazy, yet still I ran—out of the ruins and into the gardens after Jie’s shrinking figure. Flowers blurred in the corners of my eyes as I barreled onward, aiming for the street. For the hotel. For the almost-vanished Jie.
By the time I reached the hotel, my body shaking, I had given up.
Joseph was going to find out sooner or later anyway. What was the difference in defending myself to Jie than in doing it to the both of them? Let Jie tell him. For now I wanted to be alone to process everything that had happened—that was happening. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore.
So I hauled myself up to my bedroom, sat on the edge of my bed, and stared at the carpet.
Thoughts flashed through my mind one after the other—from the letters to animal sacrifices to the
Black Pullet. Now I knew with almost complete certainty why Marcus was seeking my letters—and why Oliver wanted them as well. Yet this knowledge did me little good. I was no closer to stopping
Marcus than I had been before, for I had now lost the only people who could help me.
After a few minutes of these agonizing thoughts, I realized that simply waiting for the inevitable—
for Joseph to find me—was more than my nerves could stand. So I decided to put my brain to work.
I had new information; I should at least try to use it. It was time to dig through my sheaf of confusing letters. I could focus on those without thinking about myself. I would push all my other problems to the back of my mind, and I would go to the library to see what I could learn about the
Black Pullet.
Of course, it wasn’t as easy to leave the hotel as I had anticipated. As soon as I found Elijah’s letters in my carpetbag and hurried back down the main stairs, a tugging began to tickle in my gut.
At the final step, the hair on my neck stood straight on end. Oliver was near.
Yet I didn’t see him anywhere, so I resumed my trek—carefully, slowly—toward the foyer. It was as I passed the gentlemen’s smoking room, gray smoke billowing through its doorways, that I realized where he was hiding. So I crept to the heavy red curtains that draped the entrance and risked a glance inside. Through the haze, I could make out bulky scarlet sofas and beyond that a gold-and-black bar.
A bar over which hunched a gray-suited young man, no doubt nursing a gin between his long, demon fingers. For several seconds I watched him, yet not once did he turn.
I can sense him, yet he’s not sensing me. What I couldn’t tell was whether his obliviousness was from the gin or from a lack of desire to find me. But either way, this was my chance to sneak out unnoticed and conduct my research alone. So with my letters in one hand, I gathered up my skirts in the other and twisted around to walk away.
But I instantly stumbled back. A tall figure stood squarely in my path.
“Excusez-moi,” he said in stilted French, “mais je ne—” The young man broke off, his eyes widening in recognition. “Empress?”