But I don’t know that. When we get out, Jules said, like it’s a foregone conclusion. It’s not. It’s wishful thinking.
A voice, soft and singsong, drifts after us out of the hall of mirrors.
“Auréliiiiiie.”
I let go of Lilly and surge ahead. Rip open the doors of the music room. Step into a gallery. It runs perpendicular to the music room, like the crossbar on a T. There’s another door straight across from me. And about thirty feet away, at the end of the gallery: people. Way too many people.
It’s a triangle formation of trackers, waiting like inky statues.
Dorf and Miss Sei are next to them, sitting at a table in high-backed gilt chairs, like they’re posing for a portrait. Miss Sei’s legs are crossed elegantly. Dorf’s hand is resting on the marble table. They both have guns.
I freeze. Right in the middle of the gallery, like a deer caught in headlights. Behind me, still in the music room, Lilly does, too.
“Anouk,” Dorf calls out, and his voice echoes, deep and final, like a funeral bell.
The trackers start toward me. Three steps and they’ve accelerated to full speed. They’re flashing past Dorf and Miss Sei, straight for me.
They haven’t seen Lilly. She’s still in the music room. I have a split second to make a decision.
“Lilly?” I hiss, without turning. “Get back, go, go, RUN!”
And I throw myself forward across the gallery. I burst through the doors opposite, spin,, start closing them. I see Lilly through the narrowing crack. She’s running back through the music room toward the hall of mirrors––
I slam my doors, kick in the floor peg. Something massive crashes against them, rattling the hinges. I run blindly into the next room, the next, not even trying to lock anything after me. This was your idea, Anouk. This whole thing, it was your stupid plan, and now we’re separated, waiting to be picked off like ducks on a carnival conveyor belt.
The doors to the gallery crash open. They’re catching up. I dive behind a sofa, coughing, gasping.
Four trackers burst in. I empty my clip into them. When I stand, there are four bodies on the floor. My hands are shaking
“Lilly?” I whisper to the empty room. But Lilly’s gone. I’m on my own.
Palais du Papillon—112 feet below, 1790
A serving woman, huge as an ogress, leads me back to my chambers. Her face is a weary mask, her apron filthy. She smells of onions and dirt and sour milk. I feel a strange sort of companionship with her as we trudge up staircases, through chamber after opulent chamber, these treasure rooms of ruby, jet, and emerald. She held a blindfold when she came for me, and perhaps she meant to use it, but she took one look at my reddened eyes and twisted it into her fist. I suppose I should be grateful for this kindness. Or perhaps she should be grateful, for had she tried to bind my eyes, I might have scratched out hers.
A cold, iron numbness has taken hold of me and settled into my bones. Somewhere deep inside I feel rage, hot enough to melt glass, but I cannot reach it. I stare straight ahead of me, and I try to keep my feet moving, try to forget the cracking in my heart, Mama’s face when she cried out to me.
We arrive at my chambers. The serving woman unlocks the door and stands aside. She is so still, a great brooding mountain, delicate and hulking both at once. I turn to face her, my eyes pleading.
“Madam,” I say quickly. “Madam, I beg of you, let me—”
But she will not look at me. She lowers her head and pushes me hurriedly through the doors. I hear them slam shut, the wrench of the lock sliding home.
I slide to the floor and lie in a heap. Still I do not cry. I feel as though I could, feel a strained cord of muscle in my chest, fit to snap, but no tears will fall. All I can think is: We must get away from here. Delphine, Bernadette, Charlotte, Jacques, me. We must escape.
Jacques finds me this way and pulls me upright, crushing me to him. “They are mad here,” I whisper, and bury my face in his collar. Only now do the tears come, hot and endless, wetting the linen of his shirt.
“I know,” he says, but he doesn’t. He cannot know the depths of their madness. I try to explain to him what I saw, what has become of Mama.
He holds me more tightly with every word, and when I am finished there is no shock or outrage from him. Only grim, weary determination. “It is not just la Marchioness Célestine,” he says, and I stiffen. “We found Marie-Clair in a chamber near the edge of the palace. She was barely sixteen, one of the youngest. They had emptied her of blood, taken parts of her, and that pale thing in the room . . . Monsieur Vallé saw it walking today in the western wing, free as you like. He said it turned to look at him, and its face opened like a wound. They are keeping it— ”