Poison by H.B.
And the lists of names in the cracked, leather-bound volume in the study. That’s it. That’s what was bugging me: the handwriting was the same. From 1760 up until now. More than two hundred fifty years and the handwriting never changed.
This is impossible.
Dorf, Havriel, whoever he is, breathes in deeply. “Now, my dear . . .”
He goes to a panel in the wall and folds out a glossy metal case, dark sharp corners incongruous with the décor of the room. He snaps it open. A barbed nozzle slides into view, the sharp tip glinting silver. “Won’t you sit down? I think it’s time we had a little chat.”
Palais du Papillon, Chambres du Morelle Noir—112 feet below, 1790
The figure stands in the doorway, motionless. He is small as a child, but his skin is pale and hard, as if he wears a mask of marble veneer. He is dressed in a frock coat, sharply cleaved at the back into two crimson prongs, a velvet swallow’s tale. His hands are at his side, pale and small, the flesh hard-looking as if carved from marble, and in one of them he carries a little case, dark wood with many locks.
“Jacques?” The word escapes me in a strangled whisper.
Jacques remains stock-still. “All will be well,” he says, but I hear the tremble in his voice, the coursing fear. “He is our ally. He knows of our predicament. He has promised to help you escape.”
The whine in the air becomes deafening, wave after wave crashing over me. It seems to be peeling apart the strands of my brain, sifting through my thoughts and fears like they are berries in a basket. Slowly, long red slits open down the servant’s cheeks and across his neck. They are not wounds. They are surgically precise, as if he was made this way, as if the human head was too foolish and this is better.
“It was the only way,” Jacques says. “The only way I knew—”
The figure is still in the doorway, watching us, and I seem to detect amusement in those bottomless black eyes, a spark of malice.
“Who are you?” I say to him, and I turn Delphine’s head away, shielding her with my arms. “What are you?”
“I’m not telling.” The smell from the tiny bottle is still in my nose, rich and oily, like blood oranges and musk. We’re sitting across from each other, me in a wing chair, him perched on a hard wooden stool, languid but somehow tense at the same time, like a cat waiting to pounce. “I’m not telling you where the others are. You can kill me if you want to, but I’m not snitching.”
Havriel turns the nozzle over in his hands. His rain-cloud eyes are fixed on me, measuring me up, catching every twitch and sign of weakness in my face. “You may not know where they are.”
“Oh, I know.” I don’t know. I don’t have a clue.
“Have they been captured?”
“Nope. Still running free.”
Havriel turns on the stool, pressing a finger to his ear and gesturing to the marquis, who is still standing, hovering nervously. Trois, he whispers.
Three. So they don’t have Lilly yet. They don’t have anyone, except that one genius who climbed into a chandelier. But this doesn’t at all guarantee that the others are still alive.
“Let’s make a deal,” he says. “You tell me exactly where the others are, and I will tell you everything you wish to know.”
“I won’t,” I say. “What’s the point of knowing everything and then dying two seconds later?”
Havriel turns again to his brother. Says something I don’t catch. They titter. They’re laughing at me, heads together, like a couple of freakish, waistcoated clowns.
“You still hope to escape,” Havriel says, and his eyes dance. He taps the nozzle thoughtfully against his knee.
I stare at its needle-like tip and try to swallow. “Yes?” I say.
“Very well,” he says. “Allow me to sweeten the pot, as they say. I will answer all your questions and I will let you go, and you can run away back to New York City and live happily ever after. Now will you tell me?”
He flips a small switch on the nozzle’s handle. A red light blinks on. He’s going to kill me. He knows it, and I know it, and he’s grinning at me like: You’re not this stupid, Anouk. We don’t need to play this game.
But this has given me time to think. I don’t know where the others are. So I have nothing to lose by agreeing, except for maybe some metaphorical points in selfless nobility, but I’m not super attached to those anyway. And maybe if he talks long enough, I can think up a way to get out of this room.
“Okay,” I say, and it comes out in a whisper. “You first.”