Sobs welled up in Isabelle’s body, but she choked them off. This was not the way to honor the fallen. She swallowed the slime of grief and said, “You lived for my father, but you died for me.”
“Highness, please, come this way.” The chamberlain gripped Isabelle’s shoulders and pulled her away, but she resisted being absorbed into the converging mob of her handmaidens.
She wiped tears from her cheeks with her sleeves and spat out the first question that floated into her consciousness. “Jean-Claude. What happened to him?” The memory of his crumpled form was burned in her mind like sun glare on her eyes.
“Who is Jean-Claude?” the chamberlain asked, trying to usher her away. “You must come away; this is no place for a lady.”
“No place—” Isabelle’s shock and horror turned a corner into anger. She shrugged off his hand. “They were shooting at me! That was my place, and he took it.”
“As was his duty,” the chamberlain said. “Your duty was to let him.”
He was right, and Isabelle loathed him for it. She bit down a bilious surge of undeserved invective and snapped, “Find out what happened to my musketeer, Jean-Claude.”
“By your command, Highness,” he said by way of a sop to her nonexistent authority.
“Who are you, by the way?” Isabelle asked.
The man took a step back, composed himself, and in the midst of the chaos, took a deep bow. “I am Don Angelo, Your Highness. And my job will be much easier to do if you go inside your residence, where it is safe.”
Four new guards surrounded Isabelle, and she allowed herself to be marched up a flight of wide, shallow steps toward what she guessed was the entryway to her residence. No place had ever felt so strange and foreign.
She pivoted, trying to orient herself. The staircase had deposited her on a colonnaded portico flanked by an elevated arcade that ran the width of this building. Far across the vast courtyard, the rest of the cavalcade trickled in the main gate. She searched the crowd for Jean-Claude but saw no sign of him. He had lain so still … she wasn’t ready to face that. She would never be ready to face that. He had always been close to hand, always willing to lend an ear, even when he was pretending to be staggering drunk.
Was there no one left of her inner circle? Even Marie would be a comfort right now.
Marie! She’d been in the coach with Valérie and Vincent. Isabelle broke from her escort and hurried back to the coach, pushing past a host of people who thought they knew better than she which direction she ought to be going. She leaned inside. There sat Marie, covered in blood, staring straight ahead, unmoving and unmoved by the carnage. Thank the Builder.
“Marie, attend me,” she said, her voice rough with relief.
Marie clambered out of the carriage, leaving behind a clean spot on the bloody upholstery. There was blood on the seat behind where Vincent had been sitting … which there should not have been, unless … yes, there it was, a hole in the seat cushion. The bullet had gone completely through him, but alchemetal was supposed to be proof against musket balls. And that wasn’t all. The bullet had first come through the carriage’s open window, shattered the mirror behind which he had been hiding, and kept right on going.
“Highness!” Don Angelo said. “Please come away from there.”
“Of course,” Isabelle said, but the cold, clicking, analytical part of her mind could not let this mess go unscrutinized.
She pulled out her maidenblade and probed the hole in the fabric for the bullet, but it had gone all the way through the padding and into the boards. Finally, she withdrew from the coach, but only to slip around its back end.
There, bulging from the wood behind Vincent’s seat, was the bullet. It had made it almost all the way out. Had it carried just a little bit more force, it would have plinked down in the street somewhere and been lost.
She plied her maidenblade and prized the slug from its resting place. It was surprisingly small, shorter than the first joint of her wormfinger, and cylindrical except where the front end had been squashed and flattened, like a mushroom cap. It was made of some bright hard metal. It was scored along its sides at an angle, as if it had been torn with tiny claws.
“What are you doing?” Don Angelo asked.
Isabelle returned her maidenblade to its sheath and tucked the slug in her belt pouch. What was she doing? Nothing she cared to explain. A bullet shouldn’t have this much … punch, she thought, but it was a hunch based, she feared, more on not wanting to believe what had just happened than on any objective truth. And it was not the sort of thing to interest a proper princess in any case. After the barest hesitation, she replied, “I am going inside, where we can all pretend it is safe.”
*
The chamber into which Isabelle was introduced—her receiving room, she was told—was richly appointed with upholstered chairs, polished companion tables, and ornamental tapestries. What it lacked were windows and mirrors. Nor were the guards on the doors ornamental. This was meant to be a secure place.
What had no doubt been intended to be a serene and gracious welcome by the female staff had already been thrown into disarray by Valérie’s bloodstained arrival. The poor decoy had been settled in a chair, and a half-dozen olive-skinned, raven-haired Aragothic women hovered around her. Everyone looked up and goggled when Isabelle, in boots, trousers, and military jacket, marched in.
Her male escort, swept along in her wake, tried to follow her, but she said, “Women’s quarters. Out!” She made a sweeping gesture and the men retreated. The doors clicked shut. Isabelle wanted to follow the men out, to race back into the city and look for Jean-Claude, but she had duties. Some idiot had given these women into her charge.
The Aragothic women looked back and forth between Isabelle and Valérie in confusion, but all the Célestial handmaids, even Valérie, curtsied to Isabelle.
“Rise,” Isabelle said. “Except you, Valérie. You sit down. Are you hurt?”
Valérie sat but did not settle. The veil had been pulled from her face. Sweat and tears had made a mess of her makeup, but she seemed to have reached an exhausted interlude in her weeping. “Vincent was terribly angry when he figured out he had been duped. He swore he was going to gut monsieur musketeer, but I … I talked him into the coach.” Fresh tears welled from her eyes, and Isabelle would not have blamed her if she broke down, but after a few deep breaths she said, “And everything was going well. And then there was this terrible bang, and glass went everywhere, and he jerked in his seat, and his eyes went very round. He looked surprised.” She shook her head as if trying to dislodge a biting fly. The other handmaids wrapped their arms around her shoulders and made soothing noises.