Don Angelo replied tartly, “Perhaps Célestial surgeons are in the habit of killing their patients. It is not so in Aragoth. At any rate, the surgeon managed to get the shrapnel fragments out of your leg, clean the wound, and stitch it up before you awoke and started bellowing.”
Isabelle, who was too wrung out for any more excitement, raised a mollifying hand. “Thank you, Don Angelo, for granting my humble request to find Jean-Claude. It seems my faithful guardian is still quite distressed from his pain. I think he will calm down more quickly without so many people around.” She made an ushering motion and took a step toward the door. Don Angelo, perforce, retreated, drawing stretcher bearers, handmaids, and other assorted hangers-on in his wake.
Isabelle said, “You may give my thanks to the surgeon, and you may both expect Jean-Claude’s personal apology, once he returns to his senses. For now, I think a little peace and quiet is in order.”
Yet before she could push the door closed, Kantelvar shouldered to the front of the throng with Marie in tow. The comte’s visage had withdrawn from Marie’s features.
Kantelvar said, “Highness, if I may be permitted.”
As much as Isabelle didn’t want a room full of people, it seemed unnecessary to yank Marie from Kantelvar’s grasp and slam the door in his face, so she stood aside to let them both in before closing the doors on the crowd.
Kantelvar handed Marie off to Isabelle and bowed to Grand Leon. “Majesty. If I may be so bold as to question your musketeer.”
“Jean-Claude is wounded,” Grand Leon said. “I would not have him overtaxed.”
“As you wish, of course, but the longer we wait to question him, the more time our enemies will have to cover their trail.”
“He did a pretty thorough job of that with the bomb,” Jean-Claude said, shifting uncomfortably on the sofa. “There was a gunshot from a second story. I leapt in through the window, hoping to surprise the shooter, but he was gone when I arrived. He escaped through a mirror.”
“Are you sure?” Kantelvar asked.
“I came in through the window. Two of your soldiers came in the opposite door. There were no other methods of egress. So, yes, he must have been a Glasswalker, unless there is some sorcery that allows one to walk through walls.”
“Not that I know of,” Kantelvar said.
Jean-Claude waved this away. “However he got out, he left a bomb behind. I saw the fuse smoke and jumped out the window. The wall shielded me from the worst of the blast.”
“Builder be praised,” Isabelle said. Ever since she’d seen him lying on the street, she’d felt as if she were drowning. Now she could breathe again.
Jean-Claude smiled at her. “The next thing I knew, the damn doctor was pecking at me like a vulture. I fought him off, commandeered some soldiers, and made my way here.”
Isabelle said, “Savior be praised that you were so alert and quick. But why did the assassin leave a bomb?”
“A trap for anyone who tried to chase him,” Jean-Claude said. “Or to blow the mirror to pieces to prevent another Glasswalker from trailing him, if that’s even possible.”
“It is,” Kantelvar said. “If the pursuer is very skilled. It’s a moot point now; any clues that might have been in that room are either vanished or destroyed.”
Grand Leon said, “And that, I believe, is all we need to know for tonight. Kantelvar, walk with me awhile and let us leave these good people to recover from their noble exertions.”
“As you wish,” Kantelvar said.
Only once they were gone did Jean-Claude allow his posture to sag. “Thank the Savior.”
“Tonight, Vincent was the Savior,” Isabelle said.
Jean-Claude winced. “I heard. I cannot say I liked him, but I did not wish him dead. Dead people are no fun to pester.”
“Hah!” Isabelle laughed in spite of herself, and the involuntary spasm knocked a question loose inside of her. “Do you think he died for nothing? I wasn’t even in the carriage.”
Jean-Claude took a moment to answer, and he spoke carefully. “He died maintaining the illusion. The illusion was what was keeping you safe, so, no, he did not die for nothing.”
Isabelle resisted the urge to sit down. The new stitching in her gown was already warping in directions it ought not. Pieces of it were threatening to slough off. “So what do we do now? All our clues vanish as fast as we find them, and we learn nothing.”
“That’s not entirely true. We know the killer has an accomplice; someone had to put that mirror in that room for him.”
“And the bomb. Unless he set them both up in advance, then went and left his body somewhere else while his espejismo returned via the mirror. It would, as you say, reduce the circle of people in on the plot.”
“True.” Jean-Claude rubbed his forehead in obvious exhaustion. “But I will look for an accomplice anyway. Just as soon as I can walk.”
“How bad is it?” she asked.
“It hurts, but it’s stopped bleeding, and the surgeon did get all the bits out, I’ll give him that much. Thank the Savior for leather and silk. Cotton and wool get all tangled up in the wound. You can’t get them all out, and the wound festers around them. Silk and leather, though, they don’t break up so much. They’re easier to get out.”
He was babbling, plainly at the end of his rope but not willing to let go. He didn’t know how to quit, so he just kept going while his internal spring wound down.
“Stand down, soldier,” Isabelle said. “That’s an order. And get some sleep, because I will not rest until you do.”
Jean-Claude’s mouth opened as if to protest, but then he nodded and said, “Your wish is my command, Highness.”
CHAPTER
Eleven
The morning after the cavalcade, Isabelle met Queen Margareta in an airy courtyard with terraced sides overflowing with greenery. Garden trees, shrubs, and flowers filled the enclosure with a sweet, mossy, heady perfume. Harp music came from somewhere deep in the bushes.
Isabelle crossed the courtyard at a decorous walk, bracing herself for the audience. Kantelvar lurched along at her side, bearing the scroll that held her freshly inked ambassadorial credentials.
After meeting the queen’s espejismo on the Santa Anna, Isabelle had wondered how true her imperious image was to her incarnate reality. In fact, the flesh-and-blood queen was shorter and stouter than her espejismo, but not grossly so; the biggest change was in the quality of her skin, which in reality was somewhat oily and porous, not the color of milky starlight she had so ardently projected. Do you think of yourself as a celestial being, Majesty?