“You? But Saint Céleste died over sixteen hundred years ago.” Just when she thought Kantelvar could not get any more lunatic …
The artifex shuddered and his hump gurgled. “She did not tell me how long it would take. Did she think I would refuse? For a thousand years I waited and watched as the world grew corrupt and the Builder’s holy blood thinned in the veins of each new generation. His sorcery grew weak, and His will was forgotten, and Céleste’s prophecy went unfulfilled, a prophecy she had given only to me. To me.
“Only then did I realize she had given me the prophecy not to watch for, but to construct and complete, and so I have reordered the heavens. All of the bloodlines have been distilled and concentrated into just two lineages, two people who hold the blood of all sorceries. Julio the false prince, the changeling raised by Margareta’s hand. Her taking him in exchange for her true son was my price for arranging the queen’s ascendancy.”
Isabelle knew she ought to run, but Kantelvar had made no hostile move. While he remained content to squat there rattling and spewing madness like an overboiling kettle, she might chance to learn something useful to thwarting him.
“Julio is not Margareta’s son?” Isabelle was less surprised than she should have been; she’d been surprised so many times she’d lost the capacity. “So he is not Carlemmo’s, either.”
Kantelvar scoffed. “What matters the blood of a mongrel king when Julio has the pure blood of true saints in his veins? You are both descended without dilution from the saints. Your blood is as pure and potent as that of the Firstborn Kings.”
Isabelle slowly reached over to her desk and drew the portrait of Thornscar out of her portfolio. She displayed it to Kantelvar. “How do you explain this?”
“Unfortunately, when I told Julio of his destiny to be the Savior’s father, he responded irrationally. He called me mad and threatened to expose me, though, being a changeling pretender, it would have meant his own death. I had no choice but to confine him until it is time for him to do his duty. He resisted, and that was when I marked him with that scar.”
“Wait,” Isabelle said, feeling she’d missed a turning. “If Julio is Thornscar, and Thornscar is confined, who sits now at Margareta’s side?”
Kantelvar chuckled. “His name is Clìmacio, Margareta’s actual son, and an unhallowed wretch to boot. He spent the last twenty years as Julio’s whipping boy.”
“But he looks like Julio’s twin.”
“The Risen Saints left gifts. Primal Clay, the very stuff from which the clayborn were fashioned. Clìmacio was sculpted to be Julio’s exact replica, a true changeling.”
Isabelle recalled the false DuJournal saying Kantelvar promised Margareta that her son would be king, and also promised Príncipe Alejandro that Julio would never sit upon the throne. He’d also promised Isabelle he’d help her make peace between Julio and Alejandro. She saw now how all three of those things might be literally true, and without any of Kantelvar’s marks knowing what they had actually bargained for.
“But Thornscar, the real Julio, found out a way to escape you through a mirror. He came straight from wherever you have him imprisoned; that’s why he didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t attack me at all, he was trying to kill you, but he failed. You detonated the orrery with your lightning, then you blamed Lady Sonya’s death on him to confuse the issue. Then you killed poor Vincent and tried to kill Jean-Claude with that bomb because you thought they were the only ones who could make the connection between Julio and Thornscar. You didn’t count on this.” She shook the portrait of Thornscar.
Kantelvar made a palm-up gesture, as if granting her the point. “You are so much like she was. So clever. You are mostly correct, except that I have, in fact, finally succeeded in disposing of that meddlesome musketeer. He will trouble us no further.”
Isabelle’s skin chilled like a threefold winter. “No. Not Jean-Claude.”
“Do not mourn him,” Kantelvar snarled, his voice creaking like an overstressed mast. “He is the villain. He is the one who has kept you from your destiny all these years. If he had not stopped me from taking you from your parents when you were born and placing you in a position to be married to your destined mate without any fuss, then this complex marriage never would have needed to be arranged, and the blood required would never have been spilled.”
Outrage rang in Isabelle’s voice. “How dare you blame him for your wickedness.”
Kantelvar rose from his crouch. “Céleste bade me bring the Savior into the world. She entrusted the Builder’s most sacred work to me, and I will see it done. I swore to her. I. Swore!” He pulled back his hood to reveal his corpselike visage, his waxy gray skin stretched over a distorted, hairless skull. His emerald-green eye burned with the cold light of madness.
Kantelvar’s voice rasped from the grille. “I am the Builder’s breath, the word He whispered to the universe to make His will come true. Sixteen hundred fifty-three wretchedly long years ago, I swore I would not rest until the Savior came. Little did I know—indeed, how could I have possibly understood—what that would mean.”
Isabelle tried to wipe dread and dismay from her face. Kantelvar had cracked an axle, and his wheels had come completely off. She had to get out of here. She had to summon help, right now.
“I think I need a drink.” She turned and strode, not too quickly, for the doors. All she had to do was slip out and set guards rushing in to bring this whole scheme crashing down. Damn her curiosity; she should have bolted long ago, just as soon as she had enough of an admission from him to justify arrest.
“Highness, don’t go.” Kantelvar’s voice carried a double edge of threat and despair.
“I’ll be right back,” she said. With lots and lots of reinforcements. Her heart hammered, and the air had gone thick as lamp oil. When did that door get so far away?
“I’m afraid I must insist.” Kantelvar’s words were like a knife blade against her neck.
Isabelle wrapped her hand around the butt of the pistol. “Just stay put.” She willed him to obey.
Damn, she needed to let go of the gun to work the door latch. She opened her grip.
There was a bright flash and a pop. An electric needle jabbed its way from her crown to her soles. Excruciating pain followed instantly by total numbness. She didn’t even have time to scream. Her whole body twitched, and she slumped forward, her face dragging down the padded door. Her good hand clenched and unclenched spasmodically.