“I need your help,” he said. “Kantelvar kidnapped Isabelle. Do you know anything about that?” He wished he could be more specific with his question, but he had no idea what Marie might have seen.
Marie was quiet for a long moment, and Jean-Claude, with his hand on her shoulder, could feel tension quivering through her. At last she said, still in that ethereal voice, “Izzy used to cry herself to sleep because of me. I’ll try.”
Spoken without reproach, those words nonetheless drove a spike of pain into Jean-Claude’s heart.
Marie took a deep breath, like a swimmer about to dive to the bottom of a lake, and then went very still. He held her hands as she dove into the murk of memory. He found himself holding his breath. Was she going to come back? Must he sit by while yet another woman slipped through his grasp to her doom?
She gasped and shuddered; a sound like the last hiss of a boiling kettle passed her lips.
“Marie, are you injured? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” She clung to his arm. “Isabelle and Kantelvar brought me here. Isabelle was worried about me. Then they left. Later he came back. He was in a hurry. He kept shouting at someone who didn’t answer. ‘Pack this up. Take it to the Voto Solemne.’”
Jean-Claude had to stifle a surge of pure vicious joy at this. This is what he had been looking for: the name of a ship. Finding one ship in the deep sky would be like finding the proverbial needle in the wheat field, but at least he knew which wheat field and which needle.
Marie continued in an exhausted monotone. “And then he left, too. And then I woke up, and I knew I shouldn’t move, because Isabelle gave me instructions about the lights and the tubes before she left. I called for help. And then it was quiet until you came. And now you’re going to leave me, too.”
“I will come back for you,” he said. That was the second time today he’d made that promise. He hoped this time was not as futile.
“That’s what Isabelle said.”
“Kantelvar kidnapped Isabelle. I’m going to get her back.” No oath he had sworn before Grand Leon had ever had such conviction.
It was physically exhausting for Jean-Claude to drag himself out of the dark room. Twelve years ago, he had delivered Marie to her enemies. For the intervening decade, he had counted her as dead, and now he must abandon her to the darkness, at least for a while.
To Príncipe Alejandro, who had been gathering the remnants of the sanctum’s contents onto the table, he said, “Your Highness. I must beg a favor.”
“An attendant for the girl. Done. I can barely begin to imagine what she has suffered. I will send one within the hour. Within the quarter hour, be it within my power to do so.”
“No light,” Jean-Claude said.
“Of course.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Have you ever noticed how it is possible to be horror-struck by the pain of one person and simultaneously oblivious to the travails of thousands?”
“I am but a simple musketeer,” Jean-Claude said. “Caring for one person is quite enough burden for me. To care so deeply for thousands and still be sane would require the fortitude of a saint.”
“With answers like that, I can see why Grand Leon keeps you around.” He handed Jean-Claude his lantern and they started up the stairs. “Are you going to tell me what she told you?”
“Are you going to tell me what you found in the gleanings?”
“You first.”
“The name of a ship, I think, that Kantelvar used to carry Isabelle away.”
“Hah! We have him, then. We can locate him using the registry at the Naval Orrery. It has a chartstone from every ship flagged out of Aragoth.”
“You are assuming this ship is flagged out of Aragoth, and under the name I was given, but you are right that it’s worth a try.”
“If it does not have a chartstone in the Naval Orrery, then it would risk being challenged by our picket ships. I doubt Kantelvar would want to take that chance, so that’s half your problem solved.”
“And what did you find?”
“A candle stub.” He produced the waxy stump and began rolling it over in his fingers.
“And what’s so remarkable about that?”
“Nothing in and of itself, but this place has sconces for alchemical lanterns, so it has no need of candles, and this is finest beeswax, and this”—he flipped the stub up to display an indented pattern on the flat end—“is the maker’s mark for a chandler in Castrella, my wife’s home province.”
“And she brought her candlesticks with her when she moved to San Augustus.”
He nodded, looking progressively more worried the more he fondled the waxy remnant. “It’s possible to poison candles, you know. Dip their wicks in certain solutions of arsenic, for example.”
“But that candle is spent,” Jean-Claude pointed out, “and I have heard no rumor that she is ill.”
“No. Just barren.” And now his eyes burned with suspicion. “And hopeless in her distress at being unable to conceive, she prays at her altar every night, burning candles just such as these.”
Poisoning herself. Jean-Claude was beginning to think that was Kantelvar’s style. “And Xaviera’s infertility gave Kantelvar the leverage he needed to bring Isabelle into play and give Julio a plausible claim to the throne, a plan that has now thrown all four shoes.”
“Now the imposter that sits at Margareta’s side finds himself back-footed. He believes both his chief conspirator and his bride-to-be are dead.”
“Unless he is in on it,” Jean-Claude said.
“I doubt he’d agree to making Isabelle disappear. More to the point, I know Margareta wouldn’t, and she seems to be pulling the imposter’s strings. They’ll be in an absolute panic.”
“So what’s their next move?” Jean-Claude asked.
Alejandro’s face grew still in thought. “He’ll want to level the battlefield. Xaviera.”
“Wait. How does removing her help him? Your faction has been begging you to set her aside so you can remarry. Getting rid of her would be doing your side a favor.”
Alejandro glowered at him, but Jean-Claude said, “I am thinking from his point of view, not yours.”
“She still works as a hostage against me,” he said. “Even if the rest of the world would discard her.”
Jean-Claude said, “Just be sure you don’t commit yourself too quickly to rash action. One of my academy instructors had a saying: ‘When you hitch up a team of four, make sure fear and anger are not in the lead.’ I have frequently served Isabelle best by not being at her side.”