I shook my head in decline.
“Good. It’s rural and unknown to minds that would be too interested in you.” He frowned, as if he was still trying to weave together my story. Then he said, “Augustin House is an all-girls’ establishment, hosting all five of the passions, and is a ten-year program. You entered the House at the age of seven, when you were selected out of the Padrig Orphanage, based on your sharp mind.”
“Where is this Augustin House?”
“Eighty miles southwest of Théophile, in the province of Nazaire.”
The silence swelled again, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I began to lose track of time—how long had I been riding with him? How much longer did we have to go?—when he cleared his throat.
“Now it is your turn to come up with a story,” Jourdain said.
I met his gaze, waiting warily.
“You need a viable explanation as to why you lack your cloak. Because, for all our purposes, it is to be known you are my passion daughter, adopted into the Jourdain family, a mistress of knowledge.”
I eased out a breath, rolled my shoulders to feel my back pop. He was right; I needed to have an explanation prepared. But this was going to require some creativity and confidence, because passions never lost their cloaks, never stepped out in public lacking their cloaks, and guarded their cloaks as a mythical dragon guarded her hoard of gold.
“Keep in mind,” he said, watching the lines furrow on my brow, “that lies can easily catch you in their webs. If you can remain close to the truth, then you will have a beacon to help you out of any incriminating conversation.”
Before I could share my ideas, the coach gave a lurch, nearly bucking us from our benches.
I looked at Jourdain, wide-eyed, as he shifted to peer out the window. Whatever he saw made a curse I had never heard before fly from his tongue. It was followed by our coach coming to a rough halt.
“Stay in this coach, Amadine,” he ordered, his hand patting the front of his doublet. He was reaching for the door when it swung open, and we were greeted by a sallow, narrow face, leering at us.
“Out! Both of you,” the man barked.
I let Jourdain take my hand and draw me out behind him. My pulse was skipping as I stood on the muddy road, Jourdain trying to keep me tucked out of sight behind him. Peeking out from behind his great height, I saw our coachman—Jean David—held at knifepoint by another greasy-looking man with hair the color of rotten mutton.
There were three of them. One had Jean David, one was circling about Jourdain and me, and the other was rifling through my cedar chest.
“Saint’s bones, there’s nothing but blithering books in here,” one with a bald head and a jagged scar exclaimed. I winced as he tossed my books, one right after the other, onto the road, the pages protesting all the way down to the mud.
“Keep looking,” the sallow-faced leader said as he walked yet another circuit around me and Jourdain. I tried to remain small and unworthy, but the thief pulled me out anyway, taking hold of my elbow.
“Do not touch her,” Jourdain warned. His voice was cold and smooth as marble. I think it frightened me more than witnessing the thievery unfold.
“She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?” the leader said with a dark chuckle, dragging me even farther away. I fought him, trying to slip from his fingers. He merely prodded Jourdain in the stomach with a knife to make me cease. “Quit pulling, Mademoiselle, or else I disembowel your husband.”
“That is my daughter.” Again, Jourdain’s voice and composure were deathly calm. But I saw the fury in his eyes, a spark of a blade whetted along a stone. And he was trying to tell me something with those eyes, something I couldn’t understand. . . .
“I’ll enjoy becoming acquainted with you,” the thief said, his eyes blatantly undressing me until they discovered my necklace. “Ah, what do we have here?” He set the point of his blade to my throat. He pricked me, just enough to make a bead of blood well. I began to tremble, unable to contain my fear as his blade traced down the length of my neck, smearing my blood, drawing forth Cartier’s silver pendant. “Mmm.” He jerked it free; I gasped as the chain cut into the back of my neck, as my pendant left me for this vile scum of the earth. But it was the moment Jourdain was waiting for.
My patron moved like a shadow, a blade suddenly flashing in his hand. I don’t know where the dagger came from, but I stood, frozen, as Jourdain stabbed the thief in the back, right in the kidney and then sliced his neck, blood spewing up into his face as the thief roiled on the ground at my feet.
I tripped backward as Jourdain went for the second one, the one destroying all of my books. I didn’t want to watch, but my eyes were riveted to the bloodshed, watching him effortlessly kill the second thief, taking care to do it away from my books. And then Jean David was scuffling with his captor, grunts and blood spilling onto the road.
It was over so quickly. I don’t think I breathed until Jourdain slipped his dagger back into the inside pocket of his doublet, until he strode to me, freckled in blood. He reached down and plucked my pendant from the thief’s clawlike hand, cooling in death, Jourdain’s thumb wiping away the lingering carnage.
“I shall get you a new chain when we get home,” he said, extending the pendant to me.
Hollowly, I accepted it, but not before I noticed the arch of his brow. He had recognized the carving of the Corogan flower. He knew it was a Maevan symbol.
I didn’t want him to ask me where I got it. But all the same, I didn’t want him suspecting it had come from the Allenachs.
“My master gave this to me,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Because of my heritage.”
Jourdain nodded, and then kicked the closest corpse out of the way. “Amadine, quickly gather your things. Jean David, help me with the bodies.”
I moved like I was ninety years old, sore and feeble. But every time I recovered another book, my shock gave way to anger. A simmering, dangerous anger that made it feel like ash was coating my tongue. I wiped the mud from the pages and set them back inside my chest as Jourdain and Jean David tossed the bodies over the ridge, out of sight from the road.
By the time I had finished, the men had changed their doublets and shirts, and had washed the blood from their faces and hands. I latched my cedar chest and met Jourdain’s gaze. He was waiting for me, the door of the coach open.
I walked to him, scrutinized his clean-shaven face, his perfectly groomed hair that he had plaited back in a noble queue. He looked so refined, so trustworthy. And yet he had not hesitated to kill the thieves; he had moved as if he had done it before, a dagger sprouting from his fingers as if it were part of him.
“Who are you?” I whispered.