Page 130 of The Mask Falling

18

Song of Swords

Dusk had almost swallowed the last smoldering of day. Over the city, the moon waxed bright and clean. It hung like a shaded lamp, offering enough light to guide our steps and enough darkness to hide in. I breathed in the still of the night and found that I was not afraid.

More than five months ago, I had escaped the first colony. Now I would take down the second.

Only spirits—and the stars—kept watch over the cemetery. Shadows drew their fingers through the snow. We gathered around a tombstone, which Ankou shunted aside to reveal a stockpile of arms. Among them was the flare gun, which Renelde tucked into her waistband. I reached into the grave and picked up a combat knife.

Ankou lifted out a shotgun as if it were his firstborn child. Only when he set it aside and removed an axe from his backpack did I realize he was an axinomancer; that weapon was his favored numen. Its handle was etched with feathers and bones and patterns that looked distinctly Celtic. He pressed a tender kiss to the blade.

I took note of the others’ auras. Léandre, who armed himself with knuckle-dusters and a pistol, was a physical medium—if possessed, he could be a help or a hindrance in a fight. Renelde was a fury. As I tried to get a handle on her aura, I realized why it felt so familiar. She was like Danica.

“Renelde,” I said to her, “your aura—it reminds me of someone I know. Can I ask what kind of fury you are?”

“I would love to be able to tell you.” She took a pair of knives from the tomb. “No one is like me. I go into long trances, sometimes glimpse the future. Even inDes Mérites de l’Anormalité, I could not find myself. Is your friend in London?”

“Athens.”

“I’d love to talk to them one day. It can be a lonely feeling, not knowing where you fit.”

Arcturus kept watch while we armed ourselves. Though he had owned a knife in the colony, I had only ever seen him fight with spools.

When we were ready, Ankou and Léandre shoved the tombstone back into place, and Ankou laid his axe on top of it. He struck the end of the handle, and the axe began to spin, luring the nearest spirits. The æther trembled. When the axe came to a sudden halt, glazed with ice, Ankou looked satisfied and signed to me.

“As we suspected,” Léandre translated. “Southwest. The nearest anormaux are in the same direction as the Château de Versailles.”

“Good,” I said. “Let’s go.”

We climbed over a wall and stepped into the city, footsteps muffled by deep snow, flakes catching in our lashes. This place had been frozen in time, like Oxford. Even though I sensed no one nearby, and there was no evidence of cameras, we kept off the main paths.

Renelde and Léandre led the way. We crossed streets, passed a burned-out church, and continued up a deserted boulevard, wind scalding our faces. That and the stimulant made my teeth clatter.

In the first colony, the city had been alive, to a degree. Gas lamps had glimmered on the streets. Duckett had run a pawnshop. The more fortunate humans had been allowed to leave their residences and wander. There had always been a risk of running into a Rephaite, but I had been able to sneak out most nights to visit Liss and Julian in the Rookery.

There was no shantytown here. No wanderers. If the first colony had been hell, this one was purgatory—a liminal, unfinished space, where the sinners of Scion would wait for judgment. The city was empty.

All of it, that is, but the Château de Versailles.

At last, the palace came into view, bathed in the ashen light of the moon. Every dreamscape I sensed was near or inside it. Most remnants of the monarch days were tragic ruins, but this building had been restored to its former magnificence, ready to house the Rephaim. I climbed with Malperdy and Arcturus to the roof of the former royal stables so we could take stock of the exterior defenses.

The approach to the palace was vast and cobblestoned. Malperdy handed me a small pair of binoculars, and I took in the lofty gates, covered in gold leaf and polished to a glow.

No fewer than thirty soldiers guarded them.

“Shit.” Cold to my core, I lowered the binoculars. “Krigs.”

They were stock-still, standing at precise intervals in front of the gates, their stances identical and disciplined. Ognena Maria had told me once that Vance made her soldiers stand for hours during the winter—to prove they could endure, that they felt nothing. She thought they were somehow changed during their training, to make them numb inside and out.

I had expected many things, but not the army. I had been a fool to assume they were all involved in the invasion.

“Stealth was always our intended approach.” Arcturus narrowed his eyes. “We can infiltrate the palace without alerting them.”

“This is a fucking joke.” Malperdy looked as if he could spit in disgust. “Versailles was our place.”

I tried to ignore the line of soldiers and concentrate on the palace. It was a city unto itself, more than large enough to house prisoners, guards, and keepers alike. Other than the soldiers, there were no obvious defenses. Just as I had hoped, the tunnel had taken us under them all.

“There are at least sixty humans inside. And—” I counted. “Only four Rephaim.”

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