Page 166 of The Mask Falling

Every now and then, Arcturus flinched awake. Each time, he would look around the room with hot eyes. Like something caught in a trap. Seeing me nearby, he would quiet and return his head to the cushion.

At five, I muted the news. There was nothing left to do but wait for Stéphane. I lay down next to Arcturus and cuddled up to him, my head tucked under his chin. Still half-asleep, he pressed a kiss to my hair and lifted the covers over my shoulders.

And I let myself imagine it could always be like this. That no matter the consequences of what we had done—and what we had yet to do—he would always be there to face them with me.

I must have slept. The light outside was dim and blue by the time a sound jerked me awake. It cut into my skull like a bone saw—the doorbell, the one nobody had ever used. All of the agents had keys.

Somehow, Arcturus kept sleeping. I sat up and listened. Someone with the wrong address, perhaps. Kids playing knick-knack. There were plenty of reasons, none of them sinister, why somebody would ring a doorbell. As I stole downstairs, my attention rolled to the æther.

I knew that dreamscape. Furious, I slid the chain aside and cracked the door open to find a hooded figure on the doorstep, shoulders dredged with snow. I recognized that tight-lipped mouth.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said in a cold undertone. “How did you know where I was?”

Léandre brazened me out. “Ivy told me.”

“Kindly give her a bump on the head with that crowbar for me.” I started to close the door. “Goodbye, Léandre.”

“Stop.” He wedged a dirty boot between the door and the frame. “You are to make an alliance with Le Vieux Orphelin. I am his heir. Since you chose to childishly avoid me earlier, I came to resolve this . . . quarrel.” A muscle twitched in his cheek. “There is somewhere we can go. Very close.”

I glanced over his shoulder. An old black moto was parked against the wall.

“I have to be back before ten,” I said.

“You will be.”

“Fine. Wait there.”

I shut the door in his face, leaving him to gather snow.

In the parlor, Arcturus was still asleep. I gave him a gentle shake and whispered his name, to no avail. His scars were still too cold.

I didn’t like to leave him like this. Still, as much as it pained me to admit it, I did need to thrash out my bitterness with Léandre. As quietly as I could, I laced on a pair of heeled boots and buttoned my coat, then scribbled a note.

Léandre turned up. I’ll be back before 10.Codladh sámh.

I left it on the couch beside him. As I turned to leave, something made me look at his face once more. I traced the elegant lines of his brow and jaw, and his lips, soft in repose. At least he was peaceful. I placed a kiss on the top of his head before I left.

Léandre was in exactly the same position when I stepped outside, as if he had done nothing but stare at the door since I left. We headed east on foot, following the river along the Quai des Grands Augustins.

Snow tufted around us. We both tensed as a squadron of night Vigiles strode past on the other side of the road, but they were too far away to glimpse our auras, and they seemed preoccupied.

Léandre stopped at the end of the Pont Neuf, and we sized up the building that loomed to our right. Its bell towers presided over a public square, where vendors sold postcards and paintings.

“La Grande Salle,” I said.

“Once she was called Notre-Dame. She belonged to all Paris, and Paris belonged to her. It has been almost nine hundred years since her first stone was laid.” Léandre folded his arms. “This is where Ménard married Frère. In a fortnight or so, they will hold a masked ball here. The Butcher of Strasbourg is not a theatrical man by nature, but, much like Le Vieux Orphelin, he understands the power of a symbol. A guillotine. An anchor. A building like this.”

It was a spectacular feat of construction. The cathedral still had its rose windows, though the kings that had once reigned above its doors had been decapitated. A compromise between two factions: the anachorètes who believed that all religious buildings should be demolished, and those who recognized its beauty and wanted to cut away pieces of it until it was fit for Scion. The wooden spire had burned away in a fire set by the anachorètes.

“I’m fairly sure we won’t be invited,” I said, “so I’ll assume you didn’t bring me here to ask for the first dance.”

“No,” he said. I was starting to wonder if Léandre had ever cracked a smile in his life. “I heard you liked to climb in London. I am learning. I know the world below Paris. I would like to learn the world above.” His expression was mildly pained. “Your advice would be . . . helpful.”

I took the measure of the building. This was one kind of olive branch I could get behind.

“You have chalk?” I asked Léandre. In answer, he passed me a pair of textured gloves. “All right. Let’s see what you can do.”

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