Page 189 of The Mask Falling

A limousine glided past us. I had thought it might be conspicuous to arrive on foot, but as we drew closer to the cathedral, more and more people joined us. Ordinary people who had won the ticket lottery.

Lamps and black-and-white ribbons festooned the arch over the main doors, which stood open. Candlelight glowed from between them like heat from a stove. We crossed the salted cobblestones in front of it, where the snow had been shoveled away, and joined the wending line of guests. After what felt like years, a day Vigile held out a hand for my invitation.

“Madelle Besson. Welcome.” She slotted the gilded card into a strongbox. “Monsieur?”

Le Vieux Orphelin presented his invitation. The Vigile gave it a cursory look and stood aside.

The real Marguerite Besson—a French consular assistant from the Embassy of Scion England—was unconscious with the perdues. I had dyed my hair chestnut brown to match hers. Two other invitees were sharing her cell. All of them would be released, unharmed, as soon as we had carried out our task.

Ivy was in charge of watching over them. Le Vieux Orphelin had invited her to join the perdues—an invitation she had accepted. She had yet to choose a new syndicate name, but at last, after so many trials, she could start to build a new life.

An attendant took our coats. As soon as we were inside, a pall of warmth draped over me, and I gazed upward, the breath leaving me.

Thousands of white candles lit the echoing interior of the Grande Salle. Some flickered on cast-iron chandeliers, which hung from the pointed arches that divided the aisles from the main chamber. Somehow the cathedral seemed even larger from the inside, cavernous as well as tall. Far overhead loomed a rib-vaulted ceiling, almost too distant for the candlelight to touch, so high I had to crane my neck to take it in. I had never beheld a place like this, which looked as if gods had raised it—and yet it was humans that had dreamed it into being, and built it from the ground up.

For days, I had felt as if I was sleepwalking, but the lambent splendor of the place finally woke me from my stupor. Arcturus would appreciate this. With a smile, I turned my head to see his reaction to its beauty.

I was looking at empty air. At darkness. The realization snatched the warmth from me again.

He had never cared for humankind. Not the music, not the art, not me. All of it had been a lie.

Ahead, a checkered floor stretched out like a never-ending chessboard. Couples waltzed across it, conducted by a violin consort. In the shadowed aisles, behind looming columns, knots of people laughed and talked, their voices merging into resonance. It was going to take a while to find one person in this labyrinth, even if he was the man of the hour.

“Madelle?”

A masked attendant offered me a platter. I took a steaming goblet of mulled blood mecks.

“Might as well enjoy ourselves,” I said to Léandre, who had materialized on my right. “Remember, keep your distance.”

“I must also keep watch. You’ll be hard enough to see in this gloom without a twenty-foot gap between us.”

“I will be able to sense you for a time.” Le Vieux Orphelin, who had caught up to us, refused a glass of mecks with a gesture. “Fear not. We will not lose sight of you.” He extended a long hand to Léandre. “Come, mon amour. It has been too long since we last danced.”

For the first time since I had met him, I swore Léandre almost smiled. Almost. A band seemed to constrict around my throat. I stepped into the shadowy aisle to the left.

It hurt to remember. Almost as much as it hurt to forget.

I shook myself and focused on my search. Even without the masks, it would have been hard to make out individual faces. I fine-tuned my sixth sense until the æther glittered around me. There were so many guests, creating such a crush of dreamscapes, that trying to isolate just one was like trying to pick a single crystal of sugar from a salt cellar. I stopped beside a column and took a sip from my goblet, giving me an excuse to observe my surroundings.

The place was thick with people. I was one among thousands of guests. But as I stood there, a group to my right noticed my mask. When I looked toward them, one man laughed in delight.

“Très audacieux, Madelle,” he called to me. The whole group lifted their goblets. “Bon débarras aux racailles terroristes.”

I raised my own goblet in acknowledgment. If they only knew who they were toasting.

Le Vieux Orphelin had paid a trustworthy amaurotic tailor to craft an outfit for me. Cut-off trousers, heeled boots, and a black dress that resembled a blazer, with long, ruched sleeves and gold buttons down the front. The overall look was elegant, yet low-key. Inconspicuous.

It was the mask that drew attention. The mask with red lips that displayed a black moth. The faint cracks in the porcelain were meant to disguise what was beneath, not reflect it. The guests assumed it was my intent to mock a dead radical, an enemy of the anchor. A little near to the bone, perhaps, but commendably daring.

That was when I finally spotted the Grand Inquisitor of France. He was ensconced in the opposite aisle, surrounded by guests and laughter. I strode back the way I had come, murmuring apologies and accepting compliments on my mask as I went. I almost stopped when I spied Aloys Mynatt, the retired Grand Raconteur of France, who I had last seen in the first colony. He was hunched by himself in an alcove, gaunt and whey-faced.

Columns rushed past as I quickened my stride. From the look of him, Ménard was about to take his leave of this circle of guests. I would have to cut through the dancers, or risk losing him again.

I stepped out from the arches. Before I knew it, I had been spun into the arms of a familiar oracle.

“You shouldn’t be here.” A whisper at my ear. “I’ll ask you again. Do you have a death wish, dreamwalker?”

“Cade.” Instinctively, I grasped his shoulder. “Not the time. I need to reach Ménard.”

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