Page 195 of The Mask Falling

“Who brought me here?” I croaked. It took great effort to hold my head up. “Who hunted me?”

“I am sure he will explain your situation in due course. For now, he has business with the Suzerain. I imagine he caught you by surprise,” Kornephoros remarked. “Even I had no idea of what he was, or his allegiance. But it certainly opens a world of possibilities.” He walked toward me. I tensed. “This is for your lies, oathbreaker.”

Kornephoros brushed my cheek with one finger. White-hot pain roared from his touch. It was as if his hand was a magnet, and my jaw was iron, bent to his will. He moved to my throat, choking my cry and immobilizing me as the same excruciating pain drilled into the bones of my neck.

Then he reached upward, to where my chains were bolted to the wall. They gave way and jangled to the floor, and my arms fell heavily to my sides, numb and cold. I stared at him, lost.

“I do this not as a favor to you,” Kornephoros said, “but to honor an oath of my own.” He turned his back on me. “No doubt I will see you again soon, dreamwalker. Farewell.”

Before I could try to question him, he was gone. And the door was open. Still nauseous, I limped toward it and lurched up the stairs beyond, holding the banisters with both hands, in so much pain I could barely see. I was trembling all over, but not just because of the cold. I felt hollow-boned, like a bird. Vulnerable, as if someone had stripped me.

The Hôtel Garuche was dark and deserted. Somewhere, a clock struck eleven. All I could perceive were two dreamscapes, which made no sense. I walked drunkenly through its corridors until I reached a familiar staircase, and from there, I entered the private apartments.

The first thing I saw was Alexandra Kotzia. She lay on her side, her hand a few inches from a pocket pistol. Red hair covered her face. Beside her lay a pallid Onésime. I went to him first and felt for breath, exhaling when I felt air whisper against my fingers. Kotzia was still alive, too, but cold to the touch, her pulse faint. Blood had dried under both their noses.

Luce Ménard Frère was nowhere to be seen.

I remembered then. Dark lips against blue-tinged skin. The shadows under his eyes. The gloves. And when those pieces came together—when I realized not only what had happened, and how I had gotten here, but the clues that I had missed—the blood drained from my face.

“Onésime?”

As the realization froze my blood, I looked up. Ménard was in the doorway, flanked by bodyguards. He was staring at his nine-year-old son, who must appear dead, and me, on the floor beside him, close enough to the gun that it could have fallen from my hand. Before I could move, before I could explain, Ménard had grabbed me with both hands by the throat and slammed me onto my back.

“So this is your attempt to ensure I keep to my end of the bargain, anormale,” he hissed. I shoved at his chest, but he only squeezed harder. “You attack my family a second time?”

His hands were stronger than they looked. In any other fight, I would have beaten him, but anger had charged his muscles and steeled his grip. His eyes yawned wide and hollow, and a vein swelled in the middle of his brow. Darkness gathered at the edges of my vision.

“Where,” he whispered, “is Luce?” I could feel his breath. “Does Le Vieux Orphelin have her?”

“Papa, stop!” Suddenly Mylène was there, face tearstained, voice rusty with fear. “Please—”

His gaze darted toward her. In the half second his grip slackened, I lashed out at him with my spirit, broke his chokehold, and kicked him off. Mylène grabbed his shoulders, as if she could stop him lunging after me. I coughed violently, my cheeks hot and damp, while Ménard, on his knees, wiped his bloody nose. He was breathing almost as hard as I was.

“I just woke up in your fucking cellar,” I rasped. “Clearly, whoever took Luce is the same person who brought me here. The same person who released the Rephaite in your basement.” I held my throat. “Most of your personal guard was at the masquerade. Someone had a two-hour window to take advantage of that.”

Ménard was silent. Without looking at Mylène, he wrapped an arm around her and drew her close to him, and she buried her face in his shoulder. One of the bodyguards spoke into her radio, calling for urgent medical assistance, while the other aimed his rifle at the stairs.

“Where is Fitzours?” Ménard said to me, very softly.

I met his gaze. “I don’t know.”

Mylène clung to her father, lip trembling. “Papa,” she said, “I want to go to the safe room now, with Onésime and Jean-Mi. Please, c-can we go?”

Though his gaze remained blank, Ménard clenched his jaw, as if in defeat. His hand came to the back of her head.

“What the hell is happening out there?” I asked him. “The sirens—”

“Get out,” he said, so quietly I almost missed it. When I didn’t move, he looked up at me. “Do not make me tell you a second time, anormale.”

A Vigile knelt beside Onésime and gathered him up, while another started trying to wake Kotzia.

“Remember our deal,” I said to Ménard, then slipped between his guards and took the stairs back to the ground floor. From there, I faltered down the front steps, into the snow, out through the wrought-iron gates to Rue du Faubourg.

Kornephoros was nowhere to be seen. I was alone in the middle of the night, with no overcoat or gloves to fend off the freezing wind. As the realization of what had just happened sank in, my shivering grew worse. Someone had hauled me off the street and chained me up for some unknown purpose, either before or after abducting Luce Ménard Frère.

I thought I knew who. I had no idea why.

The sirens joined their voices. The noise was deeply unsettling, loud enough to vibrate in my bones. Some denizens leaned out of windows above me, as if waiting for a sign.

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