Page 111 of Even Angels fall
I’m still spending a couple of hours every day in the archives, but I’ve taken to training with Elhyor and his men every morning now, too. Well, it’s more like helping the instructors train them than really do the training with them, but I still get my workout and it’s better than when I had to hide that I could fight.
And then at night, I fight my husband in a different way.
I’m pretty sure those guys, in the lessons my father forced me to attend, didn’t know what they were doing, because I’m enjoying myself way more than what those ladies seemed to.
Or maybe it’s just because it’s Elhyor and I’m starting to think killing him would have been my biggest mistake.
The thought of running away has crossed my mind a few times still, but saving Brice and the rest of his team has never been the first reason that came to my mind when I told myself to stay.
Yes, it might have to do with the fact that my best friend seems to be in love with my new friend, but it’s not just that.
I thought that by getting married to a stranger I would grow to resent him, but instead… I think I’m growing to… like him.
And I think he might like me, too.
I’m not talking about the mind-blowing sex. Who wouldn’t like that, anyway?
Focus, Angélique, focus.
I’m on my short couple of hours in the archive with the lovey-dovey couple. I can’t start thinking about how Elhyor bent me over his desk last night in our room or I’m going to start blushing, and I have nothing to hide behind but the registry saying that the only estate owned by the archangels out of Paris and its vicinity is Chambord. I’m not surprised. When you see the size of that castle and its gardens, you understand why they had to make it theirs. But there is a mention I’m not sure I understand right next to it.
Les oiseaux ont l’air d’aimer les châteaux de la Loire.
It’s handwritten in the margins in French, half erased, but my French isn’t rusty to the point I can’t understand it.
The birds seem to like the castles on Loire riverside.
I’m pretty sure it means that whoever wrote that down in the registry knew something about other castles. The sad thing is that I looked up the number of castles inla Loire,and there are over three hundred of them. How are we supposed to narrow down which one it could be?
Because, yes, I know, Michaël couldn’t have had them there already when the battle started, but there is no doubt in my mind that he moved them away; maybe he had even started before we had time to flee Versailles. The problem is that I’m convinced he didn’t move them away so far that he couldn’t visit and see how well the interrogation would go.
And according to Luc’s monitoring, there has been no movement of flying cars from Versailles ever since we started monitoring—which was roughly forty minutes after we arrived.
I choose to believe no one is dead.
They probably wish they were if I know Michaël correctly—and I do—but they’re alive.
Healthy and full, that’s another story—torture rarely leaves people unscathed.
I shudder at the thought and try to hide it behind the book, my blushing completely gone with what’s on my mind now.
“You found something?” Léandre asks from the other side of the table. I don’t know how he manages that but each time I find a lead or something that could be related, he always seems to know. It’s a bit like the man has a sixth sense when it comes to books.
Some people hear voices, Léandre hears books.
Or whatever.
“Yes,” I say with a sigh, “but it’s not really narrowing anything down. According to someone, and I say ‘someone’ looselybecause it’s scrawled in the margins of this book, bird-shifters like the castles inla Loire, but even if it helps, they’re far away and there are way too many of them to really help with our search. Unless… Cassiopé, you think Elhyor has enough men to send over three hundred locations?”
Cassiopé is engrossed in the book she is reading and the fact I talked to her seems to be like a shock to her, so she jumps a little.
“Sorry,” she starts, “what did you say?”
“I found something and was wondering if it would be doable to send warriors all over the castles inla Loire?”
“I don’t see any reason why not, but I think I’ve got something better,” she says with a smile before adding, “Do you know if a lot of castles were inside cities?”
“I don’t know which ones, but I’m sure we can find that out. Why?” I ask.
