13

Another thing that is remarkable about Venn is that he is expert at changing his appearance. He has a chameleon quality that can be uncannily convincing. In Tibet he lived as a native of the country for two years and was never discovered by the authorities.

For a blond, blue-eyed Westerner, that is so unlikely it could almost be said to be magic.

Jean Lamartine, The Strange Life of Oberon Venn

THE GUESTS BEGAN arriving at twilight, and just after, Madame Lepage knocked softly on the bedroom door. “Time,” she whispered.

Sarah dressed and hurried down. She slipped through the servants’ entry and positioned herself discreetly behind a painted screen to watch the carriages roll up. The night was flaring with flambeaux held by a line of footmen in powder and gold-and-purple livery, the red flames cracking and sparking all down the mile-long drive.

There was no sign of Janus. But she knew, with that strange inner link that bound her to him, that he was still here, somewhere.

Behind her, in the first of several reception rooms, the tiny vicomte, pale with anxiety, fussed over the piled sweetmeats, while the musicians warmed up with deep notes and quick arpeggios. He was dressed in sumptuous cream and more frills than Sarah would have thought possible.

A jog at her elbow made her turn, fast, but instead of Janus, she saw Long Tom. His narrow face was rouged and powdered. He winked at her with a sly eye.

“All set?”

“Yes, but—”

“At the stroke of midnight the fireworks start. Open the door at once and wait behind it. Don’t go in.”

“Yes, but you have to listen to me! Janus is here!”

“Janus?”

“He’s a journeyman. An enemy. You have to tell Jake! Jake will understand.”

Tom muttered a few swear words and shrugged. “Can’t do it. I have to be with the automata. Is he from your time? Is he trouble?”

She laughed, harsh. “You have no idea!”

“Well, deal with him, girl! A cutpurse like you should know the ropes.”

As he slid away toward the summerhouse she wondered what deal with him meant. There was no way of dealing with a Replicant. Let alone the wolves.

Then she straightened, and took a sharp breath of awe. Low on the horizon over the roofs of Paris, round and silver and beautiful, the full moon was rising. And under it, winding away into the dark, a long procession of carriages, black and gilt and gold, was rolling toward her like a dry, creaking river.

Venn said, “Here they come. Get ready.”

Gideon, crouching among the heady flowers of the rhododendrons, nodded.

The carriages were drawn by sleek horses, their heads plumed, their eyes blinkered. He gazed at them in fascination, at the postilions in garish coats, the footmen riding in pairs at the back.

Venn waited until several coaches had galloped by; then the line slowed and closed up, the drive choked with vehicles.

“Now,” he breathed.

He slid out, keeping low, and moved through the dark undergrowth to the back of a coach with huge wheels, painted gold and scarlet.

Only a single footman stood guard.

Venn hissed a few sharp words in French. It sounded to Gideon like some sort of appeal for help; certainly the footman looked sharply aside, then, as the carriage was now stationary, jumped down and came quickly toward them.

Venn jerked his head. Gideon stepped back.

As soon as the man ducked under the bushes, Venn grabbed him and whipped a hand around his mouth; he grabbed the man’s arm and jerked it up behind him. In his ear he hissed, “Not a word, monsieur, not a cry, or your throat is cut. Comprenez?”

A slant of moonlight lit Venn’s sharp face, his hard ice-blue eyes. The footman nodded so vehemently his hat fell off.

Venn glanced at Gideon. The boy already had the silk handkerchief out of his pocket; he whipped it as a gag between the man’s teeth, and tied it tight. Then Venn flung the man on the ground, dragged his coat of livery off, and hurriedly they trussed his hands and feet with his own belt and garters.

Venn crouched, his lips close to the servant’s ear. “A few hours’ sleep in a warm garden won’t hurt you. Lie still, and don’t struggle. Forget you ever saw us.”

Standing up, he shrugged the livery coat on over his own and clapped the man’s hat on. “Move,” he said. Then he was out and striding back toward the coach, just as the driver glanced back and asked some question in French.

Venn shrugged. “Ce n’est rien!” he snapped, and jumped up onto the coach, Gideon a shadow behind him. “Don’t let them see you,” Venn muttered.

There was a dark space at his feet, maybe for luggage. Gideon slid into it, curled up, and felt the vehicle jerk awkwardly into motion.

The wheels rolled.

Venn stood tall and stared forward at the glittering château. Looking up, Gideon saw how the man’s face was lit with flame light and energy. He was transformed—this was not Summer’s bored lover but an adventurer heading full tilt for danger.

Gideon smiled a secret smile.

They made their slow, jolting way up the drive.

Twenty carriages behind, Moll knelt on the velvet seat and gazed back through the rear window. “Bloody long line, Jake! Nearly a hundred, I reckon. Plenty of aristos still in Paris with no idea what’s coming down on them.”

He thought again of the guillotine blade, slicing the air.

“Sorry.” She slid back, patted his arm. “But don’t you worry, Jake. This is my operation, and the contessa never gets it wrong.”

He didn’t want to think about his father in some dungeon, terrified, so he said, “How do you know so much history, Moll?”

“Research. Lord, Symmes was always bloody big on research. It was him taught me to read, Jake, and it was like a light came on in my head! All that stuff in books! I never knew about any of that. So now I always cram up on the history before any heist, though I have to say a lot of it is written by old geezers that could make you cry with the boring, dry-as-dust plod they make of it.”

She giggled, squirming around. “Maybe when I give up the big game I’ll be a writer Jake, and tell it like it is and people will read it and said, Lumme, it’s like she was really there . . .”

The carriage jolted. He couldn’t help laughing, even through the dull ache of anxiety about his father. “You’re crazy, Moll.”

“Only way to be, Jake.” She turned, adjusting the delicate white skirt. “Got your pistol?”

“I prefer the sword.” Seeing her quizzical glance, he said, “I was school fencing champion. So look out.”

Before she could answer, the carriage stopped.

Moll sat upright, shoulders back. “This is it, cully. Success, or die trying. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Chin up.”

The door was opened, the footman handed her down. Jake climbed out beside her and was instantly blinded by the rows of flaming torches. The twilight was heavy with the scents of roses and honeysuckle and perfume and smoke; rearing against the sky he saw a château of staggering beauty, white as a wedding cake, its windows and door wide, spilling light. Gorgeously costumed men and women wandered its terraces.

“Mask,” Moll hissed.

He took it out quickly and fastened it on—a black highwayman’s mask—and he felt that familiar tingle of daring, of becoming someone else.

Moll lifted the silver vixen face with a languid hand and peered through it. She put out her arm and he took it. Together they climbed the steps and entered the ballroom.

Maskelyne’s dream had come late and slowly, and yet it was one he knew only too well.

He dreamed of falling.

Down and down and down, endlessly, through stars, galaxies, through dark seas and deep wells. Head first, hands reaching out, his whole body a silent scream. If he had wings they were broken. If he had come from some great height he had forgotten it. All he knew was the fall.

And he would never land, because the universe was without end and infinity a bottomless abyss.

He opened his eyes.

A gasp went through him, a great, painful in-drawing of air that made him shudder. His heart thudded as if he had come back from the dead. His hair was in his eyes.

He brushed it back, looked around.

“Rebecca?”

She had been here. He knew the scent she used, the taste of her on the air. But the lab was quiet and dark, only one candle had been jammed in a jar on the bench. A small movement made him turn his head; he saw the cats, all seven of them, sitting in a protective circle around the cradle, where Lorenzo slept peacefully.

“Rebecca? Where is she?” he said. “Where is everyone?”

The cats were listening, but not to him. He saw now that their fur was prickled in alarm, their sensitive ears alert, their heads angled to catch some distant sound.

Then he heard it too.

It came from somewhere in the house. The faintest, sweetest music.

He leaped up, flung off the blanket, raced to the door. As he passed the black mirror, its leaning vacancy jutted into his mind; he said, “Wait! I’ll be back. Wait for me,” but hurrying down the dark cloister of the Monk’s Walk, he saw in alarm how much time had passed. Now the moon flickered beside him from window to window, snared in the black branches of the Wood, and in the Long Gallery he saw that this dwelling was broken—despite all its protection, it was prised and cracked open, infiltrated by the heat and the scurrying, scuttling, web-weaving creatures of summer.

He came to the head of the stairs and looked down.

Rebecca was standing quite still, listening to the fairy music. He knew that stillness. It filled him with a sick fear.

“Becky!”

She didn’t hear, or move.

He fled down, a shadow among shadows. He felt the music like a prickle on his skin, a bramble-scratch, a nettle-itch; as he caught her arm they both jerked with the pain, as if with a wasp-sting.

Her eyelids flickered. She saw him.

“Cover your ears!” He did it for her, clumsy, grabbing at her hair. “Don’t listen! Never listen to them!”

Startled, she said, “I’ve only just come down here—”

“That’s what you think! Maybe it’s been hours. They do that. They hold you like a fly in a web. Come away Becky, quickly.”

But she didn’t move, astonishment and joy coming over her as she realized he was there, awake, alive.

“Quickly!”

As he hustled her up the stairs she felt giddy and strange. How long had she stood there? The green twilight that had infested the house seemed to have crawled into her too. She felt hot, irritated, wanted to stop, scratch, fling off her annoying clothes. And always, somewhere below her hearing, under her skin, the soft music teased and lingered, and it was sweet, so wonderfully sweet, she could have cried with it, and she knew she would never, never get it out of her now, out of her mind and memory, out of her heart.

At the top she stopped, bumping into Maskelyne.

She peeped around him and stared, astonished.

Perched on the banister rail was a small wooden bird with one eye made from an old bead. And yet it not only moved, but spoke. Tipping its head on one side, it said, “Hi. Look. Sorry to bother you. Do you happen to know where a mortal called Sarah is?”