The ride was short—downriver to the eighth arrondissement—but it was also bumpy, and by the time Céleste stepped out of the narrow cab onto Place de la Concorde, she felt rattled. The square was one of the widest-open spaces in the city. It had no steeples or trees. Only a lonely obelisk rose into the morning sky, absolutely out of place. She saw plenty of wings carved into its hieroglyphs, but that power belonged to a different land, to the cursed pyramids Rafe had so casually mentioned…
There was no sign of a street in the obelisk’s shadow.
No sign of a magical street anywhere.
“Excuse me, but do you know where on the maps rue des Ombres was drawn?” she asked, as she paid the cab driver.
He took her money with the tilt of an eyebrow, then looked to the north, where two identical buildings bookended the square. “It cuts straight through the Hôtel de Crillon over there. I’m afraid it’s a dead end.”
Céleste felt afraid too as she made her way toward the hotel, trying not to dwell on driver’s last words: Dead end. Dead end. Dead end.
She halted in front of the Hôtel de Crillon. The building had once been a palace, and it had regal bones—Corinthian columns and stone garlands. There were arches all along the ground floor, where inset windows offered glimpses of the lobby’s plush rugs and potted plants. One arch drew Céleste’s eye… not because the sight inside was splendorous, but because there was no view at all. It sat—black—at the center of the building. She was only sure that the archway had a way through because she saw a stray cat slip out.
No.
Not a cat.
A fox made of shadows…
At the café, it had been flat, shade on a wall, but there was more form to the fox now as it wrapped around Céleste’s ankles and circled back toward the arch.
“You bastard!” she hissed as she followed.
Rafe was waiting in the arch, leaning by a placard that read RUE DES XXXXXXX. The last part was a scorch mark—smudged with the same soot that darkened the rest of the place. “Technically no. My mother and father were married—”
“You abandoned me!”
“Again, technically no. I lost you, and by the time I realized you weren’t in my shadow, it was too late to go back inside the salon.”
Most of that was a lie, judging by the fact he’d had time to change. Rafe was no longer wearing the velvet suit Jean Cocteau had conjured for him, but he wasn’t wearing his opera outfit either. “You couldn’t have waited for me by the fountain?”
“No.” His glance darted back toward the bald morning light of Place de la Concorde, as he sank even deeper into the darkness of the arch. “The sunlight burns away everyone’s memories…” His eyes narrowed back on her, so different from Jean’s lost expression. “How did you manage to get here?”
“I took a taxi.”
“A taxi?” Rafe’s laughter rang around the arch.
“Yes. How did you get here?”
“I flew.”
She laughed back, until Rafe pushed off the wall and his shadow leapt onto his shoulders—flaring from its fox shape into two whispering wings.
The joke’s on me, then.
There were no feathers that turned into songbirds, but Rafe’s wings were still breathtaking. They shimmered—not with light but the way her oil-spill dress had. Shadows swirled down the other thief’s back, in every single shade of gray, before washing out into the surrounding darkness. There was plenty of it. Rue des Ombres seemed to be more of a tunnel than a proper street, stretching into what should have been Hôtel de Crillon. Céleste couldn’t see what was there instead. Her eyes were still adjusting from the daylight she’d stood in just moments before.
Rafe seemed to be taking extra pains to avoid the sun. His boots stayed firmly in the shade. Only the tip of a wing reached out to where Céleste was standing, unraveling like a stream of smoke. It was different from the burn of Jean’s ram horns.
“I was with Monsieur Cocteau when the sun rose. Everything between us burned away.”
Rafe nodded. “It’s that way every morning.”
“So why didn’t I forget?”
“Because you aren’t Enlightened. I thought you might be, before I studied your hand, but all I saw there was paint… no cut…” Rafe’s mouth tightened. “Jean Cocteau could see magic last night because he had La Fée Verte’s blessing. That never lasts past dawn, but there are others who see beyond the sunrise.”
“Children.”
“Most people glimpse magic before they grow up, and most see magic in their final days too.”
This was no shocking revelation. Rafe was telling Céleste what she already knew, but his saying so out loud made the tunnel’s darkness shift. When she coughed, the sound collapsed in on her. She pushed aside several dreams to retrieve Jean’s pocket square, which looked as if it had never been used for a sniffle, much less to sop up blood.
There was more than before.
Much more.
“Consumption?” Rafe asked.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” She failed to say this dryly. “I haven’t been to a doctor. I didn’t even start coughing up blood until yesterday.”
The other thief’s face darkened then. “Doctors won’t help you,” he said.
She’d figured as much.
“La Fée Verte won’t either.” Rafe’s hand wandered past his split lip, to the gleaming skin of his punched eye. “But my employer has the means to keep you alive, if that’s what you want.”
“Who wouldn’t want that?” Céleste wondered.
There was a shivering silence, and Rafe’s wings started to drip off his back, down to his boots. His shadow began slithering into the tunnel. His shoulders tensed. Céleste sensed a deeper change too—something that suddenly made it hard to recall the artist’s smile. Never mind all the moments she’d mentally sketched it.
“My employer can be… difficult,” he said haltingly. “You’re in a unique position, coming to him like this. Don’t accept the first terms he offers—”
“I almost sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap metal, once,” she told him. “I know how to negotiate.”
“You know nothing here.” Rafe’s shadow kept stretching down the tunnel. His lips pulled thin as he turned to follow it. “We should hurry. He’s growing impatient. I’d advise you to put that pocket square away,” he said over his shoulder. “And whatever you do, don’t ask his name.”
Céleste folded the bloodied handkerchief and tucked it back into Jean’s jacket with care. She hurried along the tunnel’s scorched stones, catching Rafe before he reached the door at the sunless end. There were no golden words inscribed on this mantel. Its wood looked unpainted, and there was a keyhole that kept changing shapes, letting out strange slants of light in various colors and shades.
Rafe did not knock.
His shadow slipped through the keyhole instead, and its shapes stopped rotating—pausing to let out an amber shiver of candles.
The lock turned.
The door opened.
Céleste did not think she was inside the Hôtel de Crillon when she stepped over the threshold. The place was ornate, but a good deal of the furniture was covered with white sheets, which were in turn covered with drips of wax. Candles all over the room had burned to their stubs, and most of the light was now coming from the fireplace. A figure sat in a wing-back chair by the dying flames. Hidden from view. There was a decanter of wine on the adjoining side table, paired with a mostly drained glass.
Their employer had been drinking red. Expensive, by the looks of it. Legs of wine stuck to the sides of the glass, dripping back down into emptiness. Instead of pouring himself another serving, the man in the chair was spinning a globe. Lazily. With a single glove-covered hand. This sight set Céleste on edge, and she couldn’t say why until the sphere drifted to a stop…
The lines were all wrong.
This world looked nothing like the one her childhood tutors had been hired to show her: France, Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman one. Yes, the continents were the same, but they’d been divvied into shapes no atlas would display. Into colors that went well beyond grassy green or parched brown. Blue, orange, red, purple, black. There were splashes of gold as well—one of the largest haloed the City of Light.
She found herself searching for the Balkans then.
These countries were covered in darkness as deep as Rafe’s shadow, which now slithered across the Turkish rug. The artist himself acted almost as if he were being pulled by it, coming to a stop only when he reached the wing-back chair.
“You are late.” His employer spoke French, but the words sounded archaic. As dusty as the rest of the room. “You should consider yourself fortunate that I’m in such a convivial mood. I haven’t enjoyed a theatre performance like that since Madame Lavigne’s last opera.”
Rafe’s gaze flickered—oh so briefly—toward the decanter.
Céleste felt another cough claw up her throat. She tried not to reach for the pocket square. She choked. She swallowed.
Even the fire felt cold in the silence that followed.
“You are not alone,” said the figure in the chair.
“No,” Rafe answered. “I found another forger to help with our search. She’s good. Even better than me, I’d wager.”
“Oh? What would you wager, Monsieur García? The remainder of your name? That silly watch? I’m afraid the stakes are much higher than that.” A finger landed on the globe, exactly where Paris should be, and started the world spinning again. “Come, mademoiselle, let me look at you.”
The globe kept swiveling, its borders blurring when Céleste approached the chair.
People did not look this perfect. They didn’t have eyes like just-cut sapphires or hair as bright as turning wheat or skin pale enough to be gypsum. Perhaps that was what made Rafe’s employer seem sculpted? Or was it the stoniness of his face, a total lack of emotion that made him look even more like a statue than the Fontaine Saint-Michel’s dragon?
He had pupils, at least.
There were other markings around his eyes—much like La Fée Verte’s—but where hers burned gold, his appeared charred. So black, it would look like a mask, if Céleste squinted. She didn’t dare break her gaze with this man though.
Her stare kept wanting to slip.
Her fingers did not itch for charcoal—this time—but the pocket square.
“I see.” The Sanct in the chair steepled his own fingers together. “Beware your bleeding heart, Monsieur García. You won’t last long if you listen to its every whim.”
“I am not a whim,” growled Céleste, who was so very tired of men talking around her. “I’m not a figment of anyone’s imagination either, but I’m damn good at stealing them.” She pulled a dream from her pocket—the reindeer again—and offered it to Rafe’s employer.
He seemed… wary… as he took the imagining. The beast in the clearing stiffened too; its lanterns dimmed, and the flowers by its hooves sputtered. When the Sanct held the scene to his face, his masque looked more like a void, like that space between stars no one stares at too closely.
Céleste could hardly bear to watch either when he carelessly tossed the dream into the fire. “This is not what I’m looking for,” he said.
“I have more.” She knew better than to pull them from her coat pockets. “I can go back to the salon and steal as many ideas as you’d like—”
“A bit difficult to do if you’re dead.” The Sanct cut her off, his voice as sharp as a guillotine. “But I suppose that’s what you’re wishing to avoid. Your desperation does you credit, Mademoiselle Artois, and you do come so highly recommended.”
Céleste bristled at this.
How did he know her name?
And… was that her opera glove he was wearing? There was a stain at the center, in the same shape as that first cough, though most of its color had been washed out. The fabric dripped with river water when the Sanct held out his hand. “Perhaps you and I can strike a deal? Dreams for days?”
She stared at her lost glove.
Rafe was looking at it too, the slightest trace of a frown on his face.
“How many days?” Céleste asked.
“How many dreams can you forge?”
This wasn’t an answer, not really. It was a loophole. The kind of question Céleste so often tossed out to her own marks when they got too eager for whatever prize she was offering.
“None,” she told him. “Until you prove that you can heal me.”
The Sanct clenched his fist. When he opened it again, Céleste’s bloodstain was gone, the glove’s fabric as crisp as the day she’d bought the set at Galeries Lafayette. He held his hand back out.
She did not dare shake it.
“That’s not proof,” she said.
This got her a smile. “The Seer said you would be sharp. Then again, she says many things that don’t always turn out to be true—told me you were born in a castle with hair as black as midnight.”
Céleste stayed very still when the Sanct stood and stepped around her, pausing to examine her shock-white hair. She did not flinch when he picked one. She didn’t even feel the pinch, but she could see the strand clearly between his gloved fingers.
It was black.
Black and writhing.
This hair wasn’t an imagining, but a much darker memory. Céleste saw herself inside, her mourning dress as black as her hair, standing outside a pair of locked gates. There was an A wrought in their iron, but they would not open for her, no matter how fast she talked or how loud she screamed. They wouldn’t open for any Artois again. She had nothing to her name but an envelope from Académie de La Palette, inviting her to come learn the finer points of art in Paris.
That had gotten taken away too, in the end.
“That’s mine!” Céleste tried to snatch her worst moment from the Sanct’s fingers, but the memory dissolved as soon as she touched it.
“Powerlessness does not sit well with you, does it?” He was still smiling when he said this.
Céleste pulled her hands back to her sides to clench the wilted green skirts of her dress. Had she overreached? This Sanct was even harder to read than Rafe—who was standing still by the dream-fed fire. His shadow was back to normal. No foxes, wings, nor stretching strings. The only discrepancy was its head shaking ever so slightly.
The Sanct was too busy circling Céleste to notice.
“I understand,” he said. “I know how it feels to be thrown out of your own home. I know what it is to have nothing to your name—not even the name itself.” The Sanct passed the globe without spinning it, pausing instead by the decanter. He grabbed it by the neck. “I know how bitter such things taste. How hollow they leave you.”
Firelight danced strangely off the container’s glass, flames pirouetting like ballerinas. Céleste could even swear she saw a tutu as the Sanct held the decanter out to her.
“Proof, mademoiselle. Take a sip.”
She did.
This wine was far richer than the vintage she’d enjoyed at Foyot’s yesterday. Yet it washed down smoothly—like silk in her throat. As soon as Céleste swallowed, it felt like someone had taken a knife to her corset and sliced the laces free. She could breathe.
The Sanct took the decanter from her hands, watching her with those cold jewel eyes. “Better, no?”
Céleste kept waiting for the catch, the cough, but it didn’t come.
She nodded.
“That should last you several hours,” he told her. “Maybe even days, depending on the stage of your consumption.”
Céleste tried not to lick her lips as the Sanct placed the wine back on the table.
She would need more than that, then.
Much more.
“If I keep bringing you dreams, will you pour me a glass?”
“Of this?” His dark masque seemed to blur as he shook his head. “No, Mademoiselle Artois. This power would be wasted on you, but if you bring me more ideas from that wretched salon tomorrow, I’ll introduce you to another one of my disciples. The Mad Monk. He’s made quite a name for himself as a mystical healer. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”
The title was familiar, but only in the same way La Fée Verte’s had been. She’d read about the Mad Monk in the papers. He was a caricature of a person—a priest who held court with some royal family… in… Russia, was it?
She looked for Saint Petersburg on the globe.
It was just as black as the Balkans.
“So you have.” The Sanct smiled and spun the globe again. “Rest assured, mademoiselle, distance is not an issue. I have the whole world at my fingertips.” He grabbed his vest. There was no double-chained pocket watch hanging there, but a ring of keys. Scores and scores of keys. A few gleamed as gold as the halo around Paris, which the Sanct seemed to be tracking. “Well, almost. I need more dreams. Will you steal them for me, Mademoiselle Artois? Do we have ourselves a deal?”
It would have been hard to breathe, if it weren’t so easy.
She glanced back at Rafe.
His shadow gave nothing away, but she remembered his warning: Don’t accept his first terms.
“I want more than days,” she said.
“Keep bringing me ideas, and I’ll have the Mad Monk heal you on a weekly basis.”
Better. But Céleste wasn’t sure she should accept the second set of terms either. “I’d like to think on it.”
She thought she saw Rafe flinch, from the corner of her eye, but again she didn’t dare look away from the Sanct. He did not appear disappointed. His face was stone again as he began to peel off her opera glove.
“Very well, but I wouldn’t take long to deliberate, if I were you.” The Sanct held up the piece of Céleste’s costume—his meaning as clear as its fabric—before tossing it into the fire. “Your days are numbered.”