Chapter 18

Caveau des Terreurs

Have I caught you admiring your own sword again?”

Honoré looked up from her lap to see La Fée Verte standing at their regular morning meeting place. The statues perched on the edge of Notre-Dame’s south bell tower were still dim, waiting for dawn. The sun was rising later and later these days, now that summer had slipped into September. The pastries in the bag next to Honoré’s knee were steaming more too, thanks to the drop in temperature.

La Fée Verte didn’t seem to notice the chill. This morning she was dressed in a gown of green lace woven to look like leaves. It would’ve been hard to see where her wings ended and her dress began, if not for the hints of skin peeking through the fabric.

Honoré forced herself to glance back at the object in her lap, lying just next to her unsheathed blade. “Not my sword. Not this time, at least.”

It was true that she’d spent an inordinate amount of time admiring the weapon the Sanct had forged for her. The dream sword was far sharper than any of the other knives she’d owned. There was also a lightness to it. Whenever Honoré pulled the blade from her scabbard, it felt even better than flying. It felt almost as good as La Fée Verte coming to sit beside her for yet another sunrise. This meeting had become their morning ritual. The Sanct would stand by the balcony, welcoming a shower of sparks, while Honoré kept her company. She always brought bread, along with news of the previous night’s patrol.

Her findings had been scarce, as of late. There were no more bloodless corpses, no strange fires, no theatre riots, no demon cats. Things had quieted down since Honoré’s battle with the poster in Montmartre, but she knew she shouldn’t count this as a victory. The vampire wasn’t defeated. He’d just gotten better at hiding.

Honoré had discovered something this evening though.

“I found a message in a bottle.”

“Oh?” La Fée Verte leaned over to get a closer look. The scent of flowers burst through the autumn air, and Honoré felt unseasonably warm. The same way she had when Eleanor once poured her drinks from similar Château Robert containers.

This time, though, Honoré did not shrink back.

No one was watching them up here, after all. Even the gargoyles were turned away, and Honoré figured they were controlled by La Fée Verte, who also seemed to relish their closeness. Her masque light beamed against Honoré’s cheeks when she looked up.

“It doesn’t have any enchantments inside, if that’s what you were wondering,” La Fée Verte said softly. “What does the letter say?”

“I’m not sure.”

Though it wasn’t for lack of unrolling the parchment. Honoré had fished out the paper as soon as she’d spotted the bottle by the buttress of Notre-Dame-de-la-Croix. There was no telling how long Eleanor’s message had been sitting there. Days? Weeks? More? Enough mornings for the dew to do some damage. Only the edges of the letter had been spared. The rest was one watery stream of ink.

“My friend who first told me about the killings, she promised to write with any news. Maybe some new husks have turned up. Maybe I’ll find a fresh trail that leads us straight to that bastard!”

La Fée Verte frowned. “You don’t have to sound so hopeful about it, my dame.”

This honorific the Sanct had created for Honoré had sounded strange to her immediately after the knighting, but like these sunrise visits at the top of the cathedral, it was now a bright point. Yes, it fit her differently than her other stolen name—but that wasn’t such a bad thing.

“Don’t I?” She looked back down at the blade resting over her legs. Hope as sharp as hurt. The reindeer with the lanterns was munching contentedly on fiery blossoms. Of all the imaginings inside the blade, that one was Honoré’s favorite. It reminded her that there were beautiful ways to hold fire inside herself too. “I’m not excited about the bodies, obviously, but this monster… he’s haunted you for a long time. I know that struggle. I’ve fought that fight. That’s why you gave me this shiny new sword, isn’t it? If I sound excited, it’s only because I want the chance to swing it at him. I—” Honoré almost swallowed the words, but then she decided to be brave instead. “I want you to be happy too.”

La Fée Verte regarded her for a lingering moment.

A smile bloomed on rose-colored lips.

“He hasn’t stolen all my joy. Hardly.” The Sanct grabbed the brown pâtisserie bag by Honoré’s knee and started to open it. “Ooh, is that chocolate I smell?”

It was. In Honoré’s excitement about the note, she’d decided to celebrate by buying pains au chocolat instead of ordinary croissants. A good choice, judging by the way La Fée Verte sang with delight after her first bite. Honoré let out an appreciative grunt too as she ate her own breakfast and watched green birds swirl out into the sunrise.

Caveau des Terreurs seemed different.

Honoré couldn’t say why for sure as she stepped into her father’s old haunt. Her hand curled around the scrap of paper she’d shown La Fée Verte that morning. The one covered with Eleanor’s blurry penmanship.

I’ll write you if anything changes.

So much had changed since the barmaid’s promise. Honoré was fairly sure none of the gangsters who glared from the tables could see the sword of dreams hanging from her side. She hadn’t bothered with a wig or a false moustache this time. She hadn’t removed her ring either, though she kept that hand in her pocket as she took a seat at the bar.

Eleanor was wiping it down with a rag, leaving beads of water across the scarred wood. Sweat rolled down her temples too, making swirls of her dark hair. She did not look up, but kept polishing one spot, over and over.

“I got your message,” Honoré said. “Well, I got the paper. Most of the words were ruined.”

Eleanor’s lips thinned.

Her rag slowed.

Honoré understood then why this particular patch of wood was so bothersome. It was too bright. There should have been a stain there… a gauge… a crudely carved phrase… something to mark her father’s timely end.

But his blood was gone.

She could feel the dragon stirring around her fist as she examined the rest of the bar top’s graffiti. Yes, there was the ode to Madame Lavigne’s breasts. And the fox chasing its own tail, so artfully carved by Rafael. And the many different scars from many different knives.

“It said someone new is running the place,” Eleanor said, still without looking up. “He’s…” She scrubbed harder. Shuddered. “He showed up six weeks ago. I’ve never seen anyone like him, and I’ve been seeing all sorts of other strange things…”

The dragon had almost coiled up to Honoré’s elbow now, impossible to hide. She didn’t miss the way Eleanor’s eyes caught it.

“What kinds of things?” she asked.

“Your white-haired friend for—oh!” the barmaid exclaimed.

There was a blur of fabric. Honoré’s windpipe burned shut. She could see the red scarf around her neck, in the mirror, being used as a garrote. Rémy’s scarf. “You must have some balls stuffed away in those trousers, coming back here without that kid and her cat. When I’m done gutting you, I’ll find them next, make myself a nice new pair of boots out of that orange hide.”

Traces of Marmalade’s assault still scabbed the gangster’s face. Honoré smiled at the sight in the mirror. She grabbed at the twisted silk, not the way a suffocating person might—all flailing arms—but with sharp silver purpose. The dragon ring’s fangs cut through the scarf, freeing her as Rémy went stumbling back into some chairs.

He swore.

Honoré stood.

The dragon rose up her shoulder, swelled over her chest. Its jaws opened as she walked toward the gangster. Rémy scrambled backward. A necklace spilled out of his striped shirt—the golden charm of a saint dangling from its end. Odd. Rémy had never struck her as the religious type. He’d sure as hell better start praying now. Honoré snarled with both sets of teeth, and a dark stain spread over the crotch of the gangster’s trousers. He reeked of fear. Her ring felt magnetized. She leaned down… closer, closer… close enough to realize that the scabs around his good eye weren’t scabs at all. Marmalade’s scratches were gone. The tattoo on his cheekbone—that singular dot that all her father’s men marked themselves with—had spread. As if the ink had found a vein and was slowly poisoning the rest of him…

It was the same with the other Apaches’ faces, Honoré realized.

The entire bar was watching her.

They made no move to help Rémy, to jump between him and the teeth of her father’s ring, even though it was obvious they could see it. Their eyes followed the dragon. The rest of their bodies sat unnaturally still, their hands folded in their laps like fancy dinner napkins, even though Caveau des Terreurs had never served much more than greasy meat.

“Go on,” came a voice from behind her. “They’re waiting.”

Honoré kept the dragon trained on Rémy when she turned. She found a stranger sitting at the spot Eleanor had scrubbed clean, his fingers drumming the wood. “Who are you?”

“You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting to answer that question.” His fingers drummed faster. “Imagine my surprise, when I followed your fear to this establishment, when I found a name just waiting for me like an overripe plum on a branch… heavy and juicy and there.” He knocked on the wood again. “Terreur is dead. Long live Terreur.”

Honoré felt her stomach twist.

The dragon exploded then—to the size of its more mythical counterparts. Scales shoved Rémy Lavigne back into a chair leg. Wings wrecked chandeliers. The piano screamed as a tail smashed it to splinters. Collateral damage. Honoré focused her talons on the Sanct. They sank into his arm, nailing it to the too-clean bar top. She waited for the red to spread—just as it had before—but no blood spilled from the holes she’d made. They looked like tears in paper.

Even more so when Terreur ripped his arm away.

She aimed for his chest next, but the silver fangs that sank there came back clean.

The Sanct was… empty.

He could not die.

Not the way Honoré’s father had.

Not the way she’d wanted him to.

The Sanct smiled then. Red and green oil lamps flickered. Every gangster around the dragon stood in unison, their chairs scraping altogether off-key. Even Eleanor stiffened behind the bar, the whites of her eyes straining as her hand throttled the neck of a bottle. She seemed to be fighting herself as she broke it against the sink, sending sharp glass everywhere. Rémy—on the other hand—looked more than happy to pull a knife from his boot. To lunge. His shadow seemed to leap before he did, the thinnest black strand tugging all the way to the newest Terreur’s fingers. His hold on these men was nothing like her father’s had been. It wasn’t just fear.

It was puppetry.

Rémy was on her then, stink-breathed and stabbing, but the gangster didn’t stand a chance. He did bleed when Honoré crashed her dragon through his chest. Crimson globbed onto the floor. Something left his eyes—not light, since there wasn’t much of that—but the warped tattoo marking. It snaked off the man’s face, gathering his spilled blood with it, before slithering back to the Sanct on the stool. Honoré’s own insides scrambled as she watched his chest wound close, as she heard another one of the gangsters take a crunching step forward…

Her dragon faltered then.

For Gabriel.

Oh, Gabriel. He’d emerged from the remnants of the piano—splinters in his fair hair. They reminded Honoré of the carvings their father had crushed. So did the expression on her younger brother’s face.

“Gabriel…” She hadn’t spoken his name in so long.

It left her tongue tasting ashes. That was the flavor of the dark Sanct’s magic too—she remembered from her battle with the hellcat. She could see another black memory taking shape on the sandy floorboards between her and Gabriel. It belonged to her brother, guiding him into the exact same spot where he’d stood all those years ago, where she’d left him screaming at the sight of their father’s corpse.

“Gabriel, listen to me, this man… he’s not a man… He’s—he’s a sorcerer. He’s got you under some sort of spell—”

Her brother took another step forward.

Honoré stepped back.

Words hadn’t worked last time either. She’d tried explaining—Our father was going to beat me to death because he found Rafael’s note; he said I was trying to steal you away—but Gabriel only screamed louder. She tried to cover his mouth, but her hands were dripping with blood, and she made him taste it. He spit. He sobbed. It was an accident, she’d wanted to say, but that was the same lie Lucien Durand had used when Anne found her mother crumpled by the hearth. Blood had stained its stones, stained the dragon ring, stained everything from that evening forward…

“I don’t want to hurt you.” She stumbled over Rémy’s limp arm as she said this.

Behind her, the Sanct laughed.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that Honoré had a shield for curses. It didn’t matter that she’d spent the past two and a half months trying to master the dragon—stretching the ring’s wings and retracting its fangs and learning how to push through that paralysis she’d felt when facing the hellcat. This was so much worse. Terreur might not be able to manipulate Honoré’s thoughts directly, but he didn’t have to. Not when he had so much control over her brother.

The shadow tether at Gabriel’s feet shuddered, up, up to his arm. He pulled out a pistol—the kind Sylvie had called pretty—and aimed the golden barrel straight at his sister’s heart.

A lemonade bottle smashed to the floor.

Eleanor.

The barmaid had a bullseye aim, Honoré knew. She meant for the glass to shatter at Gabriel’s feet, cutting across the shadowy memory that guided them. Her brother’s gun went slack the same moment this string did, when the Sanct pulling it turned back to the bar. Gabriel blinked. Eleanor gasped. Her hands went to her throat, to the black ribbon she’d never, ever worn before.

It’s not a ribbon. Honoré felt her own breath shrivel as she watched the barmaid’s face. Dark curls swirled around Eleanor’s temples—more than mere hair—binding Eleanor back under the Sanct’s control.

“You may try to fight me,” the Sanct said coolly. He was still facing the barmaid, yet his eyes found Honoré’s in the mirror. “But you cannot win.”

Her father had thought much the same.

Honoré didn’t think this reflection was enchanted, but there was an eerie echo to this moment: The dragon ring slick with blood. Gabriel stock-still. The other Apaches closing in on her with their knives.

Her own sword shimmered at her side. Dreams she’d somehow forgotten all about…

He may not knot your shadow with fear, but he doesn’t need to, so long as you choose to keep your own hands tied. We are more than just the rot that happens around us.

The ragpicker’s words didn’t sound so trite anymore.

The Sanct in the mirror wavered when Honoré unsheathed her blade. The weapon was far more golden than the pistol in her brother’s hand. She couldn’t stab Gabriel, of course, but she didn’t have to. If a single dream could sever the hellcat’s tail, then surely this sword could do more.

She could cut her brother free.

She could show Gabriel her truest self: the heart that was worth more than ten thousand dreams, despite the shards left by leaving him here. She was stronger now than she’d been then. She was Honoré. Dame Honoré. The knight who could not be crushed to splinters. She would save her brother from Terreur again—only this time they’d escape Belleville together.

The thought burned bright. The sword of dreams burned brighter as Honoré aimed the blade at the shadow string tangling her brother’s feet. She swung with all her hope and might.

She watched—in disbelief—as it shattered.

Pieces sprayed across the sandy dance floor, reduced to glass and dust. Gabriel’s boots crunched over them, and another lemonade bottle smashed into her dragon armor. Eleanor’s aim had gone wrong again. It had all gone wrong.

“I must admit, I expected more from La Fée Verte’s protégé,” the newest Terreur mocked from her father’s seat.

Honoré had as well.

Her ring roared. Her heart did too. The rest of the Apaches were circling—a tightening noose of scarves and blades—and her armor could only do so much. There was nothing to be won here.

Something was wrong with Honoré’s ring.

The dragon flew well enough out of the Caveau des Terreurs, out of Belleville, over Paris’s lacework streets, across the river. She even managed the tight landing into the Quartier Secret’s open-air gardens, where someone had imagined a bottomless pool. Sylvie, most likely. Hers were the only creations that didn’t disappear with the morning mists. The sun was high now. Honoré’s reflection shivered when she plunged her hands into the teal waters. Rémy’s blood turned purple before it washed off, swirling down, down. She tried to push her ring back into a band after she scrubbed it clean, but some silver streaks refused to budge. They sank into her skin, following her forearm’s veins in a toothy, all-consuming pattern. Like roots, Honoré thought, as she scoured her skin.

She thought of other things too.

Rémy’s dead-weight arm. (He would have killed her.) Gabriel’s stare—black with hatred and something far more sinister. (He would have killed her too.) (And she would have let him.) The Sanct’s smile—as empty as the hole she’d put though his chest. (Long live Terreur!)

How the hell could she fight something like that?

“Dame Honoré?”

La Fée Verte was standing barefoot in the garden, her wings blending with surrounding vines. Her masque melted into the sunlight. There was such a fullness to her that Honoré had never appreciated before: The pink flush of her cheeks. The whir of her birds. The rush of Honoré’s own blood when the other woman knelt at her side. The tiger heat of those eyes. The honeyed warmth of her voice.

She wiped a single tear from Honoré’s cheek. Her hand lingered there. Soft, so soft, just like her question. “What happened, my dame?”

“You shouldn’t call me that.” The honorific hadn’t fit as well as Honoré hoped. She was fairly sure the armored heroes in Sylvie’s storybooks didn’t cry. Nor did they shatter their swords or abandon their brothers in their darkest hour. Twice. “I’m a shit knight.”

The story came out in fragments, like the letter stuffed inside that first lemonade bottle, like the rest of the barmaid’s glassy resistance. Honoré told La Fée Verte about the too-clean spot at the bar. About the name that used to be carved there. How no new blood stained the wood after her first attack. How Rémy’s wounds had slithered across the floor, after the second assault, knitting the new Terreur’s flesh back together.

“He… he was like a vampire.” She shuddered at the memory. “My dragon did nothing to him.”

La Fée Verte’s hand fell from Honoré’s cheek to her arm’s silver-streaked skin. “And your sword?”

“I—”

More fragments.

She kept replaying the moment her weapon went to pieces. Cloud kingdoms and fluorescent leviathans. That beautiful lamplit reindeer, smashing to the sandy floor. “I believed I could free my brother—” The shame of it all was thick in her throat. “But I must not have believed hard enough. The blade broke.”

“Broke? That’s not right.”

There was so much disappointment in La Fée Verte’s voice. Honoré could hardly bear it. “Like I said… shit knight.”

The Sanct was silent for a long moment.

“Your shattered sword had nothing to do with your willingness to fight, my dame. Believe me.” Her touch on Honoré’s arm went even softer. “None of this is your fault.”

Rafael had said something similar about the kitten—nice of him, sure—but again Honoré felt like she was being placated. Why else would things keep breaking around her, unless she herself was broken?

“Your enemy has a foothold in Paris now because of me,” she said. “He has a name. He said it was my fear that led him to those things.”

“My wards should have stopped that from happening.” La Fée Verte stood. Birds rushed around her head as she pulled aside a curtain of vines. There, by some trick of folded space, was the corkscrew staircase. “They should have prevented the fire in Montmartre and The Rite of Spring riot too. I thought they were failing because his attacks were growing stronger, but I’m afraid it’s worse than that.”

Honoré’s dragon arm felt extra heavy as she followed La Fée Verte down into her cavern. Lights chimed, and green birds flew through their midst, plucking random imaginings.

She examined each one as it was delivered, back and forth with the tilt of her palm.

She threw them to the ground.

There was no light.

Again.

There was no newborn beauty.

Again.

There was nothing but glass on stone.

Again.

“You did not fail my dreams, Dame Honoré.” La Fée Verte’s whisper echoed across the broken pieces. “It was my dreams that failed you.”

Even if this was true, it didn’t make Honoré feel better. No, the numb disbelief she’d felt at Caveau des Terreurs only spread.

“There is power in an idea.” La Fée Verte dashed another chime against the ground. “But these are not ideas. They’re copies. Whoever conjured these replacements is a talented forger. That is why your sword shattered, Honoré. Someone is stealing my powers from me.”

Yes, they were.

And Honoré knew exactly who.