CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Michael flinched as Caroline staggered against him. He found himself supporting all her weight in his hand. Only for a moment; by the time the elderly man before them had straightened from his bow, Caroline had recovered herself, her expression cold and distant. Michael kept his own expression affable and open, but his mind flicked into sudden, buzzing alertness.

“Count Pergen,” said the Prince de Ligne. He still knelt on the pavement nearby, holding the former king of Rome on his knee. “May I have the pleasure of introducing two new friends? Lady Wyndham, of England, and His Highness Prince Kalishnikoff, of Kernova-as-was.”

Count Pergen. Good God. Michael blinked and refocused on the man before them.

It was the devil of his childhood made flesh. Emperor Joseph’s hated minister of secret police, reviled by every pamphleteer and printer . . . every one of them, that was, who hadn’t already been arrested, beaten, and imprisoned by his men.

It was Pergen who had convinced the Enlightened emperor, Joseph II, to change his reforming laws, retract all his promises, and take away the freedom of the press less than a decade after it had been introduced to Austria for the first time in history.

Michael had never imagined that he would actually meet the devil . . . nor that Caroline would recognize him, when he did.

Pergen bowed over Caroline’s hand, smiling thinly. “Lady Wyndham. I’ve heard much about you already, from the most varied sources.”

“I thank you, sir.” Her voice sounded chillier than Michael had ever heard it.

He wondered whether she knew that she was leaning into him.

“And Prince . . . Kalishnikoff?” Pergen’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Michael. “I am, of course, honored to meet you.”

“As am I. It is a great pleasure, sir.” Michael smiled widely as he clasped the man’s hand. “My late father was always full of praise for your methods.”

He met Pergen’s gaze and felt his own smile falter in shock.

There was something dreadfully wrong with Pergen’s eyes. At first, Michael couldn’t place what it was. They were sunken, truly, into the bone, but more than that, there was something wrong—something unnatural . . .

“And I hope you agreed with your father?” Pergen asked, raising his thin eyebrows. His hand felt cold as ice in Michael’s grasp.

“Oh, I was never foolish enough to disagree with my father,” said Michael. “That would have been terribly impolitic.”

There. He had placed it.

There was no color around the pupils of Pergen’s eyes. The irises were a solid black. And more than that, when Michael looked closely—as closely as he could, while still maintaining discretion—the lines in Pergen’s eyes, which should have formed a faint tracery of red . . . those, too, were black. Even the whites of his eyes were faintly smudged.

It was as if the man were leaking darkness.

Michael felt an involuntary shiver sweep through him. He released Pergen’s hand before the other man could sense it.

Too late. “Cold, Your Highness?”

“The chill in the air.” Michael shrugged, forcing a laugh. “I fear I spent too many years in the East during my exile from my homeland. I’ve grown accustomed to warmth year-round.”

Pergen’s eyes narrowed. “So you spent those years in Turkey?”

“Among other pleasant spots.” Michael held his fixed smile with an effort. How widely spread was Pergen’s network by now? Could it really stretch so far as the Ottoman Empire to research Michael’s history? Surely not within the next month or so . . . or could it? He revised his imaginary history rapidly as he spoke. “And Persia, of course, for a year or two. I spent a few months in India, too, five years ago, but I didn’t find it suited me.”

“No? Many of Lady Wyndham’s compatriots have been making great fortunes there.”

“On the sweat of near slave labor,” Caroline said coolly. “It is hardly an achievement to boast about.”

“Indeed. And your own late husband’s fortune . . .”

She tightened her lips. “Is no longer invested there, you’ll find.”

“How delightful to meet a woman of principle.”

There was an undertone to Pergen’s last word that Michael caught, though he could not interpret it. Whatever it was, it made color flare in Caroline’s cheeks.

Michael pressed her elbow lightly, still smiling. Whatever her game might be, it could do neither of them any good to offend Emperor Francis’s retired spymaster.

The former king of Rome’s high, childish voice broke into the tense air as he jumped out of the Prince de Ligne’s arms, his face alight with excitement.

“You have? Truly? Where are they?”

“Ah,” Michael murmured, and turned with relief to the distraction. “I believe we have come to the matter of gifts.”

He drew back, pulling Caroline with him, as the Prince de Ligne summoned his footmen to bring the wrapped packages that had accompanied them on the drive. The boy viewed and discarded the gifts of clothing with disdain, then seized upon the largest package.

“This one?” he asked.

“That one,” De Ligne agreed. He stood, brushing off his breeches, and watched with indulgent interest as the boy tore open the wrapping.

“Ohhh . . .”

Michael blinked with controlled surprise, even as the child let out a sigh of wonder.

The “appropriate” gift was a highly detailed set of wooden soldiers, carved in wondrous detail.

“A squadron of Uhlans from Flanders, my homeland. They’ll move in whichever direction you choose,” De Ligne said. “Only set them on their wooden platform—you see?—and pull the lever, and they’ll march to your command.”

“They’re perfect,” the little boy breathed. “Oh, thank you, Your Highness! Thank you so much!”

“Perfect,” Michael echoed softly. He watched Napoleon Bonaparte’s son gaze down in open-mouthed delight at his miniature army, and he shook his head ruefully.

Perhaps blood did tell, after all.

“Why don’t you set them up in your rooms,” the prince suggested, “and I’ll join you there shortly to help you lead them in maneuvers.”

“Oh, yes! I certainly will.” The boy gathered up the package and ran at full tilt toward the closest palace door, followed by his sighing nursemaid.

Pergen regarded the prince with his head slightly tilted, like a snake judging whether to attack. “An interesting choice of gift, Your Highness.”

“Do you think so?” A faint sneer lifted de Ligne’s upper lip. “Myself, I thought it was traditional for every boy of rank to play at soldiers. Has he no other such toys to occupy him?”

“A few gifted by his own close relations, yes. And yet . . .”

“Then I see nothing in it to distress you.” De Ligne turned away, frowning. “Is his mother here today? I have a message or two to pass on to her as well.”

“The Archduchess Marie Louise has left for a tour of Switzerland,” Count Pergen said.

“Another? Good God, I thought she’d only returned from some such adventure.”

“Mm. The emperor has appointed her a new equerry, Count von Neipperg.”

“Ah. The very dashing Count von Neipperg.” The prince’s expression was difficult to read. “I understand. There’s been no more talk of joining her husband on Elba then, I take it?”

“The archduchess is quite content, now, to remain in her father’s palace, with . . . journeys of pleasure to while away the time.”

“I see. Well.” De Ligne wiped his hands against his trousers, as if wiping away a stench. “It’s all for the best, I suppose.”

The corners of Pergen’s lips lifted in a small, satisfied smile. “The emperor is certain of it.”

“Quite. Well then . . .” The prince took a breath. “I’d best be off to help the boy with his maneuvers as I promised.”

“I’ll watch, if I may,” Pergen said smoothly. “I am certain I will find it fascinating.”

“My friends?” De Ligne looked past him at Caroline and Michael.

Michael glanced sidelong at Caroline’s cold, set face. “I think not. If you’ll excuse me, Your Highness, I’ve spent too long sitting in a closed carriage. Will you join me, Lady Wyndham, for a stroll around the parkland?”

“Yes.” Caroline’s voice sounded half frozen; she turned like an automaton under his guiding hand. “Yes, I think that would be best.”

It wasn’t until they were far from the palace, strolling through rows of tall, protective hedges, past grand circles of flowerbeds and fountains, that she spoke to him again.

“I . . . thank you.” The words sounded constricted, as if she’d had to force them from her throat.

“It was nothing.” Michael shrugged, watching the tall hedges around them.

There were no gardeners foolish enough to be caught working at this time. The emperor himself might choose not to reside in Schönbrunn during the winter months, but royal etiquette demanded that the gardens appear at all times to be a work of nature rather than effort. The squadron of gardeners would have to do their work when there was no chance of being stumbled upon by casual visitors or their own imperial masters.

Still, Michael kept a wary eye on the hedges and the pathways beyond . . . just in case. He didn’t think the emperor would bother to set spies in his own gardens, but then, he hadn’t expected to meet with the former minister of secret police here, either.

“An odd companion for a small boy,” he mused aloud, low-voiced. “I wouldn’t have thought there would be any danger around the lad where he is, hidden out here with only a few selected visitors allowed to see him.”

“The more Count Pergen notices him, the more danger he’ll be in,” Caroline said flatly. “And God help him if Pergen decides he poses a real threat.”

Michael glanced down at her and received his second shock of the morning. Her expression was more open than he had seen it since his arrival in Vienna . . . and she was terrified.

“You speak as if you knew him personally,” he said.

She bit her lip and looked away. “Everyone knows of him.”

“But you recognized him before he was introduced—and he didn’t recognize you.”

She shrugged and started to pull away. Michael held her back.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me how you know him. And how he failed to recognize you in return . . . oh.”

Realization clicked into place with the force of a closing lock. His hand loosened on her arm.

“You knew him as a child, after everything went wrong,” Michael said. “Didn’t you? That’s why he doesn’t recognize you now.”

“You know nothing about it.” Caroline’s breath came quickly, in short pants. “What wereyou doing in the years after they came for us? Where were you?”

“The truth?” Michael shrugged. “I was traveling around Bohemia, learning how to live. I worked for an actor’s troupe in Pressburg for three years—I started out as the lowliest assistant, but I moved up to take on principal roles for a time.” His lips curved in reminiscence. “I learned how to disguise myself, how to take on a new character, a new face . . . For a year or two I fell in with Count Cagliostro himself on his Eastern tours, and then I joined another, less famous pseudo-alchemist—a complete fraud, like all the rest of them, but he was a fine teacher, and it was entertaining enough to pretend at magic, so . . .”

He stopped, shocked at the change in her face. “What’s wrong? What did I say?”

“Entertaining? To pretend at magic?” Caroline was spitting her words, now, though her voice never rose above a whisper. “If you knew what I was going through while you were playing at adventures a hundred miles away, never even caring what you left behind—”

“Tell me, then! Tell me, or stop blaming me for not knowing.” Michael stared at her, his mind working furiously. “You were . . . you said you didn’t go to an orphanage. When the police burned down the shop and took your father away—”

She turned her head sharply away, clamping her lips together. Still, he thought he heard a muffled sob escape.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “They took you, too, didn’t they? That’s how you recognized Pergen.” He stepped back, his head whirling. “But why? Why would they bother to imprison a child?”

“They didn’t,” she said. Her voice was a bare thread of sound. “Not in the official prisons. Not in the ones that we all knew about.”

“Caroline,” Michael drew a deep breath. “Karolina . . . Tell me what happened to you. Why you’re here. I’ll help you.”

She laughed. It sounded like breaking glass. “Fine words,” she said. “How much trust can I put in them?”

“You can trust me with all your heart,” he said. “I swear it.”

He realized, with a shock, that it was the truth.

For a moment, everything around him seemed to freeze as if caught in a pane of painted glass, all the colors vividly highlighted in the glow of sunlight.

Caroline’s dark, anguished eyes against her pale skin—her shining black hair clustering in loose curls around the clean, strong lines of her face, her hands clenched with anger or fear . . .

Something twisted in Michael’s chest, a mixture of pain and promise.

“You’re only playing a part,” Caroline whispered. “That’s why you came back here.”

“You’re right.” Michael’s voice sounded hoarse in his own ears. “I thought, when I first found you again, that it was a great stroke of luck for my plan.” He winced as he admitted it. “I truly was glad to see you alive and well,” he added hastily, “but still . . .”

He drew a long, painful breath. “I would have used your friendship and left without ever thinking twice,” he confessed. “I thought that was only the way of life. It’s been the only way I’ve known for a very long time now.” He stepped forward, holding her gaze. “But I won’t this time. I swear it. Please, let me help.”

Her eyes swept over his face like searching light. She opened her mouth to speak.

“There you are!” The Prince de Ligne’s voice called out behind them. “Lovely parkland, is it not?” He waved his cane gaily as he entered the square garden behind them. “Nothing stirs the heart quite like a garden, does it? I could walk out here for hours and never grow tired.”

“Never,” Michael repeated.

Caroline’s face closed itself before him, like shutters slamming shut. The light within, as quickly as it had been revealed, was locked away again.

Any man experienced in gambling could tell when his timing had run out.

Peter pulled himself up to a sitting position against the rough stone wall of his cell. He was still shivering, even after hours of sleep; he felt as if he might never grow warm again.

Think, he told himself. Focus. It was . . . who knew what time it was, in this tiny, windowless room? He could barely see his own hands or the chamber pot that sat in the far corner. The time could be anywhere between dawn and sundown, for all that he could tell.

Last night, the guards had carried him down a long set of stairs, through three sets of heavy, locked doors, to a row of underground rooms. Escape would have been laughable, even if he hadn’t been limp and shaking with sick exhaustion.

But even if he couldn’t escape, he could still think and plan. And with a night’s sleep behind him—albeit a night of restless nightmares, interrupted over and over again by his own shivers—Peter was no longer prepared to lie back and wait passively for last night’s torture to be repeated.

As it would be, he had no doubt, unless . . . unless . . .

Peter knotted his shivering fingers around each other, fighting the cold, the discomfort, the shadows in the darkness . . . the terror.

He had written dialogue, scenes, even entire plays off the cuff for the company on occasion. He had talked thirteen independent, egocentric, rebellious individuals into joining his acting troupe and taking his direction. He had found a way to bring them all to Vienna, despite every obstacle of finance and practicality.

He could come up with a plan to save himself now.

Hours passed. Peter paced the small square room in the darkness, his shoes making no sound against the thick stone floor. He heard nothing from upstairs, nor from the other rooms nearby. Were they empty? Or full of waiting, frightened prisoners like himself?

There was no use wondering about that. It was a waste of his time. He had to focus.

It all came down to Michael, that first day. Michael, who was, it seemed, an enemy of the state—one of those dangerous, wild radicals Peter had heard of when he was a child. Astonishing that he would have dared come back to Vienna to be recognized after all the famous purges and imprisonments of twenty years ago.

Unless . . .

Peter stopped pacing. His teeth chattered together, but he ignored them.

What his torturer had said, when Peter thought back carefully . . . did it necessarily imply that Grünemann had recognized Michael himself? Or had it been the mere fact of Michael’s illicit entry into the city that had judged him suspect and dangerous in their eyes? His illicit entry . . . in combination, of course, with Peter’s own mad, reckless impulse to help that girl, the pamphleteer.

Grünemann had only seen Michael from a distance and through a crowd of people. All he would have been able to pick out would have been the basics of hair color, dress, and posture—and a wig and a bit of theatrical training could have accounted for all of those external features. So . . . if they didn’t know yet exactly who Michael was . . . if they hadn’t actually managed to bring him in—because, perhaps, they hadn’t been able to recognize him in whatever new disguise he wore . . .

It was a perilously thin thread of hope to hang his life upon. But it was the only one that Peter could find.

Two days earlier, he would never have imagined himself capable of it . . . but two days earlier, he had been a different man. Now, all he could feel, when he looked for guilt, was the sickening, stomach-churning fear of further pain. No hero, Peter Riesenbeck, when he came off the stage.

Self-knowledge was a bitter pill, but it did not—could not—negate hard truth: he could not endure last night’s torture again.

The door finally cracked open, hours later, long after Peter had finally subsided, shivering, into a corner, wrapping his arms around each other to conserve heat. At the first sound of a key turning in the lock, he leaped to his feet.

The quick movement made his head spin. His legs gave way. He caught himself on the stone wall and pushed himself forward, regardless. It might be his only chance.

Two men stepped inside, big, broad-shouldered, and uniformed. The first man held a platter with a bowl of food and a clay pitcher, revealed by the glow of the torch in the other man’s hand.

“Please!” Peter said. He hurried forward, propping himself against the wall at every step. His teeth were chattering as he spoke, but he pressed on. “Tell your master, I have a message—”

The second man backhanded him with casual ease. Peter tipped over like a falling tree, his head slamming against the stone ground, his legs sprawling awkwardly before him. The men moved around him, taking the chamber pot, setting down the food.

Peter rolled over, gritting his teeth. He pushed himself back up.

The back of his head burned with a cold fire. He wondered, distantly, if it was bleeding.

He didn’t care.

“Tell your master,” he gasped. “I have a vital message.”

The first man let out a snort of a laugh. The other didn’t bother to respond.

They walked through the door. Peter flung himself across the cold floor.

“I can find him!” Peter said. “Tell your master. Please!” As they turned to close the door, he threw every ounce of passionate sincerity into his words: “I can find the man he’s looking for!”