Scene IX The Lake
A Dreary Day
Let me tell you, there is nothing more terrifying then being attacked by the scorned equivalent of a glorified goose.
I nearly trip as I stumble backward, away from the lake’s edge and out of the reach of the furious swan’s wings.
Swan-Marie is not discouraged—she advances on me frantically, water erupting around her as she flaps again and again.
I begin to turn on my heel, ready to abandon my fledged opponent and flee back to the palace, but the look in her eyes makes me falter.
In those piercing black depths is something desperate and urgent.
Something haunted. My breath hitches in realization.
“Marie.” I take one more step back, just in case I have misread her intentions. My foot sinks into the blood-soaked soil. “Have you been by the lake all night?”
Swan-Marie pauses in her attack, her wings still flared in threat. I don’t speak swan, but something about her posture makes me think I’m right. Hope swells in my chest.
“Did you see what happened?” I ask quietly. “Did you see what killed the King?”
The swan makes a low, keening sound. Then, she tucks her wings tightly against her body and dips her head in confirmation. Water ripples delicately around her.
“Who was it?” I can’t help my eagerness. I approach the lakeside and crouch, murky water lapping at the toes of my boots. “Who killed him? Was it a boy with black hair? He—he would have been about my age. Dressed like a royal guard. Did—did he stab the King?”
Swan-Marie stares at me. There’s an edge of annoyance to her glower as she opens her beak, then snaps it shut again.
“Oh.” I bare my teeth. “Right. You can’t speak. My apologies. Can you tell me at least if he matched that description?”
The swan shakes her head decisively, and I’m surprised by the surge of relief I feel. Not Damien, then. Of course it wasn’t Damien.
“Did you see him? Was he there when the King was killed? Or… or after?”
Swan-Marie contemplates my question carefully. Her eyes are pained. After a moment, she dips her head in a sinuous nod.
“He was?” I exclaim. “How? Why? What was he doing there? He’s the Dauphin’s guard. Why would he be with the King?”
Marie spears me with a derisive look and shrugs her wings exaggeratedly. The meaning is clear: How am I supposed to tell you?
I rub my face, dragging down the cold skin under my eyes.
So close and yet so far from answers. And my only source of information is stuck in the body of a swan.
Unless… I drum my fingers on my knees. Unless I can convince Papa to turn Marie back into a human, even for a moment.
Long enough for her to tell us what she knows.
“Marie,” I begin, pressing my fingertips together and leaning my chin on them. “I don’t suppose you can momentarily set aside any grievances you might harbor toward me for, ah… identity theft, and help me find who did this?”
The swan hisses.
“Noted,” I say dryly. “What if I told you the Dauphin might be in danger?”
This seems to get her interest. She stills, her head tilting ever so slightly.
“There’s a chance that whoever did this might be targeting him,” I explain. Quickly, I tell her what I realized about Damien’s involvement. “So you see why this changes things.”
Her eyes are intent on me, no longer furious but still mistrustful.
“Naturally, I’ll have to turn you back into a human.” Temporarily, I add in my thoughts. “You help me, I help you, see?”
The skepticism in her expression does not lessen. I sigh.
“The man accused is my brother,” I admit. “I don’t like him very much, but I can’t let him rot in prison.” There. Honesty. Mothers, I hate honesty. It feels like losing blood, like too much will leave me weak and defenseless.
Thankfully, it seems to work. Swan-Marie inclines her head, though the motion still looks reluctant.
She drifts forward, then climbs onto the bank in front of me.
Even as a swan, she has an untouchable, archaic sort of beauty—powerful and refined, scraps of sunlight slipping off her feathers, water dripping from her underbelly.
Slowly she extends a wing toward me.
I arch an eyebrow at her. “Really?”
She huffs in annoyance.
“Fine. Very well.”
And so, on a dreary Aurélian midday on the grounds of the Chateau Front-du-Lac, I, Odile Regnault, shake hands with a bird.
As I leave Marie behind and head toward the Théatre, some of the jittery energy finally eases from my limbs.
Now that I’m moving, now that I’m acting, I can finally think straight.
Even as a child, I could never sit still for very long—if I was not given a task by my father, I became destructive, prying apart theater props, sticking my thick fingers into the jars of face paint and smearing colors over myself, the walls, the carpets.
I loved being onstage, but I hated rehearsals—hated watching the older actors fumble through their lines, miss their cues, make foolish mistakes and giggle about them carelessly.
I would always correct them with annoyance, but that only ever seemed to amuse them, to be scolded by the little raven-haired girl with a sharp tongue who seemed to haunt the Théatre.
They would coo, pinch my cheeks, and I would gnash my teeth at their fingers in retaliation, hating that they did not take me seriously.
Their affection meant nothing to me—all that mattered was Regnault’s praise.
It frustrated me that they could not see it, that they did not take their roles as seriously as I did.
Did they not understand that they would face Regnault’s ire if they failed?
Did they not fear the thunderous rebuke of his eyes when they displeased him?
I was eleven years old when I first disappointed Regnault.
He’d tasked me with picking the pockets of a nobleman who had been particularly cruel to one of the dancers the previous week, and I’d done so, tracking him through the streets of upper Verroux.
He’d caught me midway through cutting his purse, seized my wrist and thrown me to the hard ground.
My knees had split brutally, spilling gold all over the city cobbles.
Sorcier! he’d cried after me as I had scurried away in a panic, carrying off a handful of his coins.
I had received no proud smile, no kind words from my father that day.
Instead, he’d looked down at me without expression, his gaze so dark and heavy, I felt it like a physical blow.
“What did I tell you about bleeding?” he’d demanded.
“Now there will be rumors of a sorcier child running about the city. This could come back to you. To us .”
I’d stared at my feet, trying to keep my bottom lip from wobbling.
“Perhaps I was wrong, and you are not destined to free magic after all,” Regnault had said softly, musingly, but with such venom that I could nearly see it oozing between his teeth. “Perhaps I ought to take you back to the gutter where I found you.”
“No,” I’d gasped, tears in my eyes. “No, Papa, please! Don’t take me back.”
I’d grabbed the hem of his cloak, sobbing, begging. He’d seized my collar and hauled me off himself emotionlessly. “Enough of your weeping,” he had said. “I will give you one more chance, but I do not want to see such tears again. Show your pain, and it will be exploited.”
That was when Damien had come running in.
Damien was only thirteen at the time, but he was tall and broad for his age. He’d never been much of an actor, but he handled much of the heavy stage décor and the ropes used to change backdrops. “Put her down,” he had snarled at Regnault. “Put her down right now.”
Regnault had loosened his hold on me, enough that I could inhale a sharp breath. “Ah,” said my father, “and here is the other street rat. Aren’t you both ungrateful? I, who give you shelter, who feed you and provide a roof over your heads. Who promised you greatness .”
“We don’t need you, or any of that!” my brother had seethed. “We can survive on our own, and we’ll be better for it. Come on, Dilou. He’s a monster.”
My heart had sunk. I’d looked between my brother and my father, my rib cage mercilessly tight.
“Odile,” Damien had urged. “Come on .”
Regnault had chuckled. He’d lowered himself to one knee, sliding a knuckle under my chin so that I had to look into the merciless depths of his eyes.
“You can go,” he said, terrifyingly calm.
“If you think I’m a monster, as your brother says, then you may go.
But remember that you and I share the same golden blood.
His blood runs red. If I’m a monster, then what does that make you? ”
The Théatre’s doors give a baritone hum as I push them open.
During the day, the backstage hallways have a satiated sort of laziness, shadows sprawled languidly in corners and spiders ambling across the windowless walls.
Laughter blossoms from inside a practice room as I pass; the troupe is rehearsing rowdily, seemingly unaffected by last night’s tragedy.
A surge of fondness fills me at the sound of their banter.
I think of stepping in to greet them but think better of it.
I never truly allowed myself to grow close to the troupe.
Once I’d outgrown my childhood skittishness, I’d become friendly with them, but never too close, too familiar.
Regnault always reminded me they could not be trusted.
They might seem kind, but one look at the color of my blood and they would turn on me as the doctors had on my mother, as the mob of villagers had on Regnault’s family.
I keep walking until I reach Regnault’s office.
Somehow the sight of the familiar door makes an inexplicable dread bubble up inside me.
I pause momentarily to rehearse my words, turning each phrase over and carefully wiping any doubt from my expression.
I clench and unclench my fists once. Then I knock. “Papa?”