75. Angélique
75
Angélique
I t turns out that the only thing we can do for now is to either train or spend our time in the library, in search of any old blueprint of buildings owned by the archangels.
I don’t think my father would be such an idiot that he would build a dungeon in a building the other archangels could stumble upon, but it’s the only lead we have so far. So, it keeps everyone busy.
It’s been three days already, and I’ve given up on trying to stay in the archive room with Cassiopé and Léandre. They’re cute together, so cute that it’s almost nauseating, but I can’t really blame them. Léandre thought he was going to disappear, or at least, the essence of him, and now he has a chance to build something with Cassiopé. So, I understand the need he had to spend every minute and every second of a single day with her. I would lie if I said that I haven’t spent more time with Elhyor either.
I’m still spending a couple of hours every day in the archives, but I’ve taken to training with Elhyor and his men every morning now, too. Well, it’s more like helping the instructors train them than really do the training with them, but I still get my workout and it’s better than when I had to hide that I could fight.
And then at night, I fight my husband in a different way.
I’m pretty sure those guys, in the lessons my father forced me to attend, didn’t know what they were doing, because I’m enjoying myself way more than what those ladies seemed to.
Or maybe it’s just because it’s Elhyor and I’m starting to think killing him would have been my biggest mistake.
The thought of running away has crossed my mind a few times still, but saving Brice and the rest of his team has never been the first reason that came to my mind when I told myself to stay.
Yes, it might have to do with the fact that my best friend seems to be in love with my new friend, but it’s not just that.
I thought that by getting married to a stranger I would grow to resent him, but instead… I think I’m growing to… like him.
And I think he might like me, too.
I’m not talking about the mind-blowing sex. Who wouldn’t like that, anyway?
Focus, Angélique, focus.
I’m on my short couple of hours in the archive with the lovey-dovey couple. I can’t start thinking about how Elhyor bent me over his desk last night in our room or I’m going to start blushing, and I have nothing to hide behind but the registry saying that the only estate owned by the archangels out of Paris and its vicinity is Chambord. I’m not surprised. When you see the size of that castle and its gardens, you understand why they had to make it theirs. But there is a mention I’m not sure I understand right next to it.
Les oiseaux ont l’air d’aimer les chateaux de la Loire.
It’s handwritten in the margins in French, half erased, but my French isn’t rusty to the point I can’t understand it.
The birds seem to like the castles on Loire riverside.
I’m pretty sure it means that whoever wrote that down in the registry knew something about other castles. The sad thing is that I looked up the number of castles in la Loire, and there are over three hundred of them. How are we supposed to narrow down which one it could be?
Because, yes, I know, Micha?l couldn’t have had them there already when the battle started, but there is no doubt in my mind that he moved them away; maybe he had even started before we had time to flee Versailles. The problem is that I’m convinced he didn’t move them away so far that he couldn’t visit and see how well the interrogation would go.
And according to Luc’s monitoring, there has been no movement of flying cars from Versailles ever since we started monitoring—which was roughly forty minutes after we arrived.
I choose to believe no one is dead.
They probably wish they were if I know Micha?l correctly—and I do—but they’re alive.
Healthy and full, that’s another story—torture rarely leaves people unscathed.
I shudder at the thought and try to hide it behind the book, my blushing completely gone with what’s on my mind now.
“You found something?” Léandre asks from the other side of the table. I don’t know how he manages that but each time I find a lead or something that could be related, he always seems to know. It’s a bit like the man has a sixth sense when it comes to books.
Some people hear voices, Léandre hears books.
Or whatever.
“Yes,” I say with a sigh, “but it’s not really narrowing anything down. According to someone, and I say ‘someone’ loosely because it’s scrawled in the margins of this book, bird-shifters like the castles in la Loire , but even if it helps, they’re far away and there are way too many of them to really help with our search. Unless… Cassiopé, you think Elhyor has enough men to send over three hundred locations?”
Cassiopé is engrossed in the book she is reading and the fact I talked to her seems to be like a shock to her, so she jumps a little.
“Sorry,” she starts, “what did you say?”
“I found something and was wondering if it would be doable to send warriors all over the castles in la Loire ?”
“I don’t see any reason why not, but I think I’ve got something better,” she says with a smile before adding, “Do you know if a lot of castles were inside cities?”
“I don’t know which ones, but I’m sure we can find that out. Why?” I ask.
That’s when I take a closer look at what she’s reading. It looks like an old journal. It’s in good condition, but it still looks old.
“What are you reading?” I ask before she has time to answer my first question.
“It’s Zaìr’s journal. Elhyor’s father. And there’s an entry saying that some of the smaller size bird shifters were seen in cities in their fully shifted forms before our two worlds collided. There are even mentions of rare sightings of doves.”
My smile stretches at the information. For any human, they would have looked like any birds, but shifters recognize their own kind, and if Zaìr says the birds were shifters, I believe it.
Yes, this is something that will probably help. I know my kind—well, what was supposed to be my kind—and I know for sure that they would have never slept in the streets. If my ancestors are anything like Micha?l and what I heard about the doves before him, they would have spied in their bird form but they for sure would have slept in comfort and knowing them, it means they bought accommodations. Would that be such a stretch to think they might have bought castles?
I wouldn’t put it past them.
Which means we might finally have a lead.
“We have something. We finally have something,” I say as I get up. “I could kiss you for that,” I tell Cassiopé, “but I’m going to leave that to Léandre and go kiss my dragon instead.”