Chapter Fourteen Abel
Requesting immediate relief funding for a meteorite strike. Six dead, eleven still missing. Thank Diu the damage was not worse.
Chapter Fourteen
Abel
She’s already walking away before I can reply with something witty. I rub the bridge of my nose.
Lucy squirms in my grip and yips after her.
“Enough, Luciole. Her presence isn’t integral to your survival,” I hiss.
I push through the Gendarmerie station’s double doors.
Gendarmes shuffle back and forth between wooden desks.
One runs a finger along an elaborate city map pinned to the wall.
Desk workers tear down old wanted posters and hang new ones.
Several gendarmes disassemble their muskets and polish the parts.
Poor weapons of choice for slayers—they take too long to clean and reload.
The broad-chested marshal—obvious from the gold trim on his uniform instead of silver—leans over a second-floor railing and shouts orders to a brigade below.
I stand in the middle of the station, like a rock in a river, when the brigade marches out the way I came in.
The marshal halts mid-turn back into his office, stony stare catching the slayer’s badge I hold over my head.
Knowing I have his attention, I pocket the badge. He points to a spiral staircase in the station’s corner.
Watchful eyes remain in my peripheral vision on my way up. My identity is on full display here. Helmet, too. I doubt a speaker of the Old Tongue would belong to the Gendarmerie, but Claire proved the knowledge can be stolen. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
I close the office door behind me. The voices downstairs turn muffled.
The marshal drags his chair out from behind his desk. The wooden legs scrape on the floorboards. He gestures unenthusiastically to a chair across from him. I lower my pack and sit, containing Lucy in my lap.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Marshal…”
Rubbing his temple with a gloved hand, the marshal nudges the brass nameplate propped on his desk. The skin around his eyes sags on his otherwise smooth, bronze complexion.
“Marshal Bard,” I amend. “I don’t want to take too much of your time. I assume you received a dove from Ravinfort’s moonmetal smith, Lyle Meteku?”
He lifts a coil of parchment from the mess of documents on his desk. “Ravinfort suffered a dragon attack until proven otherwise. I’m not interested in chasing conspiracy theories.”
“It’s not a conspiracy theory, Marshal. I was there.”
“Ascension Day is this month, Monsieur Estellio. I have zero resources to allocate to this.”
Damn. Ascension Day is in just a few weeks.
It commemorates the end of the Dark Days—when Diu stripped humans of magic, turned them mortal, and Ascended to the celestial realm to fight Noctu.
The calendar date changes every year, but it’s always in November, the day before the Ignition.
The influx of celebrants will keep the Gendarmerie busier than usual.
It’ll be that much harder for investigators to weed out the criminals who abducted Madame Afi, not to mention the dragon tied to her release.
That’s not my problem, though. Like his royal predecessors, King Philippe dictates that the Gendarmerie must assist slayers with the civilian side of their work. Evacuations to fire cellars, barricades, fire rescue, and so on. A national holiday is no excuse.
“I’m not asking for your help. I’m ordering it,” I say. “Those murderers took Lyle’s mother hostage to force him to give me a lead on a dragon in this city. They promised that in exchange for slaying it, they will leave her at the local church on the next Ignition Day.”
“Why would anyone need to take a hostage to get a dragon killed?”
“Great question. All I know is that I’m their target.”
“You. The dragon sympathizer.”
I bristle, refusing to elaborate on my history more than necessary. “I’m just here to slay the dragon. It’s your job to solve these crimes.”
Suspicion crosses his expression. “Do you even have proof of these supposed crimes?”
I place the maple-wood box on his desk and pop the lid. The pungent rot of Madame Afi’s hand fills the room in an eye-watering instant. Marshal Bard slams the box shut so hard, Lucy jumps off my lap.
“Gods.” He coughs, waving the scent away with stray paperwork. “A warning would’ve been nice.”
“Consider this a warning, then. I have more evidence.”
I riffle through my pack. When I stack the sickle and mask on his desk, his posture sags, as if he expected my claims to be baseless.
“What are these?” he asks.
“Equipment I took from one of the attackers in Ravinfort. Madame Afi’s abductors used the same mask and weaponry. They wore blue cloaks, too, like some kind of uniform. They also had silverwolves for familiars.”
“Silverwolves?”
“I saw them with my own eyes.” I wince at how far-fetched my claims sound, but he needs every clue. “The suspects also spoke the Old Tongue. I don’t know how they learned it, but that’s where you come in.”
He drags a hand down his face. “Noctu end me.”
I swipe a blank investigation form from the corner of his desk. He reaches to intercept the quill, but I’m too quick. His fist clenches empty air.
“I’m submitting this evidence to further your investigation.
Lyle Meteku is the hostage’s son and your second point of contact.
We should be assumed to be under enemy surveillance at all times and liaise via gendarmes in plain clothes.
” I finish scribbling my name, evidence descriptions, and a note that I’ll return with a temporary contact address once I have lodging.
“You must prioritize this investigation and save Madame Afi before—”
“All right. As bizarre as this sounds, there seems to be enough physical evidence to pursue this.”
Relief floods me. “So you’ll investigate?”
“A severed hand is a serious threat. Believe me, this is a top priority,” he says.
“I’ll assign a gendarme to talk to Lyle.
As for you, Monsieur Estellio, that’s all the time I can spare.
I’m too busy organizing patrols for the Ascension Day influx.
” He sighs and mutters, “You’d think people wouldn’t celebrate the end of the Dark Days by testing the limits of their mortality. Drunks, fights, and thieves all week.”
Once again, Claire was right. The Gendarmerie are on high alert here. It’s the safest place for us to be.
Until the Ignition.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Marshal, but I still need your help to locate the dragon.
It’s not just Madame Afi’s safety that depends on it.
” I ignore his dejected expression and offer the copies of Hanna’s notes, which I translated into the Common Tongue during the carriage ride.
“I’d like to submit these to your info broker. ”
“Downstairs. Second desk on the left, next to the wanted posters. Her name is Angéline.” He gives a mild shudder and pushes the parchment back.
“She’ll get the job done. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have event security to plan for.
The king and queen insist on riding with the parade, and the Royal Guard’s captain thinks he knows how to protect them better than I do. ”
Downstairs, I find Angéline and file the paperwork to locate Hanna’s dragon.
“The target’s name is Gérard Dupont,” I explain. “Twenty-seven years old. He frequents taverns and brothels, particularly those with some kind of local theme or gimmick. Reckless indulgence in liquor and women is his typical pattern.”
She rolls up the notes with a crinkle. “I can read.”
Her impatient look snags on me through her gold-framed spectacles. I stand my ground. I want the hunt for this dragon to go smoothly. The quicker this unfolds, the less risk to Madame Afi.
“Approach hotels and check their registries first,” I continue. “Once you find him, trail him. Learn his routine. Establish a schedule and bring it to me.”
“You have enough information here for an immediate arrest. We can hold him until the night before Ignition Day, then deliver him to one of the dragon pits. No slayers have reserved them yet.”
Of course Jardincourt has dragon pits. Built in the craters of old meteorite strikes, the pits are covered with trellises of netting designed to discourage dragons from taking flight.
They’re the perfect place to control the transformation conditions of targets captured in human form.
I’ve used a pit a few times; as much as Hanna and I talked a big game about how a pit made the fight too easy, a slayer with a human identity in hand would be foolish to refuse the advantage.
“Do not arrest him,” I order.
She raises a judgmental eyebrow. I don’t blame her. To her, the Estellio name heralds disaster. To not arrest a dragon in human form immediately is to risk the lives of innocent, moral people.
“Gérard has other information I need. He won’t answer my questions unless he feels safe,” I explain.
It’s not a lie—it’s just not the full truth.
“I need a low-pressure meeting place where I can corner him. Enlist help from his hotel’s concierge, if necessary.
My assistant and I will handle the rest.”
Angéline’s stare narrows at the mention of my assistant. Another irregularity I bring to the table.
The punishment may not fit the crime.
As bad as it makes me look, I can’t bring myself to have Gérard arrested yet. Curiosity compels me to dig deeper into his human flaws. I want to know the level of greed he possessed before Diu cursed him. That way, I can compare it to Micah’s.
“Dismiss the Estellio name, if you must,” I say, “but you’re legally required to assist me. If you don’t trust this information, take solace in the fact that a du Fay gathered it.”
The full attention Angéline shoots me at Hanna’s surname is a stab, but I make myself ignore it. I can’t fathom why I ever viewed Hanna as competition and hoped for her failure. And now that she’s dead, I’m using her name as a stepping stone. It makes me sick.
“I’m only here to finish the job,” I add.
She doesn’t press the matter. “If this dragon is hiding in Jardincourt, I’ll find him. How should I contact you?”
I check the grandfather clock positioned in the corner opposite the stairway. Less than ten minutes until I’m supposed to meet Claire. “I’ll send my assistant with an address later today. And talk to Marshal Bard. There’s a missing person connected to this target. He’ll want your help with that.”
I pay the fee, then leave the station. At the bench, I resist the urge to look up at the clock tower behind me, but each tick of the minute hand makes me flinch.
No matter what I do, I draw eyes left and right.
Not because of the helmet I shoved under the bench—but because of Lucy.
I stupidly didn’t consider that. Tinderfoxes are rare in captivity.
Only the Slayers Guild and fire rescue teams benefit from their abilities enough to justify wrangling them.
Any of these people could, in the space of a second, stick a knife into my chest. Sweat slides down my temple. My throat bobs.
Where is Claire? My plan will be shot if she gets caught stealing. I keep an eye on the station in case I spot her being escorted inside. Nothing. Yet. The clock tower’s minute hand clicks again. She’s twelve minutes late.
A pair of gendarmes on patrol cuts through the crowd. Muskets on their shoulders, they march farther and farther down the street, away from me.
A young boy dressed in a silk tunic and oversized boots tugs his mother’s hand. I stiffen when he points at Lucy in my lap.
“I want to pet it!” he exclaims.
The boy’s mother reaches for Lucy’s chin. “May we?”
Maybe they’re killers in disguise. I could punch one of them, like Claire suggested. People would scream. The gendarmes would return. I’d get arrested and end this anxiety in the safety of a jail cell.
Gods, what happened to my morals?
I intercept the mother’s wrist instead. “She bites.”
My glare sends them away in an angry swish of the mother’s skirt. I don’t like being rude, but I’m not a sideshow attraction.
Fingers ruffle my hair. I whirl to smack them away.
“Did you miss me?” Claire asks, amused.
“You’re late.”
“It’s the holiday season. Inns are crowded.” She pokes my chest. “Lucky for you, I found us a room.”
A room. Singular. “What about my journal?”
“It’s safe. And unread.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
I follow Claire to a five-story inn standing at the corner of a square-shaped plaza. I’d be sleeping anxiously on the streets tonight if it weren’t for her. Diu doesn’t let me get away with much—Estellio luck proves that—but at least he sees some good in her.
The room is comfortable. Though it’s hard to appreciate it.
Claire warned me to stay away from the windows, but the temptation to part the white curtains and monitor the foot traffic for Lyle pulls at me.
The fifth floor serves as an excellent vantage point.
With Claire gone to locate him, I feel useless.
I’m prowling the room with nothing but a plain dresser, two full-sized beds, and worry for Madame Afi to keep me company.
I need to do something with myself.
In the washroom, I scrub my face and decide to shave but nick the underside of my jaw with my moondagger on the last stroke. Just my luck. Once I’m changed into a clean tunic, I settle against my headboard and review Hanna’s notes for the umpteenth time.
Based on her investigation, Gérard Dupont will visit Jardincourt for Ascension Day. The witness remarks confirm it. But the more I reread, the more the details Hanna chose to describe his personality make him feel flat. Caricatured. As if they refuse to acknowledge his human complexity.
There’s nothing here to indicate whether Diu’s punishment fits Gérard’s crimes.
“Who are you, Gérard Dupont?” I mutter.
I unfold a tourist map of Jardincourt—my attempt to predict where he might visit—but the names of streets and taverns bleed together like ink from a broken quill. The black craters that mark the dragon pits—north, west, and east—grab my attention by the throat.
All I can think about is the last time I faced a dragon.
And how horribly I failed.