Chapter Thirty-Five Abel
Let us begin the Age of Mortality with a commitment to the truth. We are a selfish species, and we have much work to do.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Abel
The Gendarmerie escort our carriage out of the city in plain clothes.
Still, Claire draws the curtains and shuts out unwanted eyes.
In the cabin’s heavy shadows, my stare falls to the satchel under her seat across from mine, where the bulge of my journal hides behind her heel.
Now that Madame Afi is dead, the guilt for my research—for putting a target on so many people’s backs—only cuts deeper.
“Do what you need to do. I’m here for you.” She moves to my bench, then rests her head on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about me.”
I do worry about her. I do nothing but worry about her. Besides Lyle and Lucy, she’s all I have left. Micah, Madame Afi, and soon Claire will disappear from my life with nothing to show for it. The urge to wrench meaning from that journal haunts me so badly, my vision blurs.
“It’s okay to cry, remember?” She cups my cheek. “You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
Gods, she’s perceptive. But it’s not just my emotions that I’ve been hiding.
I still haven’t told her about the existence of ice healing powers.
Learning that she didn’t kill that woman in Ravinfort would alleviate her guilt, in theory, but it would never fade completely.
Not after she killed someone for real in Jardincourt.
At this point, the presence of Noctu’s magic will only escalate her worry over my safety.
She deserves to spend her last days away from as many of my problems as possible. But keeping it to myself is isolating.
I let Claire brush the wetness away with her calfskin gloves, ashamed. All this time, she’s held herself together with no help. You’d think I’d have it in me too, since I’m the one with the future.
At the end of the day, being an Estellio isn’t the most unfortunate thing in the world. I’m not the one with bad luck.
She is.
In January, Varsonne smells like blood.
The waning quarter-moon hangs dully over the unassuming mountain city.
Icicles hang from scrap-metal road signs.
Heavy bolted doors press into the rolling hillsides, the result of converting failed mine shafts into homes.
Chimney smoke curls above them. Buildings nestle against each other in the city center on snow-covered ground.
It’s difficult to imagine Madame Afi’s abduction happened here, where humans hibernate like tinderfoxes.
I rub my gloved hands together outside the Gendarmerie station, standing straight when Lyle emerges and closes the door behind him.
He carries two items: his full pack and a leather tube, wax treated and water-resistant.
As many questions as I have for him, though, they’re not my top priority.
The two of us stand on the icy street alone, in the meager lamplight that only emphasizes how fragile his posture looks without anyone to lean on.
“Lyle, I’m so sorry—”
My arms are barely open when his weight collapses into mine. His whole body shudders with grief as I solidify my footing, determined to keep him upright. Even the throb in my shoulder won’t stop me from supporting my friend.
“Thank you for coming,” he chokes out.
“We never should have separated,” I say. “I should’ve been here when your mother’s head was found. If there’s anything I can do—”
“You’re here now. Just stay like this for a minute.”
We grieve until the fatigue sinks into our bones. Eventually, he pulls away first, wiping his eyes.
“I’m sorry for interrupting your time with Claire,” he says, exhaling fog.
“Don’t be. She encouraged me to come. I just don’t know how you’re not yelling at Marshal Payen for losing the cultist.”
“Please, don’t blame Abby. It wasn’t her fault. You’ll understand once I explain what happened.”
“I want an explanation from her—” The name snags my focus. “ ‘Abby?’ ”
“She told me to drop the title.” He shrugs, stare low. “I think she sensed I needed a friend, so she stepped up. Kind of like what she’s doing now.”
Through the front window, I check on Claire—again.
She sips tea with Marshal Payen by the fireside and feeds fresh-baked bread to Lucy.
Something Lucy does out of sight makes her laugh.
Marshal Payen does too—but somehow the attentiveness in her expression only makes me feel worse for leaving Lyle without a best friend.
A marshal shouldn’t have felt the need to step in.
“I’m sorry,” I say again.
“We promised you an explanation.” Lyle nods up the lamplit road. “Walk with me.”
“Are you certain Varsonne is safe at night?”
“Safe as can be, considering the circumstances. Abby has increased patrols since the day she learned Ma was abducted. The town’s been locked down too. No one in or out without her direct permission. It’s full martial law.”
I rub my aching shoulder. “Jardincourt National Park was locked down. The cultists still got past Marshal Bard’s perimeter.”
“We discovered the reason for that.” He halts. “Magic.”
My stomach lurches. “The prisoner used magic on you?”
“On himself.” He steadies me by the good shoulder. “Abel, the cultists can fly. They turn into owls.”
I nearly fall over.
“Owls?”
“Shocked?” He smiles grimly. “Imagine witnessing it.”
A dragon’s transformation is violent and grotesque. Body parts contort. Skin splits open. Steam spills from every orifice. My imagination can hardly fathom a human shrinking into an aloof, temperate owl.
I stammer. “How did you discover that?”
“Originally, we stuck to the plan. We released the prisoner every night for several days, from different points in the city.” He points downhill, where we came from, then uphill, toward the forested mountain trails, presumably where the silverwolf attacks occur.
“No matter where we started, he ran toward the mountains every time, screaming and begging for eau de vie. And every time, he eventually went off the trail and into the trees. If he got too far, a gendarme shot him, then arrested him again. The plan was working great. We were getting a good idea of his destination.”
“What changed?”
“The full moon,” he says, and my heart beats faster. “Once it came out, he looked at it, then just…turned.”
“And flew away?”
“Dropped his clothes and everything.”
Just like dragons on Ignition Day.
I don’t know how I didn’t consider it before. The War-Torn Gods have always been two sides of the same coin. When the full moon ends, the Ignition begins. Why wouldn’t their magic mirror each other in this way too? The owl symbolism was right there in the constellation.
But is Noctu’s magic a perfect mirror? That man appeared sickly.
And if the owl form lasts until daybreak, Marshal Bard’s brigade should’ve found naked and confused vagabonds in Jardincourt National Park, not cultists in full uniform.
I don’t see how they could’ve tried to assassinate me without some kind of control over their flight path.
“Was the shift voluntary?” I ask.
“Good question. We couldn’t tell.”
“I bet they stash supplies in preparation for reverting to human form. Did you find any stockpiles?”
“You’re one step ahead of me.” He grins. “Abby used hunting hounds to track the scent on the prisoner’s clothing. They led us to a few well-camouflaged stashes in the forest. They really know how to hide, Abel. They must’ve been at this for a while.”
“At what, though? Bringing forth the feathered apocalypse?” I make a helpless gesture. “Noctu chose to give them an animal form that makes no sense for his agenda. Compared to the damage that dragons do, Noctu’s magic should be apocalyptic.”
Like his meteorite strikes. So why turn murderous humans into harmless owls?
“And then there’s the mystery of eau de vie and what it means to them,” I continue, thinking aloud, but ultimately shake my head. “Lyle, why did Marshal Payen want us to come here? Does she see something that I don’t?”
He works his jaw, then finally comes out with it.
“Abby suspects a dragon can track the cultists.”
It is a miracle that I remain standing. Truly a miracle, because the madness of that theory fills my blood with fury. That’s what the Gendarmerie need me to help with? They want me to spend the last of Claire’s lifetime on their investigation?
“I’m leaving,” I choke out.
“Stop!”
Lyle grabs my arm. I try to yank it away, but pain buckles my shoulder. He releases me as quickly as he stopped me. “Sorry.”
“I would have done anything to save your mother, but she’s gone now.” My fists shake. “Give me a good reason to sacrifice Claire’s last wishes just to help the Gendarmerie close a case.”
“Look at this map of Florent,” he says, unfurling one from the protective tube.
Haphazard hand-drawn lines cut through the harsh topography of the Northern Alps.
“These lines mark the paths the prisoner took each time we released him. This circle”—he taps a high mountain pass—“is where we believe he was headed.”
Under the mountain pass Lyle circled, he scrawled the words Eau de vie is located somewhere in here. But the pass lacks fine detail, as if even the cartographer didn’t dare traverse it.
“So what?” I reply.
“Remember your journal,” he says. “Micah showed fixation on the owl constellation.”
Shame strikes my chest like a barb. “You read my research. When?”