Page 56

“The other shelter,” I repeated. I’d left just before Élise opened for the day, and it had taken me some time to reach Rue Sainte-Sophie—my tram had been late, then broken down, leaving me to wade through the fresh snow. I’d left Élise alone, with no idea of the stampede that was about to ensue, and no backup.

Without another word, I dropped the newspaper and dashed out the door.

The tram came to a stop a block before Rue des Hirondelles, the way being obstructed by a crowd. The driver shouted at us to disembark, and we did so confusedly. I paused to help an elderly woman, shielding her from being jostled as we clambered out, my heartbeat thundering in my ears the whole while. I wanted to believe all this was some political demonstration, and yet I could not quite convince myself.

My fears were confirmed as I turned onto Rue des Hirondelles and saw, up ahead, the density of the crowd—two hundred strong at least—concentrate around a particular row of shops: those that included the shelter.

I let out an inarticulate moan. All these people had come for our cats? We’d had thirty-one available for adoption when I’d closed the shelter the previous night. What on earth would we do? Surely Pierre would help, but he couldn’t possibly have enough cats to appease everybody. And what would happen when they found we had run out—start a riot?

Oh, how I rued asking for Havelock’s help! I should have known any assistance given to us by magicians would end in disaster.

I jostled and bumped my way through the crowd, muttering apologies as I hurried up the hill, past the little square, where the benches beneath the maples and the tables outside La Fin all sat empty. A few people warned me to stop, one man even grabbing my arm. This, coupled with the frisson of fear running through the crowd, convinced me, slowly but surely, that whatever this was, it had nothing to do with the cats, nor the article in the Gazette.

I finally reached the fringe of the crowd, which formed a neat horseshoe around the shelter, leaving the sidewalk and road clear.

A curiously mundane scene greeted me. An elegant woman stood on the sidewalk beyond the threshold, hands stuffed casually in the pockets of her sweeping maroon cloak. She appeared to be conversing with Élise, who stood just inside. Four men and one woman, also elegantly dressed, stood in a loose knot in the street, regarding the woman in the maroon cloak. Just beyond them, a dishevelled man was slumped against the side of the shelter, a sad background detail unheeded by those around him. Otherwise, Rue des Hirondelles seemed its usual, quaint self.

And yet, upon closer inspection, the details jarred. The man slumped against the building was not a luckless panhandler, but Yannick, his head falling forward onto his chest so that I could not see his face, nor tell if he was alive or dead. The door to the shelter was simply gone; upon the threshold was an odd scatter of ashy sand, as if it had been consumed in a sudden, localized inferno. Élise wore an expression of furious desperation that was terrible to behold.

A generalized mutter ran through the crowd of onlookers, of which I caught only scraps. From the sky, I kept hearing. They fell—the snow—from the sky.

I knew then that the calm of the scene before me was misleading, and I was gazing into the eye of a storm.

Crumbs of snow swirled along the street, buffeted by a winter wind that numbed my mouth and cheeks. But there was something off about it; the eddies were contrary, and the snow fell heavier in some places than others, as if it were being shaken through an uneven sieve. Something had disrupted the elements, and given the smell of magic in the air, I could guess what it had been.

It was clear that Valérie could not enter the shelter, or could not enter it yet, or she would have been inside already. I did not like my odds of shoving my way through Valérie’s apprentices to reach Élise, so I turned and fled into the crowd. I reached Oksana’s bookshop and wrenched the door open.

“You again!” the woman began—she was at the window, looking out from between two teetering stacks of books. She yelled something after me, but I was already through her back door.

I had a brief view of the lane and the snowbound Parc Saint-Aimé beyond, where several oblivious children were building snowmen, before hastening to the rear of the shelter. No door was visible, but Havelock had told me that it was hidden by enchantment on this side.

I ran my hands over the stone wall, hoping that I could locate it by touch. But my fingers found only frost and ice that had settled between the cracks. Frustrated, I began pounding at the wall, and then I heard a sound from the other side: His Majesty, yowling as if he were enduring some dire torment.

“Your Majesty!” I called. “It’s all right—it’s me!”

He continued to caterwaul, which was useful; he was loudest near the centre of the wall, and after running my hands over the icy stone, I finally found the doorknob, much lower than it should have been, which became visible when I grasped it, as did the door.

The door flew open and I rushed inside, whereupon I immediately stumbled over His Majesty. He wove between my legs, making himself as much of an obstruction as possible, yowling at me with a petulant air. To my relief, he seemed unharmed.

“Hush, Your Majesty,” I said soothingly, assuming that he was upset about the unfolding catastrophe outside, but he only went and stood beside his empty food bowl, then turned to look at me hopefully.

“Oh, for—” I managed to leap over the cat and reach the main shop. Élise jumped when I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Agnes,” she said, looking both relieved and disappointed. “I thought you were Havelock. Where the hell is he? She can’t get in, but those horses might.”

Horses? I thought, but this was not the most pertinent detail. “He isn’t in his workshop?” I said.

“My brother is in the Rivenwood,” Valérie said. She stood just beyond the threshold, watching us, her posture casual. She might have been a neighbour stopping by for some friendly gossip. “We had a run-in last night. I managed to trap him in that world, which is why I’m paying you a visit. I think I shall have an easier time of shattering Havelock’s wards without him around to interfere.”

I felt myself sway and grabbed the doorframe to steady myself. Havelock was trapped in the Rivenwood? How? And who was going to get him out? “What did you do to Yannick?” I demanded.

Valérie glanced at his slumped form absently, as if she’d forgotten he was there. While Havelock’s unusual features could be considered beautiful, the version of them that Valérie wore was far from striking. Her eyes were larger and overwide, her chin too delicate, which together put me in mind of some guileless woodland creature, and her stature was on the short side. The strength of her presence came not from beauty but the calm composure she wore like another skin, the sense that nothing was beyond her ability to solve, or ruin, depending on the direction her whims took. She was the most unnerving person I’d ever come across, and yet I could also perceive, had our goals been aligned, how desperate I would have been to befriend her. Her apprentices watched her with a mixture of amusement and admiration, not even slightly nervous about the outcome of this confrontation, as if they were only looking forward to a performance by a master.

And why would they be nervous? There were no magicians standing in the way of their goal, only Havelock’s wards, which, given the meagre remnants of the door I felt underfoot, did not feel particularly secure at the moment.

My grip tightened on the doorframe.

“Poor Yannick,” Valérie said. “He’ll be all right—I only put him to sleep. Unlike Havelock, I try to avoid killing apprentices.”