Blood Spirits (42 page)

Most of my hostility leaked out as I met his sympathetic smile. “I know.”

Gilles leaned forward. “So you knew the marriage was . . . not happy?”

Bang. The hostility was back, full force. “I
told
you, I did not have any communication
whatsoever
with anyone here. But I was not impressed by the way her family talked about her last summer. And treated her. Since you were in Paris, did anyone tell you that she spent the
entire summer
as her brother's prisoner, and her mother knew it? Alec spent the whole spring trying to find her.”

Jerzy was still smiling sympathetically. I thought,
How much do you know about your beloved half-sister's evil plots?

One of the film guys dropped a piece of equipment with a crash. Another argument broke out, and Jerzy gave a gentle sigh and murmured in Dobreni, “These are the only workers you could find?”

“The only ones willing to come here and on little pay,” Gilles returned in the same language. Then he got up and started yelling at his minions in rapid, idiomatic French.

I decided that this would be the perfect moment to get out of there. I got up. My chair scraped. Gilles turned to me expectantly.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Bathroom break.” I ran upstairs, carefully shut my door instead of kicking it to splinters, and threw myself on my bed.

The familiar ghost chill roughed the skin on my arms and the back of my neck. I sat up, dug the prism out of my pocket, set it down on the nightstand, and reached for the wardrobe door.

There was Grandfather Armandros, cigarette burning, his gaze boring straight through me.

“Esplumoir,” he said, the voice going straight inside my skull without benefit of ears. “Esplumoir.
Esplumoir
.”

TWENTY-FIVE

M
Y DAD TOLD ME, when I hit those angsty early teens, that going to bed angry only guarantees a lousy day before you even wake up.

I kept telling myself that I wasn't angry. Yet I was. And frustrated. Not to mention hungry, having stayed in my room to avoid any more encounters. Every day seemed to get longer, wilder, raise more questions, without ever giving me enough answers.

Esplumoir?
What was
that?
The maddening thing was, I knew I'd heard it before. But there was no handy Google Search to plug the word into—assuming I heard it correctly enough to guess at the spelling.

After long series of nightmares full of car crashes, Buffy-style vamp blood fests and a general sensation of being watched, I rolled out of bed at the first hint of dawn, hungry as I was, and did a hundred pushups. Then I put myself through a full workout until my muscles went stringy.

But when I went to take a bath my brain still felt like it was going to explode. I needed one quiet day. Just one. But I knew I wasn't going to get it. There was that gala ball to go to. I could skip it. On the other hand, I hate missing a chance to dance. On the third hand, who would care if I didn't show up? Alec would. The memory of that kiss helped banish at least half of the irritation.

But then came the questions. There he was, ready to march up to a firing squad, and I was convinced that he hadn't even been in the front seat of his car. Except that in my prism vision, Ruli wasn't in the car at all, yet it was Alec's Daimler at the bottom of the gulch. How to explain any of that?

I got out of the tub, dressed, and sidled past the row of bags, boxes, and suitcases lined up along the wall. Looked like all the Waleskas' mountain relatives and patrons were preparing to return home from their holiday.

I peered around the bend in the stair to make sure no Gilles, Goths, or von Mecklundburgs of any make or model lurked among the breakfast guests.

What I saw was a complete breakfast, waiting. Theresa sat nearby, wearing a burgundy velvet dress with lace at collar and sleeves. Next to her sat a thin, familiar teen with long, dark red braids, her coke-bottle glasses flashing as she laughed at something Theresa whispered. She was wearing a pretty dress made of robin's egg blue wool, edged with ribbon, and embroidered with darker blue amaranth flowers.

“Is that breakfast for me?” I said, summoning up a smile.

“I heard you in the bath,” Theresa said, beaming at me. “It is right above the kitchen.”

“Thank you. Is that Miriam?” I said, recognizing one of Theresa's two best friends from my summer stay. I offered a heartfelt smile and the girl's face flooded with delight.

“Mademoiselle Dsaret,” she whispered, and after a nudge from Theresa, she asked faintly, “You said to Theresa you are coming to the concert.”

Theresa said, “Everyone is going. My grandfather says you may ride with us to the temple if you wish. He and Father have gone to get the wagon.”

I had completely forgotten the New Year's concert including Nat's sweetie, the tenor. Ordinarily I'd jump at the chance to hear good music, but I really, really wanted a quiet day. Half a quiet day. I glanced at the window, cravenly hoping to be saved by a blizzard, but the low winter sunrays slanting up the street, highlighting the snow piles and the windows of the opposite houses, made it clear that the weather was not going to rescue me.

So I said the only thing possible. “Thank you. Looking forward to it.” And attacked the breakfast Theresa had brought out for me.

While I ate, the girls traded off telling me about the concert program, then Miriam and Theresa exchanged looks.

As I poured tea, Miriam whispered, “Now?”

Theresa breathed, “Wait for Katrin.”

Tall, dark-haired Katrin, Theresa's other best friend, showed up five minutes later, self-consciously smoothing a dark green dress accented with gold lace. As I greeted her, the girls looked at me expectantly, and I said, “Right. Back in a flash—” And at their uncomprehending looks, translated that into, “I will return shortly.”

I ran upstairs and put on one of the new dresses, made of autumnal rust colored, super-soft wool. Wool! Not a Los Angeles fabric, but it felt good.

When I got downstairs, one of the grandfathers appeared at the door, causing a general exodus.

I grabbed my new coat, which was hanging on its hook, but my scarf wasn't there. Yet another annoyance. After a useless hunt through the coat racks, I debated running upstairs to get the new one, then decided the heck with it. Didn't look that cold out, for once, so I slipped into my coat and followed the others out.

In the weak, watery sun the air seemed almost warm. As I clambered into the big holly-decorated wagon with the rest of the family and guests, Theresa, Miriam, and Katrin exchanged what I think they thought were subtle nudges and glances.

The wagon jolted, and the huge, shaggy horses began clopping forward. The unspoken consensus seemed to be that Theresa had to speak. To keep from embarrassing them I pretended to be looking up at the carved owls on the corbels of the next building up the street until Theresa said, “Mademoiselle.” She shifted to French, and whispered, “You will save the Statthalter, will you not?”

I gawked at the girls—three serious faces waiting for my answer.

Miriam leaned forward, hands clasped. “We will help. Tell us what to do.”

“Girls, there's . . .” I was going to say,
There's nothing
I
can do
. But I was, in fact, trying to do something. I just didn't know how successful it was going to be.

“You saved Baron de Vauban from the fire,” Miriam whispered fiercely. “And his cats. We know it. We had it straight from the butcher, whose sister is married to the father of Anijka—”

“Shhh!” Theresa patted the air, as a couple of the adults glanced our way. “Not so loud!”

Wedged next to me, Katrin scowled. “We know that for truth. And not the rumor that came after.”

I leaned toward them. “Rumors about me trying to kill him?”

Three nods.

“And I suppose there are rumors about the Statthalter and I forming a conspiracy?” I stopped.

They did not look surprised, or bewildered, but knowing.

Theresa put her mittened finger to her lips. “We do not believe such.”

“There's one way you could help. A lot,” I murmured. “Find out who is passing those rumors. Don't do anything dangerous—just listen and pay attention.”

Theresa grinned, Katrin's small mouth crimped with ill-concealed pride, and Miriam whispered, “Madeuffween, madeuffween.” I was surprised she still remembered from summer my accidental exclamation in English,
You are made of win
.

“We will,” Theresa promised.

We got to the temple not long after. Two steps inside, and I rocked back on my heels, my eyes trying to take in the intricate, gloriously colored art that covered every bit of wall and ceiling space.

The family filed into a couple of pews. Already the place was nearly packed, and the concert wasn't supposed to begin until noon. But there was a gallery, I saw, and people were filing in there, too, under elaborate paintings of lions blowing horns, twined flowers of all kinds, including the deep blue of the amaranth. There was an onion-domed, walled city done in stylized perspective, with doves flocking skyward toward stars and clouds encircled by more interwoven decorations.

Miriam had disappeared. Theresa said, “She is singing today.”

“Do you know what this art represents?” I asked.

Katrin said, “The Tower of Babel. The Babylonian Captivity. Zion. Jerusalem of olden times.”

“Music.” Theresa pointed to representations of cymbals, horns, lyres, and other instruments worked in. But easily the most beautiful was that depiction of a Jerusalem that probably never was nearly so grand, making me wonder what Jerusalem would be like in the Nasdrafus, and would Jews, Muslims, and Christians get along there? Or was some other kind of religious expression ruling there? I'd have to ask Beka—and there she was, sitting near the front with her entire family.

The von Mecklundburgs were sitting across the aisle from them—all, that is, except Tony.

And Honoré.

A rustle and a clearing of throats from up above, in the gallery behind us, indicated the music was about to begin. There was a tap on my shoulder, and a “Squeeze up.”

Nat plopped next to me just as a single male voice began a wordless melody, poignantly minor key. One by one, other voices joined, young and old, male and female, rising to a crescendo of emotional power, and then fading as the voices dropped out. Never a word spoken, yet the effect was as strong as if Wordsworth or Hopkins had been set to music.

“That's the Fifth Day
nigun
,” Nat whispered. “Also, for Ruli.”

“I need to talk to you about that,” I whispered back.

“Not here.”

The program began. Nat nudged me once to say, “My Stavros,” when a tall guy, built like a fullback, rose to sing a solo. He had a Heldentenor voice, powerful enough to launch rockets, well up to the demands of “
Mes amis, écoutez l'histoire
,” a terrific opera aria that ends on a soaring note that nearly blew the roof off.

The climax was introduced as a new composition. It was that poignant song with the tritones and diminished fifths, played by that boy I'd first heard in summer, and again at Zorfal on Christmas Day: Misha. As the entire choir, children and adults responded antiphonally, the clarinet wound around the voices like liquid gold.

“I want that on iTunes,” I breathed after the thunderous applause began to die away. “What is it about, besides Xanpia?”

“Xanpia's Wreath.” Nat chuckled. “Some say Xanpia's Halo. History is mixed on it, my sweetie told me. Some think it was only a love song, then it was gussied up with religious context, as often happened to popular songs during the Middle Ages. But when the country got whacked last century, it got politicized—called the
Song of Freedom
, they changed the verse to ‘open the door to freedom' instead of ‘open the door to my heart' and so it was forbidden. Anyway, this is a new arrangement, and some people are trying to get that kid to a recording studio,” Nat said. “I hope those guys got it on tape.”

She pointed with her chin to the other side of the gallery, where Gilles's film crew were busy with their lights, cameras, and other equipment. I looked away, not wanting to spoil the after-music exhilaration by remembering how annoying Gilles had been the day before.

As people got up and began retrieving coats and pulling on wraps, I said, “Coming to the gala tonight?”

Nat grinned. “Got a gig. But you should go. Rock out.” Her smile faded. “Better, get Alec to rock out. I saw him last night on a bit of city business, and he looked like death warmed over.”

“If I dance with him, then all those conspiracy jerks will be yapping.”

“Do it anyway.” She bopped me on the shoulder. “They're gonna yap whatever you do. Gotta run. Chill!”

“Wait! There's something—”

She glanced back, half obscured by the people crowding out. She mouthed something in which I made out the word
Beka
, and then she vanished.

I'd taken two steps before I was nearly mowed down by Beka, who barreled up to me like a guided missile—a short one. “Come,” she said over her shoulder.

She drew me through a side door, where it was quiet. A lamp burned on a small table, and farther along the hall I heard laughing voices, and someone sang a snatch of song: the choir members were getting ready to leave.

Beka looked both ways, then whispered in English, “You know where Gilles and his fools were yesterday?”

“Yes, they were at the inn, harassing me.”

She made an impatient gesture. “I know about that. Before—while we were at the crash site. They were at the cathedral, doing their best to talk the bishop around to letting them open Ruli's tomb.”