The Runaway Queen

balloon in the middle of Paris.

Even an invisible one. Paris was just too . . . spiky.

There was only one thing for it, and

Magnus already hated it.

“Your Majesty,” he said, prodding the queen with his foot. “Your Majesty, you must wake up.”

The queen stirred again.

“Now,” Magnus said, “you won’t like what I am about to say, but trust me when I say it is the best of several terrible alternatives. . . .”

“Axel. . . .”

“Yes. Now, in a minute we are going to land in the Seine—”

“What?”

“And it would be very good if you perhaps held your nose. And I’m guessing your dress is full of jewels, so . . .”

The balloon was dropping fast, and the water was coming up. Magnus carefully navigated them to a spot between two bridges.

“You may get—”

The balloon simply dropped like a stone. The fire went out, and the silk immediately came down on Magnus and the queen. Magnus was almost out of strength, but he managed to find enough to rend the silk in two so it didn’t trap them. He swam on his own power, pulling her under his arm to the bank.

They were, as he’d hoped, quite close to the Tuileries and its dock. He got her over to the steps and threw her down.

“Stay here,” he said, dripping wet and panting.

But the queen was unconscious again.

Magnus envied her.

He trudged up the steps and back up onto the streets of Paris. Axel would probably have been circling the area.

They had agreed that if anything went wrong, Magnus was to send a blue flash into the sky, like a firework. He did it.

Then he sank to the ground and waited.

About fifteen minutes later a carriage pulled up—not the simple, plain one from before but a massive one, in black and green and yellow. One that could easily carry half a dozen or more people for several days, in the grandest of possible styles. Axel hopped down from the driver’s seat and rushed to Magnus.

“Where is she? Why are you wet?

What has happened?”

“She’s fine,” Magnus said, putting up a hand. “This is the carriage? A berline de voyage?”

“Yes,” von Fersen said. “Their

Majesties insist. And it would be unseemly for them to arrive in something less grand.”

“And impossible not to be noticed!”

For the first time von Fersen looked uncomfortable. He had clearly hated this idea and had fought it.

“Yes, well . . . this is the carriage.

But . . .”

“She’s on the steps. We had to land in the river.”

“Land?”

“It’s a long story,” Magnus said.

“Let’s just say things got complicated.

But she is alive.”

Axel got to his knees in front of

Magnus.

“You will never be forgotten for this,”

Axel said in a low voice. “France will remember. Sweden will remember.”

“I don’t care if France or Sweden remembers. I care if you remember.”

Magnus was genuinely shocked when it was Axel who instigated the kiss—

how sudden it was, how passionate, how all of Paris, and all the vampires, and the Seine and the balloon and everything fell away and it was just the two of them for one moment. One perfect moment.

And it was Magnus who broke it.

“Go,” he whispered. “I need you to be safe. Go.”

Axel nodded, looking a bit shocked at his own action, and ran to the dock steps. Magnus got up, and with one last look started to walk.

Going home was not an option. Saint

Cloud’s vampires were probably at his apartments right now. He had to get inside until dawn. He spent the night at the petite maison of Madame de ——, one of his more recent lovers. At dawn he returned to his apartments. The front door was ajar. He made his way inside cautiously.

“Claude!” he called, carefully staying in the pool of sunlight by the door.

“Marie! Ragnor!”

“They are not here, monsieur,” said a voice.

Henri. Of course. He was sitting on the staircase.

“Did you hurt them?”

“We took the ones called Claude and

Marie. I don’t know who Ragnor is.”

“Did you hurt them?” Magnus said again.

“They are beyond hurt now. My master asked me to send his compliments. He said they made for excellent feasting.”

Magnus felt sick. Marie and Claude had been good to him, and now . . .

“Master would like very much to see you,” Henri said. “Why don’t we go there together, now, and you can speak when he wakes this evening.”

“I think I’ll decline the invitation,”

Magnus said.

“If you do, I think you will find Paris a most inhospitable place to live. And who is that new gentleman of yours?

We’ll find his name eventually. Do you understand?”

Henri stood, and tried to look menacing, but he was a mundane, a darkling of seventeen.

“What I think, little darkling,” Magnus said, stepping closer, “is that you forget who you’re dealing with.”

Magnus allowed some blue sparks to flick between his fingers. Henri backed up a step.

“Go home and tell your master that

I’ve gotten his message. I have given offense that I did not mean to give. I will leave Paris at once. The matter can be considered closed.

I accept my punishment.”

He stepped away from the door and extended his arm, indicating that Henri should exit.

As he’d expected, everything was a shambles—furniture overturned, burn marks up the walls, art missing, books shredded. In his bedchamber wine had been poured onto his bed and his clothes. . . . At least he thought it was wine.

Magnus didn’t take long to pick through the wreckage. With the flick of his hand, the marble fireplace moved away from the wall. He retrieved a sack heavy with louis d’or, a thick roll of assignats, and a collection of wonderful rings in citrine, jade, ruby, and one magnificent blue topaz.

This was his insurance policy, should the revolutionaries have raided his house. Vampires, revolutionaries . .