“Do you have any clues?” I say, my desperation growing. The soul could be hidden in anything, anywhere. “Anyone who saw him do the spell?”
“There aren’t many souls who can reach me here, on a dusty shelf in Aquitan,” the Keeper replies, but the last words fade into nothingness.
“What if I bring you back to Chakrana?” No reply comes. I pick up the broken pot of ink and scrape at the bottom with my fingernail, but the dregs flake away like dried blood. Sitting back on my heels, I stare at the blank page. Now I know why Le Trépas left the book in Aquitan. Not only to hide the deity from the rest of us, but to hide knowledge from the deity themself. The armée needed entire battalions to disassemble the temples and erase the old ways, but Le Trépas had silenced a god with his own two hands.
The hypocrisy enrages me, but as much as I want him dead, the monk’s soul might have to wait. If I can bring the Keeper back to Chakrana, they may gather more information as souls come their way. Of course I have to convince Le Roi to let me keep the book first.
Did I have anything left to bargain with? Anything I would be willing to give up? But the king had already taken everything he could. What if I were to offer a second show? An encore performance? The thought is daunting: how long would I have to stay in Aquitan to earn a ship and the book as well?
Then again, if I could find another way home, I could tell Le Roi the ship was unnecessary. But how? How? My thoughts are racing again, leaping from topic to topic like a spark in a room full of kindling. Frustrated, I flop back onto the pile of fantouches, trying to breath, to focus. Overhead, the souls flit along the vaulted ceiling and through the hollow bones of the griffin. Such a strange creature, part cat . . . part bird.
As I stare at the broad wings, laughter bubbles up from my belly until it echoes to the stone arches. Of course I have a way home—I only have to climb up to take it. I cast about for something to stand on, but even the tallest chair in the room is not enough. But why use a chair at all?
I had heard another story once—a foreign story, from the Lion Lands—about a green silk carpet dyed with magic to make it fly. I don’t have dye, but I do have blood, so I coax down one of the souls of the bats clustered along the ceiling and draw it into the rug beneath me. It wobbles and flutters as it rises, but it’s steady enough to bring me safely alongside the pale bones of the enormous beast. When I make the symbol of life on its back, I make sure to pull a bird’s soul inside.
As she settles into the body, the bones creak and groan. Then the whole skeleton twists, swinging wildly on the thin ropes that hold it to the ceiling. If the beast flexed its wings, I’m certain the strings would snap. For a moment, my mind is aflame with the image: bursting into the light on the back of the griffin, with the book in one hand and the elixir in my pocket, leaving the king to curse the empty sky behind me.
The thought delights me—the joy and the power in it. It is only with great difficulty I push the image from my head. That may be the final act, but there is one more beat to play. Theodora is still at Les Chanceux, locked away in the sanatorium, and Le Roi will not release her as long as he thinks she can give him the secret to flight.
Of course, that secret is not his to take. I need to show him that. No . . . not only him. I need to show all the Aquitans. Theodora had the right idea the night we’d arrived, when she’d made the avion circle above the palais until the audience had grown. The king relies on public opinion—the rebellion in Chakrana is proof of that. And I will have an audience, won’t I? At the Royal Opera House tomorrow night.
Gently, I stroke the bony spine of the griffin. “Be patient,” I whisper, and she stills just as I hear the heavy scrape of the door opening above.
Has the king returned already? Frantically, I push the carpet back to the floor as his footsteps echo down the winding stairs. Squeezing the last bit of blood from my palm, I yank the bat’s soul out of the silk threads. Then I straighten up, my heart pounding, my cheeks flushed, but the carpet is flat on the floor, and the bat’s golden soul hangs off the motionless skeleton of the griffin.
“Good afternoon,” Le Roi calls as he reaches the bottom of the stair. Then he narrows his eyes. Can he see how flustered I am? “Have you chosen what show you’ll perform?”
“Of course,” I say, almost before the answer comes to me. The Keeper and the Liar is the obvious choice. A reliable standby—every troupe has a version—and though I’m sure the king has seen it before, I can make it new again. But my thoughts keep churning as I follow Le Roi’s eager gaze to the fantouches still scattered on the floor. The King of Death is there, holding his lamp, beside the tiger, with its long tail draped gracefully across the stone.
The Keeper and the Liar is about truth in art. The king needs to know the truth about power. A new idea flickers across my mind’s eye, painted on a scrim in
