him still there on the floor, a flat darkening in the debris.
She worked quickly now, feeling the cold despite her bravado. The dress and cloak and petticoats, the corset, garters, stockings. Shoes. Reticule. She picked up everything, stepping carefully over the glass, folded it, and set it all upon the table by her hat.
Rhys apparently found his voice. 'What are you doing?' he demanded as she began to open the door to the alley. 'Zoe! You can't go out there like that!'
'Don't worry. I'll be back soon.' And she closed the door gently behind her.
She was insane. She must be. It was the only explanation. Why else would a grown woman—
He cast out his senses to find her again, frantically. It took him a good long moment to separate himself from the abandoned storeroom with her garments. He tried to focus on her—eyes, lips, anything—but what he kept seeing was the hem of her gown, a demure purpled fold draped carelessly over the edge of the table, trimmed with gray ribbon. Feminine. Discarded.
Then he was back in the coach yard. He was gazing out from the same place as before when he'd first caught sight of her, all the dim-faced people shoved into their lines, carriages careening through, rumpled passengers emerging from dark interiors to squint at the light of day.
And Zoe. Right there, right there, picking her way nude through the stiffened mud, arms out, lips compressed, every single steed she passed bucking in its traces to the shouts of the coachmen and guards.
No one human even glanced at her. A modern-day Godiva, tiptoeing through a mass of Others, sunlight bouncing off her bright hair and bare skin like a halo from heaven itself. And no one even looked.
Getting through the main doors was the most difficult part. She had to wait until the family clumped there were summoned inside en masse, father-mother-daughter-daughter-son, until there was room enough to sidle by them. Even still she'd bumped the elbow of the eldest daughter, who swatted at the air in a distracted sort of way, listening to her father argue for better seats on the stage to Limoges.
The clerk had slouched back in his chair with the weary mien of a man who'd suffered too long a day already. He certainly didn't look up as Zoe slipped around his desk, moving quickly and silently to the door of M. Racine.
It was still only barely open. She was pushing it gradually wider, wider, until a sudden gust of wind from the main doors yanked it out of her hand, banging the edge hard against the wall.
The clerk gave an irritated sigh and scraped back his chair. She just managed to dart inside before he grabbed the knob and slammed the door shut.
Well. Here she was.
Monsieur Racine was not at his desk today, it seemed. His office was cramped and crammed from floor to ceiling with books and ledgers: leather-bound, cloth-bound, stacks and stacks of them. His oil lamps were unlit; his fireplace held a mound of gray-feathered ash, the coal bucket empty beside it. Another map on the wall, and a small, crude watercolor of a church. A rug, surprisingly plush, covered most of the floor; a caped greatcoat still swayed gently from its hook on the back of the door.
She shivered, reaching for the greatcoat. The sole window was shrouded with blond lace curtains and blocked with a fern on a pedestal. No one would see, and there was no sense in freezing before she was done.
Books. She started with the shelves closest to her, but they were all just columns of accounts, sums of figures with odd abbreviations, sorted by year. Nothing about passengers. She moved on to the next shelf, and the glass face of the map of France shifted into dusk.
'Zoe?' His voice was very soft now.
'Yes,' she whispered, even softer, her unseen finger tracing the years imprinted on the spines in front of her. 'I can't talk now.'
1777. 1778. 1779 ...
Approvisionnements. Chevaux. Bureaux des douanes.
'Zoe . why is it no one sees you?' Clients.
She let out her breath in relief, pulling free the book
'Zee.'
'Yes, fine.' She willed herself visible, sparing him a swift glance before going back to the book. 'Invisibility. Another Gift.'
'Er .'
He sounded strange, strange enough for her to pause and shoot him a longer look. The smoke defining his edges lifted into coils, nearly alive; otherwise the shade of Lord Rhys Langford was motionless against the pastel colors of the map.
'What?' she asked, losing patience.
'Nothing. Sorry.' He seemed to run a hand through his hair. 'Please, do carry on with your incredibly reckless behavior.'
A retort was on the tip of her tongue, but just then the heavy book shifted in her hands, and she glimpsed what she needed, what she'd been searching and hoping for all these weeks. She bent her head to the page and the words died unsaid.
The entry had been scratched by a quill clearly needing fresh ink. The letters were sketchy, almost faded, but their meaning came clear as crystal:
29 mai. Henri Jones, Anglais par l'intermediaire de Calais. Cocher a Dijon: Alain Fortin. Paye entierement, pieces d'or.
Henry Jones, an Englishman by way of Calais, on his way to Dijon. Paid in gold.
Hayden James. He wouldn't use his real name, of course not. And he would carry coin with him instead of vouchers; it was safer. More anonymous.
The timing, the particulars. It was he. It had to be.
'Someone's coming,' warned the shadow.
She had time to drop the book and shrug out of the coat, scooting far back against the wall. The porcelain knob turned and a new man entered, not the potbellied clerk. He was thin and bespectacled and bearded; his first glance was to the cold hearth. His second was to his greatcoat and the book, lying haphazard upon the floor.
He walked forward and Zoe walked back, their steps exactly matched until she hit a corner and there was nowhere else to go. She held her breath, trying to be as quiet as possible as the man bent down to scoop the coat up over his arm, then grabbed the book. He stood in place, examining the empty spot in the shelves where the book should be, all the other spines still neatly aligned, then shrugged and slipped it back into line. He rehung the greatcoat and rubbed his hands against the chill, glancing once more at the hearth. But instead of searching for more coals for his fire he busied himself with lighting the lamps, one after another, until the room fairly blazed with light.
Then he sat at his desk. He pulled papers from a drawer, a strongbox of coins and notes, leaning close over them as Zoe inched around him, actually sucking in her stomach when he raised an arm to rub at his neck.
'I fail to understand what you've gained by this,' complained the shadow from his place on the wall.
A name. An actual time and date, and the name of the coachman who had carried Hayden away to silence.
'And now you're trapped,' Rhys went on. He sounded aggravated, stretching to fill the boundaries of the glass. 'He locked the door, I saw it. So much for clever ideas. What now, Lady
Godiva?'
She threw a quelling look to the glass, even knowing he couldn't see it. In three steps she was back at the door. Zoe lifted her hand and rapped the wood twice, imperious.
The man glanced up. He placed the box back inside the desk, removed his spectacles, and walked to the door—she squeezed out of his way by pressing flat against the wall—then opened it wide.
Before he'd even finished peering around at the empty space she was filling it, half-hopping in her haste to get by.
