On This Unworthy Scaffold, Heidi Heilig [best books to read for success .txt] 📗

Le Trépas has been here—is he here still? I try the handle, but the door is locked. I’ll be taking the servants’ entrance after all. Back down the stairs, I turn toward the north side of the house. My feet sink into the green grass of the soft lawn as I pass by the arched openings of the veranda. I falter when I reach the windows of the great room. The gas lamps are now off.

My scalp prickles; I whirl, but there is no one behind me. My dragon waits for me on the drive—the horses have stopped, nervous, under the mimosa trees. And souls are still drifting by. Le Trépas is nowhere near. But the armée had said they’d seen other corpses. . . .

If I can catch one and pull out the soul, it might be able to tell me where the old monk is. And if I find Le Trépas, the war is over, and so are my nightmares. I will finally be able to close my eyes without his knowing smile lurking in the darkness there.

I creep closer to the rail of the veranda, but when I reach the windows, I’m not tall enough to see over the sill. Then a breeze stirs my hair, rippling through the night-blooming jasmine that cascades down the side of the house. Under the perfume of the flowers wafts a sweeter smell: the scent of rot. And still I feel eyes on the back of my head. Yet there is nothing on the lawn, and no one. Only the path, and the mimosa trees, and the carriage house off to the side . . . but its doors are shut. How did Madame’s horses escape?

My mouth is dry; I wet my lips, wishing briefly for the glass of champagne I left on the table. Then I set out toward the carriage house, souls drifting in my wake.

The squat building is made of brick and set with wide wooden doors; only Aquitans would build with brick in Chakrana. I look for a crack around the hinges or in the shuttered windows—some way to peer inside—but the building is well kept. Still, the smell wafts out, stronger now. Death.

I grab the handle, then think better of it—I’ve learned my lesson about rushing in. Drawing my little knife, I make a shallow cut in line with the older scars on my left hand. Air hisses through my teeth as blood wells up, black in the moonlight, like spilled ink on the pale palette of my palm. Tucking my knife back into my belt, I dip a finger in the blood and mark the door with the symbol of life. Eagerly, the soul of a barn rat scuttles in. I step back into the shadows and whisper to it, “Open.”

The door swings wide, but nothing springs out. Creeping closer, I peer inside. Thin moonlight barely pushes through the shutters, but the souls of mice glimmer in the grain bin, and the spirits of flies zip through the air alongside the living ones. The dim glow illuminates a figure standing in one of the horse stalls, and the straw is not as golden as her hair.

Madame Audrinne was always lovely in the way the Aquitans prize: plump and pale and proud, with those wide foreign eyes. Cornflower blue, she used to say, though we don’t have cornflowers in Chakrana. My old patroness is still pale, still plump. But her eyes are a different blue—like cold fire.

The look in them chills me, but underneath the fear is something even colder: grief. She didn’t deserve this sort of death—no one does. Still, I dare not let down my guard. Though her face is familiar, the soul behind it is a mystery.

Whoever—whatever—it is, I could free it if I can get close enough. Cautiously, I approach, blood still wet on my finger. She reaches out over the stall door, but her own hands have been cut from her wrists; she cannot lift the latch to escape. All the better. But is this another trap Le Trépas has laid? Her mouth opens as she takes a labored breath, and I am relieved to see nothing behind her teeth but her blackened tongue.

“Jetta,” she whispers through cracked lips. “Jetta of the Ros Nai.”

At the name of my troupe, I freeze. “Madame?” My own reply is a croak. “Madame Audrinne?”

“Oui, ma cher,” she says in Aquitan, with the same gracious affection she always displayed. “It’s so good to see you after so long. Are you still performing? When this unpleasantness is past, we must have another show. For now, be a dear and open the door.”

I blink, gathering my thoughts as she scrabbles fruitlessly at the latch. It must be Madame’s spirit in her own corpse—I can’t imagine anyone else imitating her style. But her ice-blue eyes give away the vengeful nature of her soul. Her death had not been easy.

My stomach clenches at the thought. She had always been kind to me, and generous with payment—this Aquitan beauty, rich with Chakran wealth. The Audrinnes represented everything the rebellion was fighting against, but this was not the way to win the war. “What happened to you?”

Madame’s laugh is still musical, though the notes are duller in a dead throat. “The soldiers locked me in here,” she says. “Can you imagine?”

I take a shallow breath—the smell of death is so strong. “I meant . . . with Le Trépas.”

“Le Trépas?” The word is a snake’s hiss, and her lip curls at the mention of the monk. “He made me a lesson to my fool of a husband, who ran off to fight the deportation in Nokhor Khat. Let me out,” she adds then, still dragging the stump of her wrist across the latch. “I can still take revenge on the man who made me a target, even if I cannot kill the one who held the knife.”

“You want to kill your husband?” Is she telling the truth, or is it only some ploy Le Trépas has dreamed