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

claims the man desecrated the temple by opening the altar and stealing their religious book, supposedly bound in the skin of the very deity to which the temple has been dedicated: a Book of Knowledge, if you will. He says that this book is how Le Trépas gained so much power. Unfortunately, the monk died before the questioneur could glean any more information about the book’s contents.

With Le Trépas himself in custody, it might be worth questioning him as to the current location of this artifact. It’s clearly an important symbol to the religious fringe; indeed, the monk we captured seems to believe that the soul of the Keeper of Knowledge can be found inside the book.

As to our orders, my men and I will be finished at Temple Fourteen much sooner than anticipated. Our next assignment is Temple Thirty-Four, to the northeast. You can expect my next report upon our arrival there.

Chapter Four

The soft sound of a violin—a distantly familiar tune—makes me open my eyes. When I do, I am gazing at Aquitan.

A painting of Lephare, to be exact. City of Lights. The artist has captured it at dawn, gilding each gabled roof and the tall spire of their famous cathedral. I know the work well—it hangs over Madame Audrinne’s velvet settee.

I am lying on the couch in the great room. Morning light gleams through the expensive glass of the tall windows. The wooden floors glow honey gold under the scattered armée bedrolls. The soldiers must have been camping out here. Had they thought that the last time they’d see Lephare was in the gilded frame?

Once I had hoped to travel there myself. Now the dream of visiting Aquitan is at least as distant as my life as a shadow player. Still, this room was where that dream began, inspired by another work of art on the walls: a depiction of Les Chanceux, the spring that treats madness. Theodora’s uncle—Le Roi Fou, the mad King of Aquitan—takes the waters there. When Madame Audrinne had first told me the story, I had assumed it was magic that kept Le Roi’s madness at bay, and not the lytheum salts dissolved in the water.

Madame Audrinne . . . the memories of last night surface slowly, like bodies in a still pond. The soldier, the fight . . . my hand goes to my ribs; the makeshift bandage there has a floral pattern that matches the curtains on the high windows. Gingerly, I prod at the dressing to try to gauge the severity of the knife wound underneath. The pain makes me gasp.

“Just rest,” Leo says gruffly, his face looming into my vision. He holds the neck of a violin in his hand, and now I recognize the music I’d heard earlier: the broken melody of the song he’d been working on the last few weeks, so new it doesn’t even have a name. “The Audrinnes had some excellent medical supplies, but you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I didn’t lose it,” I reply with a twist of a smile. “It’s in the carriage house.”

Leo doesn’t laugh at my joke. “You could have died out there.”

“Could have, would have . . .” The look on his face stops me short. “I didn’t, though.”

“Because Cam and I found you first!”

My heart sinks. I can already imagine Camreon’s disappointment. “Where is he?”

“Trying to string the dragon back together,” Leo says, and I wince at the memory of the blast. Leo kneels beside the couch so that we’re eye to eye. “What were you thinking, running off alone?”

“It was your idea in the first place!”

“It was?” Theodora’s voice surprises me; I hadn’t realized she was here too. I lift my head from the arm of the settee to find her seated at the writing desk, flipping delicately through a stack of old papers with ink-stained fingers. The painting of Les Chanceux hangs just above her, but it looks strange to me. Smaller than I remember. “You didn’t mention that part, Leonin.”

“I wanted to take her to the lytheum mine,” he replies stiffly. “Perhaps you can see why.”

“I had to know what happened here,” I say, defensive.

“Was it worth the risk?”

“There were clues, just like I thought.” The memories are coming in a wave. I push upright again—my ribs throb, but I ignore the pain. “Madame told me the monk is immortal.”

“Immortal?” I can hear the curiosity in Theodora’s voice. “That is interesting.”

Leo turns to his sister. “Do you mind?”

“Well, it is,” Theodora says mildly, still looking down at the papers on the desk. “And if it’s true, we’ll have to come up with a long-term solution to keep him locked away safely. I wonder if he found the secret of immortality in the book.”

“What book?” I ask. Leo throws his hands in the air, sitting down hard on a nearby ottoman, his back to both of us. Theodora ignores him, turning to me.

“I’ve been looking through Monsieur Audrinne’s paperwork. He served in the armée under my father. . . .” Her voice breaks on the word. General Legarde—the elder General Legarde, her father and Leo’s—had died only a few months before their brother.

In the silence, Leo returns to his violin, plucking out a few gentle notes, and his sister swallows, gathering herself to continue.

“Some of Audrinne’s incident reports are from just after La Victoire,” she says. “Apparently Le Trépas stole a book from the Keeper of Knowledge.”

“Where is it now?” I ask her, but she shrugs.

“I haven’t found anything else that mentions it. Still, wouldn’t a Book of Knowledge be fascinating?” A familiar sparkle lights her eyes—one that had been missing in the last few weeks. She turns to me. “Do you remember seeing my father’s old journals? He wrote about overseeing the destruction of the temples after La Victoire. I often got the sense that he was searching for something. I wonder if it was the book.”

“We can assume he never found it,” Leo interjects, his head still bent over the violin. “Or they’d both still be here.”

Even without saying their names, I know