Page 34 of A Treachery of Swans

I turn to glance at the Dauphin. The prince’s face is buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking as he tries to muffle his crying.

“Aimé?” I ask, uncertain.

The Dauphin drags his sleeve over his eyes. “Forgive me,” he says hoarsely. “He was only ever disappointed in me. I don’t know why I am upset at all.”

His words strike a strange chord inside me. I know this, understand it somehow: why the Dauphin mourns a cruel man. It’s what might have been. The missed chances to prove himself, the pride he will never see in his father’s eyes. The scarce memories of softer moments, where his father might touch his shoulder, or listen to his worries, or even smile from a distance. Small kindnesses, ones that would make it all worth it.

I shake my head sharply and turn back to the King’s body, unwilling to acknowledge the sympathetic pain blooming in my chest. The Dauphin is a fool to show this weakness in front of me, I decide. He’s a fool for letting himself fall apart at all.

“I was right,” I say instead, my voice ringing discomfortingly loud in the vast chamber. “There’s no way a human did this.”

The Dauphin sniffs wetly behind me. “What—what do you mean?” A second later, he steps up beside me, his face glistening with tears, his lips still pinched as though holding back another sob. “Mothers,” he whispers, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. “Mothers, how did this… what…”

“Exactly,” I say, eager to move on to a more practical topic. “I doubt this was a wolf or bear, either. These lacerations are too large.”

He shakes his head. “We don’t have such creatures in the Château’s forest anyway. Perhaps a few foxes, but—”

He cuts off as the sound of a door opening comes from the back of the chapel, followed by muted footsteps down one of the column-flanked aisles. “Who’s there?” the soft voice of a priestess calls.

“Time’s up,” I say, and snatch the Dauphin’s hand before he can protest, yanking him out of the chapel and back into the hallway. I don’t let go until we’ve reached one of the high-ceilinged corridors feeding into the entrance hall. Only there do I pull us both into an alcove and say, breathless, “Whatever left those marks was unnatural, and your uncle knows it. Perhaps that’s why he lied—to keep panic from spreading. Or perhaps…”

“You don’t think he might be responsible, do you?” Aimé asks.

“I’m not sure,” I say honestly. “I think if we figure out what did this, and how, we’ll find the one behind it all. Who has a reason to want to kill King Honoré? And where would they have gotten such a creature from?”

Aimé utters a small gasp. “Could it have been a sorcier?” Immediately he shakes his head. “But no. That’s impossible. There are no sorciers here. They left Auréal after Bartrand de Roux’s betrayal.”

“They didn’tleave,” I snap. “They fled or were chased out by angry mobs. And the Spider King did nothing to protect them.”

He stares at me, his lips parted in surprise. “Oh,” he says. “That is not what my father told me.”

“King Honoré did not know everything,” I say.

Aimé looks down at his hands, and I notice they’re trembling slightly. “This is all wrong,” he says, voice tight. “I have to tell my stepmother. And my uncle. Damien is innocent; I must get them tolet him go and put the guard on alert for this creature. I—”

He moves to step past me, and I grab his arm. “Wait. What if someone among them is responsible for this? Knowing that you know about their ruse could put you in more danger. It could give them a chance to cover up their tracks.” I shake my head. “Besides, this is not enough proof—in fact, it’s no proof at all when the surgeon has already declared it a stabbing. We need more evidence, evidence even the Regent cannot refute. Our best bet is to find who did it and force them to confess.”

“Marie, you and I both know I’m not clever enough for this.”

He says the words with a mocking smile, but there’s a troubled edge beneath it. Perhaps I would have agreed with him, two days ago. But now I can’t, not after witnessing the way he coaxes the world into motion around him—from calming the Step-Queen this morning to convincing Thomas to let us pass, all without a single lie or pretense. I was always taught that earnestness is a weakness, yet Aimé manages, unwittingly, to turn it into a strength.

“You must stop thinking so little of yourself,” I tell him, and I’m surprised to find I mean it. “Besides, we’re in this together, andI’mclever enough for two.”

He laughs. “That you are,ma chérie,” he says, but I catch the glimmer of gratitude in his eyes.

A thought strikes me then:Letting Aimé get involved in this was a mistake.He’s too yielding, too naïve. Yet I let my guard down, let myself indulge in this ridiculous camaraderie, and now here he is, the grandchild of the Spider King, entwined in my plot. It’s too late to drive him away. And, though it irks me to admit, I don’t want to.

I’m not an idiot—I don’ttrustAimé-Victor Augier. But for the first time since Damien left, I am not entirely alone. I will betray him eventually, of course. But for now it’s reassuring to have someone watching my back.

I glance down the oily length of hallway, fixing the sleeves of Marie’s gown. “We need to figure out what this creature is. Does the Château have an archive perhaps? Somewhere we can find old stories, myths, or even records of animal attacks?”

Aimé shifts. “Well, there is the library. My father kept an old vault of documents from before my grandfather’s time. He never went in there, but I did. I remember there being old journals and such, though I have not touched them in years. It could be worth looking into?”

“Perfect,” I say. I’m eager to get moving. With the funeral being tomorrow, I doubt I will have much time for sleuthing. “Then that’s where we start.”

SCENE XIVThe Château

The Library

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