Page 38 of A Treachery of Swans

When I was twelve, nearly thirteen years old, my father assigned me the most challenging of my missions.

“I have a new task for you,” Regnault had hummed in my ear, his cold fingers brushing down the back of my neck. I was doing my makeup for the night’s performance—my face stared back at me from the mirror, caked in powder and paint.

“It’s about time.” I grinned at him, tracing dark paint over my eyelids. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me. What is it?”

“I want you to infiltrate the Château Front-du-Lac as a servant and observe the noblesse. Learn as much as you can: how they speak and act, their likes and dislikes. You will be there for one month, and during your time there, I want you to steal something precious from one of them and bring it back to me.”

My stomach had twisted nervously. This was my most difficult task yet. But I had never refused Regnault, and I was not about to start now. I set down my paint brush and put my hands behind my head, tipping back in my chair to look at my father upside-down. “How shiny do you want this ‘something precious’ to be?”

He ruffled my hair, chuckling. “I leave that to your expertise.”

That night, I made my way down to the Château’s servant’s wing. There I identified one of the maids and waited until she was asleep to slip a foul concoction into the cup of water at her bedside. The next morning, when she did not show, I benefited from the confusion to introduce myself as a new hire from the city, and was immediately put to work in her place.

I befriended the other young serving girls—I took platters of fanciful foods to the noblesse, listened to them gossip as they downed enough pastries to feed one of the serving girls’ families for a week. I memorized the way they talked, their speech eloquent and distinguished until it became slurred by wine. I dodged their clumsy punches and greedy hands once it was.

Then one day she arrived. The only daughter of the Auvignian duke, come to be introduced to the Dauphin, her mother’s hand clasped around her wrist like a pale fetter. I knew magic, I knew sorcery, yet I could not understand how she captivated me, enthralled me as she did.

Part of it was her peculiar dawning beauty—she’d been in the spring of it, gangly yet sharply elegant, a rose before bloom. But it had been more than that—it had been the way she’d held herselfapart from the other noble children, as though she were straining at the end of a tether. The way she’d never quite seemed to listen to their idle chatter; the way she stood, fidgeting, while her mother boasted about her like she was a prizewinning calf. Here, I thought, was someone like me. Someone caged by fate, her wings clipped, longing for open skies.

The first time I spoke to Marie d’Odette, she’d been escaping. I’d run into her in the servant’s wing sneaking out toward the stables. She’d startled and yelped, then covered her mouth.

“I thought you were a shadow!” she’d gasped. She’d been wearing pearl earrings, and I remembered my mission from Regnault.

“Maybe I am,” I’d replied, with the whimsical mischief only a child can have. “Where are you going?”

“Away,” she’d said, grinning. “Do you want to come?”

And so we’d escaped. I did not have duty until evening dinner, so I showed her to the stables and we called the stacks of hay bales our fortress, leaping up and down them. Afterward, I’d carefully picked stray stalks from her silken hair before she returned to the Château.

The next day, the cook sent me to report to the mistress of the maids, who gave me a new, more ornate gown. I was to be a companion to young Marie d’Odette d’Auvigny for the duration of her stay. I was thrilled—it was the perfect opportunity to complete my mission.

I became Marie’s servant and playmate. Marie had a love of mysteries, and there was no greater mystery than the Château itself, with all its strange enchantments. We would run about the palace, sometimes unaccompanied, sometimes with other court children, exploring every nook and cranny, our hair wild and clothes smelling of old magic. It was exhilarating—I was still naïve enough to let myself forget, temporarily, about my mission, to believe I could trust someone who wasn’t my father or brother.

Then came the time of the Dauphin’s banquet. The day Marie wore a beautiful diamond necklace.

Watching her now, I wonder where that lively, adventurous girl I met in my youth has gone. When did she bury her exuberance and replace it with dignified silence, with this aching, timid melancholy? Something about it feels unnatural—a mask that has slipped just a little as she works away at the puzzle, that old, youthful Marie winking through like stars behind a velvet drape of clouds.

“Aha!” There’s a finalclick,and then a louder snap of something breaking in two. I jolt upright, blinking bleary eyes to stare at the journal in Marie’s lap. The golden cage has now twisted together to form the outline of an intricate rose, and on the other side, when she turns the journal over, is a bird’s silhouette.

“How—?” I stare at her, a strange, heated admiration spreading through me. “I tried everything.”

“Hmm. Well, there was a pattern to the chaos. I realized I could make out elements of the final images—the tip of a wing, the edge of a petal.”

“Images? I didn’t see any images. It was just a jumble.”

She arches an eyebrow. “Did you take the time to look?”

Here she goes again. Perfect, clever Marie, reminding me of my inferiority. Sowhatif I hadn’t noticed the pattern she had? I’d fiddled with the thing for hours, hoping to stumble upon the right combination. And she solved it without breaking a sweat.

I look away sulkily.

Marie’s muted laugh swirls into the night. “It was an educated guess, really. Once I had an idea of what the puzzle wassupposedto look like, it was easier for me to tell which direction to move the pieces in. You just have to be patient. Here.” She tosses the journal to me. “Open it.”

I snatch it out of the air without looking at her, still moody.I waste no time in opening the loose pages, old paper cracking beneath my fingers.

In the same moment a stray gust of wind rips through the trees, snatching up half the pages from the small book and carrying them out onto the lake.

SCENE XVThe Lake

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