Page 62 of The Executioners Three
Freddie swallowed.
And Mom sighed a tired Historical Director sigh as she stabbed her own fork into her noodles. “No wonder the Allard Fortins were so annoyed. Blood oaths and spirits aside, José Allard Fortin simply didn’t need an executioner—much lessthreeof them.”
“Does that mean…” Freddie poked at a chunk of sauce. “That youdon’twant to readThe Curse of Allard Fortinwhen I’m done? I mean, if it’s all so implausible, I can just burn it.”
Steve choked a laugh. Mom’s glare turned deadly.
And Freddie grinned—although it was, admittedly, a forced thing. Because as fun as this conversation was, her brain was still roiling from the double monsoons, which had only gotten bigger with this new information from Steve.
Edgar Fabre had been ruined and run out of town. If that wasn’t motive for murder, then Freddie didn’t know what was—and Freddie’s instincts knew when they were onto something. Now she just had to figure out where that guy was. Had he died or hadn’t he?
The truthwasout there.
“You feeling okay?” Mom asked after several minutes of Freddie staring into nothing.
Freddie shook herself. “Oh yeah, sorry.” She blinked. “I just really need to get my homework done. Do you mind if I eat later?”
“Sure.” Mom bit her lip. There was spaghetti sauce on her nose.
And with another forced smile, Freddie bolted for her room.
It was almost ten o’clock by the time Freddie finished reading all ofThe Curse of Allard Fortin. It wasn’t a long book, and most of it was just a translation of what the original Fabre had written in his diary.
Which was fully unhinged.
Like, Freddie kind of understood why the Allard Fortins had sued Edgar for printing this—and she had to wonder, honestly, if Original Fabre hadn’t maybe been working with a little too much lead at his forge. Because how else could one explain such delusion?
For example, the diary said that not only did the servants go around killing any enemy of José Allard Fortin, but their blood oath meant their spirits would stay alive for all of eternity—and those spirits could, in turn, be controlled for all of eternity too.
Ropey, Hacky, and Stabby. That was what Freddie had started calling the Executioners in her head, since there were no actual names for these supposedly cursed souls in Fabre’s diary.
There was at least one piece of the book, though, that might be relevant to Freddie’s search for answers, and it came at the very end: allegedly, Allard Fortin’s bell—which he used to summon his Executioners—had broken. Itsclapper was too big and the winters here colder than those back in France. So he’d hired Original Fabre to make a new bell according to very specific, very strange specifications that had included a tin-to-copper ratio that Original Fabre hadn’t thought was wise.
His thoughts hadn’t mattered, though, since that was what Allard Fortin had wanted.
Fabre’s desire to be paid hadn’t mattered either, since—according to him—once the bell was complete, there was nothing to stop Fortin from commanding his Executioners to kill him.
Obviously, none of this was even remotely real, except for perhaps the commissioning of a new bell in the 1670s and a disgruntled blacksmith who’d wanted his money. People said all sorts of awful things when there were unpaid bills involved.
But whether or not the history was accurate didn’t actually matter. What mattered was that someone in thepresent daywas obviously pulling inspiration from these stories.
So to the internet Freddie turned, hunkering down at her family’s computer in the den.
Edgar Fabre,she typed into Ask Jeeves.
Unfortunately, Jeeves had nothing to offer. So then she triedThe Curse of Allard Fortin,which yielded only a message board about how bad parking was at the City-on-the-Berme Village Historique.
Touché.
Freddie was just sticking out her tongue at the monitor when a familiaruh-ohdinged from her ICQ.
Her heart rocketed through her forehead. She frantically clicked open the messenger service.
And right there, before her eyes, was a window claiming the userverybadhumanindeed82wanted to add her as a contact.Do you accept?
Freddie slammed down the Enter key, and without waiting for Theo to initiate a conversation—and not even caring if she seemed wildly overeager—Freddie typed out:
LanceInMyHeart2000
