Page 12 of The Dagger and the Flame
Evidently, new recruits were not uncommon at House Armand. And yet, judging by the row of unoccupied bedrooms on the fifth floor, turnover must be high. Sera supposed that not everyone was cut out to be a Cloak, to live alife of subterfuge and suspicion, but as she inhaled the smell of warm bacon and freshly ground coffee, she figured there were worse things to sell your soul for.
‘Sera! Over here!’ Bibi waved a half-eaten sausage from her table across the room, where she and Val were in the middle of breakfast. ‘Sit with us!’
Sera hurried over, tucking Pippin under the table. She slipped him a strip of bacon while the old woman continued giving her a menacing glare.
‘Who is that?’ Sera asked, in a low voice.
‘Don’t mind Madame Fontaine,’ said Val, with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘The old fossil hardly ever gets out any more.’
‘She slammed the door in my face last night,’ said Sera.
Val snorted. ‘Sounds about right. When I was nine, I nicked a peppermint from her pocket and she pushed me down the stairs with her walking stick.’
‘That’s… unhinged,’ said Sera.
‘Yeah,’ said Val, admiringly.
‘One time, when I was practising piano in the music room, Madame Fontaine came in and cut six inches off the end of my hair because I was playing anarrogant sonata,’ said Bibi, mimicking the croak of her voice. ‘She said it had too much staccato.’
Sera’s eyes widened. ‘Did you tell Madame Mercure?’
‘No point,’ said Val. ‘Fontaine is part of the furniture here.’
‘She used to run House Armand until she got too old and started losing her sight,’ said Bibi. ‘She was some Cloak, though. Rumour says the last King of Valterre once hired her to rob the Queen of Urnica.’
‘What did she steal?’ said Sera.
Val dropped her voice. ‘The queen’s first-born son.’
Sera choked on her bacon.
The other two burst into laughter.
‘Val’s just teasing,’ said Bibi. Then she mimed sewing her mouth shut. ‘Patron confidentiality. No one knows for sure what she stole. Only that the king paid so handsomely for it, House Armand was able to build a new wing. She was damn good in her day. Probably because she’s favoured by Saint Oriel.’
Sera’s brows rose. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They say Fontaine is a distant descendant of Oriel Beauregard. That sometimes she whispers to Fontaine in her dreams and speaks to her through her tarot cards. That’s how she always knows so much.’
Val snorted into her coffee. ‘If you ask me, Fontaine’s just a nosy old bat with too much time on her hands.’
‘Maybe she’s both,’ said Bibi.
Sera sneaked another glance at the old woman, who was now glaring at a crow in the garden. ‘This place is different than I imagined.’
‘Did you think we’d all be wearing our cloaks to breakfast?’ said Val. ‘And pickpocketing each other in the halls?’
‘Well… yeah.’
They laughed again.
‘We don’t wear Shade when we’re not working,’ Bibi explained. ‘After a while, it gives you a headache. We always make sure to remove our cloaks, gloves, boots and scarves, and leave them in the cloakroom when we come back from a job. It’s the only room in House Armand that’s locked.’
‘How come?’ said Sera.
‘Because that’s where the Shade is kept. And Shade leads to temptation,’ said Val. ‘All it takes is one taste for a Cloak to go rogue. And who knows what they might do, then?’
‘Or who they might kill,’ said Bibi, in a low voice. ‘Not long after I first came to House Armand, there was an… incident. A couple of Cloaks stole a vial of Shade from the cloakroom and swallowed it, just to try it. It was too much, too soon. One of them – Phillipe – lost his senses. He tried to murder Madame Mercure.’
