Chapter Text
For it is the soldier’s disposition to offer an obstinate resistance
when surrounded, to fight hard when he cannot help himself.
The day had begun under a lid of low, dark clouds, the kind that promised rain long before delivering it.
Claire leaned closer to the hearth as Théa collapsed with an exasperated sigh onto the small table at the back of the bookshop.
“It’s pointless,” she announced. “I can’t crack it.”
Her fingers closed around the paper where Claire had written out the cipher, crushing it halfway into a fist before she seemed to think better of it.
Claire grinned. “You’re being impatient,” she said, hearing Roche’s voice in the words as she spoke them. “You’ve been at it all of twenty minutes.”
“And the idea of working on it any longer makes me want to run back into the forest,” Théa replied.
“Backing out already?” Claire tilted her head.
Théa muttered a curse under her breath. Much like Claire, she could never resist a challenge once it had been set in front of her.
The truth was, it had taken her barely a week to settle in quite nicely.
The Musketeers had been sent on an assignment outside Paris the day after Roche’s funeral. It left fewer questions to answer about that new arrival. Fewer interruptions.
Now Théa already moved through books, ciphers, and coded notes with the same confidence she had once brought to the undergrowth of the Lorraine forests, singing her bawdy tavern songs as she went. What had been instinct in the wild had become focus here; the skill translated without loss.
She had taken over monsieur Roche’s rooms beneath the roof, while Claire had moved back into the apartment on the first floor, hers in every way that mattered long before it had ever been hers on paper.
Now even that distinction no longer existed. Roche’s will had been as simple and unadorned as the man himself. The small two-storey building on the Quai de la Tournelle, and the bookshop below it, had passed to Claire without condition.
That inheritance, paired with Théa’s unexpected presence, was more than she would have dared hope for ten days earlier, as she waited through a sleepless, merciless dawn at Constance’s house.
Behind her, Théa scoffed and reached for the quill again. “Fine,” she muttered. “Just know that when I came here, I was expecting a little more action.”
Claire opened her mouth to answer — and stopped as she heard the sound of hooves on stone outside.
That alone meant nothing; the quay saw wagons and carts at all hours. But this was heavier. Ordered. She had spent long enough at court to know the sound of a carriage when she heard one.
She crossed to the window. The flash of red cloaks against the grey morning light made her breath catch. A black carriage stood by the quay, its panels bearing crimson chevrons on silver beneath a crowned shield.
Richelieu’s arms.
It seemed Théa would be getting action sooner than she thought.
“Théa,” Claire said quietly. “Hide. Now.”
Théa’s head snapped up. She moved at once, snatching the cipher from the table as she went. She was already halfway up the stairs when the Red Guards came into view beyond the window.
Two men dismounted and entered as though the space belonged to them by right. Claire stood behind the counter, letting her hands rest lightly on the wood. She found herself distantly wondering whether one of them had killed Nicolas Fournier during the purge.
“Mademoiselle d’Arville,” one guard said. “You have been summoned to court by His Eminence the Cardinal.”
“Have I?” Claire replied lightly. “And for what purpose?”
He did not answer. “Refusal will result in your arrest.”
Her fingers stilled for the briefest moment. “Then we should not keep him waiting,” she said with a contrived smile. “I’ll fetch my cloak.”
She turned toward the narrow staircase; her gaze lingered for a heartbeat on the floorboards at its base. A faint, dark shadow still marked the wood, no matter how fiercely she had scrubbed. Blood remembered.
One of the guards stepped forward as if to follow her. Claire paused on the first step and turned back. “It would be improper for a gentleman to accompany a lady into her private quarters,” she said in a cooler tone. “I trust you’ll understand, monsieur.”
A beat. Then the man inclined his head. “Be quick.”
Théa waited at the top of the stairs, tense and alert, a pistol already in her hand. Claire caught her by the arm and drew her back into the shadowed corridor.
“Put that thing away and stay hidden,” she whispered as she reached for her cloak. “If I’m not back by tonight, go to the Musketeers’ garrison in Rue du Vieux-Colombier. Leave a cipher.”
The fact that the Musketeers had not yet returned from their assignment did not make the warning unnecessary.
“I got it,” Théa hissed quickly.
Claire met her gaze and nodded once. Then she turned and went back down.
“I’m ready, gentlemen.”
The carriage ride was swift and silent. The Red Guards rode alongside with their eyes fixed ahead. For a moment, Claire thought they might be taking her back to their quarters — back to the cell where she had spent several days the year before — but soon, the Louvre’s pale stone rose ahead of them.
Rain began to fall as she stepped down onto the marble.
She was led through corridors she knew well, and then through others she had spent years avoiding with care, until she reached a wide chamber, spare almost to the point of severity. A single large crucifix dominated the far wall. Beneath it stood a bare desk.
She was left there alone.
Time stretched. The light outside faded. Rain traced steady lines down the tall windows.
Claire accepted the wait without surprise. It was meant to wear her down, to remind her that her hours belonged to Richelieu, to be spent or wasted at his discretion. She refused him the satisfaction of restlessness. He had already taken enough.
When at last the side door opened, her legs burned with the effort of stillness and her hands were cold where they clasped each other.
Cardinal Richelieu entered with a vivid slash of crimson in the dimming room. His gaze was assessing, pleased.
“Claire d’Arville,” he said. “I believe it is time we spoke.”
Claire drew a steady breath.
A reckoning, she thought, had been a long time coming.