Free A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann

Confusion and fear twist into a knot in the pit of my stomach. I focus on the jacket stretched across the old guard’s back, the lantern fumes flowing in stinking swaths up the stairs, the soot dotting on my sisters’ necks like fleas. Mama, please, please be safe.
    We pass under an archway. It is becoming difficult to breathe. The air is not warm, but my skin feels sticky beneath the layers of satin and lace. The stairs are becoming wider, the treads not so steep and narrow. Everything around us is rough, ugly stone.
    We arrive at the bottom and move down a tunnel, roundand ribbed like the belly of a whale. Ahead I see a room: a small cube, mirrored on all four sides. Someone is standing in it. A man. My hand tightens around Delphine.
    The guards hurry us forward.
    The man’s shoulders are so wide they seem to push at the seams of his black frock coat. His arms are like tree trunks. His back is toward us, but I recognize him now: Lord Havriel. The quiet giant at my father’s side, the steward of his great wealth and the keeper of his secrets.
    Lord Havriel turns toward us. He is strangely elegant despite his size, like a dancer. His face is square and serious, framed by a dark beard neatly trimmed. He is almost Father’s age, but not half so decomposed.
    â€œMesdemoiselles,” he says, and he moves forward, his hand going to his waist in preparation for a bow.
    He stops. His eyes skip over our bedraggled party: the old guard, Charlotte, Bernadette, Delphine. His eyes stop on me.
    â€œWhere is the Lady Célestine?” His voice is soft.
    â€œShe ran back to her rooms, monsieur,” the old guard says quickly. “There was nothing we could do, she—”
    Havriel stiffens. “She is still in the château?”
    The old guard shifts from boot to boot, but he does not answer. The younger one nods, once.
    Havriel’s eyes twitch, only the slightest bit, a blink and a focusing. And now he is growling, and I feel Delphine flinch against me. “Non, espèce d’imbéciles. Qu’est-ce que vous avez fait?”
    He begins to pace. There is hardly any space in the little mirror room, but he does, tight circles, his black-trousered legs cutting like scissors. “You must get her. Get her down here at once .”
    â€œMy lord, she would not come!” the old guard says desperately. “She was hysterical, she refused!”
    Havriel stops and spins on the young guard. His eyes are dark, flashing like storm clouds. I have never seen him anything but calm—at dinner parties or during ceremonies of state, with King Louis and his Austrian wife, with everyone preened and brushed out, proud as peacocks, Havriel was the silent one, the austere figure in black, a vast quiet presence, sipping wine, whispering into Father’s gnarled red ear. . . .
    â€œYou will return at once to the surface,” he says, and suddenly his voice is dangerous and low. “I have orders to seal the Palais du Papillon. If you come back alone, you will be locked out, and believe me, your role in the rescuing of our dear noblesse will not be appreciated by your kinsmen in Paris.”
    The young guard clutches his musket. He swallows, staring at Havriel. The older guard stares, too, but there is something dreadful in his eyes, a mixture of fear and utter hatred.
    â€œYou are sending us to our death for a madwoman—” he begins, and Havriel whirls on him and bellows: “ Go ! And pray she is yet alive!”
    They leave us, ducking back through the doorway, and now they are sprinting away, silhouetted in the tunnel.
    As soon as the sound of their feet has faded, Havriel’s shoulders slump. He turns to us, and the many deep grooves in his face soften. But there is worry in his eyes, and a question, too, as if he does not know exactly what to do with three weeping girls and one staring, sullen one. I do not know what to do with him, either. I take Delphine by the