Free A Drop of Night by Stefan Bachmann Page A

shoulders and turn her away. “All will be well,” I murmur, leaning down next to her ear. “They are going back for Mama. They will bring her safely down.”
    I face Havriel, gathering the courage to speak. Havriel has pulled a bell from one of his pockets. He bows his head to me, as if in apology for what is to come. He rings the bell and a peal breaks forth, splitting the air in two, like a trembling silver thread. I hear footsteps almost at once, fast approaching. Not from the stairs. From somewherebeyond the mirrors. From the Palais du Papillon.
    â€œChildren,” Havriel says. “Stand and face each other. Quickly.”
    My insides twist. “What?”
    â€œDo as I tell you,” he says, and he is moving swiftly, lighting a lamp, adjusting the flame.
    I pull Bernadette next to me and position doe-eyed Charlotte across from her. On any other occasion Bernadette would hiss at me, tell me she is only two years younger and that I have no right to boss her, but even she knows better than to do that now. I place Delphine in front of me and try to smile at her, try to look as though I am not frightened out of my wits.
    People are entering the room. I hear breathing, the crinkle of starched linens, the whisper of soft feet on stone. I want to scream with the closeness of them, the stifling weight of their bodies in this tiny space.
    I see the mirrored wall behind Delphine. I see Mama, blurry in the glass. The servants have such dreadful faces, she whispers.
    It is not Mama. It is Havriel, and someone else, and he is murmuring, “Quickly. Quickly!” and now I feel breath against the back of my neck and the scratch of cloth. Fabric slips down across my hair.
    â€œWhat is this?” My voice is shaking. “I will not be blindfolded! I will not—”
    It is not a blindfold. It is a sack. The black cloth slides down over my eyelids, blowing out the room like a candle. Hands spin me in circles. Delphine is no longer in my grasp.
    â€œDelphine?”
    I am forced to walk, bundled along.
    â€œDelphine, where are you?” I reach out blindly, but I cannot find her.
    What did you fear, Mama? What is down here?
    Bernadette makes a small noise at my side. I try to reach out to her, but someone has me by the shoulder and is guiding me swiftly forward. We are passing through a door. I feel its shape around me, the change in the space.
    â€œKeep your arms in,” Havriel says suddenly, from somewhere to my left.
    I draw my arms in tightly against my body, and a whirring, trickling sound surrounds me, as though I have just stepped into a dripping grotto. We walk for many minutes. The space no longer feels close and claustrophobic, but vast and cold. I hear the click of doors opening. And now we are in a room, and I feel the deep warmth of a burning fire. I smell lamp oil and spiced wine and wood. I smell—
    â€œFrédéric?” Havriel says, and my heart quails.
    Father.
    I can smell his perfume. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have spoken to him, but the smell of him, the threads of it hanging in the château after he has passed through its halls, the hint of it on Mother when she is sad and ghostlike: I would recognize it anywhere. It is the smell of roses, lilacs, the sweet, thick burr of lilies on the very edge of rotting. A heady, oily scent, dried and dried again until it is an atmosphere, oozing from his every pore.
    â€œFrédéric,” Havriel says again, moving away from us. His voice is gentle, as if consoling a small child. “Frédéric, your children are here. Aurélie and Bernadette and the others. Your daughters.”
    And now I hear him: “Children?” he whispers, his voice wet and weak, echoing behind his tin mask. “But where is Célestine? Where is my wife?”

11
    I wake with a gasp, the air ripping into me. It’s freezing cold. I’m lying on something hard. My eyes are open, but