Read Chapter 25: The People's Uprising

The press room of the *Gazette Nationale* stank of ink, sweat, and cheap coffee. Dawn had barely broken over Paris, but the building hummed with the frantic energy of a paper about to break the story of the century.

Jean-Philippe Roux, his sleeves rolled to the elbows and his tie loosened, stared at the microdot reader screen as if it might bite him. The cipher had cracked open like an egg, spilling the Duke of Orléans's entire rotten interior across the display—bribed deputies, police chiefs on the take, the consortium's money trails, and the physician's report that condemned the King to death within months.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered. "Élise, you magnificent, dangerous fool."

His editor, a hawk-nosed woman named Dubois whose skepticism had kept the *Gazette* alive through three regime changes, leaned over his shoulder. "It's authentic?"

"Every watermark checks out. This is his private ledger. We have him."

Dubois was already reaching for the phone. "Then we print the special edition now. Screw the Feast. The people deserve to know their regent is a traitor before he crowns himself."

"Wait." Jean grabbed her wrist, his mind racing through the timeline. "Élise's signal was timed. She intended this for the Feast—it's when the Duke will try to make his move. If we print now, we give him time to bury it. But if we print *during* the ceremony, with the nobility assembled, with the parliament present..."

"He can't kick the story under the rug in front of the whole nation."

"Exactly. We have four hours."

---

Across the city, in a windowless cellar beneath a wine merchant's shop, Prince Louis watched his captors' rotation schedule with the patience of a trained predator. Philippe's men were good, but they were tired—the Feast meant double shifts, everyone stretched thin.

His newest guard was a young man named Aubin, barely nineteen, with dirt under his fingernails and a peasant's unease at being so close to royalty. Louis had spent three days watching him, learning his tells. Aubin believed in the monarchy, that much was clear—he crossed himself whenever Louis spoke of the King's health. He was simply a boy doing a job his father had arranged.

"It's nearly sunrise," Louis said quietly. "They'll move me soon, or they'll kill me."

Aubin's jaw tightened. "The Duke said you'd be given your chance, Your Highness. He said—"

"The Duke is my uncle. He also poisoned the King's physicians' reports and intends to seize the throne." Louis let the words hang. "Tell me, Aubin. In your family's church, does a lie to save a crown damn your soul?"

The boy's hands trembled on his rifle.

"Your father served my father," Louis continued. "He died protecting the royal family at the Marengo uprising. I remember him. I was only a boy, but I remember his courage." He met Aubin's eyes. "I need that courage now. Not for a king—for a kingdom."

Aubin looked at the door, then back at Louis. Sweat beaded on his forehead. For an agonizing moment, Louis thought he'd misjudged.

Then Aubin reached for the keys at his belt.

"The night shift changes in ten minutes," he said. "There's a maintenance tunnel behind the wine vats. It leads to the street."

---

The Palace of Versailles blazed with light as noon approached. Tens of thousands had gathered in the courtyards, their voices a warm roar of celebration. But Élise Moreau, shoved through a service corridor with her wrists bound behind her, heard nothing but the thunder of her own heart.

The Duke's men had kept her in a windowless chamber since her capture, but they'd made a mistake this morning—they'd brought her out in the open, needing her present for the ceremony. They were too arrogant, too sure of victory, to watch her closely.

And they had not searched her. The microdot reader was a slim silver wafer in her boot heel. The cipher key on a chain around her neck.

"I need to relieve myself," she said to the man gripping her arm.

He laughed. "You'll hold it until the Duke—"

"I'll do it in your boots, then."

The guard's face twisted with disgust. He exchanged a look with his partner, who shrugged. They shoved her into a servants' water closet attached to the corridor, locking the door behind her.

Élise counted to five in her head, her fingers already working at the ceiling vent above the toilet. Her father had shown her the old servant's passages as a child—the ones built before the Revolution, designed so that servants could traverse the palace unseen. They'd never properly sealed them all.

She could hear the guard's boots shift outside. She had perhaps thirty seconds before they grew suspicious.

The vent gave way with a groan she prayed no one heard. She hauled herself up, her bound hands slowing her, and tumbled into the narrow darkness. The passage smelled of dust and age.

She worked the rope against an exposed pipe, sawing until her wrists came free. Blood rushed back into her hands in a painful wave.

The Feast of the Lily. The grand ballroom. The Hall of Mirrors.

The Duke would be there, waiting for the moment when he would declare the King incapable and seize the regency. And he'd wonder what had become of his prisoner.

Élise smiled grimly in the dark. Let him wonder.

She crawled forward through the dust, feeling the palace's ancient heart beating around her toward the inevitable climax. Somewhere in this labyrinth of mirrors and lies, the Duke of Orléans was about to crown himself.

He had no idea that the proof of his treason was crawling through the walls.

And he had no idea that his nephew had just escaped.