Read Chapter 9: The Missing Ledger

The archives smelled of dust and old paper, the kind of stillness that should have meant peace. Instead, it made Élise’s skin crawl.

She found Clément Lefèvre’s desk tucked between towering shelves, a half-drunk cup of coffee going cold beside an open ledger. The chair was pushed back at an angle, as if he’d risen quickly. Maybe to greet a visitor. Maybe to run.

“Lefèvre?” Her voice echoed off the vaulted ceiling. Nothing stirred.

She stepped closer, scanning the room. Her hand drifted to the holster at her hip—a habit from a decade on palace detail. The dust on the floor had been smeared recently, multiple sets of shoes. Two people, maybe three. She crouched, studying the patterns. One pair had dragged their feet, stumbling. The other walked with even, deliberate strides.

Someone had taken him.

A cold weight settled in her chest. She straightened and moved to the desk, careful not to disturb anything prematurely. The ledger in front of her was open to a page of neat columns. Royal land sales. Date, plot, purchaser, amount. The ink was fresh—too fresh. She flipped back several pages and ran her thumb along the entries. The earlier handwriting was cramped, precise, layered from years of practice. The pages near the front matched. But the last five entries? A different hand. Looser, more hurried.

She lifted the ledger and compared the spine binding to the cover. The stitching had been redone recently, coarser thread. Someone had gone to the trouble of copying the entire volume, then swapping it for the original.

But why forge an entire ledger when you could simply remove the pages?

Unless you needed the book to remain in place—indistinguishable at a glance—while the real one went somewhere else.

Élise set the ledger down, careful to return it to the exact angle she’d found it. She touched the coffee cup. Still faintly warm beneath her fingertips. He hadn’t been gone long. Perhaps an hour. Perhaps less.

A sound from the reading alcove made her turn, heart hammering.

The archivist’s assistant, a pale young man with spectacles and ink-stained fingers, froze in the doorway holding a stack of folios. “Madame Captain.” His voice cracked. “I didn’t expect you here.”

“Where is Lefèvre?”

The assistant glanced past her at the desk, then back. His throat worked. “He—he asked me to fetch these. From the annex. Said he had a visitor. When I returned, he was gone.”

“A visitor. Who?”

“I didn’t see them. He sent me before they arrived.” He swallowed again. “Is something wrong? The room looks… touched.”

Élise studied him. The assistant’s fingers trembled slightly around the folios. Fear, or guilt, or both. She didn’t have time to sort through it gently. “When did he ask you to leave?”

“Half past nine? Quarter to ten. I didn’t check the clock closely.”

She pulled out her pocket watch. Near noon. Lefèvre had been missing for at least two hours.

“Has anyone else come asking about his work? Anyone from the palace administration? Internal affairs?”

The assistant shook his head. But his eyes flickered—just for an instant—toward a low drawer at the side of the desk. Élise followed his glance. The drawer was slightly ajar.

She walked to it and pulled it open. Empty except for a stray paperclip and a thin layer of dust. But the dust had been wiped clean recently, and a ghost of a rectangular outline marked where a book had rested.

“Did Lefèvre keep anything else in here?” she asked.

The assistant’s mouth opened, then closed. “I—I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what’s safe to say anymore.”

His voice cracked on the final word. He was afraid for himself. And for good reason, given what had happened to Delorme.

Élise softened her stance, stepping closer. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. I’m here to find the truth. But I can’t do that alone, and I can’t leave you exposed if you know more.”

The assistant blinked, sweat beading on his brow. “He kept a separate book. His personal notes. He said it was the real ledger—the one that showed where the money actually came from, not the official record.”

“Where is it now?”

“Gone.” The assistant gestured at the drawer. “He never let it out of his sight. He told me—he told me if anything happened to him, I should take it to the Dauphine’s household. That they were the only ones he trusted.”

The Dauphine. Duchess Marie.

Before Élise could press further, bootsteps echoed in the corridor outside. Two sets, moving with the heavy certainty of men who’d walked these halls many times.

The assistant went pale. “That’s them. They’ve been coming all morning.”

Élise moved quickly, positioning herself between the assistant and the doorway. Her hand rested on her pistol, not drawn but ready.

Two men entered in palace uniform—her own division, the Bureau of Royal Security. She recognized the lead man. Lieutenant Garnier, her superior’s errand dog, with a flattened nose and eyes that went dead when he looked at you.

“Captain Moreau.” Garnier stopped, feigning surprise. “We were told you were escorting His Highness today.”

“Change of plans.” she said, flat. “What brings you to the archives, Lieutenant?”

“Your superior sent us. He received a report of a break-in this morning. Untidy business. Wanted us to secure the room and inventory the contents.” Garnier’s gaze swept past her to the desk, to the half-open drawer. “Looks like you beat us to it.”

“Lefèvre is missing. His workspace has been compromised. There’s a forged ledger sitting on his desk and evidence of a struggle.”

Garnier raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Forged ledger. That’s a strong claim for someone who isn’t a document examiner.”

“You don’t need an examiner to see fresh stitching on a book spine.” she said. “The question is why you’re here to clean up rather than to investigate.”

“We’re here on orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“The Director of Internal Security.” Garnier took a step closer, lowering his voice. “Your superior. And he’s asked me to inform you that Lefèvre is on approved leave. Family emergency in the south. Whatever you think you’ve found, you’re mistaken.”

Élise felt the floor shift beneath her. She glanced at the assistant, whose face had drained to the color of old parchment.

“Family emergency,” she repeated, deadpan. “A man who never takes holidays, gone the same morning his ledger is stolen and his desk is turned over. And you expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything.” Garnier said, shrugging. “I’m just telling you what you need to know so you can go back to protecting the prince. You’re relieved of this matter.”

“And the archivist’s assistant? Is he on leave too?”

Garnier flicked a look at the pale young man. “No orders on him yet. He can stay.”

“Good,” Élise said. “Because he’s coming with me.”

“He’s palace staff. He doesn’t come with you anywhere without requisition forms and a supervisor’s signature.”

“Then I’ll requisition him.” She turned to the assistant. “Name?”

“Hugo. Hugo Perrin.”

“Hugo Perrin, you are conscripted under Article 14 of the Palace Security Act as a material witness in an active investigation. You will accompany me or face obstruction of justice. Your choice.”

Hugo glanced at Garnier, then back at Élise. Something in his face hardened. “I’ll go with the Captain.”

Garnier’s expression curdled, but he said nothing. He had orders to secure the room, not to start a confrontation with a senior officer in front of witnesses. He stepped aside, letting them pass.

Élise didn’t look back. She guided Hugo through the corridors at a clipped pace, her mind already racing ahead. Lefèvre wasn’t on leave. He was taken—too important to kill outright like Delorme had almost been, but valuable enough to extract. Whoever had forged his ledger had wanted the records to stay hidden, and had needed Lefèvre alive to tell them where the real ones had gone.

But Lefèvre had anticipated this. He’d told Hugo to bring the personal notes to Marie if something happened.

The Dauphine. The Duchess with the lily-shaped mark on her wrist.

Élise had planned to approach Marie cautiously, from a distance, to test her loyalties without revealing her hand. That luxury was gone now.

“Where are we going?” Hugo asked, nearly breathless.

“To the Dauphine’s apartments.” She tightened her grip on his arm. “And if anyone tries to stop us, you don’t say a word. You let me do the talking.”

Hugo nodded, wide-eyed and silent.

They had no time, no safe allies, and no warrant for what she planned to do. But somewhere in Duchess Marie’s household, there was a notebook full of the names of everyone who had bought royal land with royal blood.

And Élise intended to find it.