Read Chapter 26: The Escape

The match-flare of Fouquier’s pistol shot was still ringing in Lise’s ears when she realized the bullet had not been meant for her. It had been meant for the lock—the heavy iron lock on the records-room door—and the acrid smoke now curled between them like a gray curtain.

Fouquier lowered the weapon, his face unreadable in the half-dark. “You are a clever woman, Mademoiselle Marchand. I will grant you that. But clever women still bleed.”

Dumas sagged against the wall where Fouquier had thrown him, his cravat askew, a dark bruise already blooming at his temple. He met Lise’s eyes and gave the faintest shake of his head—*don’t*.

She understood. Don’t run. Don’t plead. Don’t give him the satisfaction.

From beyond the door, the roar of the crowd surged again, a wave that rattled the floorboards. Someone was shouting for the Tribunal’s dissolution. Another voice, high and desperate, cried out for a lawyer. The chaos was bleeding into every corridor of the Palais de Justice.

Fouquier heard it too. His jaw tightened. “The mob will have its show,” he said, reloading his pistol with terrible calm. “And your father will give it to them—guilty of conspiring with English gold, executed before noon. A fine lesson in loyalty.”

“He is innocent,” Lise said. The words came out steady, even as her heart clawed at her ribs.

“Innocence is a luxury we cannot afford, mademoiselle.” Fouquier gestured with the barrel toward the door. “Now. You will walk ahead of me. If you run, I will shoot you in the back and blame the rioters. No one will question it.”

She had seconds. Perhaps less.

Lise’s gaze flicked to Dumas, who had shifted slightly against the wall—his hand, hidden behind his thigh, was working at something. A knot. A latch. The hinge of a low cabinet. He had been a lawyer, a man of words, but he moved like a man who knew how to pick a lock.

“Monsieur Fouquier,” Lise said, buying time. “You misunderstand my purpose here.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“I did not come to confront you. I came to offer you something.”

Fouquier’s laugh was dry, humorless. “You have nothing I want.”

“I have the list.”

The words landed like a stone in still water. Fouquier’s pistol wavered—barely—but Lise saw it. She pressed on.

“The original bribe list. Not the copies that are even now papering the streets of Paris. The original, in the hand of your English contact. I know where it is.”

“You lie.”

“Do I?” Lise took a step forward, heart hammering. “You found my father in the monastery because a captain betrayed him. You found my name through Perrin. But you have not found the list, have you? Because if you had, you would not be here. You would have burned it and been done with me.”

Fouquier’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, Dumas’s shoulder moved—a silent, incremental slide toward the open corridor.

“The list is on the *Marie-Ange*,” Lise said, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. “Tucked beneath a floorboard in the captain’s cabin. You sent men to search it, but they were looking for a man, not a paper. I retrieved it before they could think to look twice.”

Fouquier’s finger hovered over the trigger. “Where is it now?”

“Where you will never find it, unless I take you there.”

A long pause. Then Fouquier’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile. “You are bargaining for your father’s life.”

“I am bargaining for my own,” Lise said. “And for your… discretion.”

It was a gamble. A terrible, reckless gamble. But she saw the flicker of calculation in Fouquier’s eyes—the weighing of one prize against another. A scandal that could bring down the Tribunal, or a single old man’s neck.

“You will lead me to it,” he said slowly. “And I will release your father into house arrest, pending a full review.”

“No review. A pardon.”

“That is not within my—

“It is within your power to recommend.”

Fouquier’s lips pressed into a thin line. The crowd roared again, closer now. Boots hammered somewhere above them.

“Very well,” he said at last. “You have my word.”

Lise allowed herself to breathe. Slowly, she lifted her hand—palm open, fingers spread—and gestured toward the corridor. “Then come. I will show you.”

She stepped sideways, deliberately moving away from Dumas, drawing Fouquier’s eye with the soft rustle of her skirts. He followed, his pistol still trained on her, his focus narrowing to the space between her shoulder blades.

Behind him, Dumas moved.

He came up low and fast, a rolled parchment in his fist—one of the very broadsheets that had damned them all. He swung it like a cudgel, catching Fouquier across the wrist. The pistol fired. The shot went wild, punching into a filing cabinet in a spray of splinters. Fouquier staggered, cursed, and spun—

But Lise had already moved.

She seized the fallen pistol by the barrel, the metal still hot, and swung it in a wide arc. It connected with Fouquier’s temple with a sickening crack. The prosecutor crumpled, his legs folding beneath him, and lay still.

Silence. Even the crowd seemed to hold its breath.

Dumas stood over Fouquier’s body, breathing hard. Blood trickled from his split lip. “Your bargaining was terrible,” he said hoarsely.

“It worked.”

“It bought us twelve seconds.” Dumas knelt, going through Fouquier’s coat. He found a ring of keys and a folded paper—the arrest warrant for Pierre Marchand. He pocketed both, then looked up at Lise, his expression unreadable. “You should run.”

“I am not leaving without my father.”

“Lise.” His voice cracked on her name. “I am a double agent. I have betrayed you—twice—and I would do it again if ordered. You cannot trust me.”

“I know.” She crouched beside him, her eyes fierce. “But you are the only one who knows the law well enough to save him—and the only one who has ever told me the truth about it. So you will come with me, and you will help me, and if you betray me again, I will shoot you myself.”

Dumas stared at her. For a long moment, something shifted in his face—the mask of the spy slipping, just for an instant, to reveal a man who had spent too long pretending not to care.

Then he nodded.

“The tribunal hall,” he said, rising. “Your father is being held in an anteroom off the main chamber. The crowd has already broken through the doors—they are calling for a trial. It will be a sham. Fouquier’s deputies will convict him in minutes.”

“Then we do not let them.”

They moved together through the chaos of the Palais de Justice. The corridors were thick with smoke and shouting, guards overwhelmed by the press of citizens who had come to watch the Tribunal burn. Lise kept her head down, Dumas at her side, his bloodied cravat pulled up to hide his face.

They reached the anteroom to find two deputies standing guard. Dumas did not pause. He walked straight up to them, the rolled broadsheet still in his fist, and thrust it into the nearest man’s chest.

“Fouquier is dead,” he said flatly. “The mob is inside. You have two choices—join them, or be torn apart by them. I recommend the former.”

The deputies exchanged a look. Then the first shoved the broadsheet back at Dumas and fled. The second followed a heartbeat later.

Lise threw open the door.

Pierre Marchand was seated on a low bench, his hands bound before him, his face gray but his eyes sharp. He looked up as she entered, and for one terrible second, Lise saw hope flicker across his features—hope, and fear, and love.

“Lise.” He breathed her name like a prayer.

She crossed the room in three strides and knelt before him, working at the ropes with trembling fingers.

“Father. I am going to get you out of here.”

Dumas appeared behind her, sliding a blade from his sleeve. He cut the ropes with a single stroke, then held up the arrest warrant he had taken from Fouquier.

“The charges are corrupt,” he said. “The prosecutor is unconscious. The crowd is calling for justice. We have perhaps five minutes to give it to them.”

Pierre looked from Dumas to his daughter, confusion warring with exhaustion. “Who is this man?”

“A friend,” Lise said. “I hope.”

Dumas’s mouth quirked. “I have not been a friend to anyone in a very long time. But I am willing to try.”

He extended a hand to Pierre. The old man took it, and Dumas pulled him to his feet with surprising gentleness.

They stepped into the corridor—and froze.

The tribunal hall had become a sea of bodies. Citizens packed the benches, the aisles, spilling over the railings and onto the floor. They were shouting, chanting, demanding blood or justice, depending on which side of the room you stood. And at the center of the chaos, a single figure stood at the dais, pounding a gavel that no one heeded.

It was the deputy prosecutor, a man Fouquier had trusted, his face white with terror as he tried to control the mob.

“Our five minutes just became two,” Dumas said.

Lise gripped her father’s arm. “Then we make them count.”