Read Chapter 28: The Seal's Secret

The attic smelled of dust and old paper, of generations of spiders and the slow rot of forgotten things. Célie pressed herself against the far wall, the book clutched to her chest like a shield, her heart slamming against her ribs.

The spy stood in the doorway, blocking the only exit. He was not the gaunt specter she remembered from the prison corridor. This man was broad-shouldered, with the flat, patient eyes of a hunter who knew his quarry had nowhere left to run. He smiled, and it was a terrible thing—mechanical, cold.

"Little nun," he said, stepping forward. His boots echoed on the wooden floor. "You are very hard to follow. But I am very patient."

Célie's fingers tightened on the leather binding. She had hidden it well, she had thought—tucked between the pages of a breviary in a crate of relics bound for the château's chapel, part of the Church's desperate salvage operation. But he had followed her through the convoy, through the gates, through the corridors of this half-abandoned manor. Of course he had. He had found her in the prison. He had found her in the convent. He would find her at the bottom of the sea if that was where she fled.

"You have something that belongs to the Republic," he said. "I have been sent to retrieve it."

"I have nothing." Célie's voice was steadier than she felt. "Only prayer books and relics. The belongings of a poor servant of God."

He laughed, a dry, papery sound. "You are no more a servant of God than I am. I know who you are, Célie Lefèvre. I know what you carried out of that prison. And I know what that seal contains."

The word *seal* hit her like a stone to the chest. She had not spoken it. She had not written it. Not in any letter, not in any confession. But he knew. How could he know?

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said, but the lie tasted thin on her tongue.

He took another step. The distance between them had shrunk to the length of a table. "There is a compartment in the base of the seal. A false bottom, expertly made. And inside that compartment is something that could tear the Republic apart. Something that certain men in the Committee would very much like to destroy. Or perhaps use." He tilted his head. "I was not told which. Only that the seal must not remain in your hands."

Célie's mind raced. The seal. Thérèse's gift—no, not a gift. A trust. A burden placed in her hands by a woman who had known she might not survive the night. Célie had worn it against her skin for months, believing it to be nothing more than a talisman, a keepsake of a friendship forged in terror and defiance. She had never examined it closely. She had never thought to search for a hidden compartment.

But now, in this dusty attic, with the hunter closing in, she understood. Thérèse had not given her a keepsake. She had given her a weapon.

"It is not mine to give," Célie said. "It belongs to another."

"It belongs to the Republic. Everything belongs to the Republic." He lunged.

Célie was quicker than she had any right to be. She twisted, ducking under his outstretched arm, and scrambled across the floor toward a stack of rotting crates. He recovered fast, too fast, and grabbed the hem of her dress. She stumbled, nearly falling, and felt the book torn from her grasp.

He held it up, triumphant, and ripped it open. The breviary's pages tore, and the seal slid out, clattering onto the wooden floor.

They both froze.

Then they both dove.

Célie reached it first. Her fingers closed around the warm metal, and she felt it—the faint seam along the base that she had never noticed before. He was on her an instant later, his weight crushing her into the floor, his hands clawing at her wrist, trying to pry the seal away.

"Give it to me," he snarled, his face inches from hers. His breath was hot and sour. "Give it to me and I will let you live. I will tell them you were a fool, a pawn, that you did not understand what you carried. But if you resist—"

She brought her knee up, hard, and he grunted, his grip loosening. She rolled, scrambling to her feet, and ran for the window. It was arched, leaded, the glass milky with age. Behind her, he recovered with a curse and charged.

Célie had no plan. No escape route. No thought beyond the desperate instinct to keep the seal out of his hands. She fumbled at the window latch, but it was rusted, sealed by decades of disuse. He slammed into her from behind, and they crashed through the frame together.

The glass shattered in a spray of cold air and shards. For one impossible moment, they hung suspended, two bodies tangled in the void, the ground a dark blur two stories below. The seal slipped from her grip, but she did not see where it fell. She only felt his hand clamp around her ankle, pulling her down with him as he plummeted.

They hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and stone.

The impact knocked the breath from Célie's body. Pain exploded through her shoulder, her ribs, her skull. The world went white, then red, then black in throbbing waves. She heard a crack, sickening and final, and then silence.

She lay there, crushed against the cold earth, the taste of blood in her mouth. The spy—she could not see him, could not even turn her head to look—was somewhere beside her. She thought she heard a groan. Then nothing.

The wind moved through the château's broken garden, carrying the smell of rot and wet leaves. Célie's fingers twitched, searching the ground beside her. She found nothing but dirt and shattered glass.

The seal. Where was the seal?

Darkness swam at the edges of her vision. She fought it, clawing at consciousness like a drowning woman clawing at the surface. But her body had betrayed her, and the dark was patient, and it took her down.

She did not know how long she lay there. Minutes. Hours. The world came back to her in pieces—the ache in her bones, the rasp of her breath, the weight of cold stone against her cheek. Above her, the attic window gaped like a broken mouth.

And then a face appeared over her, a man's face, weathered and kind, with eyes that widened in alarm.

"Mon Dieu," he said. "Mademoiselle. Are you alive?"

Célie tried to speak, but only a croak came out. The man knelt beside her, his hands gentle on her shoulders.

"Don't move. There's a cart not far. I'll carry you to my farm."

"Wait," Célie managed. Her voice was a thread. "There was another man. He fell with me."

The farmer's face darkened. He looked at something beyond her field of vision, and his jaw tightened.

"He's dead," he said simply. "The fall broke his neck. Are you... did he hurt you?"

Célie's hand went to her chest, to the place where the seal had hung on its chain. The chain was gone. The seal was gone. Somewhere in the dark, in the wreckage of the garden, the secret she had been entrusted with lay waiting—or worse, already discovered by the spy's allies.

"I need," she whispered, "to go back. I need to find—"

"Shh." The farmer's hand was on her forehead, cool and steady. "You need to rest. You need to live." He looked at her, at her torn dress, her bleeding hands, the faint trace of the widow's veil still clinging to her hair. "Whatever you were running from, mademoiselle, it can wait until morning. The dead can wait. The living cannot."

Célie wanted to argue. She wanted to demand he take her back to the garden, to the broken glass, to the seal lying in the dirt. But her body would not obey. The dark came again, softer this time, and she let it take her.