He did not. He turned over his shoulder and caught Sebastien's gaze.
And winked.
Nobody could lie like David.
* * *
Sebastien was not in a position to see what happened when they led David out into the sun, but he didn't need to. You only needed to see some things once to remember them forever.
David didn't scream.
But a patrolman did.
* * *
He was calm by the time Abby Irene released him, though he shook her hand off when she came to apologize. "They would have just taken us both," he said. And then he bit his lip, his teeth opening bloodless slashes in the dead flesh, and said, "Just don't comfort me with any pretty lies."
"Never," she said, and kissed him on the wounded mouth before she stepped away.
In the next room, sunlight speckled with motes of dust or ash shone through the shattered door. Neither Abby Irene nor Jack had the strength to stop him if he chose to follow David.
Tempting as it was to throw David's unwanted gift in his face. . .the light stung Sebastien's eyes. He turned his back.
He stared down at his hands; a dead man's hands could not tremble with wrath. Nor could they steady at the moment of decision.
France was no better than Britain. One government was much like another.
Sebastien knew these things, objectively.
But it was not the government of France whose corruption, whose protection of a monster worthy of the appellation had brought down death upon Sebastien's house. Upon David, beloved. A monster as well, perhaps, but a monster in name only.
"Jack," he said. "You have friends who do not love the English Crown."
"Oh boy," Jack said, in his terrible American. "Do I ever."
Sebastien looked at Abby Irene. "Cherie, you won't want to hear this."
"I'll stay," she said.
"It's treason."
Her smile made her seem old. "Good," she said. "I don't think I mind."
He looked at Jack. Jack nodded. Phoebe's knuckles were white where she squeezed his hand. Miss de Courten was sitting upright, finally, blinking, her bosom swelling over her corset with each deep breath.
"Of course you may," Sebastien said, smooth-voiced and dry of eye.
He had not recently enough fed, for weeping.
Lumière
(December 1902 - January, 1903)
"Well then," said Jack Priest. "We'll go to Paris."
He gazed steadily at Sebastien when he said it; Sebastien was staring at the backs of his own hands, his fingers interlaced like a dead man's.
Which, Jack supposed, he was.
There were three others arranged around the hotel room they'd taken refuge in: the sorceress Lady Abigail Irene Garrett with her small dog on her knee; Mrs. Phoebe Smith, the noted novelist; and Doctor Garrett's mulatto servant Mary, whom Abby Irene—as Sebastien called her, with fine familiarity and a disregard for rank that seemed to trouble her not at all—had insisted be included in their councils.
Sebastien didn't respond. Jack knew what he held folded between his hands—a silver ring set with a cloudy blue stone. And he supposed Sebastien deserved time to grieve, but the hard fact was they didn't have it, and that wasn't only Jack's jealousy speaking.
"Paris," Abby Irene said. "What would we do in Paris?"
"As a former servant of the Crown, and a member of the peerage, and a bonded sorcerer, and an émigré to the colonies—" Jack shrugged. "You are in a unique position, Doctor Garrett, to negotiate for diplomatic recognition of the Colonial home government from the French."
"There is no Colonial home government," she said.
Jack answered her with a smile, and he knew she would read the answer in it.
"Peter Eliot," she said, articulating each syllable. "You mean to tell me he's set up an entire shadow government."
"He's not alone," Jack said.
Another risk, because if Abby Irene had suspected, before, that the revolutionaries rioting in the streets of Boston and New Amsterdam, stoning redcoats and inscribing graffiti, answered to a central authority, now she knew it. She had known since they met that he had revolutionary friends, but he doubted she had any idea how deep and how high ran disaffection with the Crown.
"You"—she paused, in order to get her thoughts aligned—"wish me to offer an alliance to the French. Against our own government."
"The English."
"Our own government. Our own King. Tell me you're joking, Mr. Priest."
He'd asked her to call him Jack, and sometimes she remembered. Not right now, however, and he didn't blame her.
Jack expected her to be his greatest challenge. Loyal as her terrier, but Abby Irene treated the dog far better than her masters had ever treated her. He could see her formulating objections—but