"I look forward to seeing it again," he said, with emphasis.
That was, at the very least, a promise to check to see that she returned it to the Sourné. Rian put the mask on the table, and glanced at the remainder of his ten-Tear, worried he would pursue the question of how the Mask of Léon had fallen into Henri’s hands.
"Do you wish to claim another forfeit?" Alexandrine asked, obligingly.
Rian hesitated, for she had been left with only a small number of D’Argent’s Tears. How would he react if she attempted to extract a binding promise from him, but failed because she did not have enough for the cost?
And what to do about her discoveries regarding the Prince Royal?
"Is it so very hard to decide?" D’Argent asked, sounding amused. Still standing, he leaned forward in order to gaze into her eyes through her mask. "I do not think I have ever met you before."
"It seems very unlikely," Rian said, blinking at the complex array of emotions that near proximity revealed. Genuine entertainment, a note of desire, but also a distinct sense of pride, and of challenge.
"Are you, perhaps, thinking of constraining me in some way, Mademoiselle Serpent?" he murmured.
Threat. Excitement. Determination. Even if she had sufficient Tears to extract a binding promise, Rian would not pursue it with this one. He would most certainly seek a way around the terms of whatever she asked, and exact revenge for her effrontery. But she was now sure he wouldn’t let the matter drop, even if she didn’t push him to retaliation.
Wanting a little more time, Rian said: "No need to loom over me. Why not sit down, so we can talk?"
D’Argent snorted, but moved to obey, and Rian took the opportunity to focus on the threads and ribbons wavering around him, making another attempt to delve into them. This time she was rewarded.
D’Argent, face unveiled and alight with a kind of savage pleasure, leaned out from the engine of an elderly steam train and shot at an autocarriage crowded with people. He handed his empty pistol to a woman with short-cropped hair – perhaps a sister, from the strong resemblance – and took from her a loaded replacement.
Interesting, but not useful. As D’Argent sat down, Rian tried again.
Gustav of Sweden: big, blond and grand in furs, at the centre of a crowded hall. He faced a woman whose long brown hair was unbound, restrained only by one of the elaborate Swedish marriage crowns. Ceremoniously, he offered her a sword with a golden armlet balanced on the hilt. No joy or dissatisfaction disturbed an expression of perfect neutrality. Her dark eyes were steady.
Rian blinked away the scene and looked across at the person now settled in the chair opposite. No stranger to the art of cosmetics, she mentally darkened brows and lashes, and made comparisons to two very different visions.
Heloise. This was Princess Heloise.
Rian had met women who dressed as men to escape walls that kept them small, and she’d also known people who used clothing to express a true reflection of their heart. Either could be true for Heloise, and it helped Rian not at all in taking her next step. She had been given a clear illustration of two very different futures for the princess, but did not even know which choice would lead to which outcome. Or how much the Duke of Balance had guided what she saw.
Turning, Rian frowned at Alexandrine, waiting patiently by the room’s door. "It occurs to me that it’s always worth asking whether your clever gambit was someone else’s move all along."
Alexandrine didn’t respond. Princess Heloise said: "Now you’re being mysterious."
"I am being annoyed with myself. A short while ago someone very grand called me a power in the process of becoming, and I was pleased, and complimented, and did something he wanted. I liked the idea of being the one making the decisions, instead of a tool dragged this way and that by larger forces. But here I am, with a small decision to make, putting off making it because I don’t know what will happen next, or how much of this situation has been created. I feel out of my depth, and I’ve never liked that."
Heloise-D’Argent propped her chin on one hand in a show of boredom. "You make yourself sound most intriguing," she said, in a tone to suggest the opposite.
Rian gazed back at France’s Princess Royal, and found herself setting aside calculation in favour of simple fellow feeling.
"Your brother is a chrysalide."
A bald statement that left Princess Heloise utterly still, with not even a flicker of an eyelid to betray her reaction. Rian wondered if it was possible that the princess had already known – but, no, chrysalides were indistinguishable from humans until their wings began to develop.
While she watched, the ribbons and threads around the princess changed – some shrinking away, while others grew longer – and Rian’s extra sense brought her a shaft of piercing hurt. Whatever else she felt about the news, the revelation had wounded the Princess Royal. For the silence of her mother, or the loss of her brother?
Rian wondered whether any of it mattered. Was this even the small decision that would have large consequences for the women of France? And, even though she was the daughter of a Frenchman, did Rian truly have any business trying to change a whole country to better suit her own sensibilities?
To better suit Martine and Milo, on the other hand…
"I would like to see your face."
Rian glanced from the princess to Alexandrine, only to find the member of the Tower of Balance had turned her back. Her business was to arbitrate forfeits, not small-large choices.
With a faint shrug, Rian lifted off the white and gold snake mask, and then untied her veil. Princess Heloise tugged free her own, and they looked at each other.
"I do not thank you for this," the princess said. "Or ask how you know it. But I am…but I have heard it." She stood, replacing her veil, and crossed to Alexandrine. "Return me to the assembly hall, if you may." She looked back at Rian. "I will know you again, if I meet you."
And then she was gone. Rian looked at her hands, then carefully replaced veil and mask before finally returning her attention to the mask of a silver lion, almost forgotten on the table.
She picked it up, and lifted it briefly so she could look through its eyes. Martine’s future, clear of another threat. Until the next time Henri wanted something from her.
"Is there somewhere I can put this?" she asked, when Alexandrine returned. "I might have forfeits to pay, and I would hate to have come so far only to lose it again."
Alexandrine touched the mask, and it vanished. "Say my name within the Towers and it will return to you."
"Thank you." Rian stood. She thought of asking Alexandrine how much she had known about the Dauphin’s two children, and what choice the Court member would have made, if she had been allowed to interfere. Probably Alexandrine had seen it all before, and from the perspective of a century or so it seemed a minor dilemma.
Rian scooped up the remainder of Heloise-D’Argent’s Tears, and attached them to her veil.
"Perhaps I will see you again, if I return next century," she said, and was vaguely cheered by the reflection that she would not necessarily outlive everyone she had ever met.
(xii)
If the current fashions lasted into winter, there would be considerable profit to be made in renting coats to the visitors to the Towers. Rian had recovered the rest of her dress, but tissue did little against a chill wind, and she shivered and winced as soon as she stepped from beneath the canopy of the Hall of Balance.