Chapter Six - Wherein My Life Makes Less Sense Than Goats Playing Whist

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but it wasn’t for Étienne to look the same as he had the last time I saw him. Part of me thought something might have changed now that he was in the Bastille—perhaps the set of his features or the look behind his eyes. But nothing was different.

He stood in the corner, his dark hair pulled into its usual groomed queue, wearing the same chartreuse frock coat he had the night of our parents’ party. There wasn’t a single wrinkle, stain, or out of place hair to be found. It was all ridiculous. Perhaps if something had changed, then everything would have made more sense.

“God, Ollie?” he asked again. “Is that you?”

I ran to my brother and threw my arms around him, much as I had when we were children and he helped stop my nervous attacks. I felt like a child now, clinging to him while I told myself everything would be all right because my older brother was here. He was here. He would figure out what to do and solve all this and we could go back to the way things used to be.

Étienne returned the hug, tightening his arms around my back. “How are you here, Ollie?” he asked into my shoulder.

It will be all right now, I repeated to myself, forcing my breaths to remain calm, though a few hysteric gulps still managed to escape into my brother’s satin-covered shoulder. Étienne is here, so everything will be all right.

But then his arms fell and he pushed me away, saying, “I’m so glad to see you—so glad—but you have to leave.”

“What?”

“You shouldn’t be here, Olivier. You have to leave. It isn’t safe.”

I stared at him, uncertain if I’d heard him correctly.

“But I came here for you,” I said. “Renée and I had to take aid from Madeleine de Froix and deal with the God-awful prison governor and his spectacularly high breeches. But we both let him so we could help get you released.”

Étienne looked over at me, dark eyebrows drawn together. “You and Renée wish to have me released? Even after all the trouble I caused?”

I returned his look with an equally perplexed one of my own. “What do you mean? Of course we do. You’re our brother.”

“I know. But I’m not really of your blood, and you—” He shook his head and lowered himself onto the stone floors. He tried to keep his expression concealed in the shadows, but I could see his jaw working, opening and closing like he couldn’t decide what to say. Finally, he chose, “You have to leave. I don’t wish for you or Renée to be involved in any of this.”

“Involved in any of what?” I asked, sitting down next to him, close enough that our knees touched. My voice sounded rough and hoarse, mirroring the exhaustion welling within. “What happened? Why did you confess?”

Étienne rubbed his palms across his breeches, utterly silent. Somewhere in the room, the damp ceiling drip, drip, dripped onto the stone floor.

“Say something,” I pleaded. “Say it was a mistake and it will be cleared and you’ll be back home soon.”

He didn’t respond.

I was used to silence from my brother. He was silent when lost in a book, silent when he sketched birds, silent when he listened to Renée or I talk about our worries and fears. But that was always a calm sort of silence. The kind of silence that slowed my racing heart and made me feel as if there was someone out there who would always care what I had to say. Not the way he was now. Like he wished the unspoken could somehow erase the false accusations of sin buried deep into his bones.

Swallowing back a lump of terror, I reached into the pocket of my frock coat and pulled out the journal I’d shoved in there before I left the house. It was small and worn, barely the size of my hand. The black leather was soft to the touch and scuffed from years of use. “Here.” I slid it across the ground. “I brought this for you.”

Étienne picked up the journal, rubbing his thumb along the top. He opened the book and flipped through the pages, each one with a different bird drawn on the yellowed paper, some done in charcoal and pencil, others in ink. He stopped on the sketch of a goldfinch, with Chardonneret written above it in looping script. In the margins, there was a scribble in my handwriting that read, My name is Étienne d’Aumont, and I’m a right and total bore.

“Everything is going to be different now, Ollie,” he said as he closed the journal. His hands were shaking. “I won’t be around to watch over you or Renée anymore. You must—”

“Why are you speaking as if you’re never coming back home?” I said, snatching the journal out of his hand. “Don’t you understand I came here to help you? If you tell me what happened, Renée and I will think of a way to prove to everyone you’re innocent. I know neither of us are very competent, but you needn’t worry. We’ll get you out of here somehow. I promise.”

“You can’t do that, Olivier.” Étienne glanced at me, eyes wide and scared, then looked quickly away. “If word gets out you’re trying to help a killer, it will ruin your family name.”

“My family name? My family name?” My voice was a near scream now, but I couldn’t find it in myself to lower the volume. Not when Étienne was saying things that were so utterly ridiculous. “You’re our family, too! Why shouldn’t we want to help you? Isn’t that what families do?”

“Mother and Father aren’t here.”

It wasn’t a question.

I flinched. “No, they aren’t.”

He stared down at his hands, flexing his fingers and curling them back into his palms. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s done.” He swallowed. “I’ve been sentenced to death.”

The floor fell out from underneath me. No. That couldn’t— No. Not my brother. Not Étienne. He was lying. I didn’t know why, but he was lying to me. Because this couldn’t really be true. It wasn’t possible.

I took in a lungful of air, then another. Nothing worked. My heart still fluttered in my chest like a frightened starling. “What? But you didn’t kill anyone! I know you didn’t. It must be a mistake. You couldn’t. You—” You saved my life when I was seven and almost drowned in the lake behind our country château. You taught Renée and me how to make secret worlds fashioned from pillows and blankets and dreams. You’re the only person I’ve met who knows exactly what to say to calm my racing heart.

You’re my brother. You’re my brother. You’re my brother.

“It doesn’t matter if I did or not,” Étienne said. “I was caught with Mother’s jewels in my pocket and a bloody knife in my hand. When they brought me in front of the judge, I confessed to the crime under oath. I look like this.” He waved a hand at his face. “That’s all the evidence they’ll ever need.”

“Did you steal Mother’s jewels?” I asked. It was a silly thing to care about, but I had to know. “Did you want to leave us?”

“No. I didn’t steal anything, and I don’t want to leave. I’d never want to leave.”

“Then you were framed after all?” A relieved breath left my body in an audible whoosh. “Listen, Renée and I will help. Tell me why you confessed, and we’ll sort this out. We’ll find a way to have you released. I’ll talk to the prison governor, and I’ll convince him to let you go. You won’t have to—” I stopped, the word die a boulder in my throat.

“Olivier, I already said you can’t. I’m not. . . like you. No one will believe a word you say, and then you and Renée will get in trouble as well. I won’t let you get hurt on my account.”

“I don’t care if I get hurt!” I yelled, my voice cracking on the last word. “We’ve already started questioning people. Guy le Tellier told me himself he saw you leave the gardens with a woman, and if he saw you, I’m sure other people did as well. If you tell me what you were doing with her near the Seine, it will be a good enough lead to try to prove your innocence.” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I can only assume what you were doing near the river with a woman, so no need to go into details, a small bit of explanation would be sufficient. I promise I’ll reserve judgment if rolling around with a woman on the street is your preference. We all have strange preferences, after all. For example, it may be strange, but I like—”

“The woman I left the gardens with isn’t my lover. She’s my sister.”

I nearly choked. “I’m sorry, she’s your what?”

Étienne leaned his head against the wall. “She’s my sister.”

“Renée is your sister.”

“Yes, I know. It’s complicated. I didn’t—” Étienne reached up to rub at his temples. “I never told you because I didn't know if she was still alive.”

My breaths became more and more panicked, flying from my lungs in frantic bursts. The last thing I needed was Étienne thinking I was too weak like always, too scared to help anyone like always, so I swallowed them back down.

Étienne had a sister? And he didn’t tell me? What else was he keeping from us? What else did he not trust us to know? Everything had been fine and normal all but two days ago, and now I felt like the foundation I had built my life on was fragile as spun sugar, ready to shatter to pieces at the slightest touch.

“This still doesn’t explain,” I started, words slow and thick with the effort to keep them under control, “why you confessed and why you seem to be all right with—with what is going to happen to you.”

“I have to be all right with it. I have no other choice.”

“What do you mean no other choice? If someone put Mother’s jewels in your pocket and made it look as if you killed the coachman, then why don’t you say it? Why would you tell everyone you’re guilty?”

“Because I had to. Because if I say nothing and they continue on with the trial—” Étienne’s words cut off. He looked away, to a torch on the other side of the room. The dim firelight spilled across half his face, illuminating a single dark eye and the sharp slope of his nose. He looked tired. And scared.

“Then what?” I ran a hand over my head. A handful of hair came loose from the ribbon at the back of my neck, and I impatiently shoved it behind my ears. “If you say nothing, then what?”

Étienne merely shook his head. “Please, Ollie. Let it alone. I don’t want anything to happen to you or Renée. I need to know you’ll both be all right. Please tell me you’ll let it alone and you’ll both be all right.”

Before I could press him further, the door flew open, and Monsieur de Launay walked in. His eyes moved from me to Étienne, and he frowned. “Time to leave. Étienne d’Aumont must return to his chamber.”

I glanced at my brother, desperately trying to grasp any last bits of information I could gather. But he was making a poignant effort to keep his gaze directed on the dying torch at the back of the room. Despite the shadows, I was able to catch a single, firelit tear as it slipped down the side of his cheek.

“Étienne,” I begged. Tears of my own gathered in my throat, hot and sharp. “Say you didn’t do it. Please. I can’t lose you.”

The prison governor grabbed my arm and started to drag me away. “Now, monsieur.”

“Tell him you didn’t do it!” I shouted, attempting to dig my feet into the floor. “Tell him!”

But I’d never learned how to be strong and forthcoming, and with a single tug, I was uprooted. I stumbled back, and would have fallen flat on my face if it weren’t for the governor’s hands locked around my arms. Then I was yanked through the threshold and back into the dark, stifling hallways, too terrified to let out another cry of protest. As the door to the interrogation room slammed in my face, all I could think of were the things Étienne would never tell me. All I could wonder was if that was the last time I’d ever see my brother alive.