A Drop of Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

probably never read.” I click my tongue. “Missed opportunity there.”
    â€œDon’t you study art history?”
    â€œIs that a legitimate question, or are you trying to shut me up?”
    Jules laughs. I know he’s doing that inquisitive little sideways look right now.
    I keep my gaze fixed on the landscape outside. We landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport about 10 A.M. Paris time and were whisked straight from the tarmac to our waiting motorcade. We didn’t even have to go through Immigration.
    I get a quick blur of kebab restaurants, bright signs, and concrete-block houses as we pass through a town. Julesstarts talking about bands I’ve never heard of. I wonder if he’s just trying out subjects until I latch on to something. Sorry, my life consists of reading Tolstoy in original Cyrillic and watching foreign-dubbed Hollywood movies on repeat until I understand the dialogue through context. Also dreaming up Machiavellian revenge. Also being irritating and pretentious. At least we have that in common.
    I slip the blue folder out of my bag and page through it. Jules starts talking about a book, still staring at the ceiling. (“It’s called The Beauty of Chartreuse on the River Styx , and it’s about quirky teens who fall in love and die.”)
    I see Lilly’s one-sheet:
    Lilly Watts—skill set: audio and visual sensitivities.
    What does that mean? That she can see and hear?
    I flip further. I really want to be sleeping right now. I didn’t even doze on the flight over. I changed out of my pointy witch shoes at the Paris airport in favor of some sensible-looking crepe-soled brogues, but my toes still hurt, and all I want to do is lie down on the black leather seat and conk out. I force myself to read:
    Very few records of the Marquis du Bessancourt and his family have survived . Many of their papers were likely destroyed to avoid capture and the widespread repercussions against aristocrats during the Reign of Terror. Surviving documents show that Frédéric du Bessancourt was born in 1734 as the only legitimate child of a local nobleman, later rising to prominence as a banker and businessman under Louis XV of France. At this time, he also gained a reputation as a scientist, natural philosopher, and a frequent lender to the king and his successor, Louis XVI, financing much of the monarchs’ lavish lifestyle. In 1774, the marquis married Célestine Gauthier. They had several children.
    All records of the Bessancourt family cease after 1789. They are never mentioned again, either in revolutionary propaganda or in prison registries in and around the city of Paris. It is at this time that we assume he and his family fled underground, escaping France shortly afterward and reestablishing themselves under other names in England or Germany. Construction on a subterranean palace may have begun as early as 1760 in the vast caverns under the ancestral château. The palace, known at the time for unknown reasons as the Palais du Papillon (Palace of the Butterfly), has sat untouched for two hundred years. It lies below the water table, in bedrock, inviting the possibility that some areas are partially or entirely submerged. We have no definite idea how large the palace is, how structurally sound, how safe. Regardless of its current state, it will be a treasure trove of revolutionary era detail and perhaps the most significant discovery from eighteenth-century Europe in history.
    We are pleased to have you with us on this momentous expedition and hope that this project will be a rewarding and enlightening experience for every one of you.
    It’s signed with an illegible scribble. Underneath is written, helpfully:
    The Sapani Family
    â€œHey?” Jules is looking at me. I wonder how long I’ve been ignoring him. “You okay?”
    I drop my head against the window again and make some indeterminable noise against the glass. For some reason he takes that as a