A Drop of Night Read online

  Oh great. I move out of the line, eyeballing the boarding pass, and trying to see how it incriminated me.

  A TSA woman approaches, red lipstick so bright it’s like she just gorged herself on cherries or blood or something. “Follow me, miss,” she says in the most bored voice ever, and starts leading me around the endless security queue. I brace myself for deportation, gulag, whatever they do to people these days. The TSA woman positions me right at the front of the line. And leaves. The security people wave me forward.

  Oh?

  Phone out, coat off, hands up for the body scan. And now I’m in the gate area, squeezing past some punk guy who thinks it’s a good idea to travel with studded belts and twelve dozen piercings. He looks at me accusingly, like I’m personally responsible for his poor life choices. I head into the gauntlet of fast-food restaurants, coffee shops, screaming kids, and snack walls.

  Well, that was strangely easy. I think of the last time I was here. I was on my way to a master class on Renaissance literature in Perugia, Italy. Everything was infinitely worse. Dad couldn’t take me to the airport—he stays at the loft downtown during the week—and I said I’d order a car, but Mom had to drive Penny to her ballet class so she offered to take me.

  I should have guessed this wouldn’t end well. Mom doesn’t do things for no reason.

  They sat up front. Mom was chewing that nasty medicinal herbal gum she likes. She kept leaning across the middle console and tucking Penny’s hair behind her tiny, half-gone ear. I wanted to tell her to watch the road.

  Later, in Departures, Penny was power texting, her hair brushed forward to hide the scarring on her cheeks. Mom was telling her something about Madame Pripatsky’s carpel tunnel syndrome. I was being pathetic, thinking, Mom? Penny’s not even good at ballet. I’m the one going to Italy. Talk to me.

  And I was saying, “Penny, don’t forget to feed Pete.”

  I adore Penny. I shouldn’t even be allowed near her, but she’s the only person in the world I’d bother rescuing, if, say, the world were about to be hit by a comet and I had a spaceship. She’s the one who gave me the nickname Ooky, back when she was two and the name “Anouk” involved way too much drooling. When she was four, she told me she wanted to be a starfish when she grew up, a blue one, and also a veterinarian. I remember saying she could totally do that because blue starfish skilled in veterinarian work were really rare. She’s eleven now. She wants to become principal dancer at the New York City Ballet someday. She can barely walk upright.

  I remember Penny nodding to me. Her thumb, tapping away at her screen. Me and Mom, staring past each other. Mom’s forty-three. She’s got huge hair, like Mufasa. She’s charismatic. She can make shareholders, VPs, the hot-dog seller on the curb outside her office building follow her into the void. She wishes I were dead.

  We stood like that for maybe ten seconds, and inside I was screaming for her to just turn her eyes a quarter of an inch and look at me.

  She didn’t. She fixed her gaze on a point over my shoulder and said: “Keep those Italian boys in line.” And then she smiled this tiny, grim smile that said: Serves you right.

  She unwrapped another square of gum. Leaned down and whispered into Penny’s ear, like they were friends, or at least a mother and a daughter. I watched them and I wanted to slap Mom, grab her flowing black clothes and shake her until she screamed, until she hated me, because if she hated me at least she’d have to look at me. I stood perfectly still, my skin crackling. “There are three bottles of Moët behind the couch in the basement if you’re planning on celebrating when you get home,” I said.

  I left feeling sick and angry, and hid in the business-class lounge as soon as I got through security. Chewed on blood orange rinds until my mouth hurt. Three of my classmates from St. Winifred’s were there, also on their way to Perugia. A trio of perfect brains, perfect nose jobs, and perfect Tiffany jewelry, whispering and throwing glances in my direction. One of them—Bahima Atik, I think—waved. I pretended not to see. I don’t feel bad about that. Neither did they. At St. Winifred’s you don’t have friends. You have allies. You have trade agreements and pacts of nonaggression, and if you’re lucky you have one or two people who won’t stab you in the back. Unless stabbing you in the back is a prerequisite to becoming president of something, in which case, buy a coffin; you’re already dead.

  I snap back to the present, and I feel the anger again, nestling behind my ribs like it belongs there. I left the lounge that day like some kind of dark and spiny sea creature, daring anyone to get too close. It’s where all this started, I guess. This searching for something colossal, some epic task that would make people move out of the way when I walked down a hall, that would make me fearsome and great and impossible to ignore. I hope this is it.

  I could have done a million other things. I could have gone through the Long Island house with a baseball bat and broken all the Kutani porcelain. I could have made party streamers out of Mom’s and Dad’s sensitive business emails and thrown them around at their next fund-raising gala. I could have picked up drug-addled Ellis Winthrope and flown to LA and sent pictures of our wedding to the whole family. But this is better. It’s my coup de grâce. Or maybe just my coup, no grâce.

  I look down at my phone. Three minutes until I meet the others.

  3

  I spot Jules Makra first. He’s leaning against a pillar by Gate B-24, scrolling through his phone. We each got a little bullet-pointed spreadsheet in the blue folder, like we’re superheroes in a lame cartoon. Age. Skill set. Majors. Extracurriculars. Mug shots so we know how to spot one another.

  Jules is tall, gangly. Jittery. Elaborately sculpted black pouf hairdo that looks like he spent ages trying to get it right. It’s starting to droop. His earphones are in and his leg is bouncing to a very irregular-looking beat. I tap my fingernails on the handle of my bag. Steel myself and walk toward him, suitcase whizzing behind me.

  A second before I reach him, he looks up. Sees me. Grins.

  Jules Makra up close: a little bit punk, a little bit hipster. Rolled-up chinos and this weird, bright thrift-shop shirt plastered with Russian dolls and flowers, all crinkled up under a lopsided bomber. His eyes go sharp for a millisecond, little splinters over his grin. He’s assessing me.

  I assess him back. “Are you with Professor Dorf?”

  “Yeah!” he says. He pulls out one earphone and his grin widens. “You’re Lilly?”

  “No.” I glance around for the others.

  “Um. You’re Anouk?”

  No, I’m William Park. I almost say it out loud, but then William Park shows up, so I don’t.

  I like Will Park’s face. He looks like someone studiously observed everything about Jules and inverted it. He’s tall, too, but bulky and broad shouldered, and while Jules looks like he’s about to pop a shoulder blade out of his skinny back, Will looks self-contained. Calm. Except for his jaw, which is sharp enough to cut stone and slightly tense, like he’s clenching it. Nervous, maybe. He’s wearing a newsboy cap pulled down low and a ratty old pea coat that was probably shabby chic in the 1920s.

  Jules tugs out his other earphone and grins again, only I think he grins wider at Will, probably in the hopes of avoiding the debacle-that-is-Anouk. “Hey!” he says.

  “Hey.” Will’s voice is low. He goes straight for the handshake. He only looks at me for a second before his gaze drops. His eyes are blue.

  Jules is frowning, probably wondering what the odds are that everyone on this team is an asocial freak. I sit down on my suitcase. Will leans a shoulder against Jules’s pillar and looks out into the crowd. Incredibly awkward silence ensues. One of those silences where everyone knows they’re being awkward, but there’s nothing they can say to break it, and so they just freeze up and hope for a quick and speedy death.

  Hayden Maiburgh shows up next. He’s just as tall as the rest of us, but he’s another type entirely. The type I like to avoid at all costs. He’s wearing a private school blazer and blue-mirrored aviators,
and his hair’s been lacquered into a brassy swoop. He looks like he’s on his way to play polo or bathe in gold bathtubs of champagne, and he grins at us as he approaches, that sort of Hey, losers grin some people are born with.

  “Hey, losers,” he says, and I almost spit out my metaphorical mouthful of water. He’s doing one of those fake bro handshakes with Jules, all splayed fingers and fist bumps. Except Jules has no idea how bro handshakes work, and I’m pleased to say the whole thing is failing miserably. Unfortunately, that seems to please Hayden, too, like the handshake is a test and Jules flubbing it up settles the hierarchy. Hayden turns to Will, grinning, ready to do the whole maneuver again. Will is completely oblivious. He grips Hayden’s hand, harder than looks comfortable, shakes it once, and goes back to gazing soulfully into the crowds.

  I stay on my suitcase. Stretch out my legs and give Hayden a death glare when he glances down at me. Now I look away, like he’s too boring even for glaring at. Try to visualize the files in the blue folder, lining everybody up in my head:

  Anouk Geneviève van Roijer-Peerenboom. Seventeen years old. Gymnast. Jerk. Speaks five languages fluently, has basic knowledge of eight more, nationally acknowledged teen academic studying art history at NYU. Recent graduate of St. Winifred’s Preparatory School in Manhattan. Can now also climb and scuba dive.

  Jules Makra. Seventeen. Graphic design student. San Diego, California. Won a prize for drawing a chair or something.

  Will Park. Seventeen. Engineering student from Charleston, South Carolina. Has nice eyes.

  Hayden Maiburgh. Seventeen. Philosophy major at Cornell. That’s a joke. What does he philosophize about, weight lifting? Juice boxes? The plight of the one percent?

  The fifth kid isn’t here yet. Lilly Watts. Sixteen. Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

  She arrives three minutes later, and I guess she walks up like a normal person, but it feels like she explodes onto the scene like an anime character, blowing everyone backward in whooshy streaks. She’s short and plump. She looks like a hippie-indie American Girl come to life, feathers in hair, colored wristbands, a bedazzled leather jacket with fringes. Except she’s also carrying the most enormous hiker backpack I have ever seen. It dwarfs her. Towers over her head. Her nose is shiny, greasy looking.

  She takes one look at us propped against pillars and suitcases like a tear sheet straight out of Vogue and her eyes pop wide. “Oh my gosh.” She spreads her fingers, palms downward. “You guys. We’re going to France.”

  She does a little dance. Now she’s smiling right at me. “I was literally afraid today wasn’t Wednesday. I mean, I couldn’t find anyone, and this one time I slept all night and all day and missed an entire twenty-four hours, so I thought maybe I had slept through Wednesday and today was Thursday. I know, Seriously, Lilly? But I thought it. Hi!”

  She shakes Hayden’s hand because he’s closest, and she’s laughing and jabbering, and Hayden is smiling down at her a touch derisively. I wonder if Lilly notices.

  Now she’s talking to Jules. He jokes around. They blab. Lilly does one of those shoulder dip things and says “Ohhh, me, too!” and I imagine they’re talking about their mutual mastering of the blinding toothpaste-commercial smile.

  Lilly gets to Will. For a second she looks like she wants to hug his poor quiet self, but she tucks that thought back into a folder of good-deeds-for-later and instead grabs his hand in both of hers, beams at him, and tells him she loves his historically accurate coat. Right before she gets to me, I stand up.

  “Hooray,” I say flatly. Do some jazz hands. “We’ve arrived. Where’s Dorf?”

  Lilly stops in her tracks. Everyone stares at me.

  “We’re supposed to meet him here,” Hayden says.

  “Did anyone else totally fail at the climbing wall part of preliminaries?” Jules says.

  “Hi,” Lilly says, and waves at me, a tiny, frantic motion.

  I pivot, scanning the faces flowing past. We’re right where we’re supposed to be, Terminal 4, Gate B-24. But the rows of gray waiting seats are empty. There’s no flight info up on the screen.

  “Maybe we all slept through Wednesday,” Lilly says. She laughs, but no one else does. I’m actually freaking out a little bit. If I got the wrong day, the wrong time, the wrong airport, if I have to go crawling back home and find out that permanent marker does stick on stainless steel—

  Something clanks behind me. The metal door to the skywalk, opening. I whirl, see four guys in black suits striding out. They’re dressed impeccably, but the rest of them is rough. I glimpse a tattoo snaking above a collar. Silvery scars crisscrossing a row of knuckles. One has an actual chemical-red Mohawk, six spikes rising in angry sunrays down the center of his scalp.

  Walking between them is a fifth man. At least fifty. Elegant and scholarly looking, huge as a boulder. He’s got a neatly trimmed beard, silvered glasses, a hat. A colorful silk foulard is knotted under his chin. He looks like Indiana Jones if Indiana Jones got old and fancy and bulked up on several hundred pounds of broccoli and protein shakes. He also looks exactly like his picture: Professor Dr. Thibault Dorf.

  “Hello, hello!” he calls out. His voice isn’t loud. It’s deep, a raspy, rich, velvety sort of voice that makes everyone within ten feet turn and stare. Us included. The bodyguards are picking up our bags. Red Spikes is behind us, herding us through the metal door and down the skywalk, and Dorf is saying: “It’s wonderful to meet all of you. And all on time! Welcome to Project Papillon.”

  He has a trace of an accent. Not French. Not British either. I don’t know what it is. Lilly immediately latches on to his arm and starts explaining to him how unbelievably excited she is to be here. I look over at the nearest bodyguard type. Vulture eyes. Blond stubble up his face, so pale it’s almost gray. He looks like a Norse god. He brings a hand up to his ear, and he’s got a headset there, running down his jaw. A light is blinking in it—a thin red strip, throbbing silently, like he’s getting a message now. A whisper plugged straight into his skull.

  The others are starting to talk, warming up to each other, making friends. I watch the light, and I watch the guy, and I wonder what he’s hearing.

  Aurélie du Bessancourt—August 27, 1789

  Mother was invited down today. No one has seen the Palais du Papillon yet, no one but Father and Havriel and the legions of craftsmen who live in the depths, heedless of night and day, working and painting and sculpting tirelessly by lamplight.

  The invitation arrived with much pomp: three footmen in full livery—scarlet coats, gold braid, and silk stockings, the center one bearing a small gilded casket—knocked on the door to Mama’s chambers. Mama was in her boudoir, asleep in a patch of sunlight like a cat, and so it was I who leaped up to receive the gift, and it was I who snapped open the lid and peered inside like a great nosy peacock. A single square of paper lay within, cushioned in dried posies and apple blossoms.

  My darling, my treasure, my heart, I read. The card was edged with gold, and it smelled so sharply of cloves and rose oil and thick perfumes that I almost gagged.

  I request your most excellent presence at the gates to the Palais du Papillon, on this day, the 27th of August, 9 o’ clock.

  Forever in love, Frédéric du Bessancourt

  I replaced the card quickly and dropped into a chair. The reason for the invitation is clear: Father’s mysterious palace is nearing completion, and he is eager to show it off.

  I hand the invitation to Mama when she wakes and feign surprise when she tells me what it says.

  “May I go, too?” I ask, perhaps too bluntly; Mama peers at me, startled.

  “No,” she says. “No, my sweet, he did not say to bring anyone. He is very particular.”

  “I am particular, too,” I say, frowning in mock seriousness. “Particularly curious.” And I laugh, but Mother’s smile is weak as watered brandy, and so I do not press the subject. Her quietness does not trouble me. I am as excited as if I were going myself. Last month, Charlotte, Delphine, and I watched the
armored coaches approach down the avenue, the horses sweating, gleaming in the sun, the drivers shouting merrily down to the gardeners as they passed. We saw sofas from Paris, spinets from Vienna, bolts of silks and brocade from London and Flanders, so heavy they bent the servants double, loaded down into the lower passage and disappearing into the shafts and the dark, as if swallowed by some insatiable beast. The palace will no doubt be a wondrous sight. And vast. There were so many coaches. An endless snake of them, all filled to bursting. It seems Father can afford anything he pleases: to grow fat on honeyed quail and petits fours; a wife as beautiful as Mama; four daughters and no sons. A palace that would put the king of France to shame. I wonder if there is anything he cannot have.

  Mother passes me on her way out, dressed in splendor like a Venetian Madonna. Her gown is deep, rich crimson, finest silk, like poppies, berries, roses. Her sleeves and bodice are weighted with pearls. Her wig is a mountain of smoke-gray locks, pinned with silver flowers. She is going alone down to the gallery. There, Father and Lord Havriel will meet her. Not even Madame Kretschmer or the maids have been allowed to accompany her. She does not see me as she passes, and I want to call out to her, to say something, wish her luck, but she is gone already, tapping slowly down the stairs. I keenly await her report.

  4

  We’re greeted on the plane by a spindle-thin Asian woman in a pencil skirt and high-collared white blouse. Her eyes are striking—mismatched green and gray vortexes, the pupils wide and black, like someone took a hole punch to a starscape. She’s sizing us up. Her gaze is borderline scary, like she’s weighing meat.

  “Miss Sei,” Dorf says. “Chief science officer from the Sapani Corporation. She’ll be assisting with the expedition.”

  Her tongue clicks against her teeth and she strides away down the body of the jet, waving for us to follow.

  We do, and I watch her shoulders moving in a square under her blouse. Next to me, Jules lets out a low whistle. “We are definitely traveling first class.”