The Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne Read Free Book Online Page B

anyway.” She bent her head closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “The children are reborn in the Coach House. The Tuteurs strip away from them all they have, even their names. When a place is found for them, they are sent to England and pass as orphans, or as children lost from English families. They are so young, no one questions whether they are what they appear to be.”
    That was a satchel of news to bring home to Doyle. Kids planted in England, waiting to be let loose someday. Spies still in the pod. “You know a lot about it.”
    “It is part of my charm to be knowledgeable in many fields.” She batted his arm. “Move aside. I want to go out into the light to speak of this.”
    He didn’t budge. “Why did you bring me here?”
    “We will put an end to this. You and I. Tonight.”
    He said a couple of French words he’d learned recently. He wasn’t sure what they meant, but it was something obscene. “Don’t tell me your people couldn’t have stopped that, Chouette. Any day. Any week. If you gave a damn about—”
    Her hand twisted into the cloth of his coat. She held him, furious, snarling into his face. “We did not know.”
    “You knew.”
    “ Écoute-moi, Citoyen ’Awker. You are the newly minted spy. You strut about with your insouciance and your black knife and you understand no more than a flea. This is the battle of shadows we fight here in Paris. There are a hundred factions. There are secrets the Secret Police themselves do not know. Men too powerful to be challenged.” She let go of him. Pushed him away. “The Tuteurs who rule the Coach House were such men. They were untouchable.”
    She stood, breathing heavily, her teeth gritted. If he kept quiet, she’d get to the rest of it.
    She did. “Three days ago, the Head of the Coach House followed Robespierre to the guillotine. Now, secrets creep into the daylight. Men say openly that the Tuteurs of the Coach House have committed the most evil acts.”
    “What exactly does that mean when you put it in plain words? Being as I’m an expert in evil, I take a certain interest in the variety of depravity in this—”
    “Do not play the dunce. You are not the only connoisseur of evil here. We have all waded deep in blood since the Revolution.” Her voice was brittle as glass. “You may accept my judgment. The men who placed those children in England were monsters. They have committed enormities. The Secret Police themselves are appalled.”
    “What enormities?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Go ahead. Name them. Impress me.”
    She set her fist to the wall. Just set it there and looked at it. “Many of the Cachés—most—became children built of smoke. False names and false histories. English children who never existed. But some were more solid than that. Sometimes, the Tuteurs traded a child for a child.” She hit the wall, suddenly, with the side of her fist. It must have hurt. “Stand aside. I will go out from here. I am sick of darkness.”
    He let her shove him away. When he followed her outside, she was waiting for him at the iron railing that separated the churchyard from the road, holding onto one of the bars with her free hand, looking at the ground.
    He said, “Now you tell me what that means. A child for a child? What’s that?”
    She breathed deeply. Twice. “Sometimes, the Cachés became real English children. They became orphans without close family, sent to live with distant relatives.” She let go of the railing. “How do you think so many very convenient orphans are created? Walk beside me. I must tell you what we will do tonight.”
    “Hell. Are you saying . . . ?”
    “I am not saying anything. Now, attend.” She strode down the street, every bit of her the firm, busy, basket-on-her-arm house servant. A kitchen maid in a hurry. Not one speck of spy showed. “These Tuteurs must close that house if they wish to avoid an accounting for what they have done. They must place the last children in