Page 34 of Misadventures with a Duke

The what-ifs don’t stop there. Not by a single, awful bit. I’m getting so dizzy at processing them all, on top of fighting to keep up with Drue’s half jog, that I’m only focusing on our surroundings with half a brain.

The half that doesn’t recognize the lime-green hybrid that’s slowed to a crawl next to us.

“You guys look like you’re escaping fate or chasing demons,” says the driver past their half-dropped passenger window.

“And you look like you hung out over at Bryant, hoping we’d resurface,” Drue answers Dash, who has instantly become our new best friend of the day.

“Did it to yourself, fancy tipper,” the driver rejoins with a fast wink.

“Which I’ll double if you get us to the Consulate of France like green lightning.”

At once, Dash pops the locks. “I’m your fast finisher, baby.”

“You really want me to riff on that one?” Drue quips as we climb in.

“I don’t upcharge for banter. But seriously, which is it? Fate or demons?”

I sigh heavily. “All of the above.”

And damn it, how I wish that it’s really only banter.

Chapter Eight

Bastien

“Do you know who I am?”

Why do I expect this iteration of the demand to earn me a different response than before? That these idiots in officers’ wear will opt to do anything but chuckle, grunt, and ruffle my hair like I am a stray dog they are preparing to torture and throw in the river? A fate I nearly yearn for, since decorum and civility seem to be missing factors in the twenty-first century.

The twenty-first century.

My senses have not yet recovered from their shocked raze, though how can I blame them? Two hundred years has changed the world. It is a place full of so many more colors, textures, people. Languages, lights, people. Vehicles, voices…people. Human beings that I understand but do not.

Like everyone else here, I have been in a hurry too. Deciding that if I just go faster, I will find the ultimate destination I seek. The place in all this insanity that shall extinguish the frantic fires in my mind, all burning with the same crucial question.

Why am I here?

I thought this building would have that answer. As soon as I saw the plaque that declares it as my homeland’s consulate, with the flag containing France’s traditional triad of colors, hope soared in my soul. Surely we are still friends with America, since they borrowed the colors for their standard. At once, I felt secure enough to rush in here. To do so with eager joy, expecting I would be met with courtesy, honor, and refuge.

Courtesy.

Honor.

Refuge.

Words that will never mean what they once did. I know that as a surety while straightening my stance despite how it strains my shoulders. The three guards responsible for my capture are not impressed. They keep up their chuckling and preening, until fresh footfalls resound across the atrium.

At once, the soldiers are sober. Their spines straighten. They dip their heads with deference at a tall fellow who enters, the clove shade of his skin lending to his kingly air. As he reciprocates their nods, I notice that his thick black curls are coifed similarly to Maximillian’s new fashion. He is bizarrely unaffected by the clamoring horde that has gathered beyond the building’s awning.

He is different than anyone out there. From anyone in here.

The observation dims behind my fascination with the sleek tablet he pulls from an inside pocket of his jacket. He holds it like Moses with one of the sacred slabs from Sinai: an ideal comparison since the entire front of the thing lights up when he touches it with a long black rod.

But my gawk does not deter him. Yet neither does he regard me like my mind is made of pudding. He seems to see me as one of Carl’s staff would. There is honest respect in his gaze, despite his open curiosity.

“Good afternoon,” he intones, his accent as pedestrian as my attackers. But his words are similar to Magique’s—well, the modern version of her—in that it has subtle music because of its underlying consideration. “Monsieur…De Leon?”

“Oui,” I say, remaining cautious. He nods, seemingly understanding of that. As if he knows what I have just been through. As if he was watching from beyond the bright, flashing lights as the trio of churls took me down and bound me like a common dissident.