Cassandra Clare - The Runaway Queen

This was precisely what Magnus wanted to hear.

On Sunday morning, the day of the escape, Magnus woke to the usual clamor of church bells ringing all over

Paris. His head was a bit thick and clouded from a long evening with the

Count de —— and a group of actors from the Comédie-Italienne. It seemed that during the night he had also acquired a monkey. It sat on the footboard of his bed, happily eating Magnus’s morning bread. It had already tipped over the pot of tea that Claude had brought in, and there was a pile of shredded ostrich feathers in the middle of the floor.

“Hello,” Magnus said to the monkey.

The monkey did not reply.

“I shall call you Ragnor,” Magnus added, leaning back against the pillows gently. “Claude!”

The door opened, and Claude came in. He did not appear in the least bit surprised about Ragnor’s presence. He just immediately set to work cleaning up the spilled tea.

“I’ll need you to get a leash for my monkey, Claude, and also a hat.”

“Of course, monsieur.”

“Do you think he needs a little coat as well?”

“Perhaps not in this weather, monsieur.”

“You’re right,” Magnus said with a sigh. “Make it a simple dressing gown, just like mine.”

“Which one, monsieur?”

“The one in rose and silver.”

“An excellent choice, monsieur,”

Claude said, getting to work on the feathers.

“And take him to the kitchen and get him a proper breakfast, will you? He’ll need fruit and water, and perhaps a cool bath.”

By this point Ragnor had hopped down from the foot of the bed and was making his way toward an exquisite

Sevres porcelain vase, when Claude plucked him up like he’d been monkey-

plucking all his life.

“Ah,” Claude added, reaching into his coat, “a note came for you this morning.”

He made his quiet exit with the monkey. Magnus tore open the note. It read:

There is a problem. It is to be delayed until tomorrow.

—Axel

Well, that was the evening’s plans ruined.

Tomorrow was Saint Cloud’s party.

Both of these obligations needed to be met. But it could be done. He would take his carriage to the edge of the Tuileries palace, attend to the business with the queen, get back into the carriage, and get to the party. He’d had busier nights.

And Axel was worth it.

Magnus spent far more of the next day and evening worrying about Saint

Cloud’s party than about his business with the royal family. The glamour would be easy. The party would likely be fraught and uncomfortable. All he had to do was put in an appearance, smile, and chat for a bit, and then he could be on his way. But he couldn’t escape the feeling that somehow this evening was going to go wrong.

But first, the small matter of the queen.

Magnus took his bath and dressed after dinner, and then quietly left his apartments at nine, instructing his driver to take him to the vicinity of the

Tuileries garden and return at midnight.

This was a familiar enough trip. Many people went to the garden for a “chance encounter” amongst the topiaries. He walked around for a bit, making his way through the shadowy garden, listening to the snuffling noises of lovers in the shrubbery, occasionally peeking through the leaves to have a little look.

At ten thirty he made his way, by following Axel’s map, to the outside of the apartments of the long-departed Duc de Villequier. If all went to plan, the young princess and dauphin would be exiting those unguarded doors soon, with the dauphin disguised as a little girl. If they did not exit, the plan was already foiled.

But only a few minutes later than expected, the children came out with their nurses, all in the disguises. Magnus followed them quietly as they walked through the north-facing courtyard, down the rue de l’Échelle, and to the Grand

Carrousel. And there, with a plain carriage, was Axel. He was dressed as a rough Parisian coachman. He was even smoking a pipe and making jokes, all in a perfect low Paris accent, all traces of his Swedishness gone. There was Axel in the moonlight, lifting the children into the carriage— Magnus was struck speechless for a moment. Axel’s bravery, his talent, his gentleness . . . it tugged on Magnus’s heart in a way that was slightly unfamiliar, and it made it very difficult to be cynical.

He watched them drive away, and then returned to his task. He would enter through that same door. Even though the door was unguarded, Magnus needed his glamour to protect him, so that anyone looking over would see only a large cat sneaking into the palace through a door that seemed to blow open.

With thousands of people coming in and out—and no royal staff of hundreds of cleaners—the floors were grimy, with clumps of dried mud and footprints.

There was a musty smell about the place, a mix of damp, smoke, mold, and a few unemptied chamber pots, some of which sat in the halls. There was no light, save what was reflected from windows, off mirrors, and weakly amplified with crystal chandeliers that were thick with spiderwebs and dimmed by soot.

Axel had given Magnus a hand-drawn map with very clear instructions on how to get through the seemingly endless series of arches and largely empty grand rooms, their gilded furnishings either absent or having been roughly appropriated by guards. There were a few secret doors hidden in the paneling, which Magnus quietly passed through.

As he went deeper into the palace, the rooms grew a bit cleaner, the candles a bit more frequent. There were smells of cooking food and pipe smoke and more people passing by.

And then he arrived at the royal chambers. At the door he’d been instructed to enter, a guard sat by, idly whistling and kicking back on his chair.

Magnus sent up a small spark in the corner of the room, and the guard got up to examine it. Magnus slipped the key into the lock and entered. These rooms had a velvety silence about them that felt unnatural and uncomfortable. He smelled smoke from a recently extinguished candle. Magnus was not cowed by royalty, but his heart began to beat a bit more quickly as he reached for the second key Axel had given him. Axel had a key to the queen’s private rooms.

The fact was both exciting and unsettling.

And there she was—Queen Marie

Antoinette. He’d seen her image many times, but now she was in front of him, and altogether human. That was the shock of it. The queen was a human, in her sleeping dress. There was a loveliness about her. One part, no doubt, was simply the training she had had—

her regal bearing and small, delicate footsteps. The pictures had never done justice to her eyes, though, which were large and luminous. Her hair had been carefully coiffed in a halo of light curls, over which she wore a light linen cap.

Magnus remained in the shadows and watched her pace her room, going from bed to window and back to bed again, clearly terrified about the fate of her family.

“You notice nothing, madame,” he said quietly. The queen turned as he said this and looked at the corner of the room in confusion, then returned to her pacing.

Magnus drew closer, and as he did so, he could see how the strain of things had taken its toll on the woman. Her hair was thin, and pale, turning brittle and gray at points. Still, her face had a fierce, determined glow that Magnus quite admired. He could see why Axel felt for her—there was a strength there he never would have expected.

He wiggled his fingers, and blue flames crackled between them. Again the queen turned in confusion. Magnus passed his hand by her face, changing her visage from the familiar and royal to the familiar and ordinary. Her eyes diminished in size and grew dark, her cheeks became plumper and heavily flushed with red, her nose increased in size, and her chin receded. Her hair became more limp and darkened to a chestnut brown. He went a little further than was absolutely necessary, even altering her cheekbones and ears a bit until no one could mistake the woman in front of him for the queen. She looked as she was supposed to look—like a