Cassandra Clare: The Runaway Queen

Russian noblewoman of a different age, a different life altogether.

He created a noise near the window to draw her attention away, and when her back was turned, he exited. He left the palace through a heavily trafficked exit behind the royal apartments, where the queen kept a gate open for Axel’s nightly entrances and exits.

It was altogether simple and elegant, and a good night’s work. Magnus smiled to himself, looked up at the moon hanging over Paris, and thought of Axel, driving around in his coach. Then he thought of Axel doing other things. And then he hurried on. There were vampires to see.

It was a fortunate thing that vampire parties always started so late. Magnus’s carriage drew up to Saint Cloud’s door after midnight.

The footmen, all vampires, helped him from his carriage, and Henri greeted him by the door.

“Monsieur Bane,” he said, with his creepy little smile. “Master will be so very pleased.”

“I’m so glad,” Magnus said, barely concealing his sarcasm.

Henri’s eyebrow flicked just a bit. Then he turned and put his arm out to a girl of similar age and appearance—blond, glassy-eyed, dull of expression, and very beautiful.

“You know my sister, Brigitte?”

“Of course. We’ve met several times, mademoiselle, in your . . . previous life.”

“My previous life,” Brigitte said with a little, tinkling laugh. “My previous life.”

Brigitte’s previous life was an idea that continued to entertain her, as she kept giggling and smiling to herself.

Henri put his arm around her in a way that was not entirely brotherly.

“Master has very generously allowed us to keep our names,” he said. “And I was most pleased when he permitted me to return to my former home and bring my sister back here to live. Master is most generous in this way, as he is in all ways.”

This caused Brigitte to have another fit of giggles. Henri gave her a playful pat on the bottom.

“I’m absolutely parched,” Magnus said. “I think I’ll find some champagne.”

Unlike the dreary and poorly lit

Tuileries, Saint Cloud’s house was spectacular. It didn’t quite qualify as a palace, in terms of size, but it had all of the opulence of the décor. It was a veritable jungle of patterns, with paintings packed frame to frame up to the ceilings. And all of Saint Cloud’s chandeliers sparkled and were full of black candles, dripping black wax onto the floor. The wax was then instantly scraped up by a small army of darklings.

A few mundane hangers-on were draped over the furniture, most holding wineglasses—or bottles. Most slumped with their necks exposed, just waiting, begging to be bitten. The vampires stayed on their own side of the room, laughing amongst themselves and pointing, as if choosing what to eat from a table laden with delicacies.

In mundane Parisian society the large powdered wig had recently gone out of fashion, in favor of more natural styles.

In vampire society the wigs were bigger than ever. One female vampire wore a wig that was at least six feet high, powdered a light pink, and supported by a delicate latticework of what Magnus suspected was the bones of children. She had a bit of blood at the corner of her mouth, and Magnus could not figure out if the slashes of red on her cheeks were blood or extreme streaks of blush. (Like the wigs, the Paris vampires also favored the slightly passé makeup styles, such as the sharp spots of blush on the cheeks, possibly in mockery of the humans.)

He passed an ashen-faced harpist who had—Magnus noted grimly—been shackled to the floor by his ankle. If he played well enough, he might be kept alive for a while to play again. Or he could be a late-night snack. Magnus was tempted to sever the harpist’s chain, but just at that moment there was a voice from above.

“Magnus! Magnus Bane, where have you been?”

Marcel Saint Cloud was leaning over the rail and waving down. Around him, a cluster of vampires peered at Magnus over their fans of feather and ivory and bone.

Saint Cloud was, though it pained

Magnus to admit it, strikingly beautiful.

The old ones all had a very special look about them—a luster that came with age.

And Saint Cloud was old, possibly one of Vlad’s very first vampire court. He was not as tall as Magnus, but was very finely boned, with jutting cheekbones and long fingers. His eyes were utterly black, but caught the light like mirrored glass. And his clothes . . . well, he used the same tailor as Magnus, so of course they were wonderful.

“Always busy,”

Magnus said, managing a smile as Saint Cloud and his cluster of followers descended the steps.

They clung to his heels, altering their pace to fall in line with his. Sycophants.

“You’ve just missed de Sade.”

“What a shame,” Magnus replied. The

Marquis de Sade was a decidedly eerie mundane, with the most perverse imagination Magnus had ever come across since the Spanish Inquisition.

“There are some things I want to show you,” Saint Cloud said, putting a cold arm around

Magnus’s shoulders.

“Absolutely wonderful things!”

One thing Saint Cloud and Magnus had in common was a rich appreciation for mundane fashion, furniture, and art.

Magnus tended to buy his, or receive them as payment. Marcel traded with the revolutionaries—or with the street people who had raided great houses and taken the pretty things from inside. Or his darklings handed over their possessions. Or things just arrived in his house. It was best not to ask too many questions but simply to admire, and admire loudly. Marcel would take offense if Magnus didn’t praise every item.

Suddenly, a chorus of voices from an outside courtyard was calling for Saint

Cloud.

“Something seems to be going on,”

Marcel said. “Perhaps we should investigate.”

The voices were high, excited, and giddy—all tones Magnus didn’t want to hear at a vampire party. Those tones meant very bad things.

“What is it, my friends?” Marcel said, walking toward the front hall.

There was a tangle of vampires standing at the foot of the front steps, with Henri at the head. A few of them were holding a struggling figure. She made high-pitched squeals from a mouth that sounded covered, though it was impossible to see her in the throng.

“Master . . .” Henri’s eyes were wide.

“Master, we have found . . . You will not believe, Master . . .”

“Show me. Bring it forward. What is it?”

The vampires ordered themselves a bit and threw the human into the cleared space on the ground. It was all Magnus could do not to make a sound of alarm, or give away anything at all.

It was Marie Antoinette.

Of course, the glamour he had applied did not affect the vampires. The queen was exposed, her face white with shock.

“You . . . ,” she said, addressing the crowd in a shaky voice, “what you have done . . . You will—”

Marcel raised a silencing hand, and to

Magnus’s surprise, the queen stopped speaking.

“Who brought her?” he asked. “How did this happen?”

“It was I, monsieur,” said a voice. A dapper vampire named Coselle stepped to the front. “I was on my way here, coming down the rue du Bac, and I absolutely could not believe my eyes.

She must have gotten out of the

Tuileries. She was just on the street, monsieur, looking panicked and lost.”

Of course. The queen would not have been accustomed to being out on the streets on her own. And in the dark it was easy to go the wrong way. She had made a wrong turn and crossed the Seine somehow.

“Madame,” Marcel said, walking down the stairs. “Or should I say ‘Your

Majesty’? Do I have the pleasure of addressing our beloved and most . . . illustrious queen?”