Page 92 of The Dragon and the Dove

She snorted. ‘Do you even have a horse?’

‘I’ll get a horse.’

‘What about the others? This all feels rather… hasty.’

He had considered asking Anouk. The Stone Maiden was a force to be reckoned with, but she had worked on him all night and her magic was spent. She was spent. He couldn’t afford to wait for her to recover. And besides, Paola could only take one of them to Bellevue. The fewer that set out, the faster they’d get there.

‘It’s just me, Paola,’ he said.

Her lips twisted, considering him.

‘I’ll beg,’ he said, and he meant it. ‘I’ll go on my knees.’

‘Go to a stable,’ she countered, betraying the hint of a smile. ‘Get me a horse.’

A short while later, Ransom was standing outside House Armand with a horse. A fine grey stallion called Bolt, who, with a single carrot and a few cajoling words, had been lured from his stables in the Hollows.

Keeping her word, Paola came marching down the garden path with a satchel on her back and a determined gleam in her eye. At the sight of Bolt, she gave a low whistle.

‘You don’t do things by halves to you, Hale?’

‘Not when it comes to her.’

‘You old romantic, you.’ She mounted the horse with impressive ease, at once towering over him. It occurred to her to ask, ‘Have you ever ridden a horse?’

‘When I was a boy.’ Every Sunday, Mama would take him and Anouk to the fields behind Everell. They would trek there, losing themselves in the forest that bled across the western border of Fantome. Now and then, he would find himself thinking about those days, and how the trill of his mother’s laughter blended with the birdsong in the trees.

‘Muscle memory,’ she said, pleased with his answer. ‘It never leaves you.’

‘No,’ he murmured. ‘It doesn’t.’

‘Do you need a hand up, or will I spare your dignity?’

He vaulted the horse, landing with a lot less grace than she had. Gripping the back of the saddle, he adjusted himself behind her.

She glared at him over her shoulder. ‘One brush of your shadows and I’m flinging you off.’

‘You have my word.’

She smirked, gripping the reins. ‘Look at you, trusting a Versini.’

What choice did he have?

She chuckled under her breath like she could hear him. ‘This will be good practice for when we get back. You can start being less of a shithead to Theo.’

‘Don’t bet on it.’

They set off. Paola was a sure rider, skilfully guiding the horse down cobbled streets. Soon, they reached Hangman’s Pass, trotting under the old stone gate and leaving the slumbering Hollows behind. As the spires of Fantome faded in the mist and the moon cast its waning gaze across the east plains of Valterre, Paola guided Bolt into a steady gallop. The midnight wind howled fiercely, the road turning rough beneath them.

The hills grew sparse, surrendering to a sprawl of farmland that seemed to go on for ever. Paola hunched low, firing them like an arrow across the cornfields. They rode all night, eventually turning at the crossroads that led on to Montmarie, and pushing north as the crow flies, through miles of vineyards, then across pastures filled with sheep and cows, stone-walled towns and thatch-roofed villages still flying the old flags of Valterre. They vaulted over streams and waded through rivers, never stopping, barely slowing. Rarely talking, except to guess at the distance behind them and the road yet ahead.

Ransom trusted Paola’s sense of direction, but even if the map of her memory betrayed them, he would have known the way by the thread in his chest pulling ever tauter.

When dawn came, the land turned gold. Wheat gleamed like stalks of treasure, beckoning them onwards, the distant oaks crowned in their morning glory. And there, beyond the forest, like a snaggle tooth on the horizon, loomed Bellevue Castle.

The horse slowed, Paola’s shoulders stiffening at the sight. Andreas’s flags rippled in the dawn wind. It wasn’t the prince’s crest that made his stomach lurch, or even the sight of the archers perched along the battlements, as though they were expecting him. It was the Strix slumbering on the rooftop. There was another curled around the east turret like a dragon. Ransom knew there would be more in the courtyard and throughout the grounds.

Paola urged the horse down the sloping grass. It was only when they reached the safety of the trees that she turned to look at him.