Chapter 15: The Crow’s Ledger

The fête was in three days, and the war would not wait. But Versailles, Marchand had learned, moved at the pace of the King’s pleasure, which was to say, at the pace of a glacier wearing velvet gloves. He spent the morning in his cramped quarters above the stables, unpacking the crates he had brought from the depot with the care of a man defusing a bomb—which, in a sense, he was. Each item was a small detonation waiting for the wrong eyes.

He had laid out the day’s selection on his cot: a coil of copper wire, thin as a spider’s thread; three vials of quinine powder sealed with wax; a folding steel saw that collapsed to the length of a man’s thumb; and a single glass syringe, its needle wrapped in oiled cloth. He stared at them for a long moment, then wrapped each in linen and tucked them into the leather satchel he had worn since the Ardennes.

A knock came at the door—two sharp raps, then a pause, then one more. Françoise’s signal.

He opened the door to find her standing in the grey morning light, her hood pulled low against a drizzle that had begun overnight. She carried a basket of bread and cheese, but her eyes were sharp as flint.

“You have a visitor,” she said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. “Or rather, you have a message. The crow has returned.”

Marchand felt the cold settle in his stomach. “Where?”

“On the balustrade of the north terrace. It has a ribbon tied to its leg—black, not red. That means it is not from the one who sent it before.” She set the basket on his table and began to unpack it with the practiced ease of a woman who had learned to make herself inconspicuous in kitchens and antechambers. “I did not touch it. I am not a fool.”

“No,” Marchand said, pulling on his coat. “You are the only one here who is not.”

The north terrace was empty when they reached it, the rain having driven even the gardeners indoors. The crow sat on the balustrade like a judge on a bench, its head cocked, its black eye gleaming with an intelligence that Marchand found deeply unsettling. The ribbon was indeed black, tied in a neat bow around its left leg.

He approached slowly, holding out a crust of bread. The crow tilted its head, regarded him with what might have been contempt, then hopped forward and pecked the bread from his palm. It allowed him to untie the ribbon without protest.

The message was written on a scrap of parchment so thin it was nearly translucent, and the handwriting was tight, precise, and utterly unfamiliar.

*The depot is not a secret. It is a door. And doors have keys.*

*—A friend of the future.*

Marchand read it twice, then folded it and slipped it into his pocket. His face betrayed nothing, but Françoise knew him well enough to see the tension in his jaw.

“Well?” she asked.

“It’s a threat,” he said. “Or a warning. It’s hard to tell the difference these days.”

“From whom?”

“That’s the problem. I don’t know.” He turned to face the palace, its golden stone darkened by the rain. “But whoever it is, they know about the depot. And they know I’m not from here.”

Françoise was quiet for a moment, her eyes fixed on the crow, which was now preening itself with the smug satisfaction of a creature that had delivered its burden and expected payment. “The man who sent the first message—the crow with the red ribbon. Did you ever learn who he was?”

“No. He found me in the depot’s shadow three weeks ago, but by the time I turned, he was gone. I only saw his silhouette, and the crow on his shoulder.” Marchand shook his head. “I thought he was a hallucination. Now I think he was a warning.”

“A warning of what?”

“That I am not the only one who has walked through that door.”

The words hung in the damp air. The crow cawed once, a harsh sound that cut through the drizzle, and took flight, beating its wings toward the west, toward the war that was gathering like thunder on the horizon.

Françoise watched it go, then turned to Marchand. “Jean-Luc, you buried something in the deepest room of the depot. You have never told me what it is. I have never asked.” She paused. “But if someone else knows the door exists, then they may find what you have hidden.”

Marchand’s hand went to his chest, where the cross Françoise had given him rested beneath his shirt. He could feel its edges pressing against his skin, a small, constant reminder of why he was here, of what he was trying to protect.

“It’s not a thing,” he said finally. “It’s a record. A journal—mine, from the future. I wrote it in the weeks after I arrived, when I thought I might go mad. It contains everything I know about the years to come. The wars, the treaties, the deaths. Every king, every battle, every plague.” He met her eyes. “If someone else finds it, they will have the future in their hands. And they will use it.”

Françoise’s face was pale, but her voice was steady. “Then you must retrieve it. Before the fête, before the war, before whoever sent that crow decides to open the door themselves.”

Marchand nodded. It was the only answer he could give.

But even as he turned to leave, the words of the message echoed in his mind, and he heard again the voice from the depot, the one that had come from his own future, whispering in the dark:

*You cannot save them all. Choose.*

He had chosen, in that moment, to save Françoise. He had chosen to save the army, to save Turenne, to save the men who would die in the mud of the Low Countries. But the choice was not finished. It had never been finished.

The crow was gone now, a black speck against the grey sky. The war would not wait. The fête would not wait. And somewhere in the shadows of the palace, a man who had sent a crow as a message was watching him still.

Marchand walked back toward the stables, the leather satchel heavy at his side, and in his pocket, the thin parchment felt like a stone. The palace burned, he thought. The palace always burned. But this time, he might be the one holding the torch.