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“All right, then.” He picks up a basket of potatoes and hands it to me. “Put it on your shoulder. Like this. To hide your face. Follow me and don’t talk.”

He leads me into the Foy’s kitchens and takes a quick look around. The chef is yelling at an underling. Two men are rolling out dough. Others are shucking oysters. Chopping vegetables. Plucking chickens.

“Hurry up, will you?” Benôit barks at me, pretending I’m a delivery guy. “No! Not there! This way, blockhead!”

No one bats an eye at us as he leads me to the far end of the kitchen, then takes a sharp right and heads down a flight of stone steps. I trudge along behind him until we come to a large, cool, cavelike room full of baskets containing apples, pears, potatoes, and carrots.

“Put that basket there,” he says, grabbing a lantern off the wall. “Hurry up. I have to get back.” I put my basket down and he hands me the lantern. “If you don’t have my money when you come back, I’ll call the guard. Tell them I saw you sneaking into a property that was sealed by the state. You’ll be hauled off to prison.”

I don’t doubt for a second that he means it. As soon as I approached him, in the yard behind the Foy, he asked me how much I’d give him. “A gold Louis,” I’d said. I hope I can find one.

“You have one hour. I’ll be waiting for you,” he tells me, disappearing up the stone staircase.

I walk deeper into the dark cellar, past fat wine casks and dusty bottles, with no clue where I’m going. I couldn’t tell Benôit that, though. He thinks I’m Alex and Alex would’ve known the way. I see another flight of steps and follow it down into a larger, colder cellar. I walk past crates of fish, oysters, and mussels sitting on huge blocks of ice, baskets of eggs, hacked-up animals. There’s another set of stairs—this one leading up. At the top of it, there’s a door. I shoulder it open, step through it, and look around.

I seem to be in some sort of storeroom. The walls are stone and there are mean-looking hooks hanging from the ceiling. I walk out into what must be the kitchen, only I can’t believe it is one because it’s bigger than most people’s houses. It has vaulted stone ceilings. Worktables that go on for miles. Ovens the size of cars. It must’ve been teeming when Orléans was alive, but it’s empty and silent now. My footsteps echo as I move through it.

A palace made small—that’s how Alex described his apartments. Room upon room, floor after floor, and I only have an hour to find what I’m after—the money and jewelry and trinkets she stole. I need it because today is the day Fauvel said he would meet me again. He’s bringing rockets with him. And he won’t give them to me unless I pay him.

I haven’t been taking Amadé’s advice—to stop taking chances. I’ve been taking plenty. I shot half of Fauvel’s rockets off two nights ago and the other half last night.

“Okay, Alex, where do I go? I’ve got fifty-five minutes until Benno calls the guards and they beat the crap out of me. I need something. Cash. Bling. Something. “Where to?”

There’s no answer, of course. So I start walking. Through the kitchens, upstairs into a dining room. It must’ve been beautiful once, but not anymore. The table is gouged. The mirrors are broken. The paintings have all been slashed. I keep going, past room after empty room. In and out of hallways. Looking under furniture. On top of mantels. Behind statues.

One room is so huge, and so stunning—with soaring gilt mantels and pictures of nymphs painted on the ceiling—that I decide it must’ve been Orléans’ ballroom. I walk through it and find a pale blue ribbon on the floor, dead roses on a mantel, a broken cello propped up in a corner. I squint and for a second I can see them—the duke and his circle. The women are all in silk and lace, with powdered faces and rouged lips. The men are wearing wigs and white stockings. They’re dancing and laughing. Flickering candlelight glints off a crystal goblet, a diamond earring, a ruby ring. There are bowls of roses.