Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [155]
Just then we hear it. A pounding on the door. Loud and insistent. And then the sound of wood splintering.
Amadé swears. “It’s the guard,” he says. “We have to go back. Quickly!”
He pulls me along with him back through all the rooms, locking every door behind us.
“They have an ax. A locked door won’t stop them,” I say.
“It will slow them.”
“We can’t go out. Or down.”
“Then we’ll go up.”
Back through the ballroom, the library, the gaming room, the dining room, and up a flight of stairs. Another. And another. The blood is soaking into my clothes.
We hear shouts from below. Guards are inside. We reach the top floor, the garret rooms. Amadé lets go of me and I slump to the floor while he runs back and forth through rooms and hallways, looking for a connecting hallway, a secret door, a way out of Orléans’ apartments to those of his neighbors. And all the while, I can hear orders being yelled, and wood breaking.
Amadé comes back to me. “I can find nothing. No way out,” he says, panting. He bangs the heels of his hands against his forehead. Paces. Then lifts me to my feet again and drags me into the first room he can find. Alex’s room.
“We’re going out the window. Onto the roof. You’re good at roofs, are you not?”
“I can’t, Amadé. You go. Get out of here.”
But he’s not listening. He opens the window, and leans out. “Finally, a bit of luck,” he says. He pulls me after him, onto a narrow balcony that runs the entire length of the wing. It’s nothing more than a catwalk. I can see the courtyard below. We’ve traveled away from the street side of the palace, to the interior. I see people below, but they don’t see us. Not yet. Amadé crouches and makes me crouch, too, and I think the pain is going to kill me.
We walk along the balcony, past window after window, until we’ve traveled the entire length of the wing. There’s a corner, and then another wing with an identical run of garret windows. One of them is lit.
I swing my legs over the balcony’s railing, then jump across to the other side, gasping as I land. Amadé follows and we quickly climb over the railing and walk to the lit window. It’s open. Amadé goes inside. I follow him. A girl in nightclothes is washing her face in a basin. She sees us and screams. We run past her, out of the room, and down flight after flight of stairs until we find ourselves on the ground floor, in a jewelry shop.
The door is locked, but Amadé finds a key hanging on the wall close by. He jams the key in the lock and turns it and is about to open the door when he looks at me. Blood has stained the left side of my coat.
“Lean on me,” he says.
He lets us out, locks the door, slips the key into his pocket, then hurries me into the courtyard. More people have gathered there, drawn by the girl’s screams.
“The Green Man is there! Up there!” Amadé shouts, pointing above us. “He shot my friend! Now he’s murdering a girl! Help her! Somebody help her!”
People gasp and scream. They point at the lit window. Guards rush in from a passageway, ten or twelve of them, rifles at the ready.
“He’s murdering her!” a woman shouts. “Save her!”
“The Green Man!” a man yells. “Up there! Hurry!”
One of the guards tries the door to the jewelry shop. He bangs on it. Then signals to his men to kick it down. Amadé and I move through the crowd. “Make way! Make way!” Amadé shouts. “My friend needs a doctor!” We get through the passage where the guards entered and then we’re out of the Palais.
We walk east. He means to take me to his rooms and call for a woman who is good with wounds once we are there. But when we turn onto the Rue St-Honoré, we see that the street is full of guards.
“Amadé, we can’t go down there. Leave me here.”
“No! I won’t leave you on the streets!” He grabs my arm, starts walking back the way we came.
I shake him off. “I can’t anymore. I can’t.”
“Just a little farther. There is still one place I can take you,” he says. “One place they won’t look.”
“Where?”
“The catacombs. It’s a good place to hide.”
Yes, it is. And an even better