Chapter 20 - When the Bell Rang
A year later, the noon bell rang and I did not count it.
That may sound small.
It was not.
For sixteen years, the bell had divided my life into pieces I could survive. Morning. Noon. Night. Another day. Another line scratched into stone.
Now it was only a bell.
Sainte-Agathe tower was no longer a prison. The cells had been opened, the records copied, and the worst room - mine - turned into a public archive for unlawful detention cases.
King Edouard did not remain untouched by what happened. He publicly cleared my name, ordered compensation for prisoners held without trial, and surrendered much of his emergency authority to a council that included citizens as well as nobles.
He also apologized to me.
I accepted the apology.
I did not tell him it erased anything.
Those are different things.
Duke Henri and Vautrin were convicted after public trials. Renard testified against both men and then resigned his commission. He went home with Mathurin and Colette to learn, very late, how to be their son again.
Dr. Severin opened a small clinic near the east gate.
Prince Lucien abolished the Wheel as court entertainment.
Elise objected.
"Don't destroy it," she told him. "Change what it means."
So once a year, during the spring festival, the Wheel was brought into the square. Children climbed onto it while their parents spun it gently, and whoever stayed standing longest won a bag of sugar cakes.
The first spring, Elise climbed on in her plain gray dress.
"Show-off," I called.
She grinned. "You taught me."
Lucien spun the Wheel.
Faster.
Elise bent one knee, found her center, and stayed perfectly still.
The crowd cheered.
I did not see the five-year-old I had lost.
I saw the woman who had found me.
When the Wheel stopped, she stepped down and came to my side.
The palace bell rang noon.
Elise looked at me. "Aren't you going to count?"
I took her hand.
May you like
"No," I said.
Then we walked away before the echo finished.
