Chapter 1. The Jungle expedition
The jungle air clung to the skin like a damp gauze. In the canopy, birds shrieked, their cries ricocheting off the stone walls of the gorge. The reek of decay mingled with the intoxicating perfume of predator-flowers, turning each breath into a reminder that the jungle answered to no law but its own.
Jean dismounted, feeling sweat trickle down his spine beneath his travelling cloak. The expedition’s base camp sprawled across a clearing in the undergrowth. A dozen canvas tents formed a semicircle around fires set where the wind would carry the smoke clear of the canvas. Porters scurried between supply crates, and the thick brew of the jungle gave way to familiar smells of wood smoke and human habitation.
“Where might I find Signor Lofi, my good man?” Jean asked the servant boy who came running to take his reins. “Sergio Lofi?”
“Over there, in the big tent, Your Grace,” the lad answered with a deep bow.
“His Grace is my father,” Jean corrected him with familiar weariness. “Just ‘sir’ will do. But thank you.”
Making his way toward the tent, he found himself taking stock of the camp almost by reflex. From the supply stores placed well away from the fires to the neat system of drainage ditches channelling rainwater aside, every detail had been thought through.
The handiwork of a professional, he mused. “His Grace” himself would have done no less.
He pushed aside the heavy entrance flap and found two men inside, hunched over a large map spread across a folding field table. In the corner, perched behind a neat stack of papers, sat Dr. Jones’s familiar. The elderly incubus looked far more like a metropolitan archivist than a demon. Gold-rimmed spectacles, a carefully trimmed grey goatee, precise clerkish gestures. Berit copied something into a thick leather-bound journal, glancing up at his master over the rims of his glasses from time to time.
A grey-bearded professor in a rumpled linen shirt and a tanned, middle-aged man in a guide’s practical garb both raised their heads.
“Jean! Welcome, welcome!” Professor Jones flung his arms wide, his grey beard splitting in a wide grin, the creases around his eyes deepening with his smile. “How wonderful to see you! Safe journey, I trust?” He pressed a palm to the small of his back with a wince. “This infernal heat has all but ground my old bones to dust.”
“Professor Jones?” Jean halted on the threshold, tugging off his riding gloves. “Well, this is a surprise! So this is your expedition after all. What’s all the cloak-and-dagger?”
“I wanted to keep the research independent of the academy.”
“What a romantic touch. A letter from a stranger with a rather generous advance, like something out of a novel.” Jean glanced back over his shoulder as though expecting someone else to appear. “I take it there’s no Sergio Lofi at all, then?”
“Romantic? Lofi?” The professor froze, then dragged a hand down his face. “Good heavens, she really didn’t tell you a...”
“Guess who!” A familiar little voice chimed from behind him, and a pair of slender hands covered Jean’s eyes.
Even without seeing her face, he recognized her by her slender wrists and fingers, for which no chord on the grand piano was impossible.
“Sophie?!” Jean’s shout boomed through the tent. “What the devil?!”
He spun around, pulling her hands from his eyes and seizing his niece by the waist before she could slip away again. Golden curls clung in damp loops to her flushed cheeks, and her deep blue eyes held the same mischief he remembered from childhood. The scarlet ribbon at the waist of her green travelling dress did nothing to hide the carriage of a young aristocrat. The kind that had driven half the capital’s suitors to despair.
“Bravo!” she exclaimed, rising on tiptoe to plant a playful kiss on her uncle’s cheek. “Your face is even more priceless than I imagined!”
Her laughter stirred Jean, tender and uneasy at once. This was no place for adventuresses, however headstrong, yet Sophie was beaming with the triumph of her successful prank.
“Forgive me,” Professor Jones mumbled guiltily, tugging at his beard. “She expressly forbade me from warning you…”
“Five months without a single letter!” Sophie pressed herself against her uncle, and for the first time her voice carried genuine hurt. “I thought you’d forgotten your favourite niece even existed. I missed you so much.”
S. Lofi… I’m a complete imbecile. I should have seen it at once. Jean groaned inwardly, but what he said aloud was something else entirely.
“Give me one good reason.” He assumed the sternest expression he could muster. “Why I shouldn’t put you over my knee this instant and send you back to your mother under armed escort.”
“Oh, I have several.” Sophie adopted the innocence of an angel while idly tracing a finger along the embroidery of his doublet. “First, I am the only person in our entire family who talks to you like a human being, rather than a leper.”
“As if I give a damn what our illustrious family thinks,” Jean grumbled, already considering how best to upend her across his knee.
Sophie fell silent, pursing her lips in sudden focus. For a moment, Jean forgot that this composed young lady had only just outgrown her teenage years.
“And secondly, Uncle.” She lowered her voice. “You are the only one who speaks to me as an equal. Not as a spoiled princess to be sold off to the highest bidder. Not as a living doll meant to decorate ballrooms, but as a person capable of thinking for herself.”
The silence stretched. Then her mouth curved, sly, again:
“Besides, I’d wager anything you’d give your right leg just to see Papa’s face when he finds out about this little adventure.”
Jean surrendered. He laughed and pulled his niece into a tight embrace, stroking her tousled hair just as he had done when she was a child.
“I missed you too, you little fool. Damn it all, Sophie. Whatever am I going to do with you?”
“Take me along on the expedition?” she offered, hope barely concealed.
Jones sighed, pulling out his pipe, and shook his head.
“She is coming with us, Jean. We need someone with her knowledge of ancient Elven, and I don’t have the time to look for another translator. I’ve already approved her slot in the group, so your grumbling won’t change a thing.” He leaned on his cane, studying him. “You’d better tell me what you remember about pacts before Lucifer’s Oath.”
