I woke up in a box.
Not a coffin. A tent.
The canvas was white, flapping in the wind. Rain pattered against the fabric.
I tried to move my hand. Nothing.
I tried to turn my head. My neck muscles twitched, then failed.
Paralysis.
My heart was beating. Thump... pause... pause... thump.
Slow. 30 beats a minute. The rhythm of a dying engine.
"He is awake," a voice whispered.
Dr. Larrey leaned over me. His face was pale, his eyes rimmed with red. He looked like he hadn't slept in three days.
"Your Majesty?"
I blinked. Once for yes.
"Can you speak?"
I tried. My throat was dry, closed. I forced air through my vocal cords.
"Water."
It came out as a croak. A sound of wet gravel.
Larrey held a sponge to my lips. Cool water. I swallowed. It hurt.
"Where... am I?"
"The Emperor's tent," Larrey said. "You collapsed. Your heart stopped for ten seconds. We revived you with smelling salts and adrenaline."
"The... deal?"
"Signed," a new voice said.
Emperor Francis II stepped into the light. He wore a simple grey coat. He looked tired.
He held up a piece of parchment. The Treaty of Strasbourg.
"I signed it, Louis," Francis said. "The Austrians will not invade. We will recognize your government. For now."
I looked at the paper. It was blurry. My vision was tunneling.
"Why?" I whispered.
Francis sat on the edge of the cot.
"Because you came here to die," Francis said. "A man who negotiates from his deathbed is either a fool or a prophet. And you are no fool."
He touched the Black Ledger, which sat on the bedside table.
"And because I read the entry on General Mack. If that got out, my army would mutiny."
I tried to smile. My facial muscles didn't respond.
"Smart," I managed to say.
"Rest now," Francis said. "My doctors say you have hours. Maybe less. We will bury you with honors here."
"No."
The word was sharp. It surprised both of them.
"No burial," I wheezed. "Paris."
"You can't travel," Larrey protested. "The movement will kill you."
"I will not die in a tent," I said.
I focused every ounce of willpower on my right hand. I made a fist.
"If I die here, the world will say I surrendered. If I die in the Tuileries... I die a King."
Francis looked at me. He saw the stubbornness. The refusal to accept the math of death.
"He is insane," Francis murmured. "But he is brave."
He turned to his guards.
"Prepare the carriage. Line it with feather mattresses. Give him the smoothest horses."
He looked back at me.
"Go home, brother. Die well."
The journey back was a blur of pain and opium.
Every bump in the road was a knife in my chest. Every turn was nausea.
Larrey kept me sedated. But the dreams came anyway.
I saw my office in New York. The fluorescent lights humming. The spreadsheets on the screen.
Cell A1: Assets.
Cell B1: Liabilities.
I saw the guillotine. The blade falling.
Cell C1: Outcome.
I saw Charles. My son.
He was running beside the carriage. But he wasn't a boy. He was a wolf. A golden wolf with burning eyes. He was running so fast his paws didn't touch the ground.
Run, Charles, I thought. The audit is closing.
"We are here," Larrey whispered.
I opened my eyes.
The carriage had stopped.
Through the window, I saw grey stone. The Tuileries Palace.
It was raining in Paris. The sky was weeping.
The door opened.
Napoleon stood there.
He wasn't wearing his hat. He was soaked to the skin. His hair was plastered to his skull.
He looked into the carriage. He saw the grey skin. The blue lips. The shallow, rattling breath.
"General," I whispered.
Napoleon didn't salute. He looked stricken.
"You look like a bad investment, Accountant," Napoleon said softly.
"Liquidation sale," I rasped.
Napoleon reached in. He didn't wait for the footmen. He lifted me in his arms.
I weighed nothing. The sickness had eaten my muscle. I was a skeleton in velvet.
He carried me up the steps.
The Old Guard lined the stairs. They presented arms. Clack-clack.
They didn't cheer. They watched in silence. It was a funeral procession for a living man.
Napoleon didn't stop. He carried me through the Hall of Mirrors. Through the antechamber. Into the King's Bedroom.
He laid me on the bed.
The same bed Louis XIV died in. The bed of the Sun King.
It felt cold. Too big.
"Where is he?" I asked.
"Who?" Napoleon asked, pulling a blanket over me.
"Charles."
Napoleon looked away.
"He hasn't returned. The scouts say... nothing."
I closed my eyes.
He didn't make it, I thought. I failed him.
The room filled up.
Talleyrand stood in the corner, looking at his pocket watch. Calculating the exact moment to switch sides.
Fouché hovered by the door, already planning which files to burn.
A priest entered. He held a bottle of holy oil.
"Last Rites," the priest murmured.
"No," I whispered. "No rites."
"Your Majesty..."
"I am... auditing... God," I said.
The room spun. The ceiling fresco of Apollo driving his chariot began to move. The horses were galloping.
My breath hitched.
Inhale. Pain.
Exhale. Rattle.
The cold started in my toes. It moved up my legs. Numbing them. Turning them to stone.
It reached my chest.
My heart fluttered. Like a bird hitting a window.
Thump... pause...
Thump...
"He's going," Larrey said. His voice sounded like it was coming from underwater.
I tried to speak. To tell Napoleon to protect the boy. To tell Fouché to burn the Ledger.
But my lips wouldn't move.
The darkness closed in. A shutter narrowing on a camera lens.
Tick. Tick.
The clock on the mantelpiece.
Tick.
Silence.
I was floating. Drifting in a black ocean.
Is this it? I thought. Is this the final balance?
And then, I heard it.
Not a tick.
A sound. Far away.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Running footsteps.
Fast. Impossible fast.
Like a wolf running down prey.
But it was too late.
The shutter closed.
Black.