The Rose and the Grimoire

di Amodio Tortora (Autore)

Self-Publishing, 2026

In a Paris of rain, fog, and flickering candles, magistrate Étienne Valcourt vanishes during a dinner at his residence on the Quai des Augustins. All the lights go out at once, his place is left empty, his plate is still steaming, and an unsettling sentence appears on his napkin: the dead obey better than the living. A leather portfolio disappears with him, while the smell of burned myrrh lingers in the air. Richelieu realizes that the incident must not become tavern gossip and entrusts the musketeers with a discreet investigation, one destined to descend beneath the surface of the city. D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis follow different but converging trails: similar disappearances, altered documents, black candles, engraved symbols, tampered ecclesiastical registers, and the name of Maître Séraphin de Noyers, a physician and alchemist surrounded by an almost supernatural reputation. Some call him the man who speaks with the dead, but Athos senses that the real danger lies not in the apparent miracle: it lies in men capable of turning bureaucracy, fear, and secrecy into instruments of domination. Meanwhile, Milady, under the name Madame de Bellac, meets an elderly witness who tells her of people erased from the records of the world and of the Scribes of Silence. That woman, too, disappears into the darkness, leaving behind a black candle and the same smell of myrrh. Milady, more interested in the truth than in caution, traces the trail to Mathieu, a printer whose rooms are used to manufacture documents intended to give new lives to those who must disappear. Beneath the shop of Saint Lazarus lies a system of cellars, tunnels, cells, and clandestine workshops: the visible city is merely the facade of an underground archive where names can be taken away, rewritten, sold, or buried. The investigation reveals the existence of the House Without Doors, a secret network born of an ambiguous alliance among reasons of state, ecclesiastical power, and political necessity. Troublesome men, witnesses, informants, and innocent people are turned into officially absent individuals; some die on paper, others survive without identities, and all depend on registers that no court should possess. Porthos finds forgotten prisoners in an abandoned hospital; D'Artagnan confronts forgers and assassins; Aramis deciphers emblems and archives; Athos recognizes behind the enigma an older wound, connected to Milady and to a past that neither of them can speak of without danger. When Milady encounters Séraphin, the silver-eyed man, the investigation becomes personal. He presents himself not as an ordinary murderer, but as the guardian of a ruthless order: in his view, erasing a name can save a kingdom, prevent scandals, and protect balances of power greater than individual lives. Milady understands, however, that among those registers there is a trace closely connected to her: not merely a piece of information, but a question about her origins, her masks, and her freedom to choose who she will be. Father Lucien, a blind priest and keeper of ancient guilt, points toward something deeper: Chartres, the Chapel of the First Rose, and a grimoire of lost names. From that moment, the hunt becomes a flight. Men in black coats pursue Milady and the musketeers across rooftops, through forgotten chapels, along canals and back roads, and across damp countryside. Richelieu wants to control what is emerging; the House Without Doors wants to recover the register; Séraphin, instead, seems to be guiding Milady toward the cathedral, as though the entire conspiracy had been waiting for her in particular. Amid duels, pursuits, sieges at dawn, and partial confessions, the protagonists arrive before a place where the great rose of stone and glass promises not a simple solution, but the unvei

• Autore: Amodio Tortora
• Anno edizione: 2026
• Editore: Self-Publishing
• Formato: EPUB2 con DRMFREE
• Lingua: Inglese
• Compatibilità: Tutti i dispositivi (eccetto Kindle)
• Layout: Reflowable
• EAN: 9798237736977