Her small frame flinches and her voice is tight when she speaks. “That out there, it isn’t what we do. Or, it wasn’t.”
All the comebacks I’d been planning stick to my throat. “I don’t understand… .”
“You don’t need to understand.” She motions to Desgrez, whose skin has turned a sickly shade of green. Twice as green as the blotches marring Anne and Françoise. “Do you wish to save him or not? He hasn’t much time.”
I look at Desgrez’s wan face, his shriveled, sunken chest. “Whatisit?”
“A form of alchemical magic called désintégrer. The fire bolts liquefy victims from the inside out. So every second you waste doubting me, your friend’s liver decays, his heart withers, and his bones dissolve into ash.”
Vomit rises up my throat.His bones will dissolve into ash?Swallowing hard, I dash behind the wall of icons surrounding the sanctuary. With a complete lack of reverence, I rummage around until I find a collection plate and a sermon to use as kindling. Then I nick the sanctuary lamp and a piece of flint, hoping God won’t strike me down, and rush back to Desgrez.
I arrange the papers in a cluster and light them with the torch. The girl situates the collection plate over the heat and squeezes a foul-smelling paste and a pinch of herbs into the bowl. As she stirs the mixture with one hand, she returns the pouch to her dress with the other.
When she clears her throat, I realize I’m staring directly at her breasts.Again.Heat singes my cheeks, and I tug at my collar as I kneel beside Desgrez. The girl tears open his shirt and slathers the ointment across his concave chest. The paste is light gray and smells worse than the sewers, which I didn’t think was possible. I cover my nose. “Whatisthat?”
“Periwinkle and ambergris,” she says, watching Desgrez’s chest rise and fall. She stands, blows the curls away from her face, and kneads the mixture more forcefully into his skin.
“And you conveniently happened to have it on hand?”
“Yes. It’s my fault Lesage can conjure désintégrer, so I developed an antidote.”
“Antidote,” I jeer. “What do you know of healing?”
The girl’s hands still and she glares at me with so much loathing, I swallow my laughter and lean away. “You’d best hope I know a lot, monsieur, if you want your friend to live. Now your blade, if you’d be so kind.” She holds out her hand.
I unsheathe the rapier but cannot bring myself to surrender it.
“If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. And if you want him to live, you’ll give me what I need.” She seizes the sword with a grunt, then after adding a bit more ointment to Desgrez’s chest, she places the tip of the blade directly beneath his breastbone. I grip the bench and try not to say anything, but a choked squeal rushes from my lips when she applies pressure. Blood seeps around the blade, running deeper and darker.
“Are you sure this will work?” I ask when the pool below his chest is nearly black.
The girl nods, but her expression wilts with every passing second. “It—it should. I checked my calculations dozens of times… .”
“You mean you’ve never done this before?” I’m about to shove her aside when Desgrez’s face breaks from its frozen mold. He vomits over the side of the bench, and the girl releases the rapier. It clatters to the stone floor, the sound echoing around the chapel.
Desgrez twitches and howls with pain, but the green tinge is already fading and the pits and hollows in his chest slowly rise and reform. The blood from the knife wound clots as it mixes with the foul-smelling paste.
It worked. The girl’s antidote worked!
Relief douses me like a bucket of ice-cold water, and I laugh as I reach for Desgrez’s hand. He squeezes back, and hope takes flight in my chest, soaring up to the carved stone angels keeping watch from the rafters. If she healed Desgrez, perhaps she can heal Anne and Françoise. I turn, ready to toss the girl over my shoulder and make for the sewer, when Desgrez moans and coughs up another mouthful of dreck.
First things first.
He attempts to sit, but his arms quiver and his eyes roll back. “I feel like death.”
“You look like it too.” I laugh, gently easing his shoulders back down to the bench.
Desgrez waves away the slight and mumbles that he’s still better-looking than I am. We sit for several minutes in silence while he regains his breath. Slowly, his glassy eyes rove from the niches in the north aisle, across the garish yellow and crimson nave, and slam to a halt on the girl. He squints at her for a long moment, then his eyes bulge. He grips me by the collar and pulls me close. “What isshedoing here?”
“You need to stay calm. She only just healed you.”
“Healedme?” Desgrez’s hands fly to inspect his face and torso. He winces at the knife wound. “It doesn’tfeellike she healed me.”
“Well, she did. When you were hit on the Pont Neuf, she helped me carry you here and brought you back to life.”
“You expect me to believe that?” He glares at the girl, and the girl glares back. It’s like watching the cocks circle each other before a fight, and I position myself strategically between them.
“It’s the truth. I saw it myself.”
