The first boy throws his hands into the air and storms back down the tunnel. The other glares after him for a moment before yanking his tricorne hat lower and striding toward me. He’s even more haggard and filthy than the last time I saw him; not even the beggars in the streets look so ravaged. His brown hair is a tangle of knots, his doublet is torn, and a thick layer of grime covers his breeches. His cheeks are gaunt, and his chin is scruffy with stubble. If I didn’t know better, I would say he was a prisoner himself.
My eyes break away from him and scan the cavern, taking in the few details I can distinguish in the torchlight—the dripping walls, the rusted grate in the far corner, the tunnels branching off in numerous directions. I should have gathered where I was from the dampness and smell alone. This isn’t a dungeon or a cave—it’s the sewer. Not even vagabonds would inhabit such a place. Which means my captors are more desperate still.
The boy lumbers closer, and I scrutinize him with greater care, looking for a crest on his doublet or some feature that might identify him. He’s taller than average with a strong chin, green eyes, and a thin scar through the corner of his lip. And his friend mentioned healing “the girls.” What girls?
“What are you looking at?” The boy glowers down at me.
I avert my eyes but refuse to cower, channeling Mother’s cold, imperious demeanor. She would never grovel to these ruffians. Then again, she would never be in this situation because she would have left them to die on the bridge.
The boy squats down beside me, and I squeal. My head knocks against the cavern wall and bursts of light explode like stars in the darkness. He waits for me to steady my balance before speaking. “I thought you might be hungry.” He reaches into his coat and procures a butt of bread.
I stare at the offering and choke on a fresh wave of tears. My stomach is so knotted with hunger it feels as if a sword is sawing through my middle, but I cannot accept a morsel of food. It’s undoubtedly poisoned. They probably think themselves clever—poisoning the girl who poisoned the king—but I won’t eat.
“Don’t you want food?” he says more forcefully.
I shake my head and press myself against the moldy wall. Naturally, my stomach chooses that moment to gurgle, making noises more befitting a cow than a girl.
The boy’s sigh sounds as weak and exhausted as I feel. He scoots closer, and the heat of his body sends shivers through my frostbitten skin. When his fingers slide through my hair and untie my gag, I quiver at the wrongness of his touch. It paralyzes me from head to toe, as if I’ve ingested monkshood. Long, painful seconds tick away, and when at last I regain control, I peer through my wet, clinging eyelashes and find the butt of bread hovering before my lips. It’s old and stale, the crust flaking off in brittle pieces, but it smells like garlic and rosemary, and my empty stomach roars with longing.
I shouldn’t eat it. Iwill noteat it.
The boy tears off a corner and holds it out, and, curse my lacking discipline, I bite it from his fingers as if I am a mangy, starving mongrel. He doesn’t say a word as he breaks off bite-sized chunks and holds them to my lips, nor does he look at me. Whenever I lift my gaze, he is examining the floor, the puddles, the walls. Anything else.
Too soon, the bread is gone, and the boy brushes the crumbs from his fingers and stands. My insides still throb with emptiness, and I’m tempted to slither forward like a snake and lick up every speck. But I tighten my fists and keep to the corner. He cannot see my desperation.
“You saved my friend’s life. It’s only right I return the favor,” he says brusquely. “If you cooperate, I think we can continue to help each other. There are others in need of healing. Save them, and perhaps we can negotiate your freedom.”
I had resolved not to speak, but his suggestion is so ridiculous, I can’t help but laugh. “Negotiate my freedom? How dim-witted do you think me? I healed your dreadful friend and look where it got me? I’ll heal no one else.”
The boy grinds his teeth, and his voice rumbles low. “Consider your actions carefully. If you fail to oblige, we will have no reason to spare you.”
I shrug as if my own life is of little consequence, but in truth, I’m so terrified, my hands twitch and tremble behind my back. I don’t want to die, but it’s not that simple because I don’t want to return to my former life either—back to Mother and the Society to dole out poison and death. So where does that leave me?
I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing I had developed a draught to render myself invisible. How blissful it would be to vanish, to slip away to some other city and live some other life. To shed the skin of Mirabelle Monvoisin and become someone new, someone who doesn’t have to live in fear of her mother and compete with her sister and flounder every second, wondering if she’s crossed a line. Or if she was standing on the correct side of the line to begin with. At what point does gray bleed into black?
I wave the boy off. He can offer nothing I want. I don’t know the answer myself.
The boy’s face hardens. “Youwillhelp us, La Petite Voisin.” That cursed moniker makes me flinch. I am not Mother’s perfect miniature—not anymore—and that anyone thinks so, even this boy, makes me want to scream. He marches into the curling shadows down the tunnel, and my fury escalates with every step he puts between us. “I amnotLa Petite Voisin,” I shout.
To my surprise, he halts, shoulders tense, as if he’s forgotten to breathe. “What do you mean, you’re not her? Of course you’re her.”
Maybe the food in my belly is making me bold. Or maybe I know, deep down, it doesn’t matter what I say or do: I’m dead regardless. But I glare up at him and shake my head.
“Then who are you?”
“Mirabelle.”
The boy grips his forehead. “I don’t give a damn what your given name is. It makes no difference to me.”
But it makes a difference to me, and I shout my real name,Mirabelle,again and again as he vanishes into the blackness.
The boy returns with bread the next day. And the day after that. At least, I assume another day has come and gone. In the dark, there’s no telling how much time has passed, but I’ve noticed a pattern in the routine. Each time after I eat, the faint sounds of coughing and crying reach me from somewhere down the tunnel. It lasts for what feels like an eternity—through the day?—then it’s quiet as death until the boy comes again.
He hasn’t bothered retying my gag. I stopped screaming days ago because I lost my voice, and it’s pointless besides. No one can hear me in this dank, dripping place. After a week of imprisonment, my hips and back are covered in raw, oozing sores and my fingers and toes are so cold, I’m afraid they’ll need to be amputated.
But I haven’t given up.
Each time the boy comes to feed me and beg me to healthe girls—I still haven’t figured outwhichgirls—I pepper him with questions of my own, hoping he’ll slip and say something I can use against him.
