“You’ll be recognized in an instant. Hair is a small price to pay to be thesavior of the people.Cut it off.”
Grudgingly, I take the dagger and do as he says, sawing off my curls just above my ears. By the time I finish, I’m surrounded by piles of light brown hair—it looks like I sheered a lamb—and I silently mourn the long, curling strands as they blow away across the river. My ears have never been so cold. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.”
We sit, shivering and soaking, for what feels like an eternity, until the outline of the Louvre glows gray and pink. As the sun rises over the water, a group of palace maids file down the embankment, strip off their dresses, and splash into the Seine.
I shoot the bastard prince a wicked grin. “Dare I ask how you know when the maids come to the river to bathe?”
“Be quiet and take a dress.”
“Will they recognize you?”
“Only if you keep talking and draw their attention.”
We slink forward on our bellies to where the girls left their clothes, and I pull on a scratchy slab of wool with a grunt. It’s still warm with body heat and the underarms are slightly damp. My eyes flick to the river. Some poor girl’s going to come out of the freezing water to find nothing but pebbles and reeds, but I haven’t time to feel overly guilty because when I look to my left, I see that Josse has somehow squeezed himself into a gray maid’s dress as well. I laugh and slap my hand over my mouth.
“Not a word,” he says as he viciously ties the bonnet strings beneath his chin.
The pathway from the river to the palace is short, and we reach the postern gatehouse in a blink. Thankfully, the masked sentries are too busy playing cards to notice a pair of maids in ill-fitted uniforms, so we hunch our shoulders and shuffle inside without trouble.
At once, we are enveloped in a flurry of activity. Masked Society members swarm the outer courtyard. Some march in single file while others spar with rapiers and daggers. Colonels in plum-colored livery pace atop the curtain wall, barking orders. The sight makes my breath catch. I knew the Society was large, but it’s staggering to see them all in one place. And even more unsettling to see them drilling like a proper army.
Josse gapes around the courtyard, then looks at me askance. As if I singlehandedly recruited every one of them. Or conveniently forgot to tell him that Mother had legions of soldiers. But I’m every bit as shocked.This isn’t who we are.
“Let’s keep moving.” Josse says, his voice low. “The servants’ outbuildings are located behind the castle proper.” He leads us along the curtain wall and around the nearest watchtower, but the moment he enters the courtyard, he slams to a halt. I crash into his back and start to curse him for smashing my nose, but he’s already cursing enough for us both.
“Damn, damn, damn.”
A massive steel cage has been erected in the center of the square. The crude bars are as thick as my middle and rise higher than the castle walls. Inside, Lesage’s smoke beasts snort and snarl. There looks to be around ten of them—half created during the battle with the Paris Police and the other half from the procession. Their semi-translucent bodies slither and glide over one another like a tangle of shimmering yarn. The grass and cobbles around the pen are scorched, and a pillar of smoke billows skyward. I choke on the foul stench of brimstone.
I created those monsters. Without my alchemy, they would have dissipated like smoke. But I gave Lesage the power to make them tactile. I was so desperate to prove myself to Mother, I didn’t consider the consequences. Just as I didn’t consider the consequences of making the poison she used to kill the king. Maybe Josse is right. If I weren’t so hungry for acknowledgment, I would have been more prudent. At the very least, I should have rendered the blood draught so I could control the beasts as well. They are half mine.
Which means the fault will be half yours when Lesage releases them again.
Shame and regret nip at my heels as we run down the narrow paths that snake around the cage. The beasts blow fire at our backs, attempting to incinerate anything that moves, and we narrowly dodge the flames. My feet burn like they’ve been branded by a hot poker. Josse’s boots hiss as he splashes into a puddle, but it seems we’ve gotten off easy. There’s a long line of servants with blistered arms and singed petticoats hobbling into the castle through a creaky wooden door near the midden heap.
We fall in line, and I glance nervously at the other servants, laden heavy with linens and barrows and missives. We’ll stand out like a violet in a patch of belladonna if we don’t appear to have a duty.
“Relax,” Josse whispers. He grabs a water bucket waiting behind the door and hefts it to his hip. Then he leads us down the hall and past the kitchens, which smell of rye and roasted duck, to a corner stairwell.
I take the lead from there, guiding us down into the depths of the palace. The air grows colder as we descend, prickling across my skin and sitting damp and heavy in my lungs. It smells of rot and urine, and I pull my sleeve over my nose and quicken my step. While I miss my work and Gris, I haven’t missed this miserable place.
Doors blur past, branching off into holding cells and torture chambers, and a cacophony of discordant music follows us down the twisting halls: the clink of iron manacles, the shouting of guards, and the painful wails of prisoners. Shivers overtake me, and I practically run the last few steps to the familiar gray door.
I crouch and check the gap to make certain it’s empty—not even Gris should be working at such an early hour—then I burst into the laboratory. My feet carry me straight to the board, and I trace my fingers over the wood, touching every bottle and phial and spoon. Expecting them to welcome me like old friends. But everything feels cold and unfamiliar. The warm, pungent air assaults me like a bouquet of awful memories: Louis XIV’s foaming lips, brewing Viper’s Venom for Mother, Lesage’s scarecrow arm dripping blood across the board.
This place is a cruel mockery of my garden laboratory. An insult to the Shadow Society.
I hate it.
“Fascinating,” Josse says, perusing the shelves. He leans over to inspect the athanor and swings the furnace door open and closed.
I slap the back of his hand. “Don’t touch anything. Stand over there and keep watch.”
He grumbles but moves to the door. I retrieve several empty satchels from the cabinet and get to work, eager to be free of this place. I stuff fistfuls of fresh herbs and entire jars of the dried variety into the sacks followed by mortars and pestles and phials. Everything I’ll need to resume healing. It will be obvious the laboratory has been pillaged, but I must collect as much as possible.
Gris’s goggles call to me from their nail beside the hearth, and I run my finger along the leather strap, wishing more than anything for his help. But I leave the goggles be. Better that he’s not involved in this madness. It would be selfish to ask him to take such a risk. And I’m not certain he’d side with me. I may be his best friend, but Mother is his savior. Not to mention I’m working with a royal—albeit it a bastard royal, but I helped the others as well.
