After three more days of brewing and stockpiling, the cupboards are filled with an array of healing tinctures and tonics, and Mirabelle has finally managed to distill an antidote for Viper’s Venom.
“We won’t know how effective it is until it’s administered,” she says, holding the phial to the light and inspecting the blue-black liquid as you would a diamond.
“So what do we do? Wait around until we hear rumors of nobles dying?”
“Do you have a better suggestion?”
I grumble but shake my head.
“I’ll sew a phial of the antidote into the hem of my skirt, so we’re prepared at a moment’s notice.”
“What about the rest of it?” I nod to the vast collection of bottles.
Mirabelle’s lips lift into a grin and she finally says the two glorious words I’ve been waiting for: “We’re ready.”
I jump from the floor, where I was becoming too well acquainted with dust bunnies, and shout, “Thank the saints! I was beginning to think I’d die of old age before we actually accomplished anything.”
“Poor, neglected princeling.” She pretends to wipe a tear for me. “Youmay have accomplished nothing, butIaccomplished more in a week than many alchemists could accomplish in months. Now, have you seen the milk cart beside the cottage at the end of the street?”
“Of course.” I’ve spent so many hours staring out these windows, I could account for every pebble in the road.
“Good. Go borrow it.”
“You mean steal it!”
“It isn’t stealing if we plan to return it.”
“And what if I’m caught?”
Mirabelle shoots me an exasperated look. “You’ve been begging to help for a week, and when I finally give you a duty, you complain. It’s the dead of night and the cart’s sitting out there for the taking. If you bungle that, you deserve to be caught.”
I suppose she has a point. I slink out the door, creep down the moonlit street, and return a few minutes later with the creaking cart in tow. Mirabelle describes the contents of each bottle as she adds them to the cart. “Does this mean I’ll actually be permitted to touch them in order to distribute the medications?”
“If you’re lucky.” She flashes me a goading smile. “Now keep quiet and stay close.” She clips down the street, clinging to the shadows as we scurry from building to building.
I heave the rattling cart forward and try to keep up. The sky is beginning to gray at the edges—so late that the revelers have finally retired, but early enough that the fishermen have yet to set their traps. The cool spring air ruffles my hair and whispers across my neck, sending chills dancing down my limbs. Or perhaps they are chills of excitement.
“How much farther?” I whisper.
Mirabelle peeks around a corner, then waves me forward. “The encampment is just up ahead, on the rue du Temple. It’s where we originally began healing the poor and sick and establishing the Shadow Society’s reputation. We’ve been helping them for years.”
“Then won’t their loyalty be to La Voisin?”
“You’ve never been hungry, have you?” She looks at me as if I’m sporting Louis’s jewel-encrusted doublet and powdered wig. “Their loyalty belongs to whoever has aided them most recently. And, lucky for us, Mother’s been too busy putting down rebellions to distribute any kind of relief.”
We dash down two more blocks. The lights of dozens of tiny fires prick the darkness, but just before we cross the final intersection, a group of Society soldiers round the corner.
I leave the cart and dive into an impossibly small gap between townhouses. Mirabelle smashes in behind me. The space is too narrow to be considered an alley, and her wild heartbeat pounds against my chest. Her hot breath races across my neck. My hands are pressed into the bricks on either side of her face, and she squeezes her eyes shut, digging her fingernails into the grout.
“That house there,” one of the soldiers says, and the others rumble a reply. Every muscle in my body tightens and I draw my fingers into a fist. They won’t take us without a fight. I watch the entrance to the alleyway for their crimson cloaks and masked faces, but a door bangs open several houses away and a woman screams.
“Where are the royals?” they shout at her. “Your neighbor reported hooded figures coming and going at odd hours of the night. And a fleur-de-lis pendant flies from your back window.”
“Lies!” she wails. “I haven’t heard or seen anything of the sort!”
The soldiers continue shouting and the woman continues crying until, finally, their footstepsthump, thump, thumpdown the street.
When I peek around the wall, the woman is sprawled across the threshold of her door, sobbing and clutching the frame.
