I call out again, and this time, there comes the tiniest croak, hardly more than a wheeze.
“There!” Josse points to what looks to be a pile of soiled rushes in the corner, but now I see the man. The duc lies prostrate on his back. His hands jerk and flap at his sides, but his gimlet eyes are fixed and opened, so wide that they look to be protruding from his head.
I drop to my knees beside him and bite the cork from my phial of antipoison. “Drink.” I tip the phial to his lips. He looks up at me and a low, guttural scream rattles from his lips. He thrashes violently, and Josse crouches down to hold his shoulders—as he did when I healed Françoise. “I am not my mother,” I roar. “Drink if you want to live.”
The fight goes out of him, and he stills long enough to allow the antipoison to dribble across his lips.
The hammering of my pulse counts the seconds.
I haven’t a clue how long it will take.
When I reach six, the duc’s jaw falls open and a virulent mixture of blood and phlegm spills over his chin. I try to turn him on his side, but he wails and arches back, his spine twisting at a sickening angle.
“Why isn’t it working?” Josse stammers. His face is as pallid as the swath of moonlight pooling beneath the window. He looks like he’s going to be sick.
“It will.” I fumble again for the phial. According to my calculations, the man should have needed only half, but I pull him onto my lap, jam the bottle between his lips, and tip every last drop into his mouth.
You will not die.
I don’t know if I think it, or whisper it, or scream it. But it booms like thunder in my mind. I barely knew the duc, and what I did know I didn’t particularly like, but now I need him to live as surely as I need to breathe. I need my antipoison to be effective.
I grip the standing ruff of his collar so tightly, it rips away from his shirt when another tremor overtakes him, this one even more forceful than the first. He twists and moans, his bones snapping like the crack of a whip. His hand tightens around my forearm and his fingernails pierce my skin like five tiny blades. They cut deeper and deeper, until suddenly the pressure is gone. His legs give a final jerk, then he’s still. Sprawled across my lap.
I shake him, even though I know it’s useless. I shake him and shake him and shake him, as other grotesque, bleeding faces flash through my mind: the Sun King, Madame de Montespan, the Duc de Vendôme and his men.
How many more?
I whimper into the back of my hand, and the duc slides from my lap. His flaccid cheek presses into the floor.
“It was supposed to work. Why didn’t it work?” I’m unsure if I’m talking to the duc, or Josse, or myself, but the words pour from me like the blood that poured from the duc’s mouth. Drenching me until I’m shivering and shaking, rocking forward and back with my palms pressed to my eyes.
Spirits of hartshorn, camphor, and a strong brine of salt. Simmered for five hours and pushed through a sieve. I mentally review the recipe again and again.
I did everything right.
“Mira?” Josse touches my arm but I don’t respond. “We need to go. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
I hunch over the duc’s body like a vulture. Thereismore. I should be able to do more. If I could only just …
What?I may be an alchemist, but I’ve no Elixir of Life or panacea. I can’t even brew a proper antipoison. I am a failure. A disgrace.
Josse begs and pleads, prods and pushes, but I sit on the floor, my skirts soaking up the Duc de Luxembourg’s blood, until Josse loses patience. Muttering oaths, he crouches beside me and slides an arm around my back and beneath my arms. “I’m not being indecent. I’m just helping you up.”
I’m too numb to fight him. He hefts me off the floor and I sag against his side, boneless and tripping as he guides me down the hall. Some far-off, distant part of me is mortified, but the part of me that failed to save the duc is too empty to care.
16
JOSSE
Mirabelle feels like a corpse in my arms—as if she is the one who perished from Viper’s Venom. Her glassy eyes stare out at nothing. Her arms hang, leaden and swinging, as I retrace our steps down the stairs and into the garden.
I boost her over the wall and tug her down the street. The entire time she looks as if she’s sleepwalking. I clear my throat and glance down every few minutes, imploring her to look at me. I haven’t a clue what I’ll say, but some sign of life would be comforting. She looks as brittle as a wasp’s nest. Hollowed out with grief.
A light rain begins to fall, and I tug my hat lower to shield my face. Mirabelle does the opposite, tipping her head back, so streams of water trickle down her cheeks. They almost look like tears.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” I blurt out when I can’t stand the silence any longer. “You’ve saved scores of people. Think of the poor on the rue du Temple and the sick in the Hôtel-Dieu. This is just a minor setback.”
“A minor setback?” she shouts, wheeling around. We both flinch and scan the road. She steps closer and continues in a furious whisper. “How can you say that when you’ve seen what my mother is capable of? The good we’ve done won’t matter. It isn’t enough.”
