“I don’t understand,” I say again.
A sob burbles up her throat and her voice breaks. “My mother delivered the poisoned petition into the Sun King’s hands, butImade the poison. I am ultimately responsible for his death.”
A burst of bone-chilling cold spreads through my chest and curls its icy fingers around my throat. I shake my head vehemently. “No. That’s impossible. You said you had nothing to do with the attack on Versailles.”
Mirabelle speaks to the floor, her voice flat and matter-of-fact. “I said I knew nothing about Mother’s plans, which I didn’t. But that hardly makes me innocent. I knew she would administer the poison to someone. And beyond that, I created the blood draught to make Lesage’s magic tactile—his lightning, the smoke beasts, none of it would exist without me. I am the reason the Shadow Society was able to seize the city.”
The ringing in my ears drowns out the end of her confession.Sheis the reason my sisters nearly died.Shekilled my father. And Rixenda …
I gape at Mirabelle, hunched in the doorway, trying to reconcile the girl I watched lovingly administer curatives with the monster she’s describing. And I can’t. It’s impossible.
“Forgive me,” Mirabelle chokes out.
“You see!” Desgrez jumps to his feet and points. “She admits it herself! She murdered the king—yourfather.Which is a capital offense in itself. But then she also claimed responsibility for the deaths of half of the nobility and the Paris Police.Thisis who you’ve chosen to align with”—he sneers at me—“but I’ll not make the same mistake.” He extracts a rapier from the folds of his brown robe and stalks to where Mirabelle stands. “On your knees.”
The door is open. She could attempt to flee. But she gazes up at Desgrez with watery black eyes and complies. Her lips tremble and her breath comes short and fast. She doesn’t beg for mercy. Doesn’t look away.
Desgrez lifts his blade to her throat and twists the tip so it digs into the flesh below her ear. A ribbon of crimson snakes down her neck. I watch it trickle lower. Every heartbeat slams against my temples. My dagger lies on the floor within reach, but I’m unable to move. Unsure if I want to.
Mirabelle swallows against the pressure of Desgrez’s blade and lifts her chin higher. “Do it,” she breathes. But at the same moment, a gratingscrape, scrape, scrapecomes from outside on the street. Like a sword dragging across the cobbles. It draws closer, louder, and a terrible stench fills my nose—like rotting eggs and gunpowder. Billows of oily blue smoke pour into the millinery and curl around our ankles.
Desgrez reels back, shouting oaths. Mirabelle collapses to the floor and clutches her neck. I quickly gain my feet. And we all stare out the door at an enormous indigo smoke beast that ambles into sight. It has long leathery wings, claws the length of my forearm, and a spiked tail that looks unnervingly like a mace. Itscrape, scrape, scrapes from side to side as it lumbers down the rue de Navarine.
The creature stops directly in front of the millinery and turns its golden eyes on us, the pupils slitted like a snake’s. It cocks its head and lifts its blunted snout into the air. Hot, rancid breath curls from its nostrils.
Mirabelle gasps. “He set them loose.”
Desgrez shoves her aside, slams the door, and casts around for something to use as a barricade. I spring to assist him, wedging a chair beneath the handle. Which is laughable. The smoke beast could burst through with the flick of a single claw. Or burn the entire shop to cinders.
We retreat to the far corner of the millinery—me, Desgrez, and Mirabelle crouched behind the counter. Gasping. Trembling. Waiting for fire to engulf the shop or for the beast’s massive weight to buckle the stairs leading to the door. The seconds pass. Droplets of blood leak from Mirabelle’s neck and speckle the dusty ground. Eventually the scraping resumes—moving distinctlyaway.
We rush to the window as the beast’s spiked tail vanishes around the corner of the rue de Navarine. Desgrez releases a breath and crumples against the wall. I grip the windowsill for support. But Mirabelle races to the door and knocks the chair aside.
“No, no, no,” she mutters.
“You can’t run from me,” Desgrez says. “I’ll easily overtake you.”
“Youare the least of my concerns,” she says. Then she bangs out the door and flies down the street. Chasing after a beast made of smoke and flame and nightmare. Running, most assuredly, to her death.
17
MIRABELLE
There’s only one reason the smoke beast would retreat. Only one reason it wouldn’t destroy the millinery, and the entire city, if Lesage has set them free.
Mother wants to capture us alive—so she can make a bloody, public display of the royals’ execution and my punishment—and Lesage’s creatures are her hunting hounds, sent to sniff us out.
I grip an iron garden fence, propel myself around the corner, and tear down the winding street. The creature moves like an azure wave. Its spiked tail bobs and flashes like lanterns in the moonlight, and its slitlike ears swivel, listening to my footsteps. But it never turns to blast me with its fiery breath. Confirming my suspicion.
I fist my petticoats and will my feet to move faster. Each breath cuts through my lungs like a scythe, and icy waves of fear crash through my limbs, but the pain is nothing,nothing,compared to the look on Josse’s face when I confessed. How his eyes widened with horror. How he recoiled in absolute disgust. As if I’m a monster.
Maybe I am.
I did terrible, unforgivable things. Things I can’t change. But Icanstop the smoke beast from reaching the Louvre and revealing our location to Lesage.
Iwillstop it.
We tear around another corner. Window coverings flutter and candles flicker to life as we fly past, but not a soul ventures into the street to help. They saw what the creatures are capable of during the procession, and I’m glad they stay away. Fewer innocent lives on my conscience.
