A foul taste lingers in my mouth from the Quai de la Grève, and it has nothing to do with the fish.
Once again, I am not enough.
Once again, I’m cast aside in favor of my brother, who hasn’t lifted a bedamned finger.
Granted, we haven’t asked for his help, but Louis wouldn’t have offered it even if we had. Not willingly, anyway. He couldn’t care less about fishmongers. Or the poor and sick.
Yet still they cry for him.
Still I am forced to grovel at his feet and beg for his support—then give him credit for everythingI’veaccomplished.
I suppose I knew it would come to this—I proposed returning him to the throne. I just didn’t expect to feel this bitterness churning in my belly. These sharp claws of jealousy dragging through my skin.
Desgrez keeps snickering as we walk, as if this is all a hysterical joke. I want to punch him in the throat, but hold back because he’s finally warming to our plan.
Mirabelle squeezes my hand, trying to get me to slow down and look at her, but I charge ahead, my fingers rigid against hers. I haven’t a clue why she wants anything to do with me—I clearly have nothing to offer.
I turn to start up the rue Saint-Denis toward the millinery, but Mirabelle and Desgrez stop and look the other way—down the rue Saint-Honoré toward the pâtisserie.
“Now?”I groan.
“There’s no reason to delay,” Mirabelle says. “The sooner we enlist your siblings, the sooner we can recruit more allies.”
“But it’s so late… .”
Desgrez rolls his eyes. “The sun has barely set. And you know time means nothing down below.”
I groan again, louder.
“I know you’re anxious to see Anne and Françoise,” Mirabelle persuades.
Their names stop me short. Anxious is an understatement. Two tiny holes have been drilling into my chest since the day I left the sewer. I’d do anything to see them, to protect them. Even face Louis. “Fine.” I let Mirabelle pull me toward Madame Bissette’s, but I drag my feet as if I’m marching to the gallows.
“Quit being so dramatic,” Desgrez says. “This was your idea, was it not? Uniting the nobility and the peasants?”
“Yes, but I never consideredwhowould do the actual uniting.”
“Who better than the noble commoner?” Desgrez opens the pâtisserie door and waves me in with a gallant sweep of his hand. “After you, my lord.”
I bite my thumb at him and slip inside. By some miracle, Madame Bissette is in her apartment abovestairs, so I lift the hatch and descend into the tunnels without her pecking and pestering.
As soon as my boots sink into the muck, I cough at the vile stench. After a few weeks aboveground, I had forgotten how the vaporous fingers reach down your throat. I step forward to make room for the others and walk directly into a cobweb. While I bat the sticky strings from my face, a rat the size of Rixenda’s rolling pin scampers along the side of my boot.
I can’t do this. Especially knowing the foulest creature of all waits for me at the tunnel’s end. There must be another way to appease the people. Something,anything,else we can try.
I pivot, ready to bound back up the stairs and run far away from this hellhole, when two high-pitched voices trill down the tunnel like birdsong.
My heart stutters at the sound.
My girls.
Their laughter pulls me into the dark and dreck. I place my hands against the dripping walls and push into the blackness. Desgrez and Mirabelle follow.
Anne’s and Françoise’s voices grow steadily louder; my heart beats steadily faster. When we round the final bend and torchlight from their chamber illuminates the pits and holes in the ground, I break into a run. Needing to see them. Needing to hold them.
“Anne! Franny!” I shout.
There’s a beat of silence, followed by delighted screams and claps as I burst into the chamber.
