“You are worse than unbearable.”
Mirabelle pins us both with an imperious look. “Will the two of you please stop? Or take your quarrels elsewhere. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“I’ll stop squabbling as soon as he stops being …” I can’t even think of the proper word to describe how annoying Louis is so I settle for,“… himself!”
He’s quiet for so long, I silently congratulate myself for winning this bout, but then he speaks, his voice low and hard. “For all you complain about me being insufferable and difficult, you’re just as impossible. I was a selfish, mule-brained puttock when I was blind to the needs of the people. Now, when I am actively trying to help, I’m bothersome and unnecessary. No matter what I do, it’s never good enough for you.”
A punch of disbelieving laughter bursts from my mouth, and the more Louis insists it isn’t funny, the harder I laugh. “Do you expect me to feel sorry for you? I’ve felt that way every minute of my life!Youmade certain I felt that way! So excuse me if I don’t take pity on you after a few paltry weeks of dithering.”
“When are you going to open your eyes and realize it wasn’t I who ostracized you? Nor Father nor his ministers nor even the courtiers. We didn’t need to. You sabotaged yourself! You made certain no one would ever see you as anything more than a worthless bastard.”
“That’s all I was permitted to be! Father despised me. I had no opportunity—”
“Wrong!” Louis shouts with more vehemence than I’ve ever heard. “In the beginning, he preferred you.”
“No one believes your lies.”
“It’s true. You were more like him in every way—confident and full of swagger, loud and brash and physically capable. Everything I’m not. I overheard him once, when we were twelve years old, complaining to the Grand Condé that he wished you’d been born legitimate, as you’d have made a better king—notwithstanding your rakish ways and boorish behavior.”
I slap both hands down on the table. “Stop! Lying!”
“Stop blaming me, and everyone else, for not living up to your potential. You’ve no one to blame but yourself!”
A high-pitched ringing fills my ears. Dark spots bloom across my vision, devouring the counter and phials and herbs until all I see is black. Until I’m certain I’ll rip the millinery down board by board and bury Louis in the wreckage if I don’t leave this instant.
“Josse—” Mirabelle takes a cautious step toward me.
I stumble back, growling a slew of profanities, and slam out into the night. I gulp back the chilly air and run down one street and up another without a care for where I’m going. Faster, faster. Farther, farther. But I can’t outrun those bedamned words:
He preferred you.
You sabotaged yourself.
Lies. They have to be. But the sobs in my throat are so thick now, I have to stop to catch my breath. I reach out to steady myself on a tree, but my shaking hand misses its mark and I crash to the mucky ground, melting into a pathetic puddle of tears. Every interaction I ever had with my father flashes through my mind, colored by this horrifying new revelation. What if his pinched expression wasn’t born of disgust, but dismay? What if he sent me to work in the kitchen not to hide me away or punish me, but to reform me?
He wanted me to be something more. He waited patiently, giving me chance after chance to prove myself, and I was so indignant and impatient that I squandered every opportunity.
I gave him no choice but to push me away.
I lie beneath the tree like a boneless, vacant-eyed drunkard, thankful for the deepening sky that hides my tear-streaked face. Finally, when I haven’t a tear left in my eyes nor a heart in my chest, I stagger to my feet and continue down the road. Not hearing, not seeing, just floating along like a ghost.
I stumble into scores of people, but one of them is so tall and solid, it feels like I’ve dashed my head against the city wall.
“Princeling!” Gris shouts, gripping my shoulders and shaking me. “I know you heard me. I’ve called your name a dozen times.”
“Leave me be,” I grumble. I try to push away, but Gris tightens his grip until I yelp and look up—into eyes that are as bloodshot and bewildered as mine. He’s gasping for breath as if he ran all the way from the Louvre.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
He releases me and folds in half, bracing himself on his knees. “I came … to warn you …” he pants. “La Voisin is planning something terrible. We haven’t much time.”
21
MIRABELLE
A familiar prickle of pain grips my chest as I watch Josse tear down the rue de Navarine. He vanishes into the violet-stained twilight, and the tether between us pulls taut. My mind screams to go after him. I know precisely how he feels. His entire world—everything he thought he knew—came crashing down around him. But I also know there’s nothing I can say to ease his pain. Not yet.
“Is it true? What you said about your father?” I ask Louis after we’ve spent a full minute staring at the door in silence.
