Or Mirabelle.
A new wave of panic crashes through my body—cold and sharp compared to the flames lashing my face. I can’t see her. Can’t hear her. I drag myself to my feet and stumble down the fence line, shrieking her name. But smoke fills my lungs and throat.
I am choking on the ashes of my friends. My boots slip through what can only be their blood. Cries pierce my ears, and I can’t tell if it’s their voices or the angry crackle of the fire.
I crash to my knees and vomit into the grass. The world flickers in and out, guttering like a candle. Until there’s nothing. No one. Save for darkness and death.
23
MIRABELLE
My skin feels like it’s been dipped in hot wax, and I think I’m bleeding; something warm and wet slides down the side of my face. I tell myself to get up. Get help.Do something, Mira.But my head is heavier than a mace and my legs are crumpled and boneless beneath me.
I can do nothing but stare into the blue-green inferno.
She knew.
How did Mother know?
I call for Josse but everything’s lost in the roar of the blaze. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray he’s alive and running to safety—and that he thinks to help Louis. The rebellion will be dead without him.
The rebellion is dead either way.
Our allies lie burning in these fields—my ears still ring with Étienne’s wails; he shouted Ameline’s name until the flames leapt over his head. My eyes burn with the final image of Desgrez—his face contorted, his skin glowing the same ghostly green as the day we met. Only this time I couldn’t bring him back.
I couldn’t save any of them.
Guilt slashes through me like a cold knife, and tears spill down my face.
The fire burns hotter and higher, and shapes take form in the smoke: the flutter of a crimson cape, flashes of velvet masks. I push up to my elbows and try to crawl away, but I don’t get far. Long, knobby fingers reach through the haze and grip me by the throat.
“There you are, La Petite Voisin,” Fernand says in his slippery serpent voice. “Or should I call you La Vie? Though it looks to me like you bring more death than life.”
He wrenches my arm so hard it feels like it’s tearing from my body and drags me through the dirt to the road where Mother waits. Her lips are pressed into a determined slash, and triumph dances in her dark eyes as she looks out across the blaze—a victorious general surveying her battlefield. The mother I once knew would have wept and trembled to see so many people drowning in flames, but she no longer resembles the woman who cried beside Father’s empty bed each night and lovingly traced the lines across my hands, teaching me and Marguerite to read palms. This monstrous version of Mother drinks in the bilious smoke and stands taller, the flames glinting through the folds of her black satin gown.
“Ah, my long-lost daughter, found at last. I’ve been sick with worry,” Mother jeers. Fernand dumps me at her feet. “You look surprised to see me. Perhaps you weren’t expecting me so soon?”
“How did you know?” I ask, but my tongue is as thick and slow as a slug, and the words come out garbled.
Mother laughs. “Sometimes I forget how hopeless and naïve you are. Did you honestly believe you could outwit me? I have eyes and ears everywhere. Even among yourfollowers.” She accentuates the wordfollowersas if it’s ludicrous to think anyone would follow me.
“My people detest you. They would never take your side.”
“That’s your mistake—assuming they areyourpeople. Some of them have always been mine—will always be mine.” She claps and Marguerite parades forward, tugging a slack-eyed Gris behind her.“Hecame tome,”Mother continues, “of his own volition. No threatening, no prodding.”
No.An unbearable high-pitched buzzing fills my ears, and my vision swims as I gape up at Gris. He wouldn’t. He promised to take my side. Mother is lying. I look into his light-brown eyes and wait for him to flash me a look of indignation. To fight and flail and loudly proclaim his innocence—that he had no part in this. He is my best friend. My brother. He would never betray me like this. He would never betray the people like this.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” I say, my voice a shaky whisper.
Gris bites his lip and refuses to meet my gaze.
Agony carves through me, and I moan as I curl into a ball. Suddenly my cuts and burns are nothing.Nothingcompared to the storm raging within me. The scorched fields take on a blood-red hue, and I can’t squeeze my fists tight enough, can’t scream loud enough. I can’t even tell if I’m breathing. It was excruciating to think someone else betrayed us, or that we weren’t vigilant enough and the Shadow Society trailed us through the streets.
ButGris?
“How could you?” I shout. The sight of him standing there with his slumped shoulders and miserable expression makes me twitch with fury. I want to pluck his deceitful eyes from his skull. I want to strap him to the rack or hang him from the gallows.
Traitor. Traitor. Traitor.My heartbeat roars the word.
