“They’re dead! You killed them!” I spring to my feet and lash out with a scream, clawing for Gris’s throat, but pain explodes across the side of my face. Bright bursts of white and twisting pillars of fire dance across my vision as I plummet back to the ash-covered ground. My breath whooshes out, and my pulse hammers at my temples. When my eyes clear, Fernand stands above me, shaking out his fist. Mother and Lesage join him, sneering down with disgust, followed by Marguerite and, last of all, Gris.
I knew the rest of them were lost, but I trusted him. Needed him. He promised to choose me this once.
“Why?” The word is mangled in my blood-filled mouth. I slide my tongue across my teeth and spit to the side. Gris’s cheeks drain of color. “Answer me!” I shout. The exertion is too much, and I curl into the brittle grass.
“The dauphin was there, in the millinery,” Gris says. “I’d heard the rumors, of course—La Vie is uniting the commoners and nobility—and I knew you were carousing with the bastard, but I said to myself,Mira would never align with the dauphin. She swore to me she’s only healing. The people are spreading false rumors.But there he was. Assisting you!”
I think back to that night. How Gris froze in the doorway and left so abruptly. I’d assumed it was because he was hurt, because he was so distraught over Mother’s plan to destroy the crops. And I was so distracted by the news, it hadn’t even occurred to me that he would notice and recognize Louis, stripped of all his finery. But of course he did.
“So rather than give me a chance to explain, you thought dozens deserved to die?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he stammers. Tears well in his eyes as he gazes across the burning fields. “You and the peasants weren’t to be harmed. Only the royals.”
“And you believed that?” I bark a bitter laugh. “Mother is full of lies on top of lies on top of lies.”
“Silence!” She slaps me across the cut at my temple, and the world blurs and tilts—molten fire and charcoal smoke and their horrible, wicked faces.
Marguerite crouches beside me. “My apologies, little sister,” she says, but her grin is anything but apologetic. She covers my face with a damp cloth, sickly sweet with ether, and my bones turn to puddles beneath my skin. I can’t lift a hand, can’t so much as scream, as she rifles through my bodice.
When she finds Father’s grimoire, she clucks her tongue and tosses it into the fire. “Gone for good,” she sings. Then she grips me beneath the arms and pitches me into a cart like a sack of grain.
I feel nothing.
Pain cannot reach me; disappointment cannot touch me. All I feel is emptiness—a cavernous, keening void where my heart once dwelt.
Gris betrayed me.
The cart lurches forward and we bump along the rutted Faubourg road. I fight to lift my head, but dark, curling shadows swallow the landscape. I’m shivering and sweating. Gasping and groaning. Sinking farther and farther into oblivion.
Marguerite leans over me and whispers in my ear, “Sweet dreams, La Petite Voisin.”
I wake, not in the dungeon but in a featherbed. Which is worse. The silken sheets cling to me like tentacles, and I kick against them, ripping the bed curtains from their fastenings. Give me manacles or the rack, gladly. Anything but these plush pillows and luxurious linens that mean I belong here. That I amone of them.
My stomach flips and I vomit over the side of the bed, spattering the finely woven rug. After wiping the dreck on my sleeve, I cast around the room. The ebony armoire looms over me like a watchman. Two high-backed chairs stand sentinel on either side of the door like gates, ready to slam closed and lock me inside.
I scramble to the edge of the bed, my desperation booming fast and hard—like my heart:Get out, get out, get out!
I have to find Josse and the remaining rebels—if any of them survived. The contorted faces of my dead friends rise up around me, and for a horrible second, I imagine Josse among them, howling in agony, the whites of his eyes stained green by the flames.
My trembling arms give out and I gasp into the blankets, clutching my chest.
No.I didn’t see him burn. He escaped. And he needs me.
I have to believe it.
The glowing window panes call to me, and I gather up my dressing gown. We may be four levels up, but I could leap from the ramparts if necessary. I swing my legs over the bedside, but as soon as my feet meet the floor it slides away like melted candlewax.
The blasted sedative still has hold.
I topple into the dressing table like a flapping hatchling, and a basin of water crashes over my skull. One of Mother’s maidservants pokes her head into the room. “You’re awake! I’ll send for La Voisin at once.”
Merde.I groan and wipe the steaming water from my eyes. Not Mother. Anyone but her. I press my burning face against the marble and silently scream.
The maid bustles in. “Up, up. Your mother won’t tolerate such wallowing.” I don’t move. I don’t think I can. With a sigh, the maid grips me under the arms and drags me back to bed. I fight her every step—or try to—but my arms are slow and shaking. My legs drag through the carpet like plows. Marguerite must have administered enough sedative to fell a horse.
“How long have I been here?” I ask.
“Going on two days, miss.”
