“As someone with intimate knowledge of our former ruler, I can assure you he deserved this fate,” Lesage adds in a breathy voice. He leans against the carriage wall, so weak from expending his magic that he can hardly keep his eyes open. I glare at the ghoulish green light still radiating from his fingertips, fear and fury scorching through my veins like wildfire.Igave Lesage that power—or, my alchemy enhanced it. He was nothing but a performer, a conjurer, creating illusions that vanished like smoke beforeIinvented a tonic that made his magic tactile. Until I turned him into a sorcerer at Mother’s behest.
Another bout of nausea surges up my throat, and I lean out the window, retching my sickness down the side of the carriage.
“Really, Mirabelle. Show some fortitude,” Mother barks, though I notice her own face is as waxen as a tallow candle.
Marguerite straightens and inclines her chin so she’s looking down at me. “Do you suppose the great Charlemagne united an empire without some bloodshed?” She sounds as if she’s reciting from historical texts to impress a tutor. It works. Mother’s countenance lightens considerably at the comparison. “It is better that a few might perish in order to help the majority.”
“And think of all we will accomplish with the royal coffers at our disposal,” Lesage puts in. I cut my eyes at the auburn-haired jackal. Of course the coffers are his primary concern.
My fingers begin to tingle. My vision shimmers gray and black.Breathe, Mira.The king was a gluttonous, slothful man. An abhorrent leader. Perhaps Mother is right. The people will fare better without him.
The remainder of the ride passes in silence, though it’s not the somber quiet of a torn battlefield or the reverent stillness of a graveyard. It is a raucous silence. A giddy, rasping hum that grates on my ears and makes my skin crawl with weevils. Fernand and Marguerite continue whispering, as always, and Abbé Guibourg strokes his crucifix, a satisfied smile on his withered lips. Even La Trianon looks pleased, shaking her head and fanning her flushed cheeks.
Madame de Montespan is the only person other than myself who doesn’t join the silent celebration. I had thought she was in on Mother’s scheme, the instigator even, but when Fernand and Marguerite donned their masks and rushed toward the palace, she collapsed beside me in the dirt and wailed at the top of her voice.
Now she’s ashen and listless, knocking into the carriage wall whenever we round a bend or rumble over a pothole. She fingers her limp corn-colored curls, and her azure eyes stare through me. She mouths the same two words over and over again: “My girls, my girls.”
For once, Mother and Lesage do not rush to console her. They purse their lips and shoot her wary glances.
I was not the only one deceived this day.
As we pass through the Faubourg Saint-Germain and approach the left bank, the sprawling yellow fields give way to crooked half-timbered houses that teeter and lean like tired old men. The familiar stink of bilge water and the haze of chimney soot coats our throats. Marguerite breaks the silence with a long sigh. “We shouldn’t have burned the palace at Versailles,” she laments, peeling back the curtain to stare longingly at the distant pillar of smoke staining the skyline. “It was so much grander than the reeking city center.”
“That is precisely why we burned it.” Mother flings the curtain shut. “We are nothing like the former king, tucked away in a lavish country château where it’s impossible to see to the needs of our people.Weshall live in the heart of the city. We will open the gates of the Louvre and welcome all to court. The worst has passed,” she says emphatically.
I nod along with the others. Forcing myself to believe it. Willing her declaration to be true.
Despite Mother’s promise, the nightmare continues.
We sequester ourselves in the belly of the Louvre while battles rage in the outer baileys. Cannon fire shakes the great stone walls. I take a small measure of comfort knowing we aren’t attacking unsuspecting citizens this time. The ministers and courtiers residing at the Louvre surrendered as soon as they saw the host of Shadow Society rebels scaling the battlements, and the servants happily switched allegiance when Mother offered to double their pay. And the citizens of Paris voiced no objection. On the contrary. They cheered in the streets and stitched banners of emerald, cerise, and plum-colored rags in support of Mother, their champion.
Our only opposition is the Paris Police. The officers are as relentless as roaches and just as impossible to kill: more skilled with the sword, more organized in their battalions, and more prepared with reserve armories scattered about the city. They have every advantage. Save for magic.
“I need another draught,” Lesage says, bursting into my new laboratory. It is a cold subterranean chamber that used to be a dungeon. Menacing hooks and chains still dangle from the walls, and soiled rushes litter the floor. I could have chosen any of the gilded salons with velvet divans and marble mantelpieces abovestairs, but then I would have been forced to hear the clashing swords and earsplitting screams. My windows would have overlooked the carnage. Down here, it is muffled. Apart. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m back in the garden house—ifI can ignore the stink.
Lesage clips across the chamber and deposits himself on a stool. He has always been thin and sallow, but now he looks like a corpse brought to life. His tunic is spattered with gore, and dark bruises sag beneath his bloodshot eyes. I doubt he’s slept since Versailles. His fingers quiver as he rolls up his sleeve and lays his arm across the table. When I don’t spring for my lancet, he glares at me.
I fold my arms and stand my ground. “I thought we agreed to fight by natural means? Mother said seizing the Louvre would be simple compared to—”
“Does that sound simple to you?” He gestures wildly overhead. Even deep beneath the palace, the blasts shudder through the walls, rattling the phials. Grout crumbles from between the stones. Not for the first time, I gaze up at the ceiling and wonder how heavy it will be when it buckles and buries us.
Gris gives me a gentle nudge. “Perhaps Lesage is right.” He shuffles across the room and offers me a porcelain bowl and lancet. “We are a society of alchemists and fortune-tellers. It’s foolish to think we can battle officers hand-to-hand.”
I glare at Gris. Groveling to Mother is one thing, but to Lesage is another. I’ve done more than enough for the sorcerer, and I intend to remind Lesage of this, but another explosion groans through the ceiling. Shaking the cabinets. Rocking my stomach until it threatens to expel the few gulps of tea I choked down this morning.
“Fine.” I take the equipment, Lesage makes a fist, and I nick the blue vein below his elbow. Rivulets of blood snake down his arm and drip into the porcelain bowl. I have to turn away, knowing the violence it will bring.
Gris lays a hand on my shoulder. “The sooner we quell these dissenters, the sooner we can return to making curatives.”
I nod and cast him a weak smile. I want to believe him, but trapped in this unfamiliar laboratory with the king’s death on my conscience, brewing naught but Lesage’s blood magic, it’s hard to believe I’m capable of anything beyond destruction.
Gris prepares the cauldron while I grind stinging nettle, monkshood, and horehound and add them to the pot. Then I return to Lesage to collect the basin of blood. He coughs and collapses against the table, his face gray and his hair slick with sweat. His shallow breath rasps like stones.
“You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up,” I say over my shoulder as I incorporate his blood into the mixture.
Lesage lifts his head just enough to look at me. “Shouldn’t you be glad of that?”
“Iwould be exceedingly glad. ButMotherwould not.” I place a tin cup before him and fill it with the crimson draught. “Pace yourself, magician.”
