“What do you mean, they’ve been ‘placed in excellent care’? Where? With whom?” I look all around the room, as if somehow Anne and Françoise will appear.
“Madame de Montespan’s elder sister, the Marchioness de Thianges, volunteered to oversee their upbringing, and I thought it a splendid idea.”
“How could you think that? They need to be here. With me.”
Louis steeples his hands and waits for me to stop shouting. “Be reasonable, Josse. It isn’t fitting for little girls to be raised by us. They will be happy with their aunt. And it’s not as if they’ve been sent across the sea. They’re on the other side of the city. You can visit as you please.”
“Doesn’t the marchioness prefer to be at court?”
“She thinks they will benefit from living somewhere quieter for a time, to recover. But they’ve a place here whenever they wish to return.”
The thundering in my chest slows, and I grudgingly nod. “You could have at least waited until I awoke. So I could see them off.”
“You would have never let them go. You’re allowed to be both a brotherandan officer, you know. And the girls aren’t your only sibling in need of assistance.”
Behind him, Louis’s ministers whisper at this admission. He stiffens in his armchair. “I expect an answer in the morning, Josse. Now run along.” He lifts a gloved hand and waves me away. “I’ve important matters to attend to that are far above your station. I’m sure you’ll find the company in the millinery more suited to your tastes.”
This makes his ministers chuckle, but a ghost of a smile floats across Louis’s lips and his blue eyes twinkle with mischief.
I manage a bewildered bow and drift out of the palace and up the streets. Toward Mirabelle and the millinery. Marveling at how everything has changed. And how everything in the world feels oddly right.
29
MIRABELLE
The millinery is dark and I am alone—basking in the stillness, luxuriating in the comforting darkness that seeps around me like steam. It’s so warm and quiet. So opposite the fray at Notre-Dame.
I sit beneath the window, legs tucked against my chest and chin atop my knees, and stare at the moonlight passing through the papered windows. It paints the floor with brushstrokes of pewter and indigo, and I twirl my fingers idly in the light.
Mother and Lesage are dead. Marguerite and the members of the Shadow Society who surrendered are locked in the Châtelet, awaiting trial. Gavril and the orphans have already taken up residence in the Palais Royal. Ameline and the fishwives returned victorious to the wharf. And Louis and I carried Josse to the Louvre, though I left directly after administering the cure for désintégrer.
That palace makes my skin crawl. I saw Mother’s face in every stone and tapestry. Her voice echoed down the halls and hovered in the silence of Josse’s sickroom. So I started walking, hoping to outrun the horrifying images of her writhing on the scaffold at Notre-Dame. But the memories followed me clear to the millinery—I suspect they will follow me always.
And not just the ones of Mother.
Gris’s warm brown eyes haunt me from the goggles resting on the table. His crooked smile shines in the glass of every phial. I hear his laugh in the belly of each cauldron. A tear slides down my cheek, and when I wipe it away, I recoil at the metallic scent of blood.
Hisblood.
Agony flays me open like the smoke beasts’ claws. He took a dagger for me. And he gave me the means to kill Mother. Even though I tricked him, and condemned him, and said so many awful things.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Forgive me.”
After Gris comes my sister. Marguerite didn’t attempt to fight when she was apprehended and marched to the Châtelet. She didn’t even look up to say goodbye. The last I’ll ever see of her is the glass-eyed expression she wore when she sagged over Mother’s corpse.
We may have retaken the city, but a small part of me can’t help but feel defeated.
My entire family is gone.
Father’s voice comes swiftly, right at my ear. I can almostfeelthe whisper of his breath.I’m with you always. And I’ve never been so proud.
The door snicks open, and Josse’s beautiful, moonlit face appears through the dust and dark. Despite the shadows, I can tell his skin is glowing and golden rather than stained with Lesage’s sickness, and he stands, tall and strong, like the statues in the Tuileries. He squints across the shop, and when his gooseberry-green eyes fall on me, warmth and light and hope tingle through my body.
He’s alive. He came for me.
“I thought I might find you here,” he says as he pads across the millinery. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to heal someone and vanish? How am I supposed to offer my thanks?” He collapses beside me, and the shadows highlight the sharp planes of his cheeks. His hair hangs in his eyes, painted black by the darkness. He catches me staring and shoots me a mischievous grin that makes my toes curl inside my boots. “I intend to thank you for a very, very long time.”
I try to laugh, but it catches in my throat and sounds more like a sniffle. The grin quickly slides from Josse’s face, and his brows pull together. “Mira, are youcrying?”
