An Affair of Poisons

by Addie Thorley

Mirabelle chews her lip and studies me. “I thought you weren’t interested in helping the whole bedamned city.”

  “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested—I said I didn’t have time. But if uniting the people and retaking the city means my sisters will be safe in Paris, I’ll gladly choose the plan that benefits the majority. If you’re as passionate about serving the people as you claim to be, it’s what you’ll choose too. Unless you’re pleased with current events …”

  Something flashes in her eyes, and I know I’ve hit a nerve. I place my hands firmly on her shoulders. “If we fail, you can still make your curatives in secret, but why not try? You have nothing to lose.”

  “Except my head if Mother discovers us.” She glances nervously at the door, as if La Voisin can hear our treachery from across the palace.

  “This will be far more effective than doling out curatives one by one and ignoring the larger problem. You wouldn’t treat a man’s cough if he was dying of White Death.”

  “Fine,” she says. “But I’m in charge. And if someone discovers us traipsing through the palace, I’m telling them I escaped and brought you back as my prisoner.”

  I chuckle, but Mirabelle doesn’t join me. Which is when I realize she’s serious. “I snuck you into the palace. You wouldn’t forsake me so easily!”

  “I suggest you ensure we don’t get caught.” She shoots me a pointed look and sweeps out of the laboratory.

  We retrace our steps to the end of the hallway and sneak up the winding staircase, past the intoxicating smell of freshly baked bread wafting from the kitchens, to the gilded ballroom above. Then higher still, to the royal residences in the uppermost levels of the palace. I was never permitted to enter these rooms when Father held court at the Louvre, but I delivered enough tea trays to recognize the receiving chambers—the white door carved with peonies and swallows leading to the queen’s solar. And on the floor above that, the long corridor with soaring ceilings and buttery damask papering outside the queen’s chambers.

  Mirabelle streaks down the hall and ducks into a windowed alcove near the towering double doors. She pulls me in behind her and yanks the velvet draperies around us. “What are we doing in here?” I ask, but the horrid smell of must coagulates in my throat and my words are consumed by coughs.

  “Quiet,” Mirabelle hisses. As if I’m choking and sputtering on purpose. “Most mornings, Mother takes breakfast with Lesage and Marguerite and Fernand in the great hall, which means we shouldn’t have to wait long to sneak into her chamber.”

  I nod and we watch the doors in silence, my fingers tap-tap-tapping against my sides. The minutes pass with excruciating slowness. There isn’t enough space in here; the entire length of Mirabelle’s body is smashed against mine, which under different circumstances might not be unpleasant, but she’s quivering and fidgeting and her elbow keeps jabbing me in the ribs. Not to mention she’s sucking up all the air with her quick, anxious breaths.

  Just when I think I might suffocate, far-off bells chime the hour and the doors swing open. La Voisin parades from her chamber looking like the rising sun itself in an impressive golden gown with slashed sleeves and tiny cream-colored pearls sewn at the neck. Her crimson cloak completes the ensemble, and a gaggle of maidservants trail her down the hall to ensure the train doesn’t catch on the furniture or drag through dirty rushes.

  I suck in a breath as she passes our alcove. I’ve seen her previously but only from a distance, and I don’t know what I expected up close, but she looks old. And tired. Her steps are slow and heavy, her eyes swollen and shadowed despite a thick coating of powder. Before she rounds the corner, she adjusts her cloak, sending the double-headed eagles flashing, and raises herself up as if she’s a puppet whose strings have been pulled taut. Then she lets out a breath, her face takes on a mask of perfect calm, and she glides away, the peerless leader of the Shadow Society once more.

  But now I’ve seen the fissures underneath.

  I reach for the edge of the drapery, but Mirabelle smacks my wrist and holds up a hand. She must count well past fifty before finally moving.

  Carefully, we draw the curtain aside and scurry to the ornate double doors. They’re made of gilded ebony and groan as they swing inward. The room is gargantuan, with a floor-to-ceiling mirror along the back wall that makes the space look even larger. A tall bed with sumptuous green curtains occupies the center of the chamber, and rose settees line the walls. An unexpected pang wallops me in the stomach and stops my feet.

  My servant mother never occupied the queen’s rooms, of course. But that didn’t keep her from dreaming. Rixenda told me how my mother would bargain with the other maids, taking on extra scrubbing and chopping so she could deliver the queen’s breakfast each morning and steal a second in these rooms. Imagining how it would be if the king acknowledged their relationship.

  “Come on.” Mirabelle nudges me forward and makes straight for the vanity atop which sits a medium-sized box made of black lacquered wood. She tries the lid, but it’s locked, so she rummages around the miniature bowls of powder and parfum.

  “The key isn’t here. Like I knew it wouldn’t be.” She slams her fist against the box and glares at me. “This was a waste of time.”

  “Thankfully, getting into things I shouldn’t happens to be one of my specialties.” I take the box from her, find an ivory hairpin on the vanity, and insert it into the lock. After a few twists and jiggles, it clicks, and I throw back the lid with a triumphant grin. A pocket-sized book made of worn red leather shines up at me. A strangled sob bursts from Mirabelle’s lips and she snatches it with a speed that rivals the pickpockets in Les Halles. Then she holds it to her chest and inhales deeply.

  She looks so vulnerable, gripping that book as if it’s the most precious treasure in this palace. I fidget. It’s undeniably intimate seeing someone love something so much—like cracking a window to the innermost part of their soul—and it makes me so uncomfortable, I blurt something peevish so she’ll stop. “Do you still think this was a waste of time?”

  She smacks my shoulder with the book, stuffs it down her bodice, and finally moves toward the doors.

  A chambermaid emerges from the adjacent garderobe when we’re halfway across the room and crashes into Mirabelle. Who in turn crashes into me. The maid drops the ewer of water she was carrying, and it shatters with a crack so loud it sounds like every windowpane in the palace is breaking. Louis and my sisters probably heard it from the sewer. Which is bad enough, but then the girl starts screaming.

  I lunge forward to silence her, but Mirabelle beats me to it. She hefts a water pitcher off the bedside table, closes her eyes, and whirls. The jug makes a wet thunking noise against the girl’s head, and she collapses into the spilled water and broken bits of porcelain, lying perfectly still, arms and legs splayed at awkward angles.

  We both stare down at her, stunned.

  Mirabelle drops to her knees. “Please don’t be dead,” she mutters as she places her ear near the girl’s lips. After several excruciating seconds, she sags with relief. “She’s breathing. A bit of butterbur for her head wound and …”

  Mirabelle keeps talking, but I’m no longer listening. I check the chamber door, then look back at the unconscious girl. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but La Voisin will have the portcullises lowered and every corner of the palace overturned if she finds a body in her bedchamber. And we cannot return to the lab for butterbur—whatever that is.

  I bend over, lift the girl gently over my shoulder, and carry her from the room.

  “What are you doing?” Mirabelle demands.

  “What needs to be done.” I stuff the maid into the alcove in the hallway and pull the curtain strategically around her body.

  “We can’t just leave her.”

  “We can and we will.” I hook Mirabelle by the elbow and drag her back toward the servants’ stairs. “It’s just a knock on the head. She’ll be fine.”

  Mirabelle glowers at me.

  “Well, she may have a sk
ull-splitting headache for a few days, but it won’t kill her. I, on the other hand, will be executed the moment I’m discovered, and since you made it my duty to ensure we don’t get caught, that’s what I’m doing.”

  Mirabelle looks back at the alcove once more but eventually sighs and follows.

  “You can make up for nearly killing her by healing another,” I say as we wind down the stairs.

  Mirabelle kicks the back of my ankle, and I trip, nearly smashing my nose on the stone steps. I suppose I deserved that.

  As we hurry past the kitchens, a woman in a black dress with a severe gray bun spots us and insists we follow her, but I break into a run. I’m not about to be caught now, when we’re so close to pulling this off. We batter through the servants entering the castle, then slow to a walk, our heads bowed as we make our way across the crowded courtyards and past the porters at the gatehouse.

  Even after I’ve shed my disguise and we’ve blended into the bustle of the busy streets, we continue to plow past vegetable carts and shopkeepers waving baguettes and children selling flowers until the decrepit millinery comes into view. It feels oddly reminiscent of running through the streets the day before, when I freed her from the sewer. That same breathless, buzzing energy. That same rightness, dancing across my skin, warmer than the midday sun. Our boots pound the cobbles in perfect cadence. The air between us feels charged and electric. I’m as raucous and jittery as if I spent the night playing winning hands of lansquenet.

  “We seem to have a knack for narrow escapes,” I say.

  Mirabelle allows a tiny smile and her fingers brush the front of her dress, where her father’s grimoire hides. “I suppose we do.”

  13

  MIRABELLE

  I cannot stop staring at Father’s grimoire. Cannot stop running my fingers over the crumbling leather binding. It’s truly in my possession—his thoughts, his handwriting, that sweet, sweet scent of sage. I bury my nose in the brittle pages and pull a deep breath into my lungs. Holding it. Imagining Father’s wily, wicked grin. How he would have loved this intrigue!

  That’s my girl, risking all in the name of alchemy!

  I lie down on a pile of scraps in the corner of the millinery and will myself to sleep. I need to be well rested and ready to begin making curatives the moment Gris delivers my supplies.

  But Josse has other plans.

  “I don’t know how you can sleep!” he says, tromping around the shop all wide-eyed and red-cheeked, like a child on May Day. “There’s so much to do, so much to plan.”

  “It’s simple. You shut your mouth and close your eyes and lie very still—which I’m beginning to realize may not be simple for you …”

  He laughs as if I’m joking. “Are you always so calm and practical, poisoner?”

  “Are you always so loud and overzealous, princeling?”

  He scrunches his brows and strokes his chin. “Why, yes. I do believe I am. And you should thank me for it. You wouldn’t have accomplished half as much without me.”

  “I convinced you to sneak into the Louvre! You demanded I stay hidden in this dusty hovel.”

  “Did I?” He waves a hand. “I didn’t mean forever, obviously.”

  “Obviously,” I bite back at him. But a hint of a smile creeps across my lips. He’s a bit like a puppy: exuberant and excitable and thoroughly agitating, but so jaunty and eager you can’t help but want to pat his head. The thought makes my smile widen, and I turn toward the wall to hide it as I drift off to sleep.

  Just after midnight, a faint tap finally sounds at the millinery door and I scrabble to my feet. Josse jumps to follow but I wave him back, silently motioning for him to hide behind the counter. Gris may not recognize him right away, but Josse and his big mouth would undoubtedly blabber something revealing, and Gris cannot know the royals live. And he definitely cannot know that I’m working with them. He may be willing to overlook me brewing curatives in secret, but he would never overlook me aligning with the king’s children. Bastard or not.

  I crack the door open and peer out into the dark. “Gris?”

  “Who else would deliver supplies at this hour?” A towering cloaked figure removes his hood, and the alabaster moonlight transmutes Gris’s sandy hair to gold. He holds the satchels aloft.

  “Come in, come in,” I say.

  “Not the fanciest of establishments, is it?” He frowns at the cobwebbed corners and moth-eaten curtains. I follow his gaze across the room, horrified to see Josse’s tricorne hat hanging from the edge of the counter. My throat constricts and I scramble to invent an excuse, but Gris’s gaze passes over the hat as if it isn’t out of the ordinary.

  I suppose it isn’t, in a millinery.

  A nervous burst of laughter sputters from my lips.

  “What’s so funny?” he asks.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing.”

  Gris arches a brow.

  “It’s just … this millinery is certainly preferable to that soul-sucking dungeon laboratory at the palace.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” Gris hefts the other two sacks onto the counter and starts to unload the phials.

  “Don’t trouble yourself. It’s late. I’ll do it.”

  “I don’t mind. Like you said, it would be nice to make curatives again for a change.”

  He edges around the counter close to where Josse is hidden, and I shout, “Don’t!”

  Gris stumbles, knocks his hip against the corner of the table, then turns to gape at me.

  “I-I’m so exhausted from sneaking in to the palace earlier,” I explain. “I’m in no state to brew anything. And it would be unwise to keep you from the Louvre any longer. What if someone notices your absence?”

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  “When has that ever stopped Mother? You know how she is.” I take his arm and tug him gently toward the door. “I can’t have her asking questions.”

  Gris works his jaw. “I still don’t understand why—”

  “It’s all too much. You of all people know what I suffered at the hands of the royals. I need time to recuperate.” I draw a shaky breath and make a blubbering sound when I exhale.

  Gris’s face immediately softens—like I knew it would. He pulls me in to his broad chest and tucks my head beneath his chin, whispering soothing words while petting my ragged wisps of hair. Then I really do want to cry because I’m the most deplorable liar in all of France. And the most deplorable friend in the entire world. Using him. Manipulating him. But what choice do I have? I would tell him if I could, if I thought there was a sliver of a chance he’d understand. But he only sees his father’s bruised and battered face swinging from the gallows when he looks at any member of the nobility. They are all the Chevalier de Lorraine. And Mother saved him. He will always defend her, and I can’t blame him for it.

  “Get some rest,” he says softly. “I’ll keep your secret, and keep you safe, until you’re ready to return.”

  I offer him a teary smile and follow him to the door, not bothering to remind him that I’m never returning.

  As soon as he disappears around the corner, I race to the board and tear open the satchels, eager to get my hands on the supplies. Distilling tinctures and tonics will quiet my grumbling conscience. It will allow me to help the people. It’s the answer to everything. It always has been.

  Josse pops up from behind the counter, shaking his head. “This is why you can’t be trusted: One moment you’re crying, and the next you’re cackling with glee. Poor bugger.” He looks to the door and tuts.

  “I should have let Gris find you,” I grumble as I untie a bundle of blackberry leaves and begin chopping them into perfect squares. “Yet for some reason I’m deceiving my dearest friend for you.“

  “Not for me. For ‘the cause.’ Which is bigger than us all. Now where do we begin?” Josse leans across the counter and flips open Father’s grimoire, sullying it with his grubby fingers, thumbing through the pages as if they contain common kitchen recipes.

 
; My ears ring, and a tidal wave of rage rises up within me. I crash into him and wrestle the book from his hands. “Don’t touch that!”

  “You could have just said so.” He brushes off his breeches and stares as if I attempted to bite him. “I’ll just—” He reaches for one of the satchels, and this time I restrain myself. Slightly.

  “Don’t!”

  He tosses his hands into the air and blows out a frustrated breath. “How am I supposed to assist you if I’m not allowed to touch anything?”

  “You’re not.”

  “But I thought—”

  “You thought wrong.”

  He drags his fingers through his hair. “How are we supposed to unite the people if we cannot even unite ourselves?”

  “Simple. You manage your side of the bargain and I’ll manage mine. Once you’ve convinced Louis to give the common folk the same consideration as the nobility, I’ll start working on your antidote to Viper’s Venom. In the meantime, I’ll be making curatives. As planned.”

  “If you recall, I betrayed my brother and my best friend in order to free you from the sewer, which means I’m not exactly welcome to return anytime soon.”

  I heft a gallipot to the hearth and arrange the sad remnants of half-charred logs into a pile. Then I strike a bit of flint to start a fire. “You’re going to have to face them eventually if our plan is going to work.”

  “I know that. But I think they’ll be more inclined to listen if we’ve laid the groundwork first—if we can show them the commoners are open to the idea of reinstating the royal family. I don’t know why you’re being so difficult. I thought we were past all this.”

  “You thought we were past all this?” I turn to face him, my arms crossed and my voice low. “Just days ago, I was tied up in the sewer and you were prepared to kill me.”

  “But I didn’t. And we’ve been—”

  “Then once I was supposedly ‘free,’ you followed me because you still didn’t trust me—even though I had proven myself, twice, by healing your sisters and Desgrez. Forgive me if I’m not ready to hand over my most prized possession and the secrets of my trade. Trust goes both ways.”