An Affair of Poisons

by Addie Thorley

  Maybe … if our plan is successful and Louis is restored to the throne … maybe there could be a future for us beyond all of this.

  “You’re not very discreet.” Marie appears at my side, smirking.

  I cough to mask my surprise. “I haven’t a clue what you mean.”

  “It looks to me like you’re in love with her.”

  “Josse is in love with Mirabelle?” Anne pops out from behind Marie and grins up at me. Françoise materializes on my other side, giggling hysterically.

  “Josse is in love with Mirabelle!”

  “Keep your voices down,” I hiss. “Mirabelle and I are allies, nothing more.”

  Marie rolls her eyes. “Your words say one thing, but your actions say otherwise.”

  “You mustn’t lie, Josse,” Françoise says with a tut. “Madame Lemaire says lying is a mortal sin, and you’ll surely burn in Hell for it. Though I think she’d also condemn you for loving one of them, so either way, you’re doomed.”

  “I’m not in love with her!” I say again, nearly shouting.

  “Not in love with whom?” Mirabelle strolls up behind us at the worst moment possible, and she’s grinning like she knows precisely whom. I want to crawl into one of the cauldrons and die.

  “This isn’t the time nor place for love.” Desgrez shoots me and Mirabelle a ridiculous google-eyed look that sends Anne and Françoise into another bout of giggles. Then he calls the group to attention. “We have only until sundown to distribute the powder—the razing will take place after dark so there’s no missing the blaze—which means we must focus and work quickly.”

  As promised, he passes out disguises. I don’t know where he finds them, but today they’re drab, faded farmers’ rags, patched and pieced with crooked stitching. Mirabelle wears a brown scarf over her shorn hair and an oversized apron. My shirt has a yellow sweat stain around the collar that smells as if the previous wearer keeled over from exhaustion.

  “If anyone should ask, we are farmers leaving Les Halles with our unsold wares,” he announces.

  When we pass Madame Bissette’s, I kiss Anne and Françoise on the head and tell them to behave for Marie, and then we follow Louis and the Marquis de Cessac across the bridge and down the left bank, our haggard party bumping along like a convoy of swaybacked mules. For the most part, no one pays us any mind. We blend in to the dusty bustle of these outlying streets. The few people who do notice us either turn up their noses or yell at us to get out of the way. Swift carriages haven’t the patience for a weary procession like ours.

  The cluttering of townhouses with peeling shutters and slate roofs slowly gives way to a smattering of cottages followed by the occasional shack surrounded by fields and fields of green and brown and yellow. It’s nearly summer and the waves of wheat sway like dancers in the wind. Wild and rippling, like Mirabelle’s hair before she cut it. I gaze longingly at her back, five or six barrows ahead.

  “Pull your head out of the clouds and start on that barley field down the way.” Desgrez shoves my shoulder. He sounds annoyed, but he’s grinning and shaking his head. “You might as well take the girl with you. I can’t have you two mooning across the fields at each other.”

  “We wouldn’t—we’re not …” I stammer.

  “Josse. I used to spend my days interrogating prisoners. Your lies are wasted on me. And it’s unnecessary. She’s agreeable enough … for a poisoner.” He cuffs my shoulder and strides off, ordering the fishmongers and stationers to different fields, some within and some positioned around the exterior to achieve the fastest and most efficient coverage of the crops. Countrymen and field laborers wander over to ask what we’re about and readily volunteer their help, nearly doubling our numbers. Louis remains with the carts so he’ll be able to reveal himself when everyone returns with their empty jars.

  Mirabelle trails her fingers gently across my back as she passes by to take her place down the fence line, and my entire body shivers. From beneath her scarf, her dark eyes sparkle with mischief and eagerness and hope. I feel it too—like a fountain bubbling to life inside my chest, rising higher and higher until it spills over the edges of my being. I tilt my head back and inhale the warmth and sunlight. For the first time in months, the sky is a vivid, watery blue, and the tiny white clouds look like dollops of cream floating toward the horizon. My jar of fire powder catches the light, throwing fractals of indigo and rose and saffron.

  Desgrez climbs atop a stack of hay bales in the centermost field and waves his hands to call us to attention. He may lead with the authority of a police captain, but he doesn’t resemble one in the slightest. Today he’s wearing a frayed tunic and wool trousers that leave a wide swath of skin exposed above his boots. He’s completed his ensemble with a limp straw hat, half eaten by moths.

  I chuckle and remind myself to tell him the look suits him when we return to the millinery. I already know his response. He’ll brush the dust from his shoulders, sweep the hair from his face, and say, When you’re this handsome, everything suits you.

  “On my mark,” he shouts. “Let’s be quick and efficient.”

  I uncork my jar. Desgrez raises his hands. But before I toss the first handful of powder, a flash of green explodes in my periphery.

  I know only one thing that moves so quickly.

  “Desgrez!” I scream, but it’s swallowed by a crackling hiss. Lightning smashes into the bales of hay, and the fields burst to flame like a heap of dry kindling. A wall of scorching green rolls across the countryside, licking my cheeks and singeing my eyebrows. I hold up my arms, but the searing brightness blinds me.

  Desgrez.

  I throw myself toward the inferno to drag him out, but a second bolt strikes directly in front of me, so close that it sends me sprawling on my back. The impact of the ground punches the air from my lungs, and I’m coughing. Retching. But it doesn’t register as pain. Not compared to the razor-sharp agony impaling my heart. The world goes dark, and waves of heat and dizziness batter me. I press my fists into my chest and command myself to breathe. Breathe, Josse. When at last I catch my breath, a splintering sound tears from my throat—like a howl or a scream but so much louder. So much wilder.

  How did they know? The Shadow Society wasn’t set to arrive for hours yet. We had plenty of time. It was supposed to be simple. It was supposed to be safe.

  Biting my fist, I stare at the dark outline of Desgrez’s body until it’s consumed by the fire. Then my gaze flicks to the others who lie smoldering beside him—Étienne and the other fishmongers and laborers who were stationed in the fields. It’s too much. Gasping, I tilt my head back, but the sky offers little comfort. A piece of Desgrez’s straw hat cartwheels through the smoke and lands on the grass beside my boot. I clutch it tight, even as it burns my fingers. It’s all that remains of him. All that remains of any of them.

  It could have been me.

  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 squ
eeze 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 your followers.” She accentuates the word followers as 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 are your people. Some of them have always been mine—will always be mine.” She claps and Marguerite parades forward, tugging a slack-eyed Gris behind her. “He came to me,” 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. Nothing compared 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.

  But Gris?

  “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.

  “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 am one 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.”

  Two days. Another punch of agony wallops me in the chest, and I wheeze out a stuttering sob. Two days might as well be a lifetime. Mother’s soldiers could have easily captured Josse and Louis and the girls. Gavril and the orphans, too. What if I’m the only one left? I look out the window again, half expecting to see their bodies dangling from the battlements.

  The maid is still wrestling me back to bed when the chamber door bangs open and Mother barges in. Her dark hair is pinned up with pearls and crimson rosettes, and her cream brocade gown trails behind her like a cloud. It’s a mockery for anyone to be clad in such finery after the carnage on the fields.

  “At last, you’ve awoken. We’ve much to discuss, my pet.” She situates herself on the edge of the bed and reaches for my face. I lean back, pressing my shoulders into the upholstered headboard.