An Affair of Poisons

by Addie Thorley

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  The light in her eyes gutters. “You had better find something to say, for I cannot execute the royal children unless I know where they are hidden, and I’m most eager to put this bothersome uprising to rest. Think of the people, Mirabelle—dying and suffering because you encouraged this revolt. Their deaths are on your head.”

  My head? I want to shout. But then the first half of her admission overshadows everything else. She doesn’t know where the royals are hidden. That means they escaped. They’re safe. Gris never knew about the sewer or the floor hatch in the pâtisserie. My head falls back against the headboard and I squeal with relieved laughter.

  Mother grips my arm and yanks me forward. Up close, the heavy powder on her face cracks across her wrinkles. Her almond-scented breath makes me gag. “You will tell me where they are, Mirabelle.”

  I glare at her and shimmy lower. It’s the first time I’ve defied her face to face. Red blotches bloom across her cheeks, making her garish rouge even more dreadful. She expects me to shrivel and shrink and break like before, but I’m no longer her blind, subservient daughter. I am La Vie. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  Her nails bite into the flesh of my arm. “I think you will, given the proper motivation. Get up.”

  When I fail to comply, she snaps at the maid, who grunts and drags me from the bed. Two additional maids scurry in from the hall and bear me up. My legs wobble like a newborn calf’s as they tug me from the royal apartments, through the salons, and belowground to my former laboratory.

  Marguerite and Fernand are waiting outside the gray door at the end of the hall. My sister smiles at our approach, delighted, I’m sure, to see the icy waves of fury rolling off Mother. “Welcome home, La Petite Voisin.” She brushes her lips against my cheek. “So glad to see you’re finally awake. My hand must have slipped with the sedative.”

  Fernand snickers and leads the way inside. Mother follows. The maids heave me forward, but I turn to face my sister. I have only seconds, so I must make them count. “Help me, Margot,” I whisper in a rush. “This is madness. She destroyed the food supply and dozens of innocent people with it. You can’t possibly support this.”

  Marguerite hesitates for half a second, then averts her gaze. “Don’t try to claw your way back into Mother’s good graces by dragging me out of them.”

  “I don’t want to be in her good graces!”

  Marguerite rolls her eyes and slams her palms into my shoulder. I tumble into the room.

  Gris is here, of course. Mother’s dutiful pet. He watches me from behind the counter, taking in my tangled hair and vomit-spattered dressing gown. His gaze feels like Mother’s nails dragging through my flesh. I want to toss him into one of the great cauldrons and watch the skin boil off his bones.

  Spineless, selfish, double-crossing coward!

  Gris mouths my name, begging me to look at him, but I will never, never lay eyes on him again.

  “While you were stirring up trouble,” Mother begins, joining Gris behind the board. “We have been hard at work, altering the Viper’s Venom formula. Not only is it more violent, but it’s also impervious to your antipoison.”

  “I’ll make another,” I seethe.

  “When do you plan to do that?” Her saccharine smile makes me want to scream. “Now tell me the location of the royal children or I will be forced to show you how effective our modifications are.”

  “And murder another innocent citizen? We are supposed to be the saviors of Paris, the voice of the people, yet you’re killing them by the droves!” I don’t realize how wildly I’m gesticulating or how loudly I’m shouting until Mother clutches my chin in her cold fingers and glares me into silence.

  “You have no one to blame but yourself. The city would be at peace beneath the Shadow Society were it not for your machinations.” She releases me with a shove and my stomach slams into the corner of the table. Gris tries to steady me, but I shrink away from his traitorous touch.

  Mother pounds her fist against the worktable and snaps at Gris in warning. “A demonstration, alchemist, if you’d be so kind. Show Mirabelle precisely what she’s brought upon her little band of rebels.”

  “My little band of rebels?” I know I should hold my tongue, but I can’t bear to hear her speak so callously of Desgrez and Étienne and our allies who perished. “We were more than mice waiting to be exterminated. We were a revolution. We were poised to destroy you.”

  “Silence!” The back of Mother’s hand strikes my cheek, and her rings leave long, stinging gashes. She turns to Gris. “Now.”

  “H-how would you have me demonstrate?” he stutters. “I haven’t anyone to … um …”

  Mother’s eyes flick across the room and settle on a guard near the door. He isn’t much older than I, with blond hair and a hooked nose. He’s done nothing wrong, nothing to differentiate himself. He simply was there, in her line of sight. “You’ll do.” Mother motions him forward.

  All the color drains from his face. “Me, my lady? But I—”

  “I see I’ve chosen correctly. I have no patience for dimwitted staff. Come now. Hurry, hurry.”

  The guard doesn’t move. His eyes twitch from Mother to the poison. Then he throws himself at the laboratory door. Mother bellows, and the other guards scramble to respond. He’s halfway out the door and I’m about to raise a cheer when Fernand streaks across the room like a diving falcon. He catches the guard by the arm, wrenches it mercilessly, and slams the guard’s forehead against the wall. The guard howls and spits. Blood courses from a cut above his eyebrow as Fernand drags him back to Mother.

  “P-please!” He fixes pleading eyes on her, as if that will change her mind.

  “Drink,” she commands, motioning to Gris, who brings the phial to the guard’s mouth.

  He squirms and bawls like a small child.

  “Enough!” Fernand shouts. He rips the phial from Gris’s hand and forces it between the guard’s lips. The boy sputters and coughs. The poison dribbles down his chin and wets his tunic.

  I heave toward him, but Marguerite tightens her hold on my elbow.

  The effect is nearly instantaneous—like nothing I’ve ever seen. The guard’s cheeks bulge, his hands fly to his gut, and he gurgles, as if choking on his own saliva. In less than thirty seconds, he drops to his knees, spitting phlegm and blood. By the time he hits the floor, his face is frozen in a grotesque mask of pain and his back is twisted at an unnatural angle.

  A wave of nausea surges up my throat, and my hands fly to my mouth.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Mother pats Gris’s stubbled cheek. He murmurs a quiet thanks, but his voice sounds choked. Only I would notice. His every breath, his every shrug, is so familiar to me—and I hate that. I hate that I know his fingers are rubbing the bottom of his tunic into frayed oblivion below the table.

  He’s a traitor. A murderer. Mother may be the head of the Shadow Society, but he is her hands—as I once was. Thankfully, I found a better way. I showed Gris a better way. Yet still he chose her.

  How could he choose this?

  Mother steps over the dead guard as if he’s a mere puddle in the road and stands before me. “Now that you know what’s at stake, I shall ask you again, Mirabelle. Where are the royal children hiding?”

  I shutter my eyes and pretend I’m somewhere else—in a warm, peaceful fairytale world, complete with lush gardens and bubbling fountains. I’m happy and safe, brewing tinctures with Father, inhaling the sweet aroma of sage and honey tea. Far, far from Mother’s reach.

  She bangs her fist against the table. “You may not have a care for the lives of common men—despite your gallant claims—but I suspect you won’t be so cavalier about his life.” She turns to the door. “Lesage! Bring the prisoner.”

  The laboratory door slams open and unnatural emerald light cascades across the floor. Lesage struts into the room, his fair skin and red hair pulsating with the sickly glow of his magic, making him look demonic and wraithl
ike. Electric sparks crackle at his fingertips. He tugs a rope and Josse hobbles in behind him. He looks a few breaths from death; he’s bare from the waist up, and his chest and arms are covered in gashes and burns as well as spatters of green désintégrer sickness. Lesage has clearly been busy for hours.

  The walls of my fairytale world fracture, raining daggers of glass that slice through my heart. Oh, Josse. It was too much to hope all of the royal children escaped.

  Lesage flashes a goading smile at me and runs his sparking fingertip down the side of Josse’s face. A violent shudder drops Josse to his knees, and he grabs his cheek with a howl.

  I lunge forward. I don’t know how I’ll protect Josse, but I must do something. Before I manage half a step, Mother’s fingers sink into my hair. She yanks me back with such force, I fall back and my head strikes the ground. My scalp prickles and the walls of the laboratory spin. When I look up, a clump of hair dangles in her fist.

  “You will not touch him,” she says. “Answer the question if you wish to spare his life. Where are the royals hidden?”

  Josse lifts his face. His eyes are wild and flashing—like a frightened horse’s. He manages a brief shake of his head before Lesage slams a knee into his stomach.

  Nothing. I am to tell them nothing.

  Sweat gathers at my hairline and my breath comes quick. He cannot expect me to stand by and watch Lesage torture and kill him. But if I forsake his siblings, he will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself. Marie and the girls were the first to trust and accept me. And the rebellion will truly be dead without Louis. I dig my fingers into the dirty rushes, grasping for anything I can cling to, any way to stop this. But there’s nowhere to go. The dream of a better future—for Paris, and for us—comes crashing down around me. I wish the palace would collapse with it and bury us all. It would be easier than this.

  I take a shuddering breath and nod to Josse. A promise.

  “Where are the royal children?” Lesage demands.

  “I don’t know.” My voice wavers only slightly.

  “You’ve always been a deplorable liar.” Lesage places his palm against Josse’s chest, and cerulean flames crawl across his skin. He writhes and screams, his back arching completely off the ground and his mouth open in a soundless scream. It’s so grotesque, even Marguerite and Fernand gape in horror. From somewhere far off in the corner, it sounds like Gris is crying.

  “Stop,” I beg. “Please, stop!”

  When Lesage finally relents, Josse collapses with a thud, a jade scorch mark branded in the center of his chest. His skin pulsates with sickening light, and blood trickles from his nose, his lips, his ears.

  I clutch my chest, as if my own insides are liquefying.

  “I shall ask you again, Mirabelle.” Mother speaks this time. “Where are the others hidden? If you do not tell me, I will move on to more lethal means.” She points to the phials of altered Viper’s Venom on the table.

  Josse’s head lolls to the side, and his gooseberry green eyes paralyze me. “Don’t,” he gasps.

  Tears stream down my cheeks and I bite my lips so hard, I taste blood.

  “Very well.” Mother takes up a phial of poison and stalks to Josse’s side. “Once I’ve killed your bastard lover, we will be paying a visit to the rue du Temple and the Hôtel-Dieu. Perhaps the poor and sick will be more forthcoming with their knowledge.”

  I look up, cold with terror. Our allies saw Louis and the girls, of course, but we never revealed our hideout in the sewer for this very purpose. “They know nothing!”

  “You’d better hope they know something. If they refuse to cooperate, I shall distribute a special hunger tonic we’ve created specifically for them.” She rattles the phial of Viper’s Venom.

  “But they’re innocent.”

  “They’re hardly innocent,” Mother says with a bitter laugh. “You made certain of that.”

  I bury my fingers in my curls and pull. “You can’t poison half the city!”

  “The choice is yours, Mirabelle. You can sacrifice hundreds of innocent lives to save a few worthless royals. Or you can tell me where they’re hidden. Cooperate, and I promise to release him and leave the people be. This is the only way to bring peace.”

  My throat is on fire. A dozen boulders press upon my chest. I love Louis and the girls, but how can I condemn so many? Mother will never stop.

  She brings the Viper’s Venom to Josse’s lips. My heart thunders faster—pounding, pounding, pounding until I’m certain it’s going to burst from my chest. “They’re hidden in a barn, just beyond the Port Saint-Antoine,” I blurt out. But my voice is weak and I stumble over the lie. Mother hisses with disgust and tilts the phial. At the last moment I cry out, “The sewer! They’re hidden in the sewer. The entrance is beneath the pâtisserie on the rue Saint-Honoré!”

  The admission leaves me empty. Broken. Falling. I clatter to the floor, wishing I could dissolve straight through it. Josse’s howl is a thousand times more painful than it had been during the jolts of désintégrer. He’s thrashing and wailing and he won’t look at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I cry as I curl into a ball.

  “The sewer,” Lesage marvels.

  Mother considers it for a moment and laughs. “How appropriate. The royal children, living like rats and exterminated like them too. Go,” she says to Fernand. “Quickly. Take as many guards as you need. Bring the dauphin and princesses back alive.”

  Then she turns to me, leering with delight. “My poor, foolish girl. The heart makes one weak. It clouds your judgment. I was never going to poison the commoners. And I would never kill the bastard here, in the laboratory, when I could do it before all of Paris and make an example of him.” She bends and gives my cheek a mocking pat. “Thank you. I could have never accomplished this without your help. But now I’m afraid you’re no longer of use to me.”

  She motions to her guards and they fall upon me, their grasping fingers pulling my hair, their rough hands bruising my skin. They drag me from the laboratory and toss me into a dungeon cell.

  Judging by his wild, animalistic screams, Josse isn’t far behind.

  24

  JOSSE

  Death would be better than this.

  I am trapped in a godforsaken dungeon with her while Fernand and an army of Shadow Society soldiers storm the tunnels and capture my sisters. My eyes burn at the thought of Anne and Françoise and Marie stumbling and crying, screaming my name as they’re dragged to their execution. Wondering where I am, why I haven’t come to save them.

  Lesage’s magic still pounds through my skull like a sledgehammer. My limbs are so heavy, it feels as if my bones are made of iron. But I muster the strength to stand and dash myself against the bars.

  The jagged protrusions pierce my palms but I grip harder—until blood runs down my wrists. I want to feel the pain. I deserve to suffer.

  My sisters were my only priority. Not the city. Not Mirabelle. Nothing else. And I failed them.

  I failed everyone.

  The horrible image of Desgrez’s hat fluttering through the smoky sky is branded in my memory. I see the ravenous green flames devouring his face. I hear the stationers and farmers gasping and shrieking, burning alive. And I can feel Father’s disappointment, hanging over me like the executioner’s blade.

  How many ghosts can haunt a single man?

  I throw myself at the bars harder—howling and crying and shouting oaths. I know it’s useless, but I have to do something. Have to keep fighting until I know my girls are gone. Then I’ll die willingly.

  “Stop! You’re hurting yourself,” Mirabelle pleads from the cell beside me. She’s been sitting there, watching me with those wet black eyes. As if she gives a piss. As if she didn’t just condemn my entire family to death.

  “Do you think it matters?” I say with a growl. “Look at me. I’ve one foot in the grave already.”

  “I can help you. Most of your wounds are superficial. Some chamomile, tea tree, and yarrow will do wonders for
your burns and bruises. And if we escape, I can distill the antidote to désintégrer.”

  I wave a dismissive hand at her. “We’re not going to escape, and I don’t want your bedamned antidote. I don’t care what becomes of me if I cannot save my sisters.”

  “What if we can save them?”

  “How?” I glower at her. Disgusted with myself for trusting her. For allowing myself to care for her.

  She fidgets in the filthy rushes. “I don’t know,” she admits.

  “But we’ll think of something. And you’ll be of little use to them if you turn yourself to mincemeat. I cannot bear to watch you—”

  “Don’t act as if you care.”

  “I do care!”

  “You don’t! If you cared for me at all, you would have kept them safe. If you knew me at all, you would have known I’d gladly die to protect them.”

  “It wasn’t just about them.” Mirabelle’s voice trails off and she buries her face in her hands. “How was I to know Mother was bluffing? She’s done such horrendous things. I was just trying to—”

  “You sentenced my sisters to death.” Saying it aloud gives it weight. Truth. I totter to the far side of my cell and crumple to the dirty straw. It smells of dung and vomit and I gag as I ease down on my side.

  Mirabelle crawls closer, pressing her face between the bars. “We may not be able to save them, but who’s to say Louis hasn’t? He escaped the fire. Perhaps he had the foresight to hide them somewhere else.”

  My laughter is bitter and grating. “Perhaps your Mother will beg my forgiveness, release me from this cell, and crown me King of France.”

  Mirabelle lowers her brows. “I’m in earnest.”

  “So am I! In fact, I’d say my scenario is more likely.”

  “Why do you insist on underestimating Louis?”

  “Because I know him.”

  “Do you?” she presses. “Or have you invented a convenient identity for him? So you always have a scapegoat?”