“People in power don’t listen to angry country kids, especially girls,” I said. “Then, they don’t listen to you ever again because you’re emotional and you’re not supposed to be.”
Coline set her bowl of blackberries aside. “What?”
“I need to tell you two something, but it’s a secret.” I touched Isabelle’s hand, tugged her to my bed and sat her next to Coline. She stared up at me wide-eyed, and how long I’d been lying hit me. Hard. “Please don’t be angry—I’m not Emilie des Marais. My name’s Annette, and I’m from Vaser.”
Coline laughed, loud and barking, and I thought for sure Vivienne would come storming in to see what was wrong. Isabelle stared at me.
“You lied?” she asked. “Were you… Did Laurel send you?”
I shook my head. “The real Emilie wanted to study at university, so she had me take her place. All I wanted was to learn the midnight arts.”
Coline kept laughing.
“You’re joking.” Isabelle dropped her tablet to the bed and rose up to her knees. “You have to be.”
“I’m not.” There was something ominous in the disbelief making it far scarier than Coline’s endless laughter. “Estrel knows, but Vivienne doesn’t. Emilie’s mother knows now too.”
“This is…” Coline said, gasping for air. “This is the most beautiful nonsense I have ever seen.”
I stepped back to the door. “I can’t tell if you’re going to turn me in or congratulate me, so please get to your point.”
“Congratulate you!” Coline leapt from the bed and enveloped me in a tight, painful hug. “How for all the stars did you pull this off?”
Isabelle kept staring at me over Coline’s shoulder.
“Poorly,” I said. “And full of fear.”
I sat back down on my bed, Coline coming with me, and whispered, “Isabelle, if you’re upset with me, that’s okay. I can’t lie to you anymore, and I was afraid if anyone knew, I’d get arrested.”
“Estrel knew, though.” She stared up at me, eyes watering. “You told Estrel before you told us, and we’ve known you longer.”
“I didn’t tell her.” I took Isabelle’s hands in mine. “She figured it out.”
“Unsurprising,” said Coline. “You did keep mentioning a sister despite Emilie des Marais being an only child.” Coline flopped next to Isabelle and hooked their arms together. “You cannot stay angry at her. It was a matter of life and death.”
Isabelle made a face. “She lied to us! Our classes. Our talks. All of it was lies.”
“It wasn’t. The only lie was my name and history. I meant everything I ever said to you.” I leaned against her, her soft shoulder warm against my bony one, and sighed. “I promise. I meant every word.”
“Oh.” She sighed, her cheek resting against my scalp.
“I’ll go get breakfast,” Coline said, sliding off the bed. We were still on midnight artists’ time—sleeping all day and working all night. “I think we could do with some food and only our company.”
* * *
We didn’t do anything the rest of the night. Vivienne didn’t seem to mind, the whole of Bosquet being in such an uproar. Most of the other girls had gathered in their rooms, friends sleeping with friends and talking about the posters, and Isabelle painted and waited for news from her aunt and family. Surely they would recognize Gabriel. We were too isolated, too well-watched for it to have been Isabelle.
That’s what Coline said. No one would think she’d pulled it off on her own, and how’d she get it to Laurel? Vivienne hadn’t shown any of us the posters, but everyone knew what it was by now. We stayed alone in our room, the three of us, to keep the gossip out of Isabelle’s ears.
The next day, Estrel was called back to Serre. She was, first and foremost, the royal diviner, and His Majesty needed her to find Laurel and keep an eye on Kalthorne to make sure we weren’t attacked. She handed me a pile of books and mirrors and even a tiny silver knife no bigger than my little finger, instructing me to practice, and I found out later that her other students had been left similar instructions. Whole lists of things to do while she was gone. Perenelle took one look at their list and sighed.
“Try to find Laurel,” they read from their list. “Don’t tell Vivienne and don’t report findings to anyone but me.” They glanced at me, eyes narrowed. “We’re on the same page in this book, yes?”
I nodded. “It’s a real good page.”
“Excellent.” They gathered up the books and bloodletting knives. “If you want to work together, come find me. Germaine likes to hold salon while I work, so there’s always tea and lovely poetry in the background. It’s very bolstering.”
I smiled. “Thank you. I will.”
We’d stopped all working together after classes since the fighting was mostly paused, and we were mostly exhausted, bodies starting to show signs of wearing down whether it was bloody noses, sore throats, or burned hands.
I made my way to the gardens instead. The crash of the Verglas’s current rumbled over the quiet grounds. I found a pond full of water hyacinth and cattails and tucked myself into a pile of rocks at the edge. The water rippled, and I gathered magic, letting the thrum settle over me. Macé’s familiar, calloused hands cleaned a set of steel armor. So he was alive. Good.
I let myself slide free of the magic, the soft joy the image had inspired sinking in me. The leftover power I’d gathered scattered. I leaned my head back against the tree trunk.
“You burn when you do that,” Yvonne’s soft voice said from behind me. “It’s a little alarming.”
I turned. “What?”
Yvonne leaned against a short blackthorn tree, moonlight filtering through her hair. The sting of brimstone and nasty pinch of alchemistry still in the making hung in the air, and the last dregs of ash and blood cleared from my throat. She gestured to the bowl in my lap.
“I can’t channel, and seeing magic is always a toss-up. Most of the students aren’t anything. Vivienne is like a flickering star, but you and Mademoiselle Charron are like the whole night when you work, stars and moon and all. The steady beacon of a new world. You use so much power without even realizing it that it changes the way the world looks.” She smiled, fiddling with the protective spectacles atop her head as if they were a crown. “And it’s very distracting when you channel within sight of the kitchens.”
“Sorry,” I said, standing and stumbling on pins-and-needles legs.
Yvonne darted forward. She slipped one hand around my waist and one around my shoulders. “You’re worn out. I think you’ve done enough for now.”
“Hardly.” I snorted and sobered. “You’re too nice to me.”
“I’m nice to people whose company I enjoy,” she said quickly, dragging me into the kitchens. “Otherwise, how do I convince them to stay around?”
“Who doesn’t want to?” I brushed a fallen leaf from her hair, dull green on shiny black, and settled my hand on her back. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Oh yes.” Her fingers tightened at my waist. Warm. Firm. “I saved the washing up for you. Delightfully mindless. You can plot whatever it is you’re plotting while cleaning.”
“Thank you.” My hand traced the stitching along her spine. I’d always tried to avoid touching. So many expectations. “It all worked.”
“It all worked,” she said softly, leaning me against a counter in the kitchen. “I’m dreading what happens now. They’re still the ones with the weapons and money to buy a new army, but people are angry, and it’s hard not to be pleased. What are you going to do after?”
“I like looking at other people’s futures.” My back bumped the counter. “Not mine.”
She laughed and paused, arms on either side of my hips, trapping me between the counter and her, lips so close, I could feel them brush mine when she whispered, “May I kiss you?”
“Yes, please,” I said without thinking, and then the burn of her hand on my hip shocked me out of it. “Wait. Wait. No.”
She reared back and removed her hand.
“Don’t apologize,” I said quickly. “It’s not you. I just want to, I mean, I like you, and I want to be clear about something so we’re both happy—I don’t want to have sex.”
Yvonne’s head tilted to the side. “We don’t have to.”
“Ever. I don’t want to ever. I don’t think about it. I’m not attracted to people in that way, but I like touching and romance and flirting, and I really like you but sometimes people think you can’t have one without the other.”
There’d been a boy, once. I’d liked him and he’d liked me, and Maman had even talked about marriage, but when he kissed me and called me pretty, he said I owed him. I’d stopped talking to him. Maman had told me he was wrong, but that one day I’d change my mind. That all girls learned to like it.
“Oh.” Yvonne stepped back, and I loved her for it even though I missed her closeness. “That’s fine. We can talk about it.” She winced. “I mean our relationship, not sex. If you don’t want to have sex, we won’t. Ever.”
“I got it.” I smiled. “Last person I liked didn’t think you could have romance without sex.”
That I was obligated.
“We can,” Yvonne said. “We are our own, and we will define what our love is, Emilie.”
And the lack of my name, my real name, with those words killed me.
Mistress, let me die.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “While I’m being honest, I have to tell you who I really am.”
Yvonne froze, her mouth slightly open. “What?”
“My name’s Annette. The real Emilie didn’t want to attend, so she had me come instead of her, and she’s off being a physician’s hack. I’m not noble or anything. I’m just Annette.” I stepped toward her. “I didn’t mean to hide it from you. No one knew. No one could know. I’m not really anything, and you were—”
She stepped back and held up her hand. “You signed papers for me as Emilie des Marais.”
The words and hurt within them were an avalanche, and I was drowning in cold.
“That won’t hurt anything, will it?” I asked. “If I’m found out.”
“I don’t know.” Yvonne pressed her hands together, palms flush. “I don’t know anything, and apparently I know you the least.”
“You know me better than anyone here.” I ran the back of my hand beneath my nose, tears catching on the bow of my lips, and sniffed. “Talking to you is like breathing. Everything I told you is true, and you are the only one who understands half of what I feel. I don’t have to pretend to be anyone with you.”
“But I did.” She covered her mouth with one hand. “All that time I worried about you being a comtesse, all that time I spent on edge, and you never told me?”
“No,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Then why didn’t you?” She lurched forward, halfway to me. Her eyes glittered wet in the light. “Why?”
“No one ever wanted to talk to Annette. I was scared you wouldn’t either.”
“I can’t right now.” She held up her hands in defeat. “I can’t talk to you and do my job, and frankly, it’s more important than whatever this is. So tomorrow, we will talk, and you will explain. Then, you’ll listen because I don’t think you understand how much this hurts.”
I left.
I didn’t need to divine the future possibilities to know what would happen.
So I wrote a note instead, a cowardly thing, but Coline was in the room and I’d no words left in my chest. Isabelle hadn’t come back.
Coline walked past me once and asked softly, “Your alchemist?”
“Everyone’s cross with me.”
Lies were easier when you were face-to-face. Nerves rattled them out of you. The truth and all its terrible details took time to set out straight.
“Sometimes lying is the only thing that keeps us alive.” Coline set her half-eaten bowl of blackberries that she’d been working on all day next to me. “Let them cool off.”
I rubbed my nose. “Whole world’s falling apart, and I’m crying over this.”
“You’re part of the world,” Coline said. “Cry as much as you want.”
Yvonne,
I have seen so many futures full of possibility, and I cannot help but believe that the good fortune I foresaw in mine meant you. I meant to lie to you. It was intentional, and I can’t excuse that. I’ll understand if you don’t want to speak again.
I didn’t tell Estrel. She said she knew because of my teeth and because I study like I eat—desperately, like I’ll never get to again. I won’t. I’m not anything special.
My name is Annette Boucher. I’m from Vaser, and most of what I told you wasn’t a lie…
“What should I do about Isabelle?” I asked Coline. “I thought we would be able to save Gabriel. I didn’t realize I was lying to her.”
“Give her time,” said Coline.
I finished my letter to Yvonne, the handwriting shakier the longer the letter went, and folded it up. The little wax seal with Emilie’s family sigil was too much of a slap. I pressed my thumb into the hot wax. The door creaked open.
“I’m sorry,” Isabelle said quickly, sweeping in and out of the room. “We’ll talk later.”
The door slammed shut behind her.
“See?” Coline said from her bed. “It’ll be fine.”
It was something, more than I could say, and I went to sleep with it next to me. Things would be better in the morning.
* * *
“Out!” Vivienne threw back the bedcovers and yanked me out. “Shoes, coat, do you have food? Estrel always stashed food.”
“What?” I stumbled, sleep wobbly, and swallowed. “Vivienne—”
“They know.” Vivienne took my face in her hands and let out a stuttering breath. “Annette, they know, and you must get out of here.”
She let go of me and woke up Coline. I grabbed my shoes and the little lockbox of lunes and biscuits beneath my bed. Vivienne grabbed one of Coline’s cloaks and dragged us out of the room.
“There’s a coach at the gate. I cannot believe you did something so atrociously blatant, Coline.” Vivienne spoke in a harsh whisper, face a map of worries, and led us down the stairs and to the servants’ gate at the back of the estate. “You put yourself and so many others in danger.”
“I would rather be in danger than see my people dead,” Coline whispered. She glanced at me. “They don’t think Annette helped?”
“That is exactly what they are going to say, regardless of whether they think it or not,” Vivienne said. “You created your own scapegoat.”
The guard who had introduced me to Laurel was standing at the gate, a lantern in his hand. When we broke through the trees, he lowered it. Vivienne stopped.
“Oh no,” she muttered, shoving us back. “Run to the church. There’s another gate.”
Coline grabbed my hand and yanked me back into the trees.
“She’s here!”
The shout rang out from the garden. Coline’s hand tightened around mine, pulling me closer. I gathered power on instinct, the midnight arts a comforting burn in Alaine’s necklace, and Coline pulled a knife from beneath her nightgown. From the trees stepped Isabelle.
Coline hissed. “You snitch!”
“Me?” Isabelle’s eyes were red even in the pale light, and she reared back at the word. “You knew he was going to die! You lied to me for weeks. I trusted both of you, and you made a fool of me, letting me think we could save Gabriel. You always knew he was going to die, and you did nothing to stop it. You don’t get to just walk away.”
So this was dying.
I had no answer to her, and knew none would matter.
“Did you tell them what we did?” Coline asked quickly, eyes wild, hand clutching the knife so tightly, I could hear her knuckles cracking. “With the posters? Did you tell them?”
“No,” she sneered. “I don’t care about whatever rebellion you’re leading. She’s the liar and—”
Coline straightened. “Isabelle, I’m Madame Royale Nicole. They’ll think Annette was here to work for Laurel. They’ll connect the posters to you, then to me, and then to her.”
“What?” Isabelle’s smile twisted. “No, no—I only told them you weren’t Emilie des Marais. I only told them you were a thief. You—” Her breaths came in quick, tight gasps, and she couldn’t exhale without choking. “You stole my time with Gabriel. If I had known, I could’ve—” She glanced over my shoulder. “Oh, Lord, they’ll kill you.”
“I’m aware,” and it came out of me in bubbling laughter because this was perfect. Least I was getting blamed for something purely my fault.
Coline grabbed my arm. “Why are you laughing?”
“Because this is hilarious,” I said and buried my face in my hands. “You’re Nicole, the king’s daughter, and you’ve been supporting Laurel, so when they heard some impostor was parading about here, they took Isabelle seriously.” I threw my head back. “I’m laughing because you were fool enough to think they wouldn’t kill me for taking Emilie’s place here. I’m not from a family like yours. No one’s going miss me. I would’ve hanged for thievery, but now I get to be beheaded like some fucking folk hero when they blame me for Laurel.”
The laughter wouldn’t stop.
“Madame Royale,” a deep voice called out from behind us. “I cannot say this is how I expected to find you, but I’m also not surprised.”
Isabelle paled, gaze stuck behind us. Coline took a deep breath, raised her chin, turned. I turned too, laughing still, and the small crowd of soldiers, His Majesty’s sigil branded into the leather of their chest armor, tightened around us. One held a bleeding Vivienne by the arm. The laughter died.
“Let her go,” I said. “Now.”
“Annette Boucher, you are wanted for treason,” one of the soldiers said. He unsheathed his sword. “Please. It’s much too late for a hunt, don’t you think?”
Belle Révolte Page 25
