by EM Castellan
A strangled sound escaped Fouquet, who took a step back. Familiar tendrils of shadows sprung from his skin, engulfing his body in a protective cloud. The musketeers recoiled at the sight, but Louis shouted:
“Hold him!”
D’Artagnan obeyed and pinned Fouquet’s dark writhing form to his spot. He roared. It was the same sound he’d made at Vaux, when I had stabbed him with his cane and Philippe had tied his rope around him. The same sound he’d made just before escaping.
All my doubts crumbled, blown away by the noise of his anger. Fouquet had killed Moreau. He’d nearly killed Philippe, Louis, and me. I couldn’t let him get away another time. I squeezed Louis’s hand and said the incantation.
Throughout the Middle Ages and before François I outlawed it, the practice of killing a Source to steal their power had plagued the French kingdom. In order to protect their valuable access to magic, a handful of magiciens had devised a spell to prevent anyone from forcibly taking their Sources’ gift. Their strategy rested on the idea that a Source’s magic could be locked inside their body, like a precious artifact kept in a safe, and made only accessible to the magicien they partnered with.
Although cleverly devised, the enchantment failed when applied to a living subject. Once protected within the Source, the power turned out to be not only safe from magical thieves—but also from any magicien who attempted to access it. To the dismay of all concerned, the Sources’ magic that had been spelled was trapped inside them.
“How long for?” Louis had asked when I had told him the story, after reading it in an old grimoire a week before our last encounter with Fouquet.
“Forever. They never found a counter spell.”
This long-forgotten spell seemed to be the answer to all our problems: It would prevent Fouquet from using his magic while keeping him alive—when a spell to rid him of his power would have killed him. But there were two unknowns in our plan: The spell was the most difficult Louis and I had ever attempted together, and we couldn’t be certain it would work against dark magic. The grimoire only mentioned its use to bind regular magic.
As a result, the trepidation shaking my nerves when I said the spell matched Louis’s tight grip on my hand.
“Verrouille.”
Magic flowed out of me in great waves of sparkling dust, and I followed it with my mind as Louis guided it around Fouquet’s body. The golden specks twirled and wrapped around the dark tendrils of the former Crown Magicien’s power. For a moment they surrounded him, rearranging their pattern into a golden suit of armor of floating particles that moved to encase him. I waited, my breath suspended, as Louis forced the dots of my magic to coalesce, so bright I could hardly keep my gaze on them.
Then, just as he was about to lock the spell in place, the glittering speckles flickered and dimmed, one after the other. Louis stiffened, his whole body straining in an effort to retain control of the enchantment. But Fouquet’s own power pulsed under the golden shield and pushed against it, his magic ripping through the fabric of the spell like dark claws. Within seconds the flow of my magic receded, like a retreating army defeated by a greater force.
A tingling sensation spread through my limbs. My breath seared my lungs. Dizziness struck me, and I swayed, coughing. Louis’s hold on me tightened, as he thrust more of my magic into the spell in a desperate attempt to stave off Fouquet’s struggle.
My vision swam, black and bright dots that weren’t part of the spell dancing before me. I coughed again, my chest heaving, both from lack of air and panic.
We weren’t strong or experienced enough. Despite his weakened state, Fouquet was fighting our spell, and he was winning. We had mere seconds before Louis lost his grasp on the enchantment, before unconsciousness overtook me, before the Crown Magicien defeated us and used our failure to flee once more.
Another coughing fit rattled my lungs. I doubled over and closed my eyes. Louis’s grip on my fingers turned viselike. He wouldn’t give up. My jumbled thoughts drifted to Philippe, and his warning echoed in my head as if through a thick fog.
He won’t intend to do you harm. But he always puts duty first. And one day, he’ll need to use your magic for France, for the Crown, for his subjects. And he’ll forget you’re human, and oh-so-fragile, and precious.
Precious. My husband had used this word to express how much he cared for me. But I was valuable to his brother for another reason. Because I was powerful. Because the magic in me was somehow more potent than anyone else’s he’d met. Resolve fused in my chest, along with the last shreds of my strength. Fouquet’s power might be strong, but mine matched it. It had been enough to fight his killing spell at Vaux. It would be enough now.
I opened my eyes, gritting my teeth against the air scorching my lungs. The magic in my core warmed and churned, growing with each of my pounding heartbeats.
One.
Two.
Three.
I forced it out and repeated the incantation. The word jolted Louis like a clap of thunder. Without missing a beat, he threw my magic at Fouquet in a blinding blast of burning sparks. This time, the spell folded over the former Crown Magicien’s form like a shimmering blanket and sealed itself around him, snuffing out his dark power.
Everything froze.
The spell held.
The bright flecks blinked in the morning light, slowly turning invisible. Fouquet’s gaunt form emerged, all traces of his own magic vanished. Exhaustion and astonishment battled on his features for an instant, and he glanced down at himself in disbelief. D’Artagnan still held him in a firm grip, the paleness of his face the only clue to his unsettled state. The other musketeers had all retreated into the corners of the room, some of them still cowering in stunned silence.
Their leader cleared his throat. “Shall I … Shall I take the prisoner down to the carriage now, Sire?”
Panting and drenched in sweat, Louis nodded. His hand in mine shook, but with my whole body wracked by shivers, the guards could assume it was because of me. Fouquet offered no resistance as the musketeers escorted him out of the room, their shuffling feet scraping the wooden floor.
Within moments, Louis and I were alone. He met my gaze at last, opened his mouth to speak, then paused. We stared at each other, my wheezing breaths the only sound in the quiet room. Outside, the rumble of carriage wheels and the chatter of pedestrians drifted up toward the gray skies. A whole city oblivious to the morning’s events. A whole kingdom still there to rule and protect. A whole world still turning.
I held Louis’s golden gaze, the Sun King who had defeated his fiercest opponent and now stood unmatched and unchallenged. A Crown Magicien in his own right.
I tilted my head to the side and waited for him to speak.
After a minute, he released my hand, the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Well done,” he said.
CHAPTER XXIV
Light rain fell on the slab of gray stone, the fine drops dripping down the lines of the carved letters upon it. Moreau’s grave stood similar to the other tombstones lined in the cramped space of the Parisian cemetery, with only the bunch of roses I had laid on the low mount of uncut grass to distinguish it from its neighbors.
My heels crunching in the gravel of the path, I reached the now-familiar spot in the steady November drizzle. Athénaïs held my umbrella as I traded the flowers I had brought the previous week for fresh ones. My cloak and skirts flapped in the cold wind and a shiver ran down my back. Soon winter would descend for good on the French capital, and the only blooms I would find would be magically conjured ones.
My offering made, I folded my gloved hands against my stomach and thought a quick prayer. With the passing weeks and since Fouquet’s arrest, the pain of Moreau’s death had lessened to a dull ache in my core, but it remained nonetheless. More than guilt or anger, it was regret that haunted me: a wish that I had taken more notice of him from our first encounter.
If I had bothered to know him better, if I had asked him about his
past life and his dreams for the future, I would have been able to ascertain his character much sooner, rather than relying on my instinct. And I would have known not to suspect him when fear and paranoia had taken hold of us all. Our mistrust had led to his isolation, and ultimately, his death. I had failed to properly appreciate his constant familiar presence and his unwavering loyalty, and I now found I missed it every day. None of D’Artagnan’s men or Moreau’s replacement compared.
“I know it won’t bring him back.” Athénaïs’s voice cut through my thought. “But at least we know Fouquet will pay for his crimes.”
She was right. Imprisoned in the castle of Angers, the former Crown Magicien awaited his trial for embezzlement and treason. His dark magic gone, his supporters harassed, his wealth and properties seized, and his prospects grimmer than the November skies, he was a ruined man. A cautionary tale for the ages, to anyone who would dare to defy the Sun King.
And yet, he wouldn’t be charged for Moreau’s murder. Already forgotten by a court always eager to hear fresh gossip and follow new whims, Louis’s former head of security might as well have never existed, my flowers the only ones ever laid on his grave. No one remembered his death apart from me, and no one wished for justice for it. I let out a sigh. One couldn’t win every battle, it seemed.
Athénaïs’s teeth chattered, and remorse at exposing her to the elements snapped me out of my melancholy.
“Let’s go back,” I said.
We walked toward the cemetery gates and the carriage awaiting us beyond, the rain giving no sign of abating. It pattered against the fabric of my umbrella and formed rivulets and puddles on the uneven ground, while the smell of damp soil filled my nose. In this bleak weather, our sunny days at Fontainebleau seemed like a distant memory, a fantasy of colors and laughter as fleeting as a magic spell.
We boarded the carriage, and soon it rattled along the narrow streets, splashing mud on the cobblestones as it made its way back to the Tuileries. Each time it hit a pothole, it jolted and the curtains shielding us from cold draughts and prying eyes moved to let me catch a glimpse of gray facades and streams of people hurrying along tall tenement buildings.
My thoughts wandered back to that spring day in one of those shabby apartments and my encounter with Paris’s best fortune-teller, a lifetime ago it seemed. Her strange prophecy had quite escaped my mind since our meeting, and I struggled now to recall it. Something about four maidens coming to the palace. One who would have a broken heart, one who would rise then fall, one who would be betrayed, and one who would die. I still had no idea who those girls were. Athénaïs, Louise, and I had all arrived at court at about the same time, so it was possible we were three of the maidens. But then, who was the fourth one? And which one were we each supposed to be?
I feared Athénaïs fit the profile of the brokenhearted maiden: upon hearing of her dalliance with Prince Aniaba, her parents had summoned her back to their estate, where she was to marry a nobleman from Gascony. Despite her tears and fit of temper after receiving their letter, she had had no choice but to obey their command. She had broken the news to the prince, who’d let her go, knowing his situation couldn’t allow him to compete with a marquis from an ancient French family. Athénaïs was to leave in a few days, and although she would return to Paris soon enough, it would be as the Marquise de Montespan, and with a husband who likely wouldn’t look kindly on her past love affairs.
“At least he isn’t old,” Louise had told her when she was crying in my salon.
The marquis was indeed her age, which was a small consolation. Meanwhile Louise was the king’s official mistress in everything but name, now—Louis still strived to spare Marie-Thérèse’s feelings, as she was about to give him an heir any day. I wondered if Louise was the maiden whose rise and subsequent fall the fortune-teller had predicted. She did fit part of the description already.
This left one betrayed maiden and a dead one, none of which were appealing fates. If anyone had been betrayed this summer, it was the king, not me. Unless the betrayal I had suffered was yet to be revealed to me? My thoughts went to Philippe and Armand despite myself. They’d resumed their relationship since the party at Vaux, discreet yet unmistakable in their behavior. Philippe still spent every night in my bed, and we’d done more than just sleep on a few occasions, but I had come to realize that asking him to renounce Armand altogether was asking too much of him. As much as I wanted his love for me to be perfect and exclusive, I didn’t live in a fairy tale: He loved us both, and, for the moment at least, I had no wish to lose him by making him choose between us. So I shook my head to dispel the unwelcome notion: Philippe being Philippe was not a betrayal.
Now the maiden who died remained. Only one woman I knew of had died this summer: Le Nôtre’s Source, but she hardly qualified as a girl. Which meant the prediction had yet to pass, and I prayed it wasn’t the one about me. If anything, the events of Fontainebleau had confirmed how much I longed to live a long life and to keep everyone around me alive and well. I had been given magic for a reason, and that was why.
But if not me, then who? Louis’s cousins les petites mademoiselles Elisabeth and Françoise? They were definitely maidens, but they’d lived at court all their lives. Their sister Marguerite? Her heart was broken without doubt, but she didn’t live at the palace, married off to the Medici grand duke in Florence as she was.
And what about Olympe? Although not a maiden but a married woman, she was still young, and her life had intertwined with mine this summer. Following Fouquet’s fall, she’d somehow convinced the king she’d been manipulated into helping the Crown Magicien’s dark designs. After a private meeting with Louis, she’d been seen leaving his apartments dabbing her wet cheeks and failing to hide a smile. Officially pardoned, she’d resumed her position at court as if nothing had happened, landing even more weight to the rumors of her past liaison with Louis and of the fondness he still had for her.
“We’re here,” Athénaïs said, dragging me out of my meandering thoughts.
Our vehicle rumbled to a halt in front of the entrance to the Tuileries, and I tightened my cloak around me in preparation for the damp chill outside. My lungs protesting against the prolonged exposure to the harsh weather conditions, a hot chocolate by a warm fire with Mimi in my lap had seldom seemed more appealing. A guard opened the carriage door, and Athénaïs shuffled past me to raise the umbrella and offer me shelter in the rain. She had her foot on the first step when a riot of colors burst out of the palace’s main door.
“Stay in the carriage!”
Startled, Athénaïs fumbled to fold the umbrella again and retreated to the velvet-covered bench she’d just vacated.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my heartbeat picking up speed.
Philippe climbed into the carriage, wrenching the door out of the guard’s hands to slam it behind him.
“To the Louvre, man. Now!”
He collapsed at my side, out of breath, his magically enhanced clothes and jewelry glowing in the dim space of the carriage.
“Why are you dressed for a party?” I asked. “Why are we going to the Louvre?”
My voice rose with my puzzlement. He hadn’t informed me of any plans upon waking this morning, and although I wore a pretty enough outfit, I wasn’t dressed for a court appearance. My questions brought on a coughing fit, and Philippe lent me a lace handkerchief, gripping my hand until my breath settled.
“Are you going to be all right?” he asked, unable to hide the trepidation in his tone. Whatever was going on, he wanted me to be able to attend.
Our carriage hurtled toward its destination, bouncing on the cobblestones, the rumble of its wheels covering the chatter of the pedestrians outside. There was no turning back now, so I waved his concern away.
“Well?” I whispered, not trusting my voice yet.
A grin split his face. “I received a message from the Louvre half an hour ago. Marie-Thérèse is having the baby!”
Athénaïs gasped, and my heart s
oared in my chest. Philippe’s excitement was contagious, for I found myself smiling too as he went on, “My brother is having a son! France is going to have a Dauphin! We’re going to have a nephew!”
Athénaïs clapped and laughed, her earlier morosity momentarily forgotten. But although I longed to share their enthusiasm, part of me couldn’t help but think it premature. My thoughts went to the queen and the birth: It would be a public affair, and the best doctors and magiciens in the country would be present, along with the royal family. Yet there was no guarantee Marie-Thérèse would have an easy time of it, or that the child would be a boy. My chest deflated.
“Let’s wait and see,” I said, my tone gentle but firm.
A pang of guilt shot through me at dampening their excitement, but as long as the day wasn’t over and the baby born, I didn’t want them to get their hopes up too much. But Philippe shrugged off my cautious words.
“I know it’s going to be a boy. All the magiciens in the country have predicted it.” He hopped up and down on his seat, unable to sit still, his ribbons and precious gems quivering in the dim light. “It’s going to be a healthy boy, he’s going to be heir to that bloody throne, and I’m going to be nobody. It’s going to be amazing!”
He pulled the curtain open, and the facade of the Louvre, with its sculpted bas-reliefs and arch-headed windows, appeared in the gray light.
“Hurry!” Philippe urged the driver.
He gripped my hand so hard my fingers hurt, and I heard the uncertainty underneath the thrill in his tone. The carriage slowed in front of the courtyard entrance, giving me time to graze his white knuckles with my lips. He met my gaze, hope and fear mingling in his brown eyes, and relaxed his hold on me.