by EM Castellan
Whatever the man saw in Olympe’s eyes, it prompted more sweat to pour out of his forehead and his golden eyes to turn fearful. He cast me a desperate glance for help, but I was focused on the truth spell and on providing a steady stream of magic to Olympe. My lungs were already tightening, and I breathed through my nose to delay a coughing fit.
“I’m not a very gifted magicien,” the Parisian magicien admitted. “I can’t do healing spells or anything too complex. Whatever you need, I—”
“How do you know Lorraine?” Olympe cut him off again. “Why did he invite you here today? You’re not a court magicien.”
“For the tribute spell! I told you, illusions are my specialty. The chevalier knows it, that’s why he invited me.”
“How do you two know each other?”
I stifled a cough. My muscles strained as my magic flowed toward Olympe, and each heartbeat sounded louder in my ears. We were running out of time.
“We met at one of the salons,” the magicien said, his words more rushed in his inflating panic but not less golden. “I can’t remember which one. Madame … Madame de Montespan introduced us.”
“And have you performed other spells together before?”
“A couple of illusions at those salons! Nothing more. I barely know the man.”
His words shone gold in the dim carriage. He was telling the truth. He wasn’t the magicien who’d helped Lorraine make spells vanish. My shoulders slumped, and Olympe cast me a worried look before attempting a last question.
“Do you know if Lorraine has worked with any other magiciens in Paris?”
He shook his head. “Not that I know of. He wasn’t even happy to perform spells with me. I think he thought it was beneath him to entertain those people. He said he only worked with court magiciens, and I hear nowadays he only casts spells with the king.”
Again, his words drifted up inside the carriage, shimmering gold in the shadowy interior. No lies. Based on his footman’s testimony, Armand had convinced me Lorraine’s scheme rested on the complicity of a Parisian magicien. Yet the spells had started to vanish after the man’s arrival at court. However hard to believe, it made sense for Lorraine to have collaborated with a court magicien to make spells disappear, rather than dealing with the inconvenience of meeting a magicien in Paris. Which meant my investigation had to focus on the magiciens of Versailles. Like last year, the traitor stood on my doorstep, not leagues away from my home. A chilling thought indeed.
A coughing fit rose in my chest and cut short my musing. I buried my mouth in my hands, breaking the connection with Olympe. I didn’t hear her parting words to the magicien over the noise of my rasping breaths, before she ushered me out of the vehicle.
As we walked back toward the basilica, we ran into the Comte de Saint-Aignan and Prince Aniaba amid the mingling crowd of mourners. The prince insisted on performing the spell with my handkerchief, which soothed my lungs enough for me to recover for a moment. I left Olympe with them before going in search of Philippe inside the church.
My footsteps rang out in the now near-empty building. In the middle of the nave, men in workmen clothes were already busy piling wooden planks and collecting tools for the opening of the vault.
Philippe still sat in the front pew, but Lorraine had joined him, his blond hair a stark contrast to his expensive black clothes. He whispered in my husband’s ear, his arm around his shoulders. Philippe didn’t relax into the embrace, but my heart sank nonetheless at the sight of the two of them together. My steps slowed, and I hovered by a pillar, uncertain.
Philippe craved support and love. Very few people in his life provided him with it, and here I was, plotting to remove one of them. Lorraine might be a treasonous snake that threatened French magic, but he was also there for my husband when very few were. A wave of guilt and doubt washed through me. For the first time since I had resolved to reveal Lorraine’s secrets, it occurred to me that Philippe might not thank me for it. I had expected him to be hurt at Lorraine’s betrayal at first, then to understand my motives and be grateful for my intervention. Only now did it strike me that Lorraine stood among the handful of people Philippe cared about and trusted.
And my husband might not forgive me for taking that away.
CHAPTER XIX
“No, ladies and gentlemen, no!”
The Comte de Saint-Aignan threw his hands up, suppressed giggles greeting his despair. The king’s next entertainment was a week away, and the July heat had seemingly melted all memories of the Queen Mother’s funeral in the courtiers’ minds. Even the king had been seen smiling and humming to himself during a recent horse ride.
The dance rehearsals took place in the palace orangerie to escape the oppressing temperature. All the citrus trees that the long gallery housed in the winter months now moved outside, the large and cool space had been deemed the perfect place to practice the latest fashionable dance.
“Let’s try again!” the count said.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead with a lace handkerchief and trotted down the length of the gallery to organize the dancers in three straight lines. Nearby, a quartet of musicians awaited his signal to resume the right movement. Marie-Thérèse, her round belly now prominent under her yellow silk dress, sat in an armchair next to them, her dogs at her feet and Mimi in her lap. Waving a jewel-studded fan, she caught my gaze and gave me one of her rare smiles as I stood side by side with my friends.
“You start with your left foot.” Athénaïs demonstrated the first four steps.
Elisabeth watched her with a skeptic pout. “It’s ridiculously complicated. I’ll just hide behind Madame and copy her.”
“Don’t be silly,” Olympe replied. “If Louise can do it, anyone can.”
Louise cast her a hesitant glance, and I would have dismissed the encouragement as innocent if Olympe and Athénaïs hadn’t shared a mocking smile just then. Louise’s discomfited expression prompted me to intervene.
“We need to listen to the count,” I said, pretending obliviousness. “He is working hard and he deserves our support.”
“You’re right,” Olympe said. “He’s red as a lobster, poor man.”
Athénaïs and Elisabeth giggled again.
“From the beginning, everyone!” the count called out, cutting short their mirth.
The violin music built up under the orangerie’s high ceiling and along its white walls. The lines of courtiers moved in a synchronized motion for six steps, but the first turn broke the pattern as some headed the wrong way and others tripped over their feet. Elisabeth collided with Louise, who let out a surprised cry.
“Stop!” The count waved his arms like a flapping bird, and the quartet paused again.
Elisabeth apologized to Louise. Athénaïs and Olympe snickered, and Louise flushed.
“Oh, why do you have to be so horrid?” Her voice broke on the last word, her eyes filling with tears.
To my astonishment, her reaction drew loud laughter from the other two. Louise picked up her skirts and fled, her heels clacking a staccato against the flagstones.
“What is with you two?” I chided.
I couldn’t let Louise go off alone in such a state. Signaling the count to carry on without me, I pursued her outside. The afternoon sunshine turned the orangerie garden into an oven. Gravel crunched under my feet as I wandered along the short alleys lined with fragrant orange and lemon trees in wooden pots. The sound of Louise’s loud sobs guided me to the center of the parterre, where a water jet in the middle of a round pool pulled all the lines of the symmetrical garden together.
The dust and heat clawed at my throat and I coughed. Louise turned around, her eyes swollen with tears and her face splotched with red.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as soon as my cough eased.
“Everything … is … horrible,” she hiccupped.
The low stone edge of the pool was just large enough to accommodate us, and I coaxed her to sit next to me with gentle guiding gestures. She blew her nose in the
handkerchief I offered.
“They’re all vipers,” she said at last.
My heart swelled with compassion at her unhappiness, but the bitterness that suffused her words caught me unaware.
“They were just teasing,” I replied, soothing. “It’s hot and we’re all a bit bored. They didn’t mean any harm.”
“Of course they mean harm!” Louise’s voice rose with a fierceness I had seldom witnessed in her. “Can’t you see?”
“I suppose I don’t,” I said, my tone clipped. My mother always warned me against my tendency to see the best in everyone. It appeared Louise also regarded it as weakness.
More tears brimmed in her eyes, and her voice came out strangled. “He’s sending me away.”
“The king?”
She nodded. “He’s sending me to Paris.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulder to comfort her despite my confusion. Louis had just made her his official mistress. Why would he send her away now? The memory of the renovated house at the Palais-Royal came to me then. I had thought it would be a place for the king to visit his mistress away from prying eyes. It seemed it was somewhere to banish her instead. “Did you two have an argument?” I asked.
Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she answered me without wiping them. “In a way. He says it’s the best thing to do until the baby comes. But I know it’s a lie.”
My heart stuttered. “The queen’s baby?”
“No.” She stared at a nearby olive tree, avoiding my gaze. “Mine.”
“Oh, Louise.” I sighed.
Of course Louis was sending her away. She might be his official mistress, but having her with child at court at the same time as Marie-Thérèse would be too much of a scandal, even for him.
“But it’s only temporary,” I said to reassure her. “And in the meantime, are you well? Are you … happy?”
More tears spilled from her eyes and they were answers enough. “I’m happy about the baby.” She sniffled. “Everything else is a disaster.”
“It’s not all bad,” I tried again. “You have a beautiful little house waiting for you in Paris. And when you return to court—”
“But don’t you see?” she cut me off. “I may never come back. She won’t let me, once I’m gone!”
I blinked at her, too confused to be angry about her rudeness. “The queen?”
“Athénaïs!” she exploded. “Who else do you think has spent the last months undermining me, whispering poison into everyone’s ears and seducing the king?”
I gaped. Images and words flashed through my mind. Athénaïs and Louis meeting at the Tuileries all those months ago. Her comment on understanding how one could fall for someone other than her husband. Her indifference in the face of Marie-Thérèse’s humiliation at the ball. And her husband’s timely departure for the front. Athénaïs was indeed having an affair, as I had suspected all those weeks ago. Except it had never occurred to me it was with the king.
“They’re all in on it,” Louise added, unfazed by my shocked silence. “The queen and Olympe want nothing more than to see me gone, so they’ve done everything they could to have me pushed aside. And Athénaïs waited in the wings to slither her way into the king’s life. She’s convinced him she’s in love with him, but I don’t believe it. She would lie to the pope himself if it got her where she wanted.”
“But,” I said, finding my voice again despite this avalanche of revelations, “have you tried speaking with Louis? What does he say?”
She wiped her nose with my handkerchief. “He says he loves me, and he can’t wait to meet our son. Except it’s very convenient for him that I’m pregnant now, isn’t it? He has an excuse to send me away.”
Was she being paranoid? I couldn’t decide. It seemed awfully selfish, cold, and calculating of Louis to use one mistress’s pregnancy to send her away while making room for a second mistress at his side, and with his wife also expecting a child at the same time. But Louis had proven in the past he was selfish, cold, and calculating. He took what he wanted, regardless of the hurt it caused, even to those closest to him.
“What can I do to help?” I asked, powerlessness washing over me like a wave.
She shrugged. “Nothing. Everyone warned me to be careful, and I didn’t listen. Now the king has lost interest in me, and it’s my punishment.”
Her reply made me sigh. Louise and her ideas about good and evil, about guilt and innocence. It struck me then that she had indeed never listened to me. She wasn’t about to start now. The flow of her tears had run dry, at least. I linked arms with her, and we walked back toward the orangerie in silence.
As a sunken garden, it lay below the level of the palace terrace, with the sprawling buildings of Versailles looming over the grounds in the distance. In the bright afternoon sunlight, they sparkled like precious gems—a sight that should have filled me with awe but awoke in me sadness instead. Louis had designed this place as a dream, yet no one dwelling here seemed able to find any happiness within its walls. Heartbreaks and betrayals lurked at every corner. Friendships frayed in every garden grove. Relationships fell apart in every room. Unfulfilled aspirations mixed with greed and frustration in the salons. And magic, everywhere, served as smoke and mirrors to hide all the little tragedies unfolding backstage.
A queen humiliated and isolated, undone by betrayals and secrets.
A young provincial girl with a broken heart.
A shrewd noble girl whose rise was as swift as it was unforeseen.
The reality of the situation drenched me with ice-cold realization: the seer’s prophecy was all unfolding as predicted, and nothing had stopped it. The only part left to come true was my death.
* * *
By the time we reached the orangerie, all desire for dancing had left me. Louise put on a brave face and rejoined the rehearsal, but I picked up my dog from Marie-Thérèse’s lap. Her mouth puckered in a worried pout.
“Is it the heat?” she asked over the swelling music.
“Yes.” It wasn’t really a lie. My lungs felt tight and sweat ran down my spine. “I think I’ll retire for now.”
I waved Athénaïs over. She broke away from the dancing line with her eyebrows raised in inquiry.
“I think it’s better if I go and lie down,” I said. “Will you accompany me?”
She gave the practicing dancers a mournful look, but she couldn’t very well refuse me. My desire to have a private word with her overpowered my remorse at drawing her away from the fun. Mimi in my arms, I left the cool gallery to walk back through the water gardens to the palace. The sun beat on the gravel paths, and Athénaïs shielded us with a lace and ivory-handled parasol.
“Is it true?” I asked as soon as we were out of anyone’s earshot. “Are you having an affair with the king?”
An amused smile teased her red lips. “What if it is?”
I struggled not to roll my eyes. This was as good as a confession, yet in true Athénaïs’s fashion, she displayed no embarrassment or regret. It fell to me to point out the obvious.
“What about Louise?”
She shrugged. “He tired of her long ago. I wouldn’t have been able to distract him otherwise.”
Whether this was true or not, the result was the same. Louise was distraught and exiled from court. Since her fate didn’t appear to affect Athénaïs, I chose another angle of attack.
“But you’re both married! It’s going to be a scandal when this comes out.”
“I can handle my husband.” She waved the matter away with a flick of her hand. “And the queen is so happy with her supposed victory over Louise that it’s going to take her months to work out she defeated the wrong adversary.”
Her unconcerned tone left me speechless. Had she always been this selfish and self-serving? We reached the palace, and the stuffiness inside was only a minor improvement compared to the furnace outside. Our wooden heels struck the parquet floor as we made our way to my apartments.
“Are you in love with him?” I aske
d, still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that Athénaïs, of all people, had seduced Louis.
“Of course.”
Her smile would have made a sphinx proud. Whatever she read on my face, it brought a hint of seriousness to her features.
“I understand you’re shocked,” she added. “But I’ve always done what I was told. Can you blame me for now putting myself first?”
Her question struck a chord in me, because I had been struggling with it for the past few months too. We lived in a world where duty controlled every part of our existence. We were expected to obey our family, serve the king, marry whom we were told, have children, and display a behavior beyond reproach. And the moment one of us stepped out of line, we turned on her with the rest of the crowd. I had blamed Olympe for seeking power. I had blamed Louise for wanting love. Maybe Athénaïs was right and I shouldn’t blame her for desiring more than what our society had given her. But my mind spun with the words of the prophecy. The higher she rises, the harder she’ll fall … Too much of the seer’s prediction had already come to pass. I had no wish to witness her destruction. Where would this new path lead her?
“Just … be careful,” I said.
Her confident grin was back in a flash. “I always am.”
We arrived at my apartments, and she left me without a backward glance, flying down the staircase with her skirts flowing at her back in her hurry to return to the dance rehearsals. I stepped into my antechamber, and Mimi barked at a visitor waiting on the silk sofa by the window.
“My apologies.”
I glanced around in search of a maid to introduce the stranger, but we were alone. The indoor shutters drawn against the sunshine, the room sat shrouded in dimness, and the woman’s features were shadowed. Still, her face didn’t spark any recognition in me.
“It’s me who should apologize, Your Highness.” She curtsied. “I know this is most irregular, but I had to see you.”
A glimmer of trepidation quickened my pulse. The woman stood unthreatening a few steps away, yet her dark silhouette and solemn tone sent a shiver down my back.