A man at the table stiffens and turns, and I practically sob for joy at the sight of his familiar face. Desgrez is wearing a tattered gray tunic topped with an overlarge vest, his black hair hangs in greasy strands across his eyes, and his feathered cap has been replaced by a dark, shapeless hood.
“You look like hell,” I say in way of greeting. It’s supposed to be a jibe, but my voice is so thick with emotion that it comes out small and choked.
He drops his cards, shoves out of his chair, and buries me in an embrace. “You’re alive. I didn’t dare to hope.”
“You’re alive. How?”
“Thanks to my proclivity for disguise, obviously.” He grins and tugs his disgusting vest. The other men at the table shout and pound the boards, but Desgrez abandons his hand, loops his arm around my shoulders, and drags me toward the door. “I think it best if we take our reunion elsewhere.”
We duck into the midnight rain and wind around several corners until we find a quiet storefront with an overhanging roof. He releases me and scrunches his nose. “You smell awful. Have you been rolling in a midden heap?”
“Close to it,” I say. “How did you survive the battle against Lesage’s beasts? I heard it was horrific. Not even the lieutenant general made it out alive. His head is currently spiked on the castle’s curtain wall.”
Desgrez shudders. “I know, and I would have perished with them, but since I was the lowest ranking officer, Le Reynie sent me to fetch ammunition from the reserve armory behind the Port Saint-Antoine. By the time I returned, the battle was over. I saw the bodies of my comrades strewn across the courtyard, shed my long coat, and ran in the opposite direction.” He’s silent for a beat. “Does that make me a coward?”
“No. It makes you smart. What good is rushing to the aid of dead men?”
Desgrez shrugs, but his lips are drawn and he refuses to look up from his boots. “They were my brothers in arms,” he says softly. “We took an oath to defend the city—and each other—and I left them, broken and bleeding on the cobbles. I know there’s nothing more I could have done, but I still feel I failed them somehow… .”
I nudge his shoulder. “Redeem yourself by helping me get the girls to safety.”
That makes him look up quickly. “The girls live as well? But Versailles burned to the ground. The Shadow Society claimed the entire royal line was eradicated.”
“We nearly were, but I snuck us out through that builders’ passage we discovered beneath the stairs—me and Anne and Françoise. As well as my royal siblings.”
The whites of Desgrez’s eyes grow as round as the moon and he lets out a low whistle. “That must be interesting. Where are they now?”
“Follow me,” I say, filling him in on Anne and Françoise’s condition as well as my plan to flee the city as I lead him back to Madame Bissette’s.
“Smart,” he says. “But I think we can do even better. I still have the keys to the armory. Let’s move a cannon into one of the buildings along the procession route—maybe that church near Voisin’s residence, Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle—and blow it to smithereens when the poisoners march past. God willing, the blast will kill La Voisin and Lesage. In the chaos, they’ll be forced to call reinforcements from the road blockades, and we’ll ride out of Paris free and clear.”
I blink up at Desgrez. “That’s ingenious.”
“I know.” He preens as we enter the pâtisserie.
Madame Bissette looks up from behind the counter and shrieks when she sees someone come in on my heels. She brandishes a knife, and I hold up my hands. “It’s okay,” I say, “this is Des—”
“Captain Desgrez.” Desgrez rushes forward and kisses the back of her wrist as if she’s a bedamned courtier. “Of the Paris Police. At your service, madame.”
She makes a high-pitched cooing noise and brings her other hand to her chest. I roll my eyes and open the floor hatch. The first night we met, Madame Bissette threw four plates at my head and nearly took off my fingers in the trapdoor. Then I spent the next three nights groveling and bribing and begging her not to turn us in. But one look at Desgrez’s slate gray eyes and charming grin—no matter that he looks every bit as haggard as me—and she’s falling all over herself to accommodate him. She even gives him a baguette, free of charge, after which she greedily collects two seed pearls from me in exchange for a sad-looking barley loaf that will barely feed my siblings.
“Well, she’s rather charming,” Desgrez says, stepping off the moldering ladder and into the sludge. He takes a large bite of bread as he turns to inspect the tunnel. “This place … not so much.”
“Captain Desgrez?” I snatch a piece of his bread and shove it into my mouth. “Really? You’re the newest member of the Paris Police, only a year on watch.”
“True, but since I’m now the only member of the watch, I’m captain by default.”
I scoff and set off into the suffocating blackness. “Keep up, Captain.”
“Mock me all you’d like, but who’s the dauphin more likely to listen to: Officer Desgrez or Captain Desgrez? Just let me do the talking.”
When we enter the chamber, Anne and Françoise push up to their elbows and smile at Desgrez. Before he joined the police, he was a permanent fixture in our escapades, preferring to wreak havoc round the palace with me and the girls instead of assisting his father with Louis’s lessons.
“This is a secure hideaway!” Louis bellows at me. “You cannot bring your rabble-rousing friends—”
“Forgive the intrusion, Your Royal Highness.” Desgrez sketches a perfect bow. “Captain Desgrez of the Paris Police.”
“Captain? How did you of all people rise through the ranks so quickly?”
“My exceptional skills, of course. Skills I wish to lend to you. I’ve come to escort you from this hellhole to safety.”
Louis looks him up and down with a dubious frown.
“I obviously can’t wear my uniform, given the circumstances, but I served directly under the lieutenant general.” Desgrez spouts off a litany of names and titles and eventually Louis nods.
“Very well, go on.”
“We’ve devised a plan to remove you and your sisters from Paris, but it will require your cooperation and assistance.”
Louis crosses his arms. “What do you mean, we’ve devised a plan? Surely you don’t mean him?” He juts his chin at me.
Desgrez shoots me a warning glare and turns back to Louis. “The circumstances are dire. We need every capable man on our side.”
Louis grunts as if to say, Precisely.
I toss my hands into the air. “I saved your life! If it weren’t for me, you’d have burnt to cinders with the palace. You’re the one who’s completely incompetent. I’m beginning to see why Father had to hold your hand so tightly.”
“Silence!” Louis punches the dripping stone wall and then immediately yelps and cradles his fist. It’s abundantly clear he’s never punched anyone or anything, and I can’t help but laugh. Desgrez looks like he wants to strangle me. Marie gapes as if I’m a monster. I’m generally not quite so brazen, but Louis needs to know I won’t be intimidated.
Desgrez grabs me by the shoulder and hauls me behind him, then he fawns and grovels until Louis finally calms down and listens to our plan. “We obviously don’t want you to be anywhere near the explosion—we can’t risk you being injured or seen—so you will collect a cart, which I’ll hide for you near the pâtisserie. Situate the girls in the back beneath blankets, and then meet Josse and me at the intersection of the rues de Richelieu and Saint-Honoré.”
The chamber is silent as Louis digests the plan. “I don’t like it,” he says at last. “If I leave the city, I may lose it entirely.”
Look around! It’s already lost! I want to shout, but Desgrez glares at me out of the corners of his eyes.
“This is your best option, Your Highness,” Desgrez says. “You’re not gaining any ground hiding in the sewer. You must get out of the city and rouse your allies in Anjou and Brittany and
Savoy. Plus your sisters cannot wait much longer.” He glances over at Françoise and Anne, tossing and turning in the corner.
The silence stretches and I brace myself for Louis to say something awful, like, We cannot put little girls above the well-being of a nation. They are technically bastards, after all. Not to mention girls. But he grinds his teeth and mutters, “Fine. But if this ends poorly, you are to blame.” He jabs a finger at me. “Father, God rest his soul, would have never supported such a preposterous, dangerous plan.”
Louis’s words wheedle beneath my skin, and I have to shut him up before the guilt seeps in, before Father’s taunting voice crushes me with doubt. I do not care what he would think. I refuse to care. I am going to save my sisters and prove them all wrong.
“Caution got our father killed,” I yell. “He disregarded the majority of his people and they assassinated him. Pardon me for not wanting to follow in his footsteps.”
I turn on my heel, fist the back of Desgrez’s vest, and drag him across the chamber. I need to be free of these stinking tunnels and Louis’s condescending scowl.
“Thought we agreed I’d do the talking,” Desgrez says once we’re out of earshot.
“You were too busy kissing Louis’s feet to say what needed to be said.”
“You’re both impossible. Would it kill you to show him a little respect?”
“Yes,” I say as I charge up the iron steps and burst through the hatch into the pâtisserie.
Desgrez rolls his eyes and dons his hood, and we slip into the heaving crowd on the rue Saint-Honoré.
5
MIRABELLE
Mother has requested curatives. Hundreds of remedies she wishes to dispense to the crowd during our victory procession: Cadmia for ulcers, Arcanum Corallinum for gout and dropsy, Oil of Brick for palsy and tumors, as well as dozens of salves and syrups for headaches and fevers and coughs. As many tinctures as Gris and I can manage in a week’s time.
I stare dubiously at the note Mother’s attendant delivered to the laboratory.
“You see.” Gris stands behind me, reading over my shoulder. “It’s just as La Voisin promised. We’ve silenced the dissenters and can resume the true business of the Shadow Society.”
I fold the note into my apron pocket and try to muster a hopeful smile, but the voices of the dead still call to me from the dust. Condemning me.
Gris watches me with a frown. “Did I miss something? Isn’t this a good development?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
“So why do you look like you’re going to be sick?”
I fidget with a pile of fennel seeds on the counter. “I’m pleased we’re returning to healing, but all of the curatives in the world will never bring back the dead.”
Gris places his hands on my shoulders. “Sometimes succession is ugly. But we can rest easy in the knowledge that those who perished deserved their fate.” I start to protest but he speaks over me. “We tried to be reasonable, but the nobles kept rising and fighting and forcing your mother’s hand. She would never choose poison or Lesage’s magic. She was backed into a corner and did what was best for the majority.”
I nod grudgingly. “I suppose you’re right.”
“This order is proof I am. We have to trust her, Mira. She’s done nothing to make us doubt.”
I can’t argue with that. Since Vendôme’s slaughter, there have been no more uprisings. Mother hasn’t ordered additional poison. Even Lesage has been strangely absent from my laboratory—requesting only one more blood draught.
A warm ember of hope flickers inside my chest.
“Very well.” I tie back my curls and flash Gris a genuine smile. “Let’s get to work.”
Gris and I throw ourselves into distilling curatives, waking with the sun and burning candles long into the night. The healing scents of basil and cinnamon and lavender slowly overpower the pungent remnants of Viper’s Venom and the rusty tang of Lesage’s blood draught. We amass trays and trays of curatives until they crowd every corner of the board and cabinet. Even the crates and boxes and floors are cluttered with colorful packets and bottles. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen—proof that all has been set to right—yet the trickle of unease in my veins refuses to run dry.
Sleep continues to evade me. My hands tremble on my pestle and mortar. And I am haunted by images of withered, bleeding bodies.
The only time my mind is truly quiet is when I’m alone in the laboratory, distilling my treachery. I know I should stop. It’s dangerous, treasonous, and above all, useless now that we’ve returned to brewing curatives. But the need to experiment lingers like an itch. A terrible twitching sensation that makes me sweat. Father’s little red grimoire feels like a living, breathing entity tucked inside my bodice. It calls to me like a siren song, wrapping its wicked tendrils around my legs and guiding them back to the laboratory.
In the dead of night, when even Gris has gone to bed and only ghosts haunt these chambers, I tiptoe down the spiral staircase, bar the laboratory door, and slip into my secret world of alchemy. Under Father’s imaginary direction, I modify the cure for désintégrer until I’m certain I have it right. Then I tuck a pouch filled with the ingredients beneath my stays so I’m ready at a moment’s notice. Once formulated, the potion only keeps for an hour or two, and I want to be prepared to test its effectiveness should Lesage unleash his magic without warning. While I may trust Mother, I will never trust him.
On the morning of the procession, I climb the stairs to Mother’s chamber feeling calm and hopeful and almost entirely like my old self. I’m eager to leave the palace and distribute our medications, to interact with the people and chase away the final vestiges of my guilt. I even smile at Marguerite and Fernand when they fall in stride with me on the second-floor landing—which may be a bit overzealous.
“How nice of you to clean up for the occasion.” Fernand plucks a bit of straw from my hair. “Have you taken to sleeping in your laboratory too? Or maybe not sleeping at all?” he adds, pulling at the bottoms of his eyes. “You look terrible.”
“Still better than you,” I retort. It’s a mystery to me what my sister sees in him. Fernand’s thin black hair is even stringier than usual, and his velvet mask, which he never removes, clings to his cheeks like a second skin. I don’t know if I hate him because he’s a weaselly, scheming mercenary or if it’s because Marguerite used to whisper with me before he came along and widened the gap between us.
Marguerite turns around and cuffs Fernand on the head. “No one asked you.”
It seems that only she is allowed to harry me. A development that suits me quite well, if I’m honest. We’ve been oddly amiable since that night in my bed. Marguerite saved me the last religieuse after dinner two nights later, and when she and Fernand and his cohorts downed an entire cask of ale and sang bawdy drinking songs until dawn, I did not shout complaints. Marguerite and I even sat by the fire in my chamber and worked on our samplers together Thursday last.
“Are you still afraid?” she’d asked in a hushed voice, even though we were alone in the room.
Something about the way her dark eyes burned like the coals in the hearth made me nod. “A bit, I suppose. But not nearly as much as before. Are you?”
She shrugged, which was more confirmation than I expected. After a long pause, she whispered almost too soft to hear, “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Their cries still haunt my thoughts.” She became very intent on picking at a loose thread in her stitching, looking so small and timid, so unlike my older sister, I wanted to say something to comfort her. Something genuine to return her honesty.
“I think we’re all haunted by ghosts. Sometimes I think I hear Father. I talk to him.”
Marguerite’s hands stilled and her eyebrows arched. “What do you say?”
“I ask what he makes of all this.”
Marguerite was never close with Father. She craved bedtime stories and kisses and rides on his shoulders, but she had no predilection for alchemy. “Does he answe
r?”
“In his way,” I said, thinking of his grimoire hidden beneath my bodice. “But I don’t think we have any cause to worry. The worst has passed.”
“The worst has passed,” she agreed, repeating Mother’s words with reverence.
There’s a certain air of camaraderie between us as we stroll through the doors of Mother’s chamber and leave Fernand grousing in the hall.
“Ah, my girls, at last,” Mother croons from the vanity, where her ladies are powdering her face and arranging her chestnut curls. They are swept up into a high pompadour that somehow makes her look regal and dangerous all at once—like a lioness. Only at her temples can you notice the threads of gray running through her hair, and her shadowed eyes are as large as a doe’s—black, depthless marbles set against the porcelain whiteness of her face. She hardly looks old enough to be my mother, but then, she’s been slathering her face with youth restoratives and drinking alchemical mixtures since she was my age.
She waves her maids away and rises with a flourish. Hundreds of golden two-headed eagles shimmer through the folds of her ceremonial cape, and the sumptuous velvet billows around her ankles, creating the illusion that she’s walking on wine-colored clouds. She is beautiful. Resplendent. A proper hero of the people.
Mother approaches me first and kisses my cheeks. Marguerite bristles, even though I was simply standing nearer. I try to catch her eye, but she purposely looks away, the easy energy between us doused as quickly as a candle.
“Mes petites Voisins.” Mother takes both our hands and guides us across the chamber. “Come, I have a surprise for you.”
Marguerite balks. “For us both?”
Ignoring her, Mother leads us through the dark-paneled sitting room and into her robing chamber, which is larger than our entire house on the rue Beauregard. “For the procession,” she announces, gesturing to the identical gowns draped across the cedar trunks.
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