An Affair of Poisons

by Addie Thorley

  A burst of bone-chilling cold spreads through my chest and curls its icy fingers around my throat. I shake my head vehemently. “No. That’s impossible. You said you had nothing to do with the attack on Versailles.”

  Mirabelle speaks to the floor, her voice flat and matter-of-fact. “I said I knew nothing about Mother’s plans, which I didn’t. But that hardly makes me innocent. I knew she would administer the poison to someone. And beyond that, I created the blood draught to make Lesage’s magic tactile—his lightning, the smoke beasts, none of it would exist without me. I am the reason the Shadow Society was able to seize the city.”

  The ringing in my ears drowns out the end of her confession. She is the reason my sisters nearly died. She killed my father. And Rixenda …

  I gape at Mirabelle, hunched in the doorway, trying to reconcile the girl I watched lovingly administer curatives with the monster she’s describing. And I can’t. It’s impossible.

  “Forgive me,” Mirabelle chokes out.

  “You see!” Desgrez jumps to his feet and points. “She admits it herself! She murdered the king—your father. Which is a capital offense in itself. But then she also claimed responsibility for the deaths of half of the nobility and the Paris Police. This is who you’ve chosen to align with”—he sneers at me—“but I’ll not make the same mistake.” He extracts a rapier from the folds of his brown robe and stalks to where Mirabelle stands. “On your knees.”

  The door is open. She could attempt to flee. But she gazes up at Desgrez with watery black eyes and complies. Her lips tremble and her breath comes short and fast. She doesn’t beg for mercy. Doesn’t look away.

  Desgrez lifts his blade to her throat and twists the tip so it digs into the flesh below her ear. A ribbon of crimson snakes down her neck. I watch it trickle lower. Every heartbeat slams against my temples. My dagger lies on the floor within reach, but I’m unable to move. Unsure if I want to.

  Mirabelle swallows against the pressure of Desgrez’s blade and lifts her chin higher. “Do it,” she breathes. But at the same moment, a grating scrape, scrape, scrape comes from outside on the street. Like a sword dragging across the cobbles. It draws closer, louder, and a terrible stench fills my nose—like rotting eggs and gunpowder. Billows of oily blue smoke pour into the millinery and curl around our ankles.

  Desgrez reels back, shouting oaths. Mirabelle collapses to the floor and clutches her neck. I quickly gain my feet. And we all stare out the door at an enormous indigo smoke beast that ambles into sight. It has long leathery wings, claws the length of my forearm, and a spiked tail that looks unnervingly like a mace. It scrape, scrape, scrapes from side to side as it lumbers down the rue de Navarine.

  The creature stops directly in front of the millinery and turns its golden eyes on us, the pupils slitted like a snake’s. It cocks its head and lifts its blunted snout into the air. Hot, rancid breath curls from its nostrils.

  Mirabelle gasps. “He set them loose.”

  Desgrez shoves her aside, slams the door, and casts around for something to use as a barricade. I spring to assist him, wedging a chair beneath the handle. Which is laughable. The smoke beast could burst through with the flick of a single claw. Or burn the entire shop to cinders.

  We retreat to the far corner of the millinery—me, Desgrez, and Mirabelle crouched behind the counter. Gasping. Trembling. Waiting for fire to engulf the shop or for the beast’s massive weight to buckle the stairs leading to the door. The seconds pass. Droplets of blood leak from Mirabelle’s neck and speckle the dusty ground. Eventually the scraping resumes—moving distinctly away.

  We rush to the window as the beast’s spiked tail vanishes around the corner of the rue de Navarine. Desgrez releases a breath and crumples against the wall. I grip the windowsill for support. But Mirabelle races to the door and knocks the chair aside.

  “No, no, no,” she mutters.

  “You can’t run from me,” Desgrez says. “I’ll easily overtake you.”

  “You are the least of my concerns,” she says. Then she bangs out the door and flies down the street. Chasing after a beast made of smoke and flame and nightmare. Running, most assuredly, to her death.

  17

  MIRABELLE

  There’s only one reason the smoke beast would retreat. Only one reason it wouldn’t destroy the millinery, and the entire city, if Lesage has set them free.

  Mother wants to capture us alive—so she can make a bloody, public display of the royals’ execution and my punishment—and Lesage’s creatures are her hunting hounds, sent to sniff us out.

  I grip an iron garden fence, propel myself around the corner, and tear down the winding street. The creature moves like an azure wave. Its spiked tail bobs and flashes like lanterns in the moonlight, and its slitlike ears swivel, listening to my footsteps. But it never turns to blast me with its fiery breath. Confirming my suspicion.

  I fist my petticoats and will my feet to move faster. Each breath cuts through my lungs like a scythe, and icy waves of fear crash through my limbs, but the pain is nothing, nothing, compared to the look on Josse’s face when I confessed. How his eyes widened with horror. How he recoiled in absolute disgust. As if I’m a monster.

  Maybe I am.

  I did terrible, unforgivable things. Things I can’t change. But I can stop the smoke beast from reaching the Louvre and revealing our location to Lesage.

  I will stop it.

  We tear around another corner. Window coverings flutter and candles flicker to life as we fly past, but not a soul ventures into the street to help. They saw what the creatures are capable of during the procession, and I’m glad they stay away. Fewer innocent lives on my conscience.

  I lengthen my stride and summon a final burst of speed, but the beast is faster still. It pulls ahead, snorting as the Louvre comes into view along the riverbank.

  If I don’t stop it now, I never will.

  Desperate, I heft a pitchfork from a hay cart on the roadside, aim the tines at the smoke beast, and heave with all my might, sending a silent prayer with my makeshift spear. The tool is heavier than I’d thought and my aim is far from perfect, but the steel teeth manage to nick the creature’s hind leg. It whirls around and blasts the cobbles with fire. I slam to a halt a hair’s breadth from the scorched stones and roll to the side, narrowly avoiding a second strike.

  The beast dives toward me, shaking the ground beneath my boots, shaking every quivering bone in my body. Its golden eyes lock on my frame and a scream burbles up my throat. I cast around for a weapon, an idea. Anything.

  Think, Mira!

  The river’s to my left. I could lure it to the water. Beasts that spit fire shouldn’t take kindly to water. Or I could run right, toward one of the armories. If the beast’s flames ignite the gunpowder, the explosion might kill it.

  And half a block of innocent souls!

  The creature hisses and stretches up to its full height. Its noxious breath pours over me like scalding water. I veer to the left. Not fast enough. Fire claws at my dress, and I curse myself yet again for not rendering Lesage’s blood draught so I could control the monsters as well. Pain burns up my leg, but a second later it’s gone. Arms wrap around my chest and drag me to the street. We roll into the gutter, my skirts sizzling as the dreck douses the flames.

  “Are you insane?” Josse shouts.

  “You followed me.” I blink up at him, not certain he’s real.

  “A little help!” Desgrez bellows. He’s dodging in and out of doorways across the street, stabbing wildly at the beast between bursts of fire.

  Without looking at me, Josse pushes to his feet and comes at the beast from behind. He removes a dagger from his boot and manages to sink it into the smoke beast’s left hind leg. The creature screams and spins around. Its mace-like tail splinters through a wooden pillar, nearly beheading Desgrez.

  “On second thought, maybe you shouldn’t help.” Desgrez ducks behind a crate, and Josse streaks across the road to join him.

  Panting, I push
up to my knees and gather rocks into my skirt. Then I hunker behind a vegetable cart and toss the stones at the smoke beast. When it turns to snarl at me, Josse and Desgrez leap from their hiding places and slash at its legs and neck. They manage a few decent blows, their faces and tunics covered in a spray of thick black blood, but the creature catches on. The next time I hurl my rocks, it swivels the other way and knocks Desgrez’s blade from his hand. The rapier spins into the road, and when Josse tries to grab it, the smoke beast nearly sets his hand aflame.

  Exhausted and unarmed, Josse and Desgrez hunker behind the wooden pillars that hold the half-timbered houses aloft. The beast rears back and draws a snarling breath. It’s going to incinerate them—and the house too. I dart forward, pebbles falling from my skirt, and run at the creature, screaming.

  Fire flares overhead. I gasp, assuming the beast breathed on the thatching. But instead of flaring upward, the fire rains down atop the monster—little balls of flame made of bundled twigs. The smoke beast screeches and lurches to the opposite side of the road, but a barrage of fire descends from that rooftop as well.

  Down the block, two small figures dash from an alleyway waving their arms. The smoke beast rounds on them, but before it can lunge, someone whistles and a weighty bundle unfurls from the rooftops. It appears to be a net of some sort that drapes across the beast’s back and tangles in its lashing wings. While the creature struggles, more shadowed figures burst from the alleys and climb down gutters. Half of them run toward the beast’s head with daggers and fire pokers that they stab into its legs and underbelly, and the other half scurry around its stumbling feet like ants, reaching to secure the rope.

  The smoke beast roars and swings its head, but before it can breathe its deadly fire, more figures emerge carrying pots of water, which they splash into the beast’s face. Scalding billows of steam churn into the sky, and the lethal tang of sulfur and brimstone is so overwhelming that I gag. As the creature struggles, the net tightens. The beast attempts to turn but stumbles over the rope and crashes to its knees.

  I watch, stunned, as the group pins it to the ground and a boy—a gawky, pole-armed boy—raises an ax and cleaves the smoke beast’s head from its neck.

  He laughs as slick blood sprays his face.

  “What in Heaven’s name …” Desgrez’s voice trails off as the boy struts toward us, wiping his ax clean on his stained tunic. His straw-colored hair is matted in clumps and his eyes are feral and hungry. He couldn’t be more than fourteen, but he carries himself with an air of authority—shoulders square, brows set in his serious, crinkled forehead. He whistles and the shadowy figures that had been holding the net hustle to join him. They continue to pour from the crevasses and spindle down from the balconies like spiders. Every one of them is rail-thin with scraggly hair, and they’re armed to the teeth with daggers and pokers and clubs.

  Shivers flash down my arms, and I take a stumbling step back.

  A street gang. Paris is crawling with them—children who run from the orphanages, preferring to eke out an existence picking pockets in the gutter. It’s a cruel and merciless life, according to Gris, who took up with one of these gangs before Mother found him. He says the children are as hardened as any proper criminal. That they would have happily mugged Louis XIV himself had they spotted his carriage rumbling down the street.

  They surround us like a pack of wolves, and I shrink closer to Josse and Desgrez—though I’m not entirely sure they’ll protect me again. Neither has so much as looked in my direction.

  The boy slings the ax over his shoulder and says, “You’d be dead if it weren’t for us, and our protection doesn’t come free.” Desgrez edges toward his rapier at the side of the road, but the straw-haired boy swings his ax into the cobbles. Jagged bits of rock fly into the air, and he laughs when Desgrez jumps back. Which seems to be an invitation for the rest of the band to laugh. “I wouldn’t do that, monsieur.”

  “Let us pass,” Desgrez says.

  “Gladly. If you pay.” The boy cocks his head and grins, poking his tongue through a hole where one of his front teeth should be.

  “We haven’t got any money.” Josse pats his filthy tunic and breeches.

  “Surely you’ve got something worth taking?”

  “We didn’t ask for your assistance,” Desgrez says. “You cannot hold us hostage.”

  “Can’t we?” The boy swings his ax again. Josse and Desgrez narrowly dodge the bit, but I’m far enough away to notice how the boy’s voice cracks when he laughs. The way he winces when he returns the ax to his shoulder.

  I look at him more closely. His eyes are sallow, his neck swollen, and his skin is slick and wan. Behind his cocky grin, his breath is shallow and rattling.

  Scrofula fever.

  And his bandmates are no better off, sweating and coughing, their skin riddled with scabs.

  “You will let us pass,” Desgrez hollers. “Or—”

  I rush forward and place a hand on Josse’s arm. He recoils with a hiss, as if burned by my touch. “What do you want?” he says without meeting my gaze.

  I remove my hand and swallow hard. “T-they’re ill,” I whisper. “And I can help them.”

  Josse says nothing, but the accusation in his eyes hurtles through the silence: The same way you helped my father? Why should I believe a word out of your deceitful mouth?

  “If we help them, we might be able to recruit them to our cause… .”

  Josse bristles, and I’m certain he’s about to inform me there is no cause, but at last he gives me a curt nod, snags the back of Desgrez’s brown robe, and hauls him away from the boy before their argument can come to blows.

  Taking a deep breath, I skirt around Josse and Desgrez and approach the children as I would injured animals, holding out my hands for all to see. “When did you start coughing?”

  The boy’s eyes narrow and the children behind him regard me with suspicion.

  I press on. “How many days ago did the pustules appear? It’s important you remember exactly.”

  Still the boy says nothing, but several of his bandmates glance down and tug their tunics.

  “I can help you, but I need to know how far the sickness has progressed.”

  Two children grunt and poke the boy in the back. The straw-haired boy glares at me, stone-faced. “The first of us noticed the sores last week.”

  “There’s still time, then. I haven’t a curative with me, but—”

  “You know the remedy?”

  “I do. I can distill it and bring it to you later tonight.”

  The boy shakes his head. “You’ll do it now. Under our watch.” He gestures down the road with his ax, like a gaoler marching prisoners to the stocks. I suppress a smile. This boy is unflinching. Exactly the sort of ally we need.

  “I’ve one condition,” I begin, but Josse clears his throat and steps in front of me.

  He points at the hulking shell of the smoke beast. “That was an impressive feat.”

  The boy shrugs, but a satisfied smile teases his lips. “That’s the third one we’ve killed this week. We used to rob carriages and carts coming to and from Les Halles, but after the beasties burned the riverbank, people are willing to pay dearly for protection.”

  “Very clever,” Josse says.

  “Aye.” The boy pulls back his bony shoulders. “We behead the monsters and harry the masked patrols. And before the king’s death, the Paris Police trembled at the mere mention of us.”

  Josse studies the boy as if they are long-lost brothers. “What’s your name?”

  “Gavril.”

  “What would you say to a partnership of sorts, Gavril?”

  “Depends what you’re offering.”

  “Why would we offer them anything?” Desgrez cuts in. “They’re a group of feral brats.”

  Gavril spits into the road and bunches back his shirtsleeves.

  “With a very useful skill set,” Josse says in a rush, placing himself between Desgrez and Gavril. “What if I told you, in e
xchange for continuing to hunt the smoke beasts and badgering the Shadow Society patrols, I could offer you not only medication for your illness but all the food you can eat? And a proper roof over your heads. No more stalking the streets—unless you wish to, of course.”

  The children whisper in excitement, but Gavril holds up a hand. “Who are you to offer such things? And to what end?”

  “I’m Josse de Bourbon, bastard son of the late king. My brother, Louis, is alive and plans to make a stand against the Shadow Society and reclaim the throne. But he needs the help of the commoners to do so. We need your help.”

  “We’ve no need for a king!” one of the children yells, and several others agree. “What did he ever do for us?”

  “The dauphin will be a different sort of king,” Josse says. “He will listen to the voice of the people. You will have representatives at court and proper food and shelter. As well as medication, as I said before.”

  The children sneer and roll their eyes. I don’t blame them. Every time we make these proclamations, a small measure of doubt simmers in my own belly. I want to believe our plan will work, but we’re making an awful lot of promises on behalf of a person who detests me. Who wants to kill me. Who has probably never even considered these orphans’ existence. I can’t imagine Louis will be eager to work with them—or any of our recruits.

  Gavril chews the inside of his cheek and his eyes take on a mischievous gleam. “What if I said our price was the Palais Royal? Would you let us live there?”

  He knows it’s a monumental demand.

  So does Josse. He tugs his collar and swallows several times before saying, “Consider it done.”

  Desgrez coughs so hard, I’m shocked his eyes don’t burst from his head. “Josse, be reasonable! That’s the residence of the Duc d’Orléans, second only to the Louvre in grandeur! The duc and nobility will never stand for it.”

  “If he’s alive, the duc will be forced to accept it. In this new era, we all must make accommodations. The Palais Royal is a small price to pay for such an advantageous alliance.”

  A delighted smile illuminates Gavril’s dirty face, and he looks up at the bastard princeling as if he were the king himself.