Poison Priestess

by Lana Popovic

  “She likes you,” I inform him, trying to keep my voice steady, though in truth, I am a little rattled by his nearness. “You should be flattered. Alecto is quite discerning as to the company she keeps.”

  “Alecto!” His eyes widen with delight. “The Endless? You named your snake after one of the Erinyes? I find myself both bewitched and alarmed.”

  I start at that, surprised that he not only recognizes the name but even knows what the Furies are called in the Greek. “I have all three, actually—though Megaera and Tisiphone are in their vivarium tonight. They are not quite so tractable in public as their sister.”

  He nods a little abstractedly, still stroking Alecto’s scales. “And why the choice of name? Though I suppose it’s of a piece with a Medusa masque.”

  “I do have a weakness for Greek mythology,” I admit. “Apollodorus’s Bibliotecha was one of the first books I read for pleasure. And the Erinyes are infernal goddesses of vengeance. I suppose the notion appeals to me in some way.”

  “Vengeance on men, and those who have sworn false oaths,” he murmurs, surprising me all the more. His fingertips drift from the snake to my own skin, eyes flicking up to gauge my response. When I do not move away, he continues delicately tracing up my throat. “Ever more intriguing, my lady.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?” I murmur back, a little hoarsely. Besides Marie, no one—certainly no man—has ever touched me like this before. The weight of his attention feels both heady and disconcerting. “You know I am no highborn dame.”

  “Because you are so clearly formidable, even without any title.” He leans forward to brush a searing kiss under my chin, seemingly fearless of the snake that curls not far from his lips. “And therefore much, much worthier of respect than most born to the blood.”

  When he lifts his head, eyes latching to mine, my lips part to meet his kiss.

  His mouth is deft and scorching, his hand sure at my back, the other rising to wrap around my nape. He tastes sweet beneath the wine, of nutmeg and mint, the callus of his palm a warm scrape against my neck. The feel of him is intoxicating, enticing, and unfamiliar. The shape of his desire tantalizing in its strangeness, rougher and more urgent than kissing Marie has ever been.

  Almost a little dangerous, somehow—but in a way I find appeals to me.

  At the thought of Marie, I feel the slightest pang of guilt, as if I am breaking her trust by sharing a kiss with someone else when I am not even permitted to see her. But there was never any promise made between us, no mention of fidelity. And though I have not heard from her since she wrote to tell me that she understood why I must keep away, I believe she would not begrudge me this closeness now.

  Adam pulls back slightly, as if he can feel the current of hesitation running beneath my skin.

  “A problem, my lady?” he asks, his voice still low and uneven. He pulls the springing curls by my face through his fingers, drawing them out to their full lengths. “Some uncertainty, perhaps? It is late, as you said. And I would not wish to overstay my welcome.”

  “No,” I reply, leaning forward to whisper the rest against his lips. “I was only thinking that I … that I want you to stay.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Invitation and the Rift

  Though my days are pleasantly haunted by the flickering memory of our night together, painted in candlelight, I am also so preoccupied with my study of the noblesse’s wishes that I manage not to dwell exclusively on Adam for the following fortnight.

  Until his invitation lands on my escritoire.

  “ ‘I hope you can forgive the abominable delay in my communication, my lady—at least enough to join me for another evening of sublime diversion,’ ” I read aloud, my lips curving at his brazenness. His penmanship is very like him, too, both whimsical and deliberate. “ ‘A special fete devised with you in mind.’ ”

  I tap the paper against my pursed lips, considering. Is becoming more entangled with him wise when I should be focused instead on my work, on ensuring that my star continues in its steady rise?

  But I want to see Adam. And I’ve earned a respite, I reassure myself as I begin to pen my response, having scarcely taken a day of rest since the Black Mass. My sight is in more demand than ever, and deciphering my list of wishes takes up countless hours. Some of my guests were annoyingly cryptic in their prayers, perhaps assuming Lucifer could glimpse into their hearts even without the clearest guidance. And some were likely merely being discreet, veiling their desires from their peers’ prying eyes. It takes a finicky combination of scrying and educated guesswork to discern the truth of them.

  So far, I’ve managed to surmise that Monsieur Philbert is raging at his mistress, wishing some dread vengeance on her for having thrown him over. Meanwhile, the Vicomte de Couserans merely longs for more excitement, whether it be in the form of a fresh lover or a novel business venture. And the Marquis de Cessac covets his brother’s beautiful wife with a troublingly overzealous ardor.

  Only the Marquise de Montespan remains single-minded as ever, dogged in her one desire, yearning only to sink her claws ever more deeply into the king.

  Petty and downright vicious as their wishes are, I find plenty of opportunities, spaces into which I might insert myself via talismans, potions, and spells. Still, I’m thrilled at the prospect of a night away from the headache of it all.

  Especially, I consider as my chambermaid tucks the final whalebone pin into my upswept hair the following evening, if it is a night spent in Adam’s company.

  When my carriage rattles through the city’s gates, dusk has drawn over Paris like a damask curtain. Summer’s languor has yielded to autumn with unaccustomed haste, setting the city’s foliage ablaze with the turning. The air tastes sweet and chilly with the promise of the coming frost, and my breath fogs in ghostly plumes against the window glass. As we roll along the promenade of the Cours-la-Reine, I marvel at the fiery, dying splendor of its four rows of regal elms.

  Being back inside the city walls tugs at me painfully, as if this incrementally greater nearness to Marie only enhances the dull yet ever-present ache of missing her. It has been over a month now since I have seen her in person, and nearly three weeks since she wrote to me last. I can barely fathom that I will be spending this coming winter without her warmth, and yet this is where I find myself.

  Then my breath halts altogether when I spot a familiar figure hastening across the promenade, her pennant of dark hair whipping in the wind. As if I have conjured her there with the sheer force of my yearning.

  “Stop!” I call to my coachman, my heart kicking up. I track Marie’s weaving progress through the pedestrians, afraid to let her leave my sight. “Do you hear me, stop now!”

  I fling myself out of the carriage almost before it’s rolled to a full halt, rushing after her. I know my coachman is still the marquise’s man, but I have taken to augmenting his salary with my own coin—enough that I can buy his silence for at least this one encounter.

  When I grip her shoulder, Marie wheels around to face me, her teeth all but bared, a stiletto materializing in each hand. Shock whips back and forth between us like a jagged rod of lightning as we take each other in.

  “Catherine?” she says incredulously, her eyes narrowing even as she lowers her knives. “What are you doing here?”

  I ignore the question, searching her face.

  “What’s happened to you?” I half whisper, setting my hands on her frail shoulders. Where she was once slim, my best friend is now painfully gaunt, her bones standing stark beneath her skin. She’s clearly been eating neither often nor well. Her lips are tinged dark blue with chill, and the whites of her eyes murky as puddle water, bleary from lack of sleep. “You look …”

  “Terrible,” she finishes flatly, blowing a wayward strand of hair out of her mouth. “How observant of you. Whereas you look quite splendid, a proper lady.”

  Recoiling a little at the unexpected sharpness of her tone, I jerk my chin back to the carriage.

&
nbsp; “Why don’t you come talk with me?” I offer. “I can take you wherever you’re headed, save you the walk. Steal a little time together, just this once.”

  “Oh, how generous of you.” She sheathes her stilettos, casting my waiting carriage a withering look even as her shoulders quake with cold under my hands. Her cloak is threadbare, worn nearly transparent from overuse. “But you know, it being such a lovely bracing night, I really think I’d rather walk.”

  “Marie!” I exclaim, consternation sweeping over me at her acerbic demeanor, this almost-cruelty that I’ve never seen from her before; at least, not wielded against me. I reach for her thin arm as she turns away. “I understand that you are … angry with me, perhaps, for keeping away. But I told you, I explained why it was necessary. And you wrote to me that you understood!”

  “And I do, Catherine.” She huffs out a faint husk of a laugh laced with bitterness. “I understand altogether better than I wish.”

  I should have known, I think with a sinking heart, from the brevity of her last note, that all was not right between us. And yet I did not question her, press her on it.

  Perhaps I simply did not wish to know the depth of her distress.

  “I understand that when push truly came to shove, you chose this life”—here, she gestures scathingly at my fine brocade skirts, the plush ermine lining of my cloak—“over me. Without so much as a backward glance.”

  “You know it was not like that!” I protest, though guilt gnaws sharply at me in response to the accusation. “I, I wrote you every week! Is this why you haven’t written back, because you were cross with me? But you know that the marquise demanded that I not—”

  “And you did not exactly fight her, did you, Catherine?” Marie breaks in, her eyes glittering with a well of sudden, furious tears. “When she directed you to jump, you leapt dutifully at her bidding. As if leaving me behind barely even pained you.”

  “Of course it pained me! Of course it did!”

  She gives a listless half-shrug, looking away from me. “Not enough, it would seem.”

  Perhaps she is right, at least in part. For all that I have missed her every day, perhaps I acquiesced to the marquise’s demands more readily than I should have, for fear of being thrust out of my promising new life and banished back to the cité. To the specter of poverty and squalor ever looming forbiddingly over my head.

  As if now that I have become accustomed to so much more, that old life—the one Marie still inhabits—has become the worst fate that I could imagine for myself.

  I wish desperately to draw her into my arms, but there is little Marie puts more stock by than her pride. And I can see that I have wounded it badly, along with her secretly tender heart.

  I lick my dry lips instead, attempting to gather myself. “Please, Marie, give me only a few minutes. I keep a spare cloak in the carriage as well. If you like, you need only stay until you’ve warmed your bones.”

  She chews her lip, her face still simmering with hurt, but it is the promise of warmth that finally sways her. She gives a grudging nod and follows me inside, shrugging me off brusquely when I move to help her up. After I’ve ordered the coachman to strike ahead once more, I throw the cloak over her shoulders and take her hands into my lap, chafing them briskly as I’ve done so many times before. Out of the two of us, I have always run much hotter, though her hands have never been quite this icy or frail.

  “Thanks,” she says, stiff as a stranger, eyeing me askance. “It is damnably cold. Normally I would not mind bidding all that summer stench and scorch adieu. But this year, well … this winter promises to be rather worse than most.”

  “Why?” I ask, squeezing her hands. “What has you so run down?”

  “The vagaries of life, ma belle,” she retorts with a wry twist of her lips. “Or have you quite forgotten how pressing those can be?”

  “It must be more than that,” I say quietly, giving her a level look. “The Marie Bosse I know is more than equal to such predicaments.”

  “The Marie Bosse you know has never been nearly penniless, nor hunted by the king’s men,” she spits, turning to stare blackly out the window. “Have you truly become so sheltered that you have heard nothing of the recent police raids on the cité?”

  “Raids?” I reply blankly. “Beyond the Palais Royal, why would the king even concern himself with Île de la cité?”

  “It is not the Île on the whole, but the cité itself that offends him,” she replies, withdrawing her hands from mine. She tilts her temple against the window, fingernails tapping a nervous tattoo against the glass. “The cité’s welter of magicians and sorcerers, that is. We criminals and so-called charlatans who deal in something so vulgar as magic. His Majesty means to stamp us out.”

  I lean back into the cushions, awash in sudden understanding. From what I’ve heard from his courtiers, the Sun King prizes logic and reason over anything that smacks of the arcane. The new Royal Academy of Sciences enjoys his august patronage, and he has equipped its observatory with a telescope so powerful it can surveil the stars themselves. Rumor even has it that when one of the royal menagerie’s elephants died, Louis not only donated it to the academy for dissection but insisted on being present for the procedure, so fascinated was he with the physicians’ expertise.

  Of course a king who so esteems science and disdains superstition would wish to grind the cité’s havens under his heel. Even as his own maîtresse-en-titre keeps a sorceress and his courtiers flock to my Black Mass. I know from the marquise that the king only indulges his beloved mistress’s darker games to keep her content, even as her tastes run against his own grain. But what it amounts to, in the end, is the same disparity that always defines the gaping schism between the poor and the rich.

  As ever, the rules imposed upon the lowborn do not apply to the noblesse.

  “Quelle pagaille,” I murmur, shaking my head. “What a terrible mess.”

  “It is much worse than a mess,” Marie responds bleakly. “Not only is he tossing us into Vincennes and the Conciergerie upon mere suspicion of wrongdoing, he is stealing our livelihood. We are mostly too busy evading his patrols to properly ply our trade. I’ve barely been able to see even my regulars, not when everything is so deuced uncertain.”

  “Do you need money?” I ask, reaching for my coin purse. “I could—

  ” “No.” She cuts me off with a slicing gesture, her tone hardening. “Or rather, I do, but not from you, Catherine. Not when I no longer even know what we are to each other.”

  I drop my eyes and roll my tongue along the inside of my cheek, burning with some ambiguous shame. I suppose I do not know what we are to each other, either. And I certainly do not know how I am to bridge this new rift between us, without sacrificing everything that I have gained.

  As if she can sense my turmoil, her face turns a touch more gentle. With a wistful ghost of our old fondness, she leans into the space between us to tip a finger under my chin.

  “Is this truly the life you wish, ma belle?” she asks softly. “Everything you’ve told me of the noblesse, their schemes and plots against each other … do you really want to build up your life so entwined with them, ever pandering to their endless treachery? I know you worry for Antoine, but he would find his own way even if the marquise demanded a return of her sum. Men like him, they always do, when their hides are on the line. You could still come back to the cité, if you wanted. You could come back to me.”

  “Oh, Marie,” I whisper, tears leaping into my eyes even as I avert them, unable to withstand the intensity of her gaze. “You are my … the dearest friend I’ve ever known. But—”

  “ ‘Friend,’ ” she echoes with a bitter shake of her head. “How long will you cling to this tired fiction? Why do I even bother to try, when you are so unwilling to admit how much more lies between us besides friendship?”

  I take a deep breath, uncertain how to respond. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am afraid. But even if we set us aside, it is not only concern for An
toine that keeps me here. Life with the marquise … it gives me room, Marie. Room to become someone I could never have been before. Someone strong. Someone free.”

  She closes her eyes for a long moment, shaking her head slowly. “Can you not see how such a freedom will consume you, Catherine? If you can even call it that in the end?”

  “But I am only doing what I must,” I argue. “Surely you of all people can understand as much, after all you’ve done to survive.”

  She shakes her head ruefully, thumping the carriage’s roof to signal the coachman to stop.

  “Except that I would never willingly rid myself of you, ma belle,” she says. “No matter the cost of keeping you. But that is you, is it not? By hook or by crook, ma belle always gets her way.”

  And with a wounded glance that runs me through more neatly than her stilettos ever could, she alights from the carriage and disappears into the night. Leaving behind only a resounding silence, and the lingering scent of citron and sandalwood.

  It could not have ended any other way, I tell myself, though my chest feels like a cavity, a bloody abyss stripped of something vital.

  And at least, I think for some small measure of comfort, she has my fine cloak to keep her warm.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Mirror and the Devil

  I am in a black mood when I reach Adam’s abode, still brooding over my encounter with Marie. The magician lives on the Rue Saint-Jacques in a half-timbered townhouse sagging tiredly against its more upstanding neighbors. But when I rap the tarnished knocker against the flimsy door, a petite and well-groomed maidservant opens it to greet me with a smile.

  “Welcome, Madame La Voisin,” she says with a smooth dip of her head, gesturing me in. “Monsieur Lesage is expecting you. And the others have already arrived.”

  “The others?” I echo, bemused, as I step beside her into the foyer’s dim interior. The walls are papered in somber maroon, and the gloom so dense with dust the candelabra’s watery light barely manages to dilute its murk. “But I thought it was to be just the two of us tonight?”