An Affair of Poisons(55)
I grip the standing ruff of his collar so tightly, it rips away from his shirt when another tremor overtakes him, this one even more forceful than the first. He twists and moans, his bones snapping like the crack of a whip. His hand tightens around my forearm and his fingernails pierce my skin like five tiny blades. They cut deeper and deeper, until suddenly the pressure is gone. His legs give a final jerk, then he’s still. Sprawled across my lap.
I shake him, even though I know it’s useless. I shake him and shake him and shake him, as other grotesque, bleeding faces flash through my mind: the Sun King, Madame de Montespan, the Duc de Vend?me and his men.
How many more?
I whimper into the back of my hand, and the duc slides from my lap. His flaccid cheek presses into the floor.
“It was supposed to work. Why didn’t it work?” I’m unsure if I’m talking to the duc, or Josse, or myself, but the words pour from me like the blood that poured from the duc’s mouth. Drenching me until I’m shivering and shaking, rocking forward and back with my palms pressed to my eyes.
Spirits of hartshorn, camphor, and a strong brine of salt. Simmered for five hours and pushed through a sieve. I mentally review the recipe again and again.
I did everything right.
“Mira?” Josse touches my arm but I don’t respond. “We need to go. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
I hunch over the duc’s body like a vulture. There is more. I should be able to do more. If I could only just …
What? I may be an alchemist, but I’ve no Elixir of Life or panacea. I can’t even brew a proper antipoison. I am a failure. A disgrace.
Josse begs and pleads, prods and pushes, but I sit on the floor, my skirts soaking up the Duc de Luxembourg’s blood, until Josse loses patience. Muttering oaths, he crouches beside me and slides an arm around my back and beneath my arms. “I’m not being indecent. I’m just helping you up.”
I’m too numb to fight him. He hefts me off the floor and I sag against his side, boneless and tripping as he guides me down the hall. Some far-off, distant part of me is mortified, but the part of me that failed to save the duc is too empty to care.
16
JOSSE
Mirabelle feels like a corpse in my arms—as if she is the one who perished from Viper’s Venom. Her glassy eyes stare out at nothing. Her arms hang, leaden and swinging, as I retrace our steps down the stairs and into the garden.
I boost her over the wall and tug her down the street. The entire time she looks as if she’s sleepwalking. I clear my throat and glance down every few minutes, imploring her to look at me. I haven’t a clue what I’ll say, but some sign of life would be comforting. She looks as brittle as a wasp’s nest. Hollowed out with grief.
A light rain begins to fall, and I tug my hat lower to shield my face. Mirabelle does the opposite, tipping her head back, so streams of water trickle down her cheeks. They almost look like tears.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” I blurt out when I can’t stand the silence any longer. “You’ve saved scores of people. Think of the poor on the rue du Temple and the sick in the H?tel-Dieu. This is just a minor setback.”
“A minor setback?” she shouts, wheeling around. We both flinch and scan the road. She steps closer and continues in a furious whisper. “How can you say that when you’ve seen what my mother is capable of? The good we’ve done won’t matter. It isn’t enough.”
“So we’ll do more …”
“I can’t do more.” Her voice cracks on the word can’t. “My father believed I would be a great alchemist, but I can’t even brew a simple antipoison.”
“The Viper’s Venom antipoison is hardly simple! You said so yourself.”
“Forget everything I said. I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about.” She charges ahead, her fists clenched at her sides, and my breath comes a bit easier as I jog to catch up. I may not have consoled her, but anger is better than the blank nothingness of before.
Anger means she hasn’t given up.
At long last, the millinery comes into view. I drag myself the final excruciating blocks, practically salivating at the thought of my lumpy pile of scraps. My body feels as limp as a deboned pheasant and I intend to fall through the door and sleep for days, but something crunches beneath my boots as I trudge up the steps. I squint through the shadows at what appear to be tiny bits of cracked white paint. Mirabelle is reaching for the door when I realize where the paint came from. I fling my arm out to stop her.
“Don’t!”
“I swear on my father’s grave if you try to—”
I put a finger to my lips and point up at the glaring brown hole in the center of the lintel, then down at the flecks of paint littering the steps like snow. “Someone’s inside.” I am barely short enough to pass through the door without disturbing the decaying paint, which means whoever entered is taller than I and still within, else their boots would have scattered the paint chips to the cobbles.
The color drains from Mirabelle’s face, and we retreat down the steps to consider the shop. It looks exactly as it did when we left—windows blackened, shutters drawn, and the door shut tight—but those tiny flecks of paint scream, Go no farther. “Wait over there.” I point to the alleyway between the millinery and a gambling den.