An Affair of Poisons(61)
“Of course,” I say, bobbing a curtsy at Gavril. “I just have one small favor to ask. If we’re all headed in the same direction, would you mind helping me carry the body?” I point to the hulking smoke beast, and the gaiety dies out. The children stare as if I’ve lost my mind.
Desgrez, who hasn’t stopped grumbling since Josse began negotiating with Gavril, slaps a palm to his forehead and groans. “What could you possibly want with the creature’s body?”
“What any good alchemist would want,” I say fiercely. “To experiment.”
18
JOSSE
The millinery feels oppressively quiet after Gavril and his gang depart with their tincture. Every crackle of the fire makes me jump; the steady drip of the smoke beast’s blood on the floor bores a hole into my brain.
I would have left with them, but the majority of the orphans made it clear they’re not comfortable rubbing elbows with a royal just yet. And I couldn’t return to the sewer with Desgrez to check on my sisters, despite how desperate I am to see them. Apparently Louis isn’t ready to see my “traitorous, double-crossing face.” I’m not ready to see his haughty, piggish face either. Which means I’m trapped here, inside these four shrinking walls, with Mirabelle.
We both retreat to our separate corners and fall asleep immediately—a welcome reprieve. But as soon as she wakes, I can feel her looking at me. She’s pretending not to, hunched over the grotesque body of the creature on the counter. It looks like a gutted fish on the wharf—or a whale, more like. She had to cut it into pieces to fit it through the door. Most are still piled in the alleyway behind the millinery. A portion of its belly is splayed across the board, and despite being elbow-deep in its foul black innards, she glances my way every few seconds. Hoping to catch my gaze as she did on the street.
Stare all you’d like, I want to snap. It’s not going to help. But that would require speaking to her, which I’m also unwilling to do. With an overloud sigh, I turn to face the wall and tip my tricorne hat over my face. It’s the easy way out, but I don’t know what she expects me to say. I can’t pretend I’m not bothered by the fact she murdered my father—and Rixenda, too, in a way—then conveniently omitted those details when I asked her about Versailles.
So, I settle in and pretend to be exhausted. Which doesn’t require much acting at all. My limbs still feel like curdled pudding, and I’m covered in cuts and bruises from the bedamned smoke beast.
The creature continues to assault me, even in death. Its drying scales reek of rotting eggs and it makes horrid squelching noises as Mirabelle drags a knife down the center of its gut and peels back the pulpy skin.
My stomach flips and I gag. This is, without a doubt, the most disgusting thing I’ve ever witnessed. Even worse than helping Rixenda disembowel lambs. I stuff my nose down my shirt and close my eyes, but after three more nauseating incisions, I can’t take it anymore.
“Haven’t you cut it into enough pieces?” I wave at the hunks of mutilated flesh lying across the table.
Mirabelle’s eyes flit to mine, but she must not like my expression—which I admit feels rather hostile—because she hurriedly wipes her sweaty forehead on her sleeve and returns her attention to the beast. “Not until I discover its inner workings. The beasts are half mine, so I should be able to control them the way Lesage does.” She blows a curl away from her eyes, slices off another hunk of meat, and tosses it into the nearest pot.
“And how do you plan to do that?”
“By boiling it down to a broth, which I will then drink—if I can swallow it,” she adds when she sees my horrified expression, “with the hopes that it will join my composition with the beasts’.” I shudder and avert my gaze. “I still don’t understand why we can’t allow Gavril and the orphans to take care of them. They’re good at it, and they seem to enjoy it.”
“It’s not enough. No matter how many they kill, Lesage can always conjure more. In order to defeat the Shadow Society, we will need command of the monsters.”
“And if your putrid stew doesn’t work?”
She looks down at the pot with a wary yet determined expression. “Then I’ll try making its skin into an amulet or grinding its bones into powder.”
“So much to look forward to,” I groan.
“You can leave if you need to,” she says, and I spring to my feet faster than a jackrabbit. But before I reach the door she adds, “Or you can help.”
“I think I’ll pass.”
“Not help with the beast, obviously.”
“What, then?” I turn and let my arms slap against my sides. “I’m not permitted to do anything other than chop herbs, and as much as I enjoyed that …”
Mirabelle purses her lips and pushes her father’s red grimoire across the table toward me. “Help me brew another antidote to Viper’s Venom.”
My laughter is sharp and cynical. “I thought I’m not to be trusted with your father’s recipes.” Which I’ve decided is fine by me. I don’t trust myself with them either. Not after seeing Mirabelle, a trained alchemist, fail to create the proper antidote. “I know nothing about alchemy.”
“Lucky for you, I’m an excellent teacher. I’ll walk you through each step. I haven’t enough hands to dissect the smoke beast and distill the antipoison at the same time. I need you, Josse. Please.” The way she says please—so soft and beseeching—it sounds more like an apology than a request. But I’m even more dumbfounded by what she called me—my name, rather than “princeling.” I can hardly bear to look at her, yet my traitorous ears revel in the sound of my name on her lips.