Enchantée(116)

“We’ll dine here tonight?” he suggested. “I’ll send my valet to the kitchens. And we can discuss the wedding. We’ll marry quickly, non?”

She nodded, slowly. The dress was unhappy, its fabric suddenly rough against her skin. But until she had a better idea than the one idea circling in her mind, she had to play along.

“We’ll see Sophie before the wedding, n’est-ce pas?” she asked. “I need to speak with her about everything that’s happened. I’m afraid she won’t be pleased.” If Sophie truly did care for Séguin, she would be furious with Camille. But if that were the price of getting Sophie away from him, she would gladly pay it.

“Bien. We’ll visit her in the morning. But, until then, a glass of wine.” He unstoppered a crystal carafe that glowed garnet from a side table.

She was suddenly very thirsty. “Of course, monsieur.”

He held out two glasses. “You must call me Jean-Baptiste.”

Camille took one and drank. The wine was deliciously rich, somehow alive. She took another sip. And another. It would help steady her.

“Jean-Baptiste.” Her tongue stumbled over the unfamiliar syllables. “When will we see my sister tomorrow? What time?”

“How eager you are! By midday? I can do many things, but I cannot shorten the distance between Versailles and Paris.”

Camille rubbed her forehead. Séguin’s voice seemed suddenly strange, as if it were coming from a far distance. And the carpet seemed to shift under her feet. On the wall, the tapestry’s sad unicorn turned its head to her. The tapestry’s flowering plants twined and twisted. She blinked.

“To think I was once foolish enough to believe you cared for the Marquis de Sablebois,” he mused as he set his wine down. The glass was full.

“Very foolish.” Her words echoed strangely in her head. Séguin cheats. “There is something in the wine,” Camille mumbled. Her head swam, and as if in a dream, she slowly opened her hand and let the empty glass tumble onto the carpet. “What is it?”

“Just something to help you rest, my darling,” he said, catching her elbow. “A bride must sleep well before her wedding.”

She thought she heard the tapestry’s chained unicorn laugh. “I don’t wish to sleep now! I wish to see Sophie,” Camille said, tears in her eyes. “I’ve been so worried about her.”

“Tomorrow.”

She knew what she wanted to say but the right words did not come. “Why did you drug me?” she managed to say. Suddenly, her knees gave way, but Séguin held her up, his hand like iron around her waist.

“Just to be safe,” he said in her ear. “Time is running out mon trésor, and I’ve waited so long.”

A thousand years ago she’d wondered if what he wanted was to push her up against a wall in an empty room, thrust her skirts above her knees. Now he might do anything. If she shouted for help, no one would come. She tried to blink back the tears, but they streamed heedless down her face.

And then Séguin kissed her, on her wet cheek—she felt his teeth and his tongue scrape against her skin. She recoiled, but he had her by the arm.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

He touched her face. It was almost a caress. “The tears of a magician are too valuable to waste.” Slowly, Séguin licked his fingertips, one by one. “They are the most powerful magic, shed in pain, full of sorrow and lost wishes.”

Camille drew a ragged breath. Underneath his cologne, she smelled cold magic. Cinders. Dead fires. Ash. “Don’t touch me.”

Séguin gently smoothed Camille’s hair back from her face. “Ah, ma chèrie, give it time. It could be your magic, too. This is the way we aristocrats did it before. The queen once showed me a magician’s library, hidden behind a wall in an unused room. In it were grimoires from the time when magicians vied with the kings of France for power. They did not always use their own sorrow. Sablebois was right, that night in the gardens: we used to take the blood of the poor. It was by studying the grimoires that I made Chandon my well.”

“You took his blood?”

“Or his tears. It didn’t matter—I needed his sorrow.”

“With this magic you have nearly killed him, you monster.”

Séguin chuckled. “Chandon is so openhearted that it was too easy. But if he refused, I would have asked the queen to have Foudriard sent elsewhere. Somewhere Chandon could not follow. Say, on a tour of duty in Sénégal? Or in Indochine? It takes months to reach those places. If the boat doesn’t sink first.”

Imagine if he were sent elsewhere and I not allowed to go, Chandon had said.

“I hate you.”

“Come, that’s a little severe, isn’t it? We magicians do what we need to do, and I needed more magic. Alas, I went a bit too far. There were so many things for which I needed the magic that I took too much from him. I won’t make that mistake with you.” He licked another tear off his finger as if sucking at the remains of a caramel. “This time, I’ll be careful.”

“Why do you need more? To avoid the pain?” Camille wobbled backward, her heels catching in the carpet. She groped for words. “You’ll hurt me and take my tears? My blood?”

“Hurt is a strong word. You can be cleverer than Chandon and give me your sorrow willingly. If not, I can always encourage the sorrow to come forth. Your sister might help.”