One for All, page 32
One man hands shook. I vaguely recognized him from a party—some lord or another; I’d only seen him in passing. He stared at Théa like she was a creature from the darkest depths of his nightmares. Théa’s entire body tensed, and I thought for a moment she’d frozen like that day in the maze. But the next second she unleashed a guttural cry, raining a series of attacks down on him, each one more vicious than the next.
A flurry of color shot from the armchair. Hands unlatching window shutters, then lifting their owner’s body out and over the sill. I caught a flash of dark hair, of green. With a cry, I wrenched through the duelists to where he’d disappeared. Verdon.
Behind me, les Mousquetaires de la Lune whirled like children’s tops. The room was ablaze with their clashing swords, with their colorful skirts mixing together and wrenching apart. Portia and Aria fought back-to-back, their blades never ceasing, Portia even laughing as she knocked an opponent’s sword clean out of his hand.
“You can’t let him get away!” Théa shrieked at my hesitation. She sidestepped to parry an attack that would’ve cut her clean through.
“But you’re outnumbered!” I returned, kicking aside an injured man, groaning, who tried to pull himself up from the floor with a nearby chair for leverage.
Portia hissed loud enough to hear even over the crash of metal. Blood stained her sleeve, dripping onto her bare hand, but as I started toward her, she let out a pained shout. “Je jure si tu n’y vas pas, je te botterai le cul!”
Portia didn’t make idle threats. If she swore that if I didn’t go, she’d kick my … well … I cursed. Pulled myself through the open window, curled my fingers around the sill, and counted one, two …
Fencing taught me how to fall. And oh, how I had ample time to practice what to do when my feet would no longer hold me. When my body fell prey to the pull of the earth.
It was over quickly. Teeth rattling in my skull. Flames singeing my feet. My bones groaned beneath my skin. The dizziness crashed over me as I waited for my world to steady itself.
There. A flash of coattails flapped behind the adjacent building, dissolving into air thick as ice. I sprinted after his blurry figure, barely registering the cold that had become part of my blood and bones.
The others would be fine. They would hold the conspirators off until the Musketeers arrived. But it would all be for nothing if I didn’t reach Verdon. Didn’t stall him until he was surrounded. And I wanted to see the look in his eyes when I told him who I was. Wanted to see the fear as I held my blade poised at his throat.
We flew down one street, then the next. I crashed into a wall as dizziness stained my vision, staggering before I continued down a shadowed alleyway, refuse from the nearby boulangerie littering the dark cobblestone. The alley was whispering my name—no—crooning. Tania. Tania. Tania.
La Cour des Miracles.
Precariously tilted buildings, rotting rafters, rags stoppering up empty door frames and holes in the walls, they all shook around me. My dizziness leveled them all.
I ran under a crumbling archway, leaped over a dangerous patch of ice, narrowly missing a girl my age. I gasped out an apology. One of her hands was pressed against a wall—was she using it for balance?
Aria had said that she thought there might be people like me, girls like me, here. Aria, the girl from La Cour; me, the sick girl … neither of us would’ve been accepted if it weren’t for our fathers. How strange, that the way we could help people like us was pretending not to be like them at all. To dress in gowns, to act like nobles, in order to create something better for all of us.
I shook my head to clear it and pushed onward.
Stars burst gold and onyx at the edges of my vision by the time I purposely looped far to his right, once we reached the edge of La Cour. Just like I’d planned, he darted left, to the bridge over the Seine. He thought he’d bested me. But what he didn’t know was, under Madame de Treville’s instructions, there’d be Musketeers waiting on the other side. Hidden away in the shadowed square.
He stopped short on the bridge. Merde. He’d probably realized that running on the streets of Paris, without the protection of La Cour or the docks, he’d surely be spotted. I reached for any last vestiges of energy. Willed my body into steel.
By the time he searched his surroundings, ready to double back and find other means of escape, I’d closed the distance to a few yards. With fire running through my veins, I reached for my sword, muddled through the gray waves. My fingers found the grip. Triumphantly, I unsheathed my sword, drew it on the man who plotted to kill the King. The man who killed my father.
“Monsieur Verdon, you are a traitor to your country. Not only have you conspired against your King for your own self-interest, but you have taken lives freely and without restraint.”
He froze. He was a bit shorter than I remembered from that day at the university, the outline of his body stark against the bridge.
“My name is Tania de Batz. You killed my father. Prepare yourself, sir. I will not ambush a man with his back turned. I have honor … unlike you.”
He finally turned, arms outstretched as he sank into a bow. He straightened with a good-natured smile.
“Oh, Tania. Always with the formality. I thought we agreed you’d call me Étienne?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
WHAT A CRUEL trick for my dizziness to play on me. Yet again making me see and hear things not truly of this world.
But when he approached, that fantasy came crashing down. A stroke of lightning followed by a thunderclap. Étienne, with the same smile he always wore, with his hazel eyes that melted even the coldest air. Hadn’t I seen green flashing through the window at The Gryphon … or was that only what I’d wanted to see? With a groan, I noticed Étienne’s hat, threaded with a green ribbon. No.
My lips cracked against the frost as I pried them apart. “But … I don’t understand. Where’s your father? Why aren’t you with your mother—shouldn’t someone be with her? She shouldn’t be alone, not when she’s so sick.”
“Tania,” he said. I’d done my best to forget how he said my name like a caress. Like he’d been saying it for years and years. He glanced at my weapon. “Why don’t you put that away before someone gets hurt.”
“I don’t understand,” I repeated. “I don’t understand. Why are you here? Don’t come any closer,” I added when he attempted to shorten the distance between us. My sword was steady.
“We both know you won’t use it.” Another step. His voice was soft, placating. Like when he’d coaxed me to dance with him. The night he took me in his arms. The night when I learned the sound of another’s heartbeat could be as musical as the strains of a minuet.
I shook my head. “You’re always so sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“You couldn’t manage to fight me last time. Why should today be any different?”
Confused, I watched his words spiral and swirl, smoke signals in the frosty air. And then that night came back to me. The darkness, the dizziness. “The masked thief … it was you? But I thought—”
“It was Henri?” The curve of his lips was horribly familiar. “All you needed was a little push. Me calling you Mademoiselle la Mousquetaire when you were sure only you and your friends knew about that name was enough to plant the seed. I’d overheard your friend use it—the blond one with the sour expression—outside the Marquis’s party. And then, the wig: the finishing touch. I’d seen Henri hours before I collected you for the theater, when I was examining the house for possible entrance points. None of you even considered that I sneaked in right after you returned from the theater, before the doors were locked for the night. All I had to do was wait for everyone to fall asleep. I knew it wouldn’t be too difficult to frame Henri, especially not after what you told me at the theater. Only one or two curls needed to slip from under my hat to convince you of his guilt. For a while, I was worried your friend was catching on, but she completely took the bait.”
I swallowed hard. “That’s awful,” I said, fighting the urge to grip my waist at the memory of Henri’s betrayed expression.
“Is it? You believed it, didn’t you?”
I vehemently shook my head, even as thoughts pressed at the back of my mind. “Of course not.”
He continued on like I hadn’t spoken. “The masked intruder kept you preoccupied chasing after dead ends. I’d hoped you’d tell the others what you’d seen, but, well, I’d come for the letters, first. Not for creating discord. That was a helpful, if unintended side effect. I was skeptical about oleum dulce vitrioli, but the alchemist was right: no real harm but with all the intended effect.
“In truth, I thought your father’s letters contained intelligence he obtained while undercover. I never would’ve risked it otherwise. But I suppose it wasn’t all for naught.” His face softened, and for a moment he looked like the man I thought I knew. “While I enjoyed reading about your childhood, the sections that detailed how to help you through your dizziness were quite instructive. I’d already intuited much of what I needed to do, through our conversations and overhearing what you told your friends, but it was nice to have my efforts confirmed.”
Sweet oil of vitriol … where had I heard that name before? And then it hit me—Madame de Treville’s encyclopedias—a substance people breathed in, even swallowed, that made them dizzy or lose consciousness, all in the name of health. Portia had taken the book from me, had tried to keep me from reading more entries that hurt my heart. But she hadn’t taken it away quickly enough.
He’d known the entire time about the Order. He’d known about my dizziness. A kind man. An open-minded man—that was what I’d thought. In reality, a man who had weaponized my dizziness against me.
He took that moment of silence to reach for me. As if he were going to fold me into his arms like some delicate little bird with brittle, brittle bones. “Oh, Tania. I had no choice but to make you doubt yourself. You were so wrapped up in uncovering the truth that you didn’t see what was right in front of you.”
“And I suppose that was you, was it?” I retorted.
He surged forward, gripping my free hand before I could pull away. I kept my fingers wrapped tight around my sword. Could I bring myself to use it? Madame de Treville’s warnings not to kill him echoed in my ears. But Étienne’s frantic hazel eyes dragged me back. “Yes, me. One of the future saviors of France. The man in love with you.”
Stomach clenched, body blistering, I wrenched my hand away. Once, I thought I’d never hear someone say those words, not after they knew the truth of my body. But now all I wanted was for him to take them back. “You don’t even know what love means.”
“But I do. It’s the way I feel when you enter a room—everything narrows and my point of focus is you and only you. It’s the way you look when I say something surprising, how your lips part, that crinkle of skin between your brows if you don’t agree. It’s the way you go through your life, unaware of how truly brilliant you are.” He grabbed the hand I’d pulled away, placed it flat against his chest. “See, Tania? I can’t be a heartless beast if my heart races every time I see you.”
My hand burned on his sternum. He grinned down at me like he’d won something. Like he’d won me. “Tania, you don’t have to pretend anymore. You love me, and that’s what matters.”
“I never said I cared about you.” I yanked my hand from his chest, lowered my sword to clutch at the low stone wall. My world swayed. “The balcony,” I whispered in horror.
“You really thought I left right away? I waited behind one of the columns. And”—he grinned—“even if I hadn’t, your answer now is enough. You don’t deny you care about me—you only say you never told me.”
My fingers tightened on the stone. The water and ice cracked below, blue and black and draped in crystal shadows.
I cared for him once. But this wasn’t love.
Love didn’t make me feel guilty for knowing my duty. Didn’t manipulate my emotions. Didn’t wait to kiss me until I had no choice but to kiss back.
“You can’t love me,” I settled for, pleasure rushing through me as his confident veneer fractured. “You knew who I was the whole time, were getting close to me to help yourself.” His lips drew together as I spoke.
“The monarchy needs fresh blood,” he said. “Whoever is chosen to wear the crown will be a symbol of hope; no one needs to know he’ll be a mere figurehead. We’re giving the people what they want: someone powerful enough to protect them and the ability to start afresh. You know what it’s like, Tania, to feel like you’ll never be good enough for your family. My father was devastated after La Fronde. Loyalty to the King got him and my family absolutely nothing. But look at us now—we’ve proved them wrong. We’ve written our own destinies. The new King will give me whatever honorific I wish. I’ll never be looked down upon again, and I’ll have a title I earned, not from sitting around at balls and drinking wine, but by fighting for it.”
“Do you even hear yourself? Replacing corruption with more corruption doesn’t help France. Monarchies don’t replace monarchies without a price. How many innocents have to die for your ambition?”
“All death is unfortunate … but in this case it’s for the greater good. Are the lives of beggars and bastards really such a high price to pay?” I willed down bile. There was truth in what Aria told me the night of my very first ball—protecting the King and protecting our country were two separate things. But Étienne didn’t want a revolution for the people. Étienne wanted a revolution for himself.
“And”—he cleared his throat—“as for the first matter. My love for you.” The icy Seine creaked below us. Tear-stained lashes from my unshed tears freezing to icicles. “Falling for you wasn’t the plan, but that hardly means my feelings aren’t real—need I remind you, you fell for me under a similar level of convoluted intrigue.”
“It’s not the same! My intentions weren’t only about my own self-interest. I was fulfilling my father’s legacy, and—” My breath hitched, words trapped. Next, I should’ve listed, “protecting my country.” But those words were hollow. Because deep down, my duty was to the Mousquetaires de la Lune, Madame de Treville, Henri: my family.
“You don’t need to explain yourself,” Étienne said, velvet voiced. “It’s one of the things I love most about you, your strong sense of what you believe is right. Even if you can’t see the other possibilities. My possibilities.
“I owe your father a debt: Without his insistence on you joining Madame de Treville, we wouldn’t have met.” He started to pace, then paused halfway, face morphed in thought. “Up until this winter, I hated him. In some ways, I still do—he was too smart for his own good. He nearly exposed everything we’d worked for. He was so close to uncovering the truth; he intercepted a message I’d sent to my uncle in Paris.
“But your father made the mistake of thinking he was in the clear. He had no way of knowing we had procedures in place to discover if messages were tampered with. Special ways of arranging letters, folding envelopes, placing seals … he never even stopped to consider that the invitation to my father’s house was a trap. He thought he could sneak into the office, steal secrets, and close the case himself, as if he were still a real Musketeer! The gall, the absolute gall, of that man. He had plans, you know, to take you and your mother to Paris. Find you better doctors, find a way to restore your mother’s title. Another tidbit from his letters. But he didn’t want to return unless he knew his family wouldn’t be cast aside again. I think he thought if he proved himself, if he solved it all himself, the King and Mazarin would have no choice but to welcome you.” He laughed, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“My father was a great man!” I shouted.
“He’s also a dead one!” he spat back. A second later he was tenderly cupping my face, even as I pushed him away. His guilty expression was so familiar it was like being thrust into a memory. “I shouldn’t have said that. I am so sorry; ma tourterelle, say you’ll forgive me.”
My mind flashed to Papa, and a cry forced through my teeth. I couldn’t tell whether it was a sob or a curse. “That’s why your father killed him. Madame de Treville was right all along. Your father killed Papa so he wouldn’t expose the plot.”
In that moment, with his warm and insistent attention, under the shadow of the city, any ignorant observer might’ve thought us completely and totally infatuated with each other. Completely and totally in love.
In that moment, I’d never loathed him more.
“What does my father have to do with this?” Étienne appeared genuinely confused.
“Everything,” I said. “He’s the leader. He’s the one who made you like this.”
“You think I just followed orders like a dutiful son? You think I’d stoop to be someone’s lackey?”
Dread seeped through every inch of my body. “What are you saying?”
“I’ve told you again and again: My father and I have never seen eye to eye. He’s always been weaker than me. Too wrapped up in our duty to our household, our family, rather than reaching for greater and better things. It was easy to recruit the Comte de Monluc and the other nobles, what with their righteous anger for the inept King. There wasn’t anything for Father to do but sit back and watch his son orchestrate the greatest plot in our country’s history. He tried to sway me, even came to the Sorbonne to attempt to change my mind … but he’d never risk the end of our family line by turning me over to the Musketeers. I’m his heir, after all. Although if he had it his way, all I’d have when he passed was land and money. And what are those without a title?”
“I don’t know why you’re lying but you are, I know you are!” My voice reached a pitch as sharp as my sword. “You’re lying. All you do is lie.”
“I’ve never told you anything but the truth.” His mouth continued to move, but all I heard was a rushing roar so loud I could only read his lips, Papa’s last laugh echoing in my ears. “I did what had to be done.”
