Poison Priestess by Lana Popovic (classic books for 7th graders txt) 📕

dread, I turn on my heel and plunge back into the crowd as they begin chanting for an encore. Weaving between them, I make my way to one of the small balconies that open from the ballroom, secluded alcoves jutting out into the night. Draping my arms over the balustrade, I suck in lungfuls of night air perfumed by the jasmine that grows below. Stifling sudden tears, uncertain why the performance struck such an unsettling chord in me.

Perhaps because, beneath my serpent masque, I myself wear a checkered history of faces, and all of them beholden by necessity to different masters. The wretched foundling at the orphanage, the indentured servant at the fabrique, Antoine’s window-dressing wife—and now the marquise’s purchased sorceress, forbidden from seeing the one person who truly matters.

How many faces must I don and peel away before I discover a Cat that belongs only to me?

“While shock and awe are ever my goal,” a low voice utters almost in my ear, scattering my thoughts like a flock of starlings startled by a fox, “I am not sure what to think of having driven you away before the show was even done.”

I whirl around, my hand flying by instinct to the knife belt that no longer hangs about my waist. The magician stands behind me in his starry cloak, running a hand through the tousle of his black hair.

“And is your goal also to petrify a woman enjoying a moment alone?” I force through clenched teeth, pressing a hand to my chest. “Because if so, you are a resounding success, monsieur. Truly, bravo.”

He pulls a face, then presents me with an ironic bow.

“I think I had best leave the petrification to you,” he rejoins, quirking a meaningful brow at my Medusa headpiece. “Surely you must be the expert in that regard.”

At this close distance, I can see that the magician is only three or four years older than myself, twenty-two or twenty-three at most. And we are nearly of a height, though he is even more powerfully built than he appears onstage. His dense black eyebrows arch dramatically above long and narrow eyes, fringed by lashes so thick I nearly envy them. Along with the bold planes of his face, they hint at what must be an Eastern heritage; Chinois, perhaps, or Japonais.

“But please, accept my apologies,” he continues. “I didn’t mean to startle you, only to catch you before you absconded. As a token of my contrition …”

With a flourish, he produces a goblet of wine from behind his back, though I could have sworn both his hands were empty. Still glowering a little, I pluck it from his fingers and take a swig, giving him a grudging nod of thanks.

“Pax, my lady?” he asks, a smile hovering over his lips. Up close there is something of the wolf to his handsome face, elegant yet a little dangerous. I can almost smell him from here, too, sharp cedar and something smokier and more herbal. Mugwort, perhaps, or maybe myrrh. “I’m Adam. Or, the magician Lesage, at your service, Madame La Voisin. Whichever you prefer.”

“Adam, then,” I say, turning back to the balustrade. He moves to stand beside me, his eyebrows still pitched in invitation as he slings his arms loosely over the embellished railing. “And Catherine will do. So why chase me out here, when you had the maréchale’s entire retinue eating out of your hand?”

“They’re a dismally dull lot, I’m afraid, once I’ve pocketed their coin. But you? I could not pass up a chance to meet this divineress of whom I’d heard so much, who foretells the future with the aid of spirits and snakes.”

Another slice of a smile, and an appraising look that feathers over me like a touch. “Dressed all in black, I might add, and with a violinist in her employ? It all sounded, shall we say, a touch familiar.”

“And what of it?” I snap, though my cheeks heat at the jab. “Do you perchance have a monopoly on music and the color black?”

“Please do not mistake me, madame, I’m only too happy to serve as a lowly inspiration to a sorceress of your stature,” he retorts. “If imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery, how could I ever object to being mimicked by the maîtresse-en-titre’s own divineress?”

I take a furious swig of the wine, my outrage only somewhat dampened by the fact that he’s not wrong. I did pilfer him, lifting my dark garb and musical backdrop directly from his playbook.

“We may have some trappings in common, I suppose. But be assured that what you only play at, I actually do,” I fling back at him. “You may perform your infernal little tricks onstage, but I part the veil in earnest. And then I make their tawdry little wishes come true. How does what you do compare?”

“Fair enough. You might be a true oracle, and I only an illusionist barely fit to grovel at your skirts.” He lifts his hands in mock surrender, his teeth snaring his lower lip as he smiles at me. “But we are both on the side of the devils, are we not? Granting these spoiled scoundrels their hearts’ corrupt desires. Leading them ever closer to the pit, each in our own way.”

I turn away from him, still fuming, refusing to look at him even when he leans so close his breath tickles my cheek.

“Though given what I have heard of your talents, my lady,” he murmurs, “I wager you could take them far deeper into damnation. If only you cared to give your methods just a touch more thought.”

By the time I’ve formulated a proper retort, I turn back only to find him vanished like a gust of wind.

It isn’t until I get home that I find the flower and feather he left tucked behind my ear, though I never felt him touch me.

CHAPTER TEN

The Maiden and the Apple

I stew over the maddening magician for days after the ball.

How dare he judge me