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

back to him. “I thought he might keep us there forever, to hear his future spun like a story rather than living it at all. Like some greedy child listening to a fairy tale.”

Adam casts me a cut-glass grin, lifting the wine in an ironic toast.

“You heard what he called it, your ‘sweet blasphemy,’ ” he mocks, giving the words the king’s refined intonation. “I daresay he could not have liked hearing it more. And how did he style you again? Pretty witch, siren of the damned?”

“Sorcière jolie, yes. It was a fine idea you had, to use me as the altar.” I wince a little at the memory of the marquise’s face. “Though I hope the marquise does not take against me now, thinking he means to have me. Did you see the way she looked at me when I disrobed?”

Adam shakes his head decisively. “I would not worry. I watched her closely afterward, while you had him under your spell. She was fairly beside herself, all umbrage forgotten, delighted to see him enjoying her thoughtful gift.”

“And you!” I smile at him, unabashed in my admiration. “The flowers and the bats! They will be chasing them about the room for weeks. I can still barely fathom how you did it, and I saw you prepare.”

A furious trembling overtakes me then, without any warning—the overexertion of my sight finally catching up to me.

Though we are protected from the freezing cold outside, the air inside the carriage seems to take on a bitter chill. Seeing my teeth begin to chatter, Adam swings over to sit by me, draping his cloak over my shoulders and tugging me close.

“You should try to sleep, Cat,” he says into the top of my head, his breath blissfully warm against my scalp. “I cannot imagine your fatigue, after spinning such fictions for him for so long.”

“They w-were not f-fictions,” I reply through clicking teeth, nestling into the crook of his neck. “Every word of it was true. H-he will truly be remembered as France’s most majestic king.”

He is silent for so long that I grow warm enough to become drowsy, thinking he must have fallen asleep himself. When he finally speaks, it nearly startles me.

“How unfortunate,” he says, bitterness curdling his quiet tone. “I had rather hoped to see his court fractured in my time.”

I stir against him, lifting my heavy head. “I did not know you took such exception to the court. Are we not angling to become the king’s dark counselors together?”

“We are, to be sure, but I would prefer both. The noblesse are a tangle of heartless vipers, good for nothing other than being milked—as I mean to do with our Louis.”

“Not that I do not agree, because you know I do,” I say. “But it sounds as though you have some particular bone to pick with the peers of the realm. Beyond what you have told me.”

He swallows hard, his throat bobbing with the motion.

“My father was a duc, you know,” he says in an unwontedly somber tone. “And my mother a chambermaid who caught his eye. He was quite taken with her, from what I recall before she died.”

“I am sorry to hear you lost her. What happened?”

“An ‘accident,’ ” he replies with a wry devastation that makes my heart hitch up against my ribs. I have never heard him sound so human before, so nearly vulnerable. “The story was that she fell into the lake on the estate and drowned. But she was a robust swimmer, and she never would have swum at night alone. Not without me by her side.”

“Adam,” I begin, not knowing what to say. The snatch of vision I saw when we first began our work together floats up before me again, in the form of the black-haired woman’s lovely face. And that he is a noble’s son from the wrong side of the blanket explains so many things; the scope of his learning, his unstudied arrogance. “That is … that must have been truly terrible for you.”

“It was the worst heartbreak of my life,” he says softly, gathering me closer. “Maman was such a sunshine. There was no proof of any malefaction, of course, but of course that’s what it was. The duchesse could not stand having my mother under her roof—especially once I grew old enough for my father to show in my face. For him to begin taking an interest in me.”

“And was the duchesse punished for her crime?”

“Come now, Cat, you know better than that,” he scoffs, barking out a scornful laugh. “When I caused a ruckus, the duchesse had me sentenced to the galleys for an invented crime. My father did not even bother to fight for me, not when she was mother to his legitimate son. It took me years to claw my way back to France’s shores.”

I breathe for a moment, trying to grasp the stunning extent of this betrayal. No wonder Adam has no compunction when it comes to poisoning the noblesse.

“We will make them pay, Adam.” The words fly loose before I can properly consider them, but I find that I mean what I say. “Your father and stepmother both. Your half brother, too, if you wish.”

“Of course we shall,” he says, his voice snapping with a quiet fervor. “Once we ascend to our rightful place, all these degenerates will dance upon our strings like marionettes.”

I tip my head back against his shoulder, moved that he should choose to share so much of himself with me.

“Thank you for trusting me,” I whisper. “You did not have to tell me any of that.”

“If I cannot trust my prêtresse with my blackest secrets,” he murmurs into my hair, “then whom could I hope to trust?”

I lapse into silence, unable to think of a reply. I suspect this is the closest either of us will ever come to any true feeling for each other. Though there is no love between us, at least there is this: the embracing of our