A claw of fear scrapes in my gut even as Marie’s hand clamps down hard on mine. A blanketing hush falls over the crowd, so encompassing I hear the rasp of breath catching in her throat.
“Mother of mercy, what is this?” I whisper to her through my own dry lips. “Surely it is not real, but how is it done?”
“Mirrors, perhaps?” she hazards. “Somehow positioned to reflect an accomplice in costume? Hand to heart, I could not say.”
A rippling whisper of “necromancy” snakes its way through the throng like a needle pulling thread, only to tie itself off as the magician and his bony companion launch into a dreadful dance. They shuffle along in jerky lockstep, a morbid pantomime of the sarabande so popular at court. It reminds me of paintings I’ve seen of the danse macabre, in which a skeletal Death whirls victims from all walks of life into a frightful jig. Evoking the final reaping that awaits all of us in the end.
And yet this is different and somehow almost worse, more chilling and enthralling all at once. Because it is the skeleton that dances at the magician’s behest, as though this mortal man can not only call up the dead but demean them at his command. Like some cruel king or puppet-master, a despot of the damned.
From the wolfish grin that plays on his face, I gather that this is exactly the impression the magician Lesage wishes to convey.
When the whirling music reaches a crescendo, the skeleton removes its skull with a flourish, holding it aloft as the magician takes a triumphant bow—then the man turns on his heel and vanishes, engulfed by a shower of violet sparks.
Once he has gone, the skeleton winks out of existence as well. The music dies completely just as the last of the smoke fades, licked away by the rough cat’s tongue of the breeze. When everything has cleared, I see the musicians have also disappeared, and the ensuing silence leaves the stage deserted and somehow bereft, as if we have all suffered an unexpected loss.
As if the eerie miracle we have all just witnessed was never truly there at all.
Afterward, Marie and I sit at the Pomme for hours, drowning more tankards of wine and speculating feverishly on how Lesage’s magic was made. By the time we stumble out into the smallest hours, we may be no closer to unraveling the magician’s secrets, but we are well and truly drunk. We trip together through the cité’s echoingly empty streets, the summer night folding in luxuriantly all around us, soft as a mink stole rubbed against the skin. The crescent of the moon above glints like a cunning cat’s eye in the dark. My heartbeat roars in my ears in a thunderous rush, the savor of cheap wine still lingering on my tongue. Marie’s sandalwood and citron scent wreaths up all around me, stealing into my lungs.
It all merges into a singular sensation, throbbing and insistent as some voracious hunger.
A rising passion born of the night.
I am not sure which of us begins it. But suddenly we are pressed together in one of the Pont Neuf’s half-moon alcoves, my back hitched up against the stones and Marie’s plush lips sliding over mine. I can hear the slap of the water far below us, hear the forlorn calls of some lost bird wheeling in the dark. Perhaps even one of Lesage’s impossible ravens. My hands tangle in Marie’s silken hair as she kisses me like a succubus, tasting of red wine and almonds and just a trace of salt.
We have kissed each other many times before, in greeting and in parting, sometimes out of sheer affection bordering on something beyond a friendly fondness. But I have always been the one to draw back, too afraid to linger over it; afraid of what it would lead to, of the sweeping change that it might bring upon us both. Afraid of losing her to the upheaval and misery that would surely follow, should any romance between us ever fracture down the middle.
And afraid that pledging my love to Marie, binding my heart to hers even in such sweet and voluntary servitude, might somehow render me even less free than I am.
Even now, with my head awhirl with lust, the same tangle of fears rears up within me like a restive wyrm trapped inside my chest. Sensing my uncertainty, Marie pulls back to smile at me, her eyes a liquid glitter against the dark. She reaches up to cup my cheek and brush a gentle thumb across my cheekbone.
“What’s the matter, ma belle?” she murmurs, soft as a breath, leaning forward to tip her forehead against mine.
“I am afraid,” I say simply. “Of us. I need you, chère, as you are now. As my best friend. What if we ruin it, with … this? Whatever this is, whatever it might yet become?”
“I will be your best friend until my dying day, ma belle,” she responds, trailing her fingertips down my throat. My skin heats under her touch like tinder catching flame. “No matter what else comes to pass. But if it feels too much, to consider anything more between us … then for now, let us savor this for what it is. No more than a dalliance between friends.”
“Then we are of a mind,” I reply, a sweet, vast relief washing over me as I slide my hands down her corseted waist. “So why waste any more breath with words?”
She laughs softly against my mouth, twining her arms around my neck and nipping at my bottom lip.
And it is a long time until we find the need to speak again.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Philter and the Marquise
Before I became one of
