A wave of vertigo comes crashing over me, another dreadful deluge of misgiving even worse than the one that came before. I take a halting half step toward the counter, bracing against it with my fingertips. What in hell are you doing, Catherine, I rail at myself, meddling with matters such as this? This is not the simple mischief I’ve become accustomed to making, but full-blown murder. And not the murder of some commoner, but that of the royal candlemaker, an artisan so wealthy and influential he sometimes dines privately with the king.
All my turmoil is shot through with an even deeper vein of doubt, like an apple tunneled by a worm. Who am I to steal another’s life, even if that life belongs to one such as Prudhomme?
“Are you quite well?” the alchemist asks with surprising solicitude. “I could fetch you a tonic if you like. Something to calm the nerves.”
“No, no, I am fine.” I wave a hand at him, though I am still taking desperate little breaths. “I only … feel a little ill. It will pass in a moment.”
Blessis watches me warily, unconvinced, tugging at his lip in thought.
“Are you quite certain you wish to do this, madame?” he asks, fixing me with an incisive stare. “Murder by poison may not be quite so bloody as that done by garrote or knife, but in some ways it is far, far worse.”
“This is a strange and backwards way to peddle your wares, monsieur,” I half laugh, in a feeble stab at humor. “Should you not instead be attempting to convince me to buy?”
He does not take the bait, his grave mien only sobering further. “What you do with what I sell you is entirely your business—but what you intend to undertake is not for the faint of heart. Once you have committed, there is no turning back.”
His probing serves to crystallize the wavering core of my intent. I stand now at a crossroads, caught in a moment of choosing—am I still that girl from the fabrique, chained and powerless? Or am I La Voisin, the sorceress, a willful Fate and Fury in my own right, ruthless and single-minded in whatever act I choose to undertake?
All I know is that I cannot abide being this weakling the alchemist imagines me to be. Waffling pathetically over the murder of a truly monstrous man.
My indecision vanishes like a puff of breath dissipating in frosty air, and with it my dizzy spell. I abruptly feel like some icy blaze, roaring with all the blistering force of a deep-winter wind. As if I have been distilled, or whittled down, to a purer, more concentrated version of myself.
I straighten up from the counter and lift my chin, crossing my arms loosely over my chest.
“I am far from faint of heart, monsieur,” I tell him crisply, each word as cold and unyielding as a diamond on my tongue. “Nor am I undecided. Now, let us discuss price.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Poison and the Partnership
Making the Aqua Tofana is the hardest thing I have ever done.
I make my excuses to the marquise ahead of time, telling her that my blood is upon me, too painful and ill-omened to allow for any productive scrying sessions. The rest of my clients are given less specific excuses for my temporary seclusion; all the better, as it will only serve to enhance my mystique. Let them think I have withdrawn in order to commune with whatever eldritch forces they believe underlie my sight.
Let them believe whatever they wish, as long as they leave me alone for this time I need, free from all distraction.
For the first four days, I read and reread the entry for Aqua Tofana until I know it nearly by heart, and follow all the painstaking instructions for preparing the ingredients. This involves ornate exercises like soaking the belladonna and virgin’s hair in water that has held a gibbous moon’s reflection, then drying them over a fire stoked by hazel wood felled and gathered by my own hand. A tall order for a city dweller, but one I managed all the same.
Once I instruct the chatelaine to have food left outside my door and refrain from otherwise disturbing me, I am ready to properly begin.
I tend to the cauldron for three seemingly endless days and nights, keeping it at the same precise temperature, stirring and chanting and inscribing the bubbling surface with hundreds of complex runes. Sweat dribbles down my face and stings my eyes, my fingers trembling from the effort of such precision. There are brief intervals of stability during which I rush to relieve myself, splash water on my scorching face, and cram some food into my mouth before I must begin again. Not nearly enough time for sleep, so I run on sheer dread energy and infusions of strong black tea.
Should my attention flag even for a moment, should I skip a single step, the substance will yield not a poison powder but a deathly smoke able to kill me with a breath.
It is at once so tedious and terrifying that I am transported back to the fabrique, firelight from remembered braziers licking at the edges of my vision, my shoulders tensed against a bullwhip’s sting. By the time the substance has reduced into an odorless powder—which Eugenie will mix with Prudhomme’s cosmetics, so that it will sink into his blood through his skin—I am so exhausted that I feel almost as if the making has drawn something vital from me.
Shaved off a sliver of my own soul to incorporate into itself.
And perhaps it has, I think, falling into bed immediately after Eugenie has collected the powder, leaving a heavy purse in its place.
But it is worth it, to know exactly how Prudhomme will leave this earth, with crystalline awareness, and in fearsome
