Scene XVII The Château Gardens #2

I pass her the candle and pull a fraying handkerchief from my pocket, pressing it against the gash.

I wince as it soaks through almost instantly, the contact sending waves of pain up my arm.

Mothers, how badly did I cut myself? I raise the handkerchief to check and realize the bleeding isn’t slowing at all.

For some absurd reason, panic begins to fill me.

What if it doesn’t stop? What if it needs stitches ?

I don’t know how to stitch a wound, and I can’t ask anyone for help without revealing my identity as a sorcier.

Am I doomed to simply bleed out here, all over the forest floor?

“Odile.” Soft hands close around mine, pressing the handkerchief back to my arm, and I realize I’ve begun to shake. Shame floods me, and I jerk away.

“Odile, it’s all right.” Marie’s tone has grown cautious, muted, as though I’m a skittish bird on the verge of taking flight. “Here, let me see.”

She kneels in front of me, taking my forearm gently and pulling it toward herself, then laying it in her lap. Shaken and still somewhat woozy, I can’t find the willpower to resist this time.

“ Mothers, that is deep ,” she says, turning my arm over. “What did this, a thorn? Can you stand? We need to wash it off somewhere.”

“It’ll be fine,” I argue feebly.

“Not if it gets infected ,” she counters, her jaw set. “Hold that there—no, don’t lift it. You need to apply pressure.”

“I know that,” I growl, furious at myself for getting into this situation. I really thought I would go out in a blaze of glory, but here I am, utterly undone by a shrub.

Marie tugs on my elbow. “Come on, we’re not far from the servant’s wing. We can use the well water there. Hopefully everyone will be asleep by now.”

I wobble when I stand, feeling oddly light-headed, and something presses into the small of my back.

I nearly jump out of my skin until I realize it is Marie’s hand, attempting to steady me.

I give her a sideways look. I want to tell her that I can walk on my own, that I don’t need to be coddled.

And yet I can’t bring myself to shake off her touch.

As we walk away, Marie swipes her foot over the earth, carefully wiping away the stains my blood has left on the wet loam.

I blow out my candle, and we navigate again by moonlight.

By the time we reach the servant’s wing—an aged, morose part of the Chateau, smudged stone walls imprisoned in a cage of leafless grapevines—my black handkerchief has turned entirely gold, and blood has begun to drip from my arm again.

I lean sullenly against the old stone well, watching for guards as Marie hauls up a bucket of water with surprising ease.

In the distance I can make out the stables—the ground is littered with stray bits of straw, and a cold breeze carries the smell of horse, sweet and musty.

Marie sets down the bucket. A moment later there comes the sound of fabric tearing, and I turn in surprise to see Marie with her outer skirt pulled up, tearing her cotton petticoat to strips.

My eyes are drawn to her exposed calves, their lovely, slender curve, and something flutters in my lower stomach.

I wrench my eyes away, annoyed at myself, at her, at the world .

After a time, Marie approaches me, gesturing to my arm.

I let her take it, trying not to think of how long it has been since anyone touched me like this, with gentle steadiness, her fingers leaving tingling traces, skin gliding against skin.

She begins to pour crystalline water carefully over the wound, and though I wince, I’m grateful for the momentary relief.

Then she begins wiping off my arm with a scrap of fabric, and I wonder if I will simply burst into flames.

“Why are you helping me?” I exclaim in frustration, unable to bear the tension any longer. “I don’t understand it. I’ve been nothing but cruel to you.”

Marie hums, not looking up from her work.

“What makes you think I’m not doing this out of self-interest?

Perhaps I merely want to make sure you’re not dripping conspicuous golden liquid in the Chateau while wearing my face.

” She draws my arm closer to her body and begins binding it carefully in white linen.

“That’s just it,” I say. “You’re being so casual about all of this. You’ve been cursed—twice, if you count my failed attempt at undoing said curse—and I’ve been walking around pretending to be you. Yet you’ve hardly put up a fight since that first night.”

She is suspiciously silent at that.

“Ah, so I am onto something,” I say slyly, feeling like I’ve finally gained the upper hand. “You don’t want to go back to court at all, do you?”

Marie continues to avoid my eyes. Her expression is unreadable—the only sign that my words have affected her is the slight tremble of her touch against my skin. Finally she ties off the makeshift bandages and sighs, bowing her head slightly.

“You’re right,” she says, and there’s an edge of shame to her voice. “I do not wish to go back. The last time I was here as a girl, I nearly ruined my family’s reputation. I’ve dreaded coming back ever since.”

“You? Ruin someone’s reputation?” I raise my eyebrows. “But you’re so… proper.”

The statement seems to make her wither. She lets me go, seeming not to notice the golden smears of my blood left on her palms. “I am,” she says quietly. “Because when I was not, I made mistakes. Terrible mistakes.”

Foreboding creeps through me. Surely, surely, this cannot be about—

“Do you remember that diamond necklace?” Marie says. “The one the Step-Queen lent me?”

My chest seizes up. Mothers, I was right. I didn’t want to be. I thought I’d fixed it; I thought I’d undone that mistake.

“I do,” I reply hoarsely.

She presses the heels of her palms to her eyes. When she pulls them away, flakes of my blood glint on her cheek. “I lost it,” she says. “Soon after I took it back from you, it vanished. That’s how it all started.”

She tells me about it, but I remember a different story. It tears from me like a scab from a still-healing wound, old pain becoming new again, crimson regret welling to the surface.

The Dauphin was having a birthday banquet, and Marie d’Odette d’Auvigny did not want to go.

“Why not?” I said, tightening the back of her bodice, the velvet-soft ribbons sliding between my fingers and the warmth of her back against my hands. “There must be so much food.”

“And so much formality ,” she said drearily.

“Maman will not let me breathe. If I so much as slouch, she will jab me in the back with her finger. If I speak too loudly, she will glare, or pinch me until I fall quiet. Sometimes I’m sure she wants a doll, not a daughter.

If it weren’t for Papa, she probably wouldn’t even let me outside.

Just put me up on a shelf to ripen like an apple until I’m nice and sweet for the Dauphin. ”

“Sounds like an easy life,” I said, feeling a pang of resentment—it felt unfair that Marie should have a doting mother when I hardly remembered mine, only plague sores on skin and desperate eyes on Damien and the words Take your sister and go.

“She sold my horse,” Marie said quietly. “Before we came. I fell off her and got all muddy, so Maman decided I was too old to go riding. I shouldn’t be doing things that are so reckless—only sitting indoors doing embroidery, or whatever it is real ladies do.”

“That is terrible.” I tried to sound sympathetic. Her life sounded idyllic to me. Banquets and wealth and parents and safety. She didn’t have to work for anything—it was all handed to her on a golden platter.

“I wonder if we could steal one of the Dauphin’s horses,” Marie mused impishly.

“He has beautiful ones, and he never rides them. Says he’s worried he’ll hurt one, though I don’t see how he would—he’s shorter than I am and built like a feather.

Oh—” She reached for something on the dresser. “Can you help me put this on?”

My breath caught. It was a necklace, a dazzling necklace of diamonds. Its faceted jewels swallowed light, turning it over in their bellies before spitting it out in prismatic beams. Between them were little roses of gold, their small petals impossibly thin and frail.

“It’s beautiful,” I breathed, and my fingers itched to tuck the necklace away. But then Marie said—

“Aimé’s stepmother gifted it to me to wear tonight. ‘If you wear a lady’s jewels,’ she said, ‘then you’ll remember to act like one.’?” She made a face. “I can’t tell if she likes me.”

“Sounds patronizing,” I grumbled as she swept her glossy ringlets off her shoulders, baring her neck to me. Something about the sight of it, the sun-kissed column arching gracefully into sharp shoulders, made me flush. I didn’t understand it, and I didn’t want to.

Hastily I clipped the diamonds around her neck and stepped back. “It’s like the Step-Queen thinks you need taming,” I said.

Marie wrinkled her nose. “It does look like a collar, doesn’t it?

Mothers. I don’t want to be tamed. I don’t want to be like them.

I want to see the world, not be trapped in a stupid marriage.

Aimé doesn’t want this, either.” She sniffed, then smiled faintly.

“We have some time before the banquet. We should go to the stables—I hear the King’s got a new stallion.

Imported from Lore, my father said. I’ve never seen a horse from Lore. ”

“Won’t your parents be looking for you?” I asked. I’d been taking my duties as her companion rather seriously—I couldn’t afford to get in trouble and ruin my cover.

She shrugged. “Eventually. So we should hurry.”

And so we did. We escaped to the stables and stole hay from the loft and fed it in great chunks to the sleek bay beast that would be King Honoré’s mount. When we grew bored, Marie pulled me aside and spun me in a circle and said, “I wish I could bring you with me to the banquet.”

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