Poison Priestess by Lana Popovic (some good books to read TXT) 📗

The only thing that I can hope for further is that he finds his way directly into hell.

For the next few weeks, my clients can speak of nothing but the royal candlemaker’s untimely death.

“Dead between one day to the next, as if struck down by notre Dieu’s own lightning!” the marquise remarks to me during a session, narrow-eyed. “Though with everything I have seen of late, perhaps it was the devil’s handiwork …”

“I hear his widow is beside herself, absolutely woe-struck,” Madame Leferon twitters later, hands clasped to her bosom. “Such a devoted, pretty thing. I daresay she won’t be mired long in her widow’s weeds before another suitor snaps her up.”

“Was it his heart, do you think?” the Duc de Nevers questions, brow wrinkled with a vague curiosity. “Surely it must have been, to cut him down so fast. And he always was such an unhealthy man.”

Though they ply each other heedlessly with love philters and dastardly draughts, somehow none of them think to consider poison in this case. As if one of their own could never have succumbed to such an ignominious fate.

I stay silent throughout it all, my lips curved in an impenetrable smile. My placid surface masking the crashing victory that breaks within my heart in wave after stormy wave. The bane of my youth is gone, the mythical monster of my past vanquished. Eugenie’s and my justice done.

Agnesot would be so proud of me, and of the legacy I have become.

And I feel more powerful and unfettered than I ever have; colossal in size, almost larger than mortal life. As though I have summoned one of the true Furies and then swallowed her whole, unhinged my jaw to suck all her power into myself. Now that I have taken matters into my own hands once, what is there to stop me from doing it again? Especially when so many of the vipers in the Sun King’s court are far more deserving of death than even Prudhomme.

It occurs to me that if I might be paid to help their enemies kill them off—as Eugenie insisted on paying me, a far greater sum than I would have thought to ask of her—I can not only administer the justice sorely lacking at court, but ensure the sort of livelihood for myself that will eventually cut me loose even from the marquise.

The kind of elevation that will finally set me free.

“Do not mistake me, Catherine,” Adam says, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. We have just finished a sumptuous dinner that I had catered for us at his home, as an ostensible peace offering. “It isn’t that I am not delighted by your changed heart, but you do not exactly strike me as a fly-by-night. The opposite, in fact. So tell me, what am I to make of this reversal in your desire to work with me?”

“You were right,” I say simply, dabbing at my mouth and setting my napkin aside. “And I was wrong, and shortsighted, to boot. I am not such a stubborn fool that I cannot admit as much.”

A lazy smile spreads over his fine-cut mouth.

“And I am not so modest to pretend that it does not please me to hear it.” He runs his lips thoughtfully over his knuckles. “What brought on this realization?”

“It is just as you said.” I shrug, spreading my hands. “We are each formidable in our own right. But together, we should be unstoppable, a force the likes of which this city has not seen. So let us cease dissembling and share freely with each other. Lay all our cards on the table, as it were.”

One black eyebrow flicks curiously up, like a raven taking flight. “Meaning?”

“Meaning we use my sight and your tricks to select our most strategic and profitable noble marks,” I clarify. “You show me how your magic is done, and I share my visions with you—then we decide, together, how to turn it all to our mutual advantage.”

“Forgive me if I speak out of turn,” he says dryly, taking a swig of wine, “but what you are proposing is not entirely fair, not when the risk falls squarely upon me. While I cannot hope to steal your gift, you can certainly divest me of my tricks. How am I to trust that you will not do just that?”

“I am a divineress, Adam, not an illusionist. Seeking to become one would take far more time and trouble than it is worth. And if we were to pool our talents, why would I bother with stealing your tricks at all?”

“Oh, because you have done as much before?” he hazards with a wry grin.

I incline my head, as if to say, Touché.

“I can see why you would hesitate; I would, too, were I in your place. But I am not trying to gull you, Adam. As a token of my trust, an assurance of the openness I hope to foster between us, I would offer you some information as collateral.”

Intrigue flares in his eyes like sparks falling from a struck flint. He twitches his long and tapered fingers, beckoning me on. “By all means.”

“The royal candlemaker, Prudhomme. You’ve heard of his death, I presume?”

“Mon Dieu, how could I not? The vicomte and his entourage grow tiresome with their constant carping on it. Much like your marquise, I’m sure.” He rolls his eyes in collegial exasperation, and I do the same, though it still galls me that he only gained the Vicomte de Couserans as a patron by stealing his favor away from me. “What of it?”

“He did not die of any obscure natural cause, nor of any of the satanic balderdash they’re spouting at court.” I watch him, unblinking and austere. “He died because I helped kill him.”

Adam smiles broadly at that, as though I must be jesting. But his mirth soon fades at the cool equanimity on my face.

“You … helped kill him,” he says slowly, as if