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

where I stand with him. While we each admire the other’s talents and dedication, there is nothing between us that even hints of love.

Adam will never—could never—be what Marie once was to me.

“But you barely even see the vicomte,” I argue, exasperated. “When did you last have a session with him?”

“It is not the same,” he counters. “The vicomte merely likes the glamour of having a sorcerer in his keeping—he has little need of actual divination. But you, Cat; not only are you indebted to her, you are here at her express pleasure. And if she takes against you …”

“I can handle her, Adam,” I say, more confidently than I feel. “I have thus far, have I not?”

“What we are doing together is much bigger than anything either of us has tried on before,” he presses. “Should the marquise become displeased with you, who knows what she might do? You know as well as I do, Cat, that we cannot afford to anger her.”

“I will make sure to see her soon, then,” I reassure him, nuzzling my cheek against Megaera’s coils to stifle my growing unease. “I promise it will all be well.”

Though I take Adam’s advice to heart, the marquise does not give me the opportunity to rectify my mistake.

A day later she blows in unannounced, as if carried by the wings of an ill wind. When I come to meet her in my salon, she is icily resplendent in blue silk sewn with shard-like diamonds, her fine neck looped with pearls like frozen milk. As I sit across from her, I see that my offering of elderflower cordial and lavender petits fours has been left pointedly untouched.

“Good afternoon, Marquise,” I say, masking my unease with courtesy. “A pleasure to see you as always. How have you been faring since our last Messe?”

She ignores my greeting, trailing a frosty look around the room’s gaufrage velvet walls.

“Tell me, Catherine,” she says in a tone like a lash. “Whose lovely drawing room is this that we are sitting in?”

“Yours, my lady,” I reply, swallowing down a swell of trepidation. It seems I have indeed made a dangerous misstep; perhaps an even worse one than Adam feared. “Or mine, I suppose, by your leave.”

“Exactly,” she spits at me, her eyes slitting like a baited wildcat’s. “By my leave. You occupy this place, and your position in society, only by my leave. This being the case, how is it that you no longer seem to find the time to attend to your patroness’s needs?”

“My apologies, Marquise,” I say, bowing my head so she cannot see the revolt brewing in my eyes. “It is only that this has been … such a tumultuous season at court. The many friends you have sent my way have consumed a great deal of my time.”

“Oh, spare me,” she says. “Would you truly pretend to have been busy in my service, when you and Lesage have been passing the time between your Messes by assiduously poisoning half the court?”

The words all but turn me to a pillar of stone, so petrifyingly matter-of-fact is her tone. It is nowhere near half the court, of course, only four so far. But that is more than enough to spell my utter ruin, should she choose to wield this knowledge as a weapon against me.

I stare at her mutely, tongue-tied, forcing myself not to wring my hands in my skirts.

“Come, Catherine, did you truly think that word of it would not reach me eventually?” she exclaims, scathing incredulity dripping from every word like venom. “The Duchesse de Vivonne—loose-tongued lush that she has become, upon being liberated from her late husband—implied to me that the duc’s death was no accident. The silly twit did not elaborate, ostensibly not wishing to wind up in the Bastille. But she did let slip your name, likely assuming I would already know of my own divineress’s exploits. I imagine Lesage is mixed up in this as well, now that you two are thick as thieves.”

I swallow hard, my blood coursing with ice. Part of the reason we had selected the Duchesse de Vivonne at all was that she was so self-contained, so rigorously controlled that she barely even imbibed at the fetes following our Messes. It had not occurred to either of us that being freed from her husband’s oppression might alter the very fabric of her character.

“Then I thought to myself, hmm, have there not been quite a few unexpected noble deaths of late?” The marquise tips a finger to her chin, pleased with herself like a cur that has treed a cat. “Perhaps more than one might expect would arise from the natural order of things?”

“I …” I begin, my mouth rank with the taste of iron. “Marquise, it is not …”

“Please, do not bore us both with tiresome professions of innocence,” she says, waving her hand. “I’ve no intention of seeing you hang for your hand in this—not when you are far more use to me alive.”

She leans forward, resting her palms on her thighs and fixing me with a flinty glare. I curse myself inwardly, for what, I am not even sure. For not having been more careful, though I am not certain how I could have been so. For, at the very least, having underestimated my patroness’s fearful intelligence.

Athenais may be many unpleasant things, but she has never been anyone’s fool.

“As long as you do a better job of remembering your place, that is,” she adds. “Might I remind you that it was I who installed you here, plucked you from that stinking quagmire in the Seine and made you into my sorceress? And our agreement is what it has always been—that you see to me before you occupy yourself with anything else. Do we understand each other?”

“We do,” I respond woodenly, my heart settling like a crushing boulder in my chest. She has no proof of my involvement in any of the murders, of course, given the occult origin