hacks. Gabriel and I used to—we would hold hands and see how far we could send an illusion of us walking down the road. Drove our aunt to tears.” Isabelle dipped her fingers into opalescent paint and began to drawn the fringe of an orchid. She channeled power into her paints, letting it shimmer in soft illusions so the petals rustled in an imaginary breeze. “We could each do part of the scrying, so Emilie doesn’t bear all of it.”
I stared into the strokes of her flowers—flies flecked gold with power gathering on the shores of Segance—and the divining came easily.
“Isabelle,” I said. “Is there quicksilver in your paints?”
She hummed. “Lovely color and keeps fungus at bay. So many of these colors tend to rot.”
“It smells terrible,” said Coline. “Open a window.”
“You have any plain quicksilver?” I wrenched open the large window right behind Coline, who was doing nothing, and shooed the small gathering of still-silver Stareaters away. One, hoary with age despite its red, red wings, clung to my hand.
“No,” Isabelle said. “Not here. Why?”
“Would an alchemist have it?”
“Probably.” Isabelle nodded. “Almost certainly.”
* * *
I nudged open the door to the kitchens. Bottles brimming with power—the power to lower a fever or fight back rot or scab a shallow slice from a sword—covered every surface. A pot of bubbling wax with the Chevalier du Ferrant’s rosy colors sat on the stove, and Yvonne dribbled streams of it around bottles and vials to hold tight the cork tops. I rapped on the inside of the door to let her know I was there.
“I have not slept in forty-eight hours,” Yvonne said slowly. “I’m afraid I will be terrible company, Madame.”
I should tell her I was Annette.
It would be nice to hear my name from her.
“Let me, then.” I touched her back, wished for a seat where we could rest side by side and work together instead of this awkward handoff, and carefully took the spoon and bottle from her. “Unless there’s a secret alchemist way to do this, you should rest. I’m about to ask you a favor anyway.”
She laughed, standing right next to me, and her shoulder brushed mine with each breath. “Ah, need to get on my good side?”
“You don’t have a bad side,” I said. “If you think you do, you need a new mirror.”
“What do you want?” she said, smiling.
“Quicksilver, if you have any.”
“Is that all?” She laughed again and moved to the little room off the main kitchen. “There’s a minuscule amount in each of these. Not enough to poison anyone. It’s excellent for keeping things clean, though, and I tweak it to make it harmless.
“Here.” In one hand, Yvonne carried a small metal box that rattled as it moved and in the other, a large alchemistry apparatus that she poured like a pitcher. “Drink this and tell me if anything is off, and we’ll call it even.”
A crinkling layer of frost spread out from her hand on the handle, the light glow of the midnight arts a comfort. Ice bobbed at the surface, midnight purple and melting, of the copper cup. She shook the cold from her hand.
“What is it?” I asked. Floral and earthy, like blooming carnations crushed in mud, and the soft bite of something acidic and bitter at the back—black currants. I took a sip.
“Well?” Yvonne asked.
Wine? I swallowed what was in my mouth and stuck my tongue out, the bitterness clinging to the back of my throat. I sniffed it again—black currant juice—and ran my tongue over my teeth—dark wine undercut by something sweet. “It’s an illusion?”
“Most of taste is based on what we smell, and I want to make medicine more palatable.” She took the cup from me. “Also, I know you like illusions. Fun?”
“Very,” I said quickly. I’d never even thought about making illusions with my other senses. “Can we talk about it one day when we’re not falling asleep on our feet?”
She handed me the quicksilver box, and her frustration fell into the practiced, emotionless half smile I knew so well.
“I’ll leave you alone.” I laughed and turned to leave, rubbing my face. My eyes burned. “I should sleep anyway.”
She always had to be on guard when the comtesse de Côte Verte was near.
“Wait.” Yvonne caught my wrist in her hand. “You always do this. You leave when you know I’m working and need to focus, and I appreciate it, I do, but you don’t have to always leave.”