Read Chapter 1: The Midnight Parcel

The shawl was not in the armoire where Marguerite had left it that morning. She knew this because she had placed it there herself, folded in triple layers of lavender-scented linen, the pale blue silk catching the light like a frozen morning sky. The Duchesse de Montfort would be wanting it within the hour, when she retired to her private salon to await the King’s summons for the evening’s card game. And Marguerite would be wanting her position tomorrow, which meant the shawl must be found.

The servants’ corridors at Versailles were a warren of whispers and shadow, and Marguerite moved through them with the practiced ease of one who had learned every turn and trick of the palace in her seven years of service. She checked the laundry room first—nothing but damp linens and the sour smell of stale starch. Then the mending cupboard, where a maid named Celeste looked up guiltily from a letter she should not have been writing.

“The blue shawl with the silver thread?” Celeste shook her head. “I saw Mademoiselle Claire carrying something toward the east galleries this afternoon. I thought nothing of it.”

Claire. The Duchesse’s other maid, a fawning creature with quick fingers and quicker smiles. Marguerite thanked Celeste with a curt nod and set off toward the east galleries, her soft-soled shoes making no sound on the marble floors. The palace was quieter now, the great chandeliers dimmed to a few sputtering candles, and the long corridors stretched before her like the ribs of some great sleeping beast.

The east galleries opened onto a series of terraced gardens, and Marguerite knew Claire’s fondness for assignations in the groves beyond the orangery. If the girl had taken the shawl for a tryst—or worse, to sell to a dressmaker in the galleries—Marguerite would have her dismissed by morning.

She was passing the last arched window when she saw the light. A flicker of lantern glow through the glass, low and brief, like someone shielding a flame. Marguerite pressed herself against the wall and inched toward the casement.

The moon had risen full and silver over the gardens, flooding the grove of yew and boxwood with a cold, clear light. And there, on the gravel path that wound between the hedges, stood two figures.

The first was a boy—bare-legged, threadbare, clutching a leather satchel to his chest. A pharmacist’s apprentice, by the look of him, one of the ragged crew that ferried tinctures and tonics between the apothecaries of Paris and the palace kitchens. Marguerite had seen them often enough, slipping through the service gates with their pungent bundles.

The second figure was a woman. Tall, graceful, wrapped in a dark traveling cloak that pooled on the ground around her. A hood covered her hair, but the moon caught the edge of her profile as she turned: the delicate line of her jaw, the proud set of her shoulders. She held out a small parcel wrapped in oilcloth.

“Three hundred livres,” the woman said, her voice low and clipped. “As agreed.”

The boy took the parcel and weighed it in his palm. “It will be prepared by tomorrow night. The usual place.”

“Not tomorrow. The night after. The Queen’s soirée—there will be too many eyes tomorrow.”

The boy grunted. “The Queen’s soirée. Very well. Two nights hence.”

“And it must be done properly. No shortcuts. The effects must be—gradual.”

Marguerite’s blood had gone cold. She knew that voice. She had heard it a hundred times in the antechambers of the Queen, light and bright as bells, laughing at the King’s jokes and cooing over the royal children. But now it was low and hard as iron.

The woman turned, and for a moment her face caught the full light of the moon. It was the Comtesse de Brionne, one of the Queen’s most intimate circle, a woman whose smile could open doors and whose favor was sought by half the court.

But it was not her face that Marguerite noticed. It was her shoes.

They were pale gray silk, embroidered with tiny silver roses, and they tied at the ankle with ribbons of the same hue. Marguerite had seen those shoes before—seen them on the feet of the Queen’s own sister-in-law, the Princesse de Montpensier, who had ordered six pairs from the same shoemaker just last month.

The Comtesse de Brionne wore the Princesse’s shoes.

Or—no. Marguerite’s mind raced. The Princesse had given away a pair to a favored lady-in-waiting. She had mentioned it at dinner, a casual boast about her generosity. The recipient had thanked her with effusive praise.

The recipient had been the Comtesse de Brionne.

The boy tucked the parcel into his satchel and turned to go. As he did, his elbow caught the edge of a low stone bench, and something small and glass slipped from his coat pocket, striking the gravel with a sound like a struck bell. The boy froze, glanced back at the Comtesse, who was already retreating toward the palace, and then bent to retrieve it.

But his fingers were shaking, and the vial—no larger than Marguerite’s thumb, filled with a pale amber liquid—rolled out of his reach and came to rest at the edge of the hedgerow, half-hidden in the shadow of a yew.

The boy scrabbled for it and found nothing. He searched the gravel, his breath coming in panicked gasps. Then, with a muttered curse, he abandoned the search and hurried after his satchel, disappearing into the dark of the outer gardens.

Marguerite waited. She counted her heartbeats—fifty of them—before she slipped through the casement window and into the garden. The grass was damp with dew, and her skirts brushed against the hedges as she made her way to the spot where the vial had fallen.

There it was, glinting in the moonlight. She plucked it from the gravel and held it up. The amber liquid inside seemed to move of its own accord, shifting and settling like something alive. She uncorked it—just a fraction, just enough to catch a whiff—and immediately recoiled.

Bitter almonds. The smell was unmistakable, cloying and sharp at once, the same scent she remembered from the apothecary shop where her mother had worked as a laundress. Her mother had always warned her to stay away from that smell. It meant death, she said, the kind that came quietly and left no trace.

Marguerite shoved the vial into the pocket of her apron and hurried back toward the palace, her heart hammering in her chest. The shawl was forgotten. Claire was forgotten. All she could think of was the Comtesse de Brionne, the Queen’s beloved companion, handing a parcel to a ragged boy and speaking of “gradual effects.”

Two nights hence. The Queen’s soirée.

She was nearly at the service door when she collided with someone coming the other way. She stumbled back, ready to apologize, and found herself staring into the sharp, amused eyes of Dr. Beaumont, the court physician.

“Mademoiselle Marguerite,” he said, a hint of surprise in his voice. “Out late. Your mistress must be missing you.”

“She will be,” Marguerite said, her voice steadier than she felt. “I was—retrieving a shawl. The gardens are cold at night.”

Beaumont’s gaze flickered to her apron pocket for just a moment—a heartbeat too long—and a smile curved the corner of his mouth.

“Indeed they are,” he said. “Do take care on the paths. One never knows what one might step on in the dark.”

He inclined his head and continued on his way, leaving Marguerite standing alone in the service corridor, her hand pressed against the vial in her pocket, her mind racing with questions she did not dare to speak aloud.