Page 111 of Don't Let Me Go
Jocasta bristles, and her pale cheeks color in anger. “That crazy high priestess sacrificed her life for you. Don’t you understand? She foresaw what you were about to do, and instead of fleeing Pompeii when she had the chance, she stayed behind and gave her life trying to stop you from making a terrible mistake. A mistake that you will spend eternity repeating unless you choose a different path!”
Fuming with animosity, Riley stares across the table, his eyesshooting daggers at Jocasta. He’s so angry, he looks like he might erupt. But instead, he goes dangerously still.
“I.Don’t. Believe.You.” He enunciates each word so clearly that there’s no mistaking the contempt in his voice. “Come on, Jackson. We’re leaving. She’s wasted enough of our time.”
Riley pushes himself up from his chair and stands defiantly. Almost immediately, though, he stumbles and has to lean against the table for support.
“Are you okay?” I ask, watching him shake his head like he’s fighting off a dizzy spell.
“I’m fine,” he answers. “I just?.?.?.?stood up too fast.”
He sits back down and massages his temples as if he’s trying to ward off a migraine. Maybe it’s the stress stemming from everything we’ve just been told, but I can feel a headache of my own building behind my eyes.
“I understand that what I’m saying is difficult to believe,” Jocasta says with a sigh. Her voice has taken on an air of good-natured patience, but something behind the forced pleasantness makes my skin crawl. “However, if you won’t listen to me, perhaps you’ll listen to yourselves. Consider it a parting gift.”
I have no idea what she means by that, but I’ve no intention of sticking around to find out. Every nerve in my body is telling me that we’re in danger and we need to get out of here. But when I try to stand, my body feels as though it’s fighting to move through wet concrete. Before I know what’s happening, I collapse back into my chair.
Beside me, Riley groans and slumps over. He rests his head against the table as his eyes flutter shut. I know I need to wake him, but my own head feels impossibly heavy. It’s a struggle just to keep my eyes open.
I reach for Riley, but my hand is an anvil. It falls to the table like a dead weight, knocking over my tea.
Of course.
“The tea...” I gasp. “You put something?.?.?.?in the tea...”
Jocasta blinks innocently and sips from her cup.
“Don’t be absurd,” she scoffs. “I put something in the macarons.”
Paris, France
(August 24, 1572)
Chapter 43
Gaspard
There are two ways to be drunk—with wine and with love. For the first, God created grapes. For the second, He created Thierry. Tonight, I’ve had my fill of both and can attest that such a heady mixture is the closest any man can come to tasting heaven here on earth.
Blasphemous? Certainly. A mortal sin? To be sure. Still, how sweet damnation will be with Thierry by my side. And hell can’t possibly be hotter than Paris in August.
“Can we open a window?” Thierry sighs beside me, his pale, lithe body made almost golden in the candlelight. “It’s stifling in here.”
I pull myself out of bed, sticky with perspiration, and open the window of the cramped, airless room we’ve been renting. I suppose we should count ourselves lucky we were able to find even a hovel like this. Half of France has poured into the city to witness the princess’s wedding. Though I suspect, like me, most of them are placing bets on how long the marriage will last.
A Catholic princess and a Huguenot rebel? I’d not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. For how many years have our two faiths been at each other’s throats? How much blood has been spilled? Frenchman against Frenchman.
Now, though, with one seemingly impossible wedding, all that strife is at an end. Now we are expected to set aside our swords and clasp hands in friendship with those who only last week were our sworn enemies.
It’s a bold strategy for peace, I’ll give King Charles that. If indeed it was his idea and not his cunning mother’s. But it cannot end well. Such things never do. I may have only eighteen years on my back, but I’ve lived in this world long enough to know that man’s ability to hate his fellow man is an unquenchable hunger. In the end, it will devour everything.
But why dwell on such unpleasantness? I’ve been drinking all night—all week, in fact—to forget such painful realities. And yet Paris is too quiet tonight.
This stultifying heat that has fallen upon the city is nothing compared to the tension in the streets. I can feel it emanating from the thatched houses and cobblestones, choking the air with resentment and animosity.
This city is a powder keg. And one match will set Paris ablaze.
Thank God we’re leaving.
