Lizabeth
Even though Lizabeth injured Marie at the inn and injured François minutes ago, she doesn’t expect there to be so much blood. Though she can’t see it well in the darkness, she can feel it. Coating her hands and running down her arms, making her fingers slippery where she still holds the dagger. Gabriel lets out a pained gasp and stumbles into her before sliding to the ground.
What has she done? What has she done?
“There.” Lizabeth stands and wipes her bloodied hands on her skirts. Her fingers tremble like mad, and she hides them in the folds of her gown. “I’ve done what you asked.”
François looks at Gabriel, and Lizabeth prays it’s too dark for him to see the steady rise and fall of Gabriel’s chest.
He lets out a quick burst of laughter. “Gabriel wasn’t lying?”
“No, he wasn’t lying.” François merely stares at her, and she continues. “I came to Versailles to kill L’Ange de la Mort.”
The words taste rotten on her tongue.
“I heard you but— Did you not try to save him earlier?”
“I was worried you might kill him, and I am the one who must.”
He frowns. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
Lizabeth swallows. Her mother and Baptiste are working together. That’s the reason you were sent to Versailles in the first place, Gabriel had said.
If she can convince François she’s on his side, she might have a chance.
“Do you not hear my accent?” she says, forcing her expression to remain nonplussed. The longer she stays here, the more blood Gabriel will lose. But she can’t show any fear on her face, nor allow it to seep through her tone. “I’ve been told it’s quite obvious I’m not from France. I’m English, and Rose Morgan is my mother. Has Baptiste not mentioned her?”
“He has,” François says, eyebrow quirked. His pistol dangles loosely from his hand. “But why would Rose Morgan have sent you to finish the job? You look like you have the fighting skills of a pigeon.”
“That’s precisely why I was sent. No one would ever suspect a lady to be a killer. But they will trust me when I tell them the true identity of L’Ange de la Mort.”
“That’s your plan? To kill him, and then expose him to the court?”
Lizabeth nods. Her heart thrashes against her eardrums. “But we’re wasting too much time. You have to return to the group and tell them it’s been done. Guards are still patrolling the grounds, and you will be caught if you linger here for any longer.”
Please leave. For the love of God, please leave.
François hesitates, and Lizabeth thinks she has convinced him. But then he turns the pistol on Gabriel. “I should shoot him now, don’t you agree? To make sure he’s truly dead.”
Lizabeth’s heart flies to her throat. Her breath catches against her lungs. Her stomach fills with lead. But all she says is, “If you wish, but it will only alert everyone of your presence here.”
As if to underline her point, a series of frantic shouts echo in the distance.
François curses, lowering his weapon. “I better not find out you’re a lying bitch.”
“You won’t,” Lizabeth says. “I came to France on my own accord, because I want L’Ange de la Mort dead as much as you do. Ask Baptiste. He will tell you. He and my mother have been discussing my presence in Versailles for months.”
François stares at her for a few more moments, teeth bared, before he pivots on his heel and—blessedly, blessedly—leaves. Lizabeth watches as he dashes for the trees, hand still pressed to his neck.
Then she turns to Gabriel. He’s lying on the ground, eyes closed, blood leaking from the wound in his chest. The injury is nowhere fatal, Lizabeth made certain of that much at least, but that will hardly matter if she allows him to continue bleeding like this without fetching help.
“I have to get out of the trees,” Gabriel says, opening his eyes. His voice is barely above a whisper.
Gabriel clings to Lizabeth as she pulls him up and through the trees, his breath hitching in her ear. In all her imaginings of how killing L’Ange de la Mort would go, never could she have guessed she would be dragging him through the gardens, his blood coating her dress, hoping to God he won’t die.
A strange sense of dread settles over her, so acute and sharp, she almost feels calm. Her mind cancels out everything around her—the wind, the cool breeze, the sound of distant yells—and all she can think of is, Save Gabriel, Save Gabriel, Save Gabriel. And then, You should want him dead, you should want him dead, why don’t you want him dead?
The two stagger out of the trees, Gabriel’s blood creating a scarlet trail in the gravel, and lumber to the Bassin de Latone parterre. The second they stop, Gabriel falls to the ground, hands covering his wound. It’s there, while watching the blood seep between Gabriel’s fingers, that Lizabeth truly begins to panic.
God, what is happening? How did this all turn out so wrong? What is she supposed to do?
Blood flows freely from his chest, staining his muslin shirt and the grass beneath his body. But his eyes are still open and locked on Lizabeth.
“What were you thinking?” she asks. “Why did you want me to do that?”
Gabriel smiles, but it comes off looking more like a grimace. “I’m helping. François would have killed us both.” His smile falls. “And I wish to be free of this, too. If he thinks I’m dead, we can expose the group to the king, and they’ll be stopped before they find out I’m still alive. You can tell the king your mother helped, and he may very well still grant her forgiveness from the court.”
“But you could die.”
And it would be my fault.
“Not if you fetch help.” Gabriel’s words are becoming more labored, his eyes slipping closed then flying open again. “Go find Jean. He will know what to do.”
“Gabriel—” Lizabeth starts. But his eyes are closed, his hand limp at his side. Panicked, she says in a louder voice, “Gabriel!”
His eyes fly open, icy blue in the starlight. “I’ll be all right,” he whispers. “I trust you.”
Fear rushes through her veins, and her limbs grow cold. She can hardly fathom a mere few hours ago, he’d been with her, gentle and smiling, neither of them knowing who the other was. And now . . .
Lizabeth runs.
The distance from Bassin de Latone to the palace is short—five minutes at most—but Lizabeth can’t seem to get there quick enough. Each second she spends running, a voice nips at the back of her mind, telling her, Gabriel might be dead by now. By now, Gabriel might be dead.
She should want this. She should be happy he’s injured. The hard work has already been done; she could stop running now and let Gabriel bleed out. But he asked her to trust him. If this works, he won’t have to die. She could still gain her mother’s love and the life she’s always wanted.
So, she keeps running. Up the steps leading to the palace. Past the entrance to the orangerie. Between the manicured pathways of the south parterre. Despite the clean, crisp air rushing by her, everything smells like blood. The stench coats her nose and fills her lungs with each shaking breath. She can even taste it, salty and metallic on the base of her tongue.
When she reaches the Cour Royale, she stops. Courtiers are gathered there in frightened groups, huddled together underneath golden torchlight. Closer to the front entrance of Versailles, the king and queen stand, surrounded by armed guards. Everyone is whispering, crying, or glancing around for anything amiss.
Lizabeth looks down at her gown and frowns. Her stomacher is stained with blood, splotches of it soaking into the looping mint and cream embroidery. Dirt is caked on her hem, her shoes are missing, and a series of holes are ripped in her white stockings. Entering the Cour Royale in this manner is sure to raise alarm, and Gabriel specifically said to find Jean. But the palace is large and packed and crowded with chaos. Finding Jean in the masses will take ages. Gabriel doesn’t have ages.
Lizabeth turns, ready to rush inside Versailles in hopes that will bring her more luck—and nearly collides with Anne de la Marche. She wears a pink satin dressing gown and slippers, as if she ran out of her apartments in a hurry. When she sees Lizabeth, her blue eyes grow wide and expectant, a hopeful stare sweeping across her features.
“Mademoiselle Morgan, have you seen Gabriel? He was here earlier, but then he ran off, and after everything that has happened tonight, I was worried—” Her gaze falls to Lizabeth’s bloody gown, and her words cut off with a choke.
“No.”
But it isn’t Anne who says it—it’s Jean.
He emerges from the courtyard, blond curls falling out of his queue, sapphire eyes swollen and red. He gives Lizabeth’s dress a quick glance and swallows, shooting out a hand to rest on the palace’s stone wall. “No,” he says again. “Please, no.”
“What is it?” Anne asks, looking between Jean and Lizabeth. Her rosy skin turns white as powdered sugar. “Has something happened?”
Lizabeth takes a step back, arms flying up to cover her bodice. Not that it makes much of a difference. Jean and Anne have already seen the blood on her gown, and her arms are covered in it as well, great dried patches of red flaking off her skin and landing on the uneven cobblestone. “I—” Lizabeth breathes in sharply through her nose, keeping her gaze fixed on the torch across the archway, so she won’t have to see the worry on Anne’s face, or the horror on Jean’s. “Monsieur de Coligny—Jean—I need your help. There isn’t much time—”
“Don’t say it,” Jean whispers. His voice sounds hoarse and choked. Broken. “I don’t want to hear you say it.”
“It’s Gabriel,” Anne whispers, like the realization is for herself alone. She doesn’t cry or scream or make a fuss. She simply lowers herself to the ground, arms crossed and fingers digging into her skin. “L’Ange de la Mort killed my brother.”
“He isn’t dead.” The sentence rips itself from Lizabeth’s throat, echoing off the palace walls. “Jean, he’s in the gardens and told me to find you. He said you would know what to do.”
Jean shoves himself from the wall. “Anne, alert the guards and fetch the doctor. Now. Lizabeth, take me to him.”
He doesn’t wait for Lizabeth or Anne’s response. Grasping Lizabeth by the forearm, he pulls her back through the garden entrance.
“Where is he?” he asks, releasing Lizabeth’s arm. She hesitates for less than a second, and Jean yells, “Where is Gabriel?”
“By the Bassin de Latone.”
With a nod, Jean starts for the fountain, and Lizabeth follows, skirts hiked up to her calves. The two don’t speak as they run, but Jean gives Lizabeth a worried glance every so often, as if to assess her level of panic. The closer they get to the fountain, the more Lizabeth tries to convince herself this was all some horrific dream, and it will soon come to an end.
She stabbed Gabriel, convinced François he was dead, and told him she was working for Baptiste all along. But once she and Jean reach Gabriel, they can take him to the palace doctor and ensure he’s fine. Then Lizabeth can find a way to expose Baptiste’s group to the court while still proving to her mother she did something right.
So soon. It will all be over so soon.
Though as she descends the steps to the fountain, and her eyes fall on the spot she left Gabriel minutes before, fear multiplies in her chest tenfold.
For Gabriel is gone.