Blood Feud
Page 43

The sun sank slowly, bleeding red and purple light over the city.
•
By the time spring unfurled its tender green buds on al the treetops, Isabeau had learned the layout of the streets, and thanks to Cerise, which neighborhoods to avoid altogether, even in daylight. She’d found a jar of olives packed in oil and spinach leaves left over at the market. They were only a little bit trampled and reminded her of the spinach and garlic sauce Cook used to make for special occasions. She ate them with her fingers, crouched on the roof of a bookshop. She’d stopped seeing the bodies on the riverbank every time she closed her eyes and was grateful for the warmth of the coat when the rains started.
She saved the last few olives and tucked the jar in her pocket, swinging down to the ground. If there had been a carnival around, she liked to think she could have been an acrobat or a tightrope walker. She gave wide berth to a cafe known for its political squabbles and ducked under a creaking sign of an apothecary. The chain had snapped in last night’s storm and the sign was swinging drunkenly, banging into the wooden frame around the window. She found Cerise leaning out of the window of the room she shared with five other prostitutes.
“Fancy a go, citoyen?” A thin woman with bruises on her arms smiled at her. Isabeau took a startled step backward.
“Never mind him, Francine,” Cerise cal ed down. “He’s here for me.”
“You get al the clean pretty ones.” Francine pouted, wandering away.
Isabeau was embarrassed right down to her toes. Cerise laughed loudly.
“I forget how young you are sometimes,” she said.
Isabeau made a face at her and used the sagging counter of a fishmonger’s to boost herself up to Cerise’s porch. It was more of a wooden ledge outside a broken window than an actual proper porch, but it did the trick.
“What did you bring me this time?” Cerise asked eagerly. Her roommates were snoring loudly in the darkened room behind them. She looked tired, the lines around her eyes were deeper.
Isabeau sometimes forgot she was a couple of years younger than her own mother had been when she was born. Amandine had retained a kind of childlike innocence that Cerise had likely outgrown by the time she’d lost her last baby tooth.
“Here.” Isabeau handed her the olives.
Cerise clutched it. “I haven’t had olives in weeks.”
“I’ve got something even better,” Isabeau assured her, fishing out another treasure from her inside pocket, wrapped in old butcher’s paper. She’d stolen it from the back garden of a fancy townhouse a street away from her parents’ old house.
Cerise goggled when Isabeau pul ed the paper back. “Are those … ?”
Isabeau nodded, sliding the bundle into Cerise’s trembling fingers. “Strawberries.”
“I’ve never had strawberries before.”
“Eat them quickly or you’l have to share.” Cerise stuffed them into her mouth before her roommates could stir and ask about the sweet sugary smel . Her eyes closed as if she were eating chocolate mousse for the first time.
“Heavenly,” she declared in a soft voice. Tiny seeds stuck between her teeth.
“I knew you’d like them.” The sun was high overhead, hot for the first time since the autumn. Isabeau turned her face up to it.
“I can’t wait for summer.”
“Marc told me to tel you that they’re having a big ral y in La Place de la Concorde today.”
Place de la Concorde today.”
Isabeau looked at her hopeful y. “How big a ral y?”
“He said you could work it with your eyes closed. He’s never seen anyone with fingers as nimble as yours.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I wager he could think of better ways to occupy those dainty hands of yours.”
“Cerise!” Isabeau lowered her voice. “You didn’t tel him I’m a girl, did you?”
“No, chouette. He definitely thinks you’re a boy.”
“Then why would he be interested in …” She trailed off, confused.
Cerise laughed so hard she choked. “Never mind, I’l tel you later.” She wiped her eyes. “How have you survived this long?”
“Because of you,” Isabeau replied seriously.
Cerise wiped her eyes more vigorously. “You’l make me cry.”
“Why did you help me, Cerise?” Isabeau had always wanted to ask but she hadn’t wanted to frighten off the only friend she had. One didn’t ask questions in the back al eys.
“I had a daughter once,” Cerise replied, her voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the squawk of pigeons pecking at the weeds at the side of the building. “She would have been about your age now.”
“What happened to her?”
“She caught a fever one winter when she was stil a baby. I couldn’t afford medicine. When I broke the window of the apothecary to steal some, the gendarmes took me off to Bastil e. She died before they let me out again.” Isabeau bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”
Cerise nodded, touched the tiny glass drop earrings she never took off. “That’s why I wear these.”
“That’s glass from the Bastil e, isn’t it?” It had become fashionable to wear rings and jewelry set with stones or glass from the Bastil e, to commemorate the storming of the jail four years earlier.
She nodded fiercely. “Yes, I was never so happy as the day we pul ed that prison apart.” She swal owed harshly, shook her head. “Enough of that now, it doesn’t do to live in the past.” She squinted at the position of the sun. “You’d best hurry if you’re going to make the square in time.”