L'Ange de la Mort (The Art of Revolution #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven - 9. March. 1789

Gabriel

"Pay attention, Gabriel," Jean snaps.

"I am paying attention."

"Really? Because you've been looking at that goat for four minutes."

"What?" Gabriel shakes his head. Indeed, his gaze is fixed on the other side of the street, where a black goat stands, eating a pile of dried grass. "Oh."

Jean sighs. "Can you please reserve your thoughts of Lizabeth Morgan for when we aren't tracking down the person trying to kill you?"

"I wasn't-" Gabriel starts, then stops. Because he very much was.

Ever since their time together last week, Gabriel has barely thought of anything else. He knows someone might be out there looking for him, and he knows Baptiste's group are certain to be plotting something new, but Lizabeth continues to invade his every waking thought. He can't stop thinking of how scared and beautiful she looked when he came across her in the stone entryway, cheeks streaked with tears and emerald eyes flooded with fear. Nor can he stop thinking about how she whispered, I'm not who you believe me to be Gabriel, or the desire he'd felt-deep and foreign and raw-when he slipped his fingers into her hair and kissed her.

But Jean is right. Now is not the time for such thoughts.

The two stand across from Madame du L'Angelier's butcher shop, waiting for the current customer to leave so they can have an audience with her. Gabriel hasn't seen the woman since he first joined Baptiste's group. Back then, she was the person everyone went to for weapons and poisons and messages murmured behind closed doors. Gabriel has since found his preferred weapon, and has learned how to gain information on his own, but he knows the person who killed the boy procured his poison from somewhere, and here is as good a start as any.

A minute passes and the customer exits the shop, carrying chunks of meat covered in thin, brown paper. Gabriel elbows Jean in the ribs and flicks his head toward the entrance. Jean gives him a nod, and together they walk across the street, cloaks pulled up over their heads and court attire concealed behind swaths of black velvet. They pass women carrying wicker baskets filled with bread, steam from the freshly baked loaves swirling into the sunlight; vendors selling glistening meats and fruit pies; children running through the frozen streets with their threadbare cloaks flying behind them like flags on an abandoned pirate ship.

When they reach the butcher shop, Gabriel glances up at the sign hanging over the doorway: a red pig carved onto faded wood. It's been years since he's visited this shop, but it looks-and smells-the same. The last time he was here, he'd been with Jean as well, and both boys were excited at the thought of starting a new adventure. It's laughable the shop looks exactly as it did back then, when so much about his life has changed. He pushes open the door, using his arm to shield his nose from the rancid stench of spoiled blood and rotting animal carcasses.

The moment he enters, the butcher looks up, frown tugging at his lips. "Oh no. No more courtiers." He squints between Gabriel and Jean. "You two are from Versailles, are you not?"

Gabriel's eyebrows shoot up. "Have other courtiers been here recently?"

"Recently?" The butcher snorts. "You lot never learned how to leave us alone. What is it you've come to bother us with now?"

"That isn't important," Jean says. "Where is that witch you call your wife? Still hiding in the back of the house like a leper?"