Auguste brushed his hand against my cheek. “You don’t need to talk. Save your strength.”
My body ached with every movement, but I needed to get the words out. This was my only chance. “No,” I said with as much force as I could manage. “Lady Catherine. The tea. Lady Catherine.”
“What did she do?” asked Auguste, his voice barely containing his rage and worry. “We need to know. The doctors think it is a disease, but if it is something else—”
“She had a vial, a vial of . . .” I rasped. I couldn’t find the word. I shook my head in frustration. “Poison,” I finally whispered.
“Poison!” said Auguste. “Poison in the tea!”
Then I blacked out again.
* * *
When I next came to, Alexandre had burst into the room, her blond hair escaping from her fontange to fall messily around her shoulders.
“I found it! I found the antidote,” she said, rushing toward the bed and handing the vial to Elodie. “This is the antidote. I watched Maman buy it.”
Elodie stared at Alexandre for a few moments before she faced me again, a determined set to her face.
“All right. Open up,” Elodie said as she uncorked the vial.
Elodie emptied the white powder into my mouth. It was tart on my tongue, like freshly sliced lemon. I swallowed quickly. The powder burned on the way down. As soon as I felt it fill my throat and chest with a delicious warmth, I let the darkness take me once more.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I opened my eyes to brilliant sunshine streaming in through the windows of my old chambers, dazzling, brilliant sunshine that hurt my eyes so much, I had to squeeze them shut immediately. I groaned and clapped my hands over my eyes. Someone laughed from right beside me.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” Elodie said from the armchair pulled up to my bedside. I could hear the smile in her voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Hot.”
The word passed my lips before I even realized what I was saying. But it was true. I was hot. Too hot. A fire burned in the fireplace even though it was daytime in the middle of summer. Warmth was preferable to the cold, but I still felt smothered by the heap of blankest piled atop me.
“That’s good. I’m glad. I’m so glad.” Elodie sighed heavily and scrubbed at her face with her hands. She looked exhausted. Dark circles rimmed her bloodshot eyes. Her hair was unbound, tumbling down over her dressing-gown-clad shoulders. I hated that I was the one to cause her such strain.
“Are you feeling all right?” I asked.
Elodie smiled tiredly and reached for my hand, clasping it gently. The relief I felt at such a simple gesture was immense. My limbs weren’t numb anymore. I could feel her palm against mine. All my fingers and toes were accounted for.
“I’m not the one who was sick. Do you feel anything besides hot? Is there any pain? Discomfort?”
There was a twinge in my stomach. It was nothing like the pain I’d experienced there before, more of a dull ache—a ghost of previous pain—than an angry throb.
“My stomach . . .”
At the look of panic on Elodie’s face, I hurried to say, “It isn’t bad. Really. It’s just a little sore, like I pulled a muscle.”
Elodie sighed in relief and got up to sit on the edge of the bed.
“That’s good. The doctor mentioned that you might have some lingering pains for a short while. It’s been a week, so I’d hoped—”
“A week,” I said, startled. “What do you mean it’s been a week?”
“The doctor thought this might happen as well. Cendrillon, you’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for the past week. You were sick. Very sick.”
The long sleeves of my nightgown covered my arms up to the wrists. Dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of those horrible spots afflicting my skin. If they were still there, I just might fall unconscious again.
Noticing the direction of my gaze, Elodie said, “The spots disappeared not long after I gave you the antidote. Do you remember anything about what happened?”
My thoughts still felt fuzzy and muddled, but the image of Lady Catherine in a red dress, beaming at me, was fixed in my mind.
“Lady Catherine. She poisoned me, didn’t she?”
Elodie whispered, “Yes. She did. You were able to tell us what she did. Luckily, Alexandre knew where to find the antidote. How did she poison you? You said something about tea?”
I laughed humorlessly. “She was apologizing for the way she treated me, and she served me tea. I’d never heard an apology from her before, so I hardly believed it. At first. But she was so convincing. She begged for my forgiveness. And then she turned away, and I saw something in the mirror . . . I saw her . . . How could she?”
“It’s all right. You don’t have to talk about it anymore. I know most of it already.”
“It was bad, wasn’t it?” I asked even though I already knew the answer.
Elodie’s eyes shone wetly as she said, “You nearly died, Cendrillon. If Alexandre hadn’t found the antidote, you wouldn’t be here now. And if Auguste hadn’t come after you and forced his way inside the house, Lady Catherine would have gotten away with it.”
I started at the mention of Auguste and instantly regretted it. My muscles screamed at the movement, as if I’d been running for ages instead of lying in bed for a week.
“Auguste was here? It wasn’t a dream? Is he here now? And I don’t appreciate your smirk,” I said, my cheeks warming. “I am still ill after all. Just tell me what happened that day, please.”
Elodie kept me in suspense for a few more seconds, but the smile dropped from her face when she started telling the story. “Please remember that I heard a great deal of this secondhand. I was visiting Marius in the village when you came back. Auguste told me that, after you ran from the palace, he chased after you and followed you back to the château in his own carriage. When he arrived, he heard a commotion inside and forced his way in to find you lying on the floor of the sitting room, covered in those horrid spots, with Lady Catherine standing over your body, doing nothing to help. Marius accompanied me back to the château, and we came upon you unconscious and Auguste restraining Lady Catherine.”
I gasped, hardly able to imagine such a scene. It was almost too fantastical to believe.
“It was quite shocking,” Elodie continued. “Everything became extremely messy when Auguste ordered Marius to return to the village to fetch the constabulary and a physician, and Severine and Alexandre returned from the palace. Alexandre was crying, the physician was tending to you, and Severine was screaming at the constabulary for detaining Lady Catherine and bringing her to the palace. Severine went with her mother, and since then, the only people in the château are you, me, Marius, and Alexandre. I thought it fitting that you have your old chambers back.