“Through there,” he said, indicating a room beyond the parlor.
The tub was massive and claw-footed. A curved golden spigot rose over its side, like the neck of a swan. I experimented with the handles, surprised to find both cold and hot running water pumped right into the porcelain basin.
As the tub filled with warm water, I added some of the witch hazel and yarrow I’d pulled out before, then grabbed a bottle of distilled geranium oil. It smelled as verdant as a greenhouse as I sprinkled it in.
“More astringents,” I explained.
Marnaigne lingered on the room’s threshold, watching me. “Should I…should I disrobe?” he asked, his voice uncertain.
“If you please.” I shifted my gaze to the far corner of the room and studied the black marble tiles’ pattern until I heard the king slip beneath the water.
“How sumptuous,” he said, waving his fingers through the water. “I could almost believe I’m at a bathhouse, being waited upon by a harem of nubile young beauties.”
“I’m terribly sorry to disappoint,” I said, adding more of the tonics and testing the water temperature.
Marnaigne settled back against the tub’s slope and closed hiseyes.
“I’m going to let you soak in this for a few minutes, and then I want to try putting on something to draw out the Brilliance—slowly this time, gently. I’ll start with your face.”
He hummed an assent and relaxed farther down into the bath.
I dug through my valise until I found charcoal powder and several needed oils. I mixed them in a bowl, adding a bit of clay and a small dollop of honey.
“Will this hurt at all?” the king asked as I finished the mixture and brought it over for his inspection.
“Not at all,” I said, kneeling. “Just lie back and pretend you’re at that salacious spa of yours.”
He laughed and shut his eyes once more.
I started with his forehead, covering it with a thick layer of the paste before drawing a line of it down his nose. I smudged more along his temples, and then, gently, so, so gently, I cupped his cheeks and peered down into the face of the king.
Chapter 29
The skull covering René Marnaigne’sface was completely different from any I’d seen before.
It was as black and slick as tar, with an oily viscosity I wanted to cringe from. It looked grimy and foul, so terribly wrong against the severe austerity of the king’s profile.
The skull’s jaw fell into its usual leering, gleeful grin. Though there were no eyes in its deep sockets, I could feel it watching me with rapt interest, pleased to have been noticed, pleased to have so thoroughly disrupted everything.
My heart sank as I stared down at it.
A deathshead.
King Marnaigne was meant to die.
King Marnaigne was meant to die, and I was meant to kill him.
I felt sick as I imagined him following me around, another ghost added to my collection. I wanted to cry as I pictured his long, dark shadow, forever trailing behind me, stumbling nearer and nearer, until the day I slipped up and let him get too close. His bony, long-dead fingers would reach out and—
My horrible daydream stopped short as another, altogether more terrible thought flickered to life.
This was no ordinary man the deathshead wanted me to kill.
He was a king.
Theking. My sovereign.
I would have royal blood on my hands. To eventhinkof his demise was treason.
