Immortal Muse Read Online Free PDF Page B

parents gone, her red hair already beginning to turn brittle—though her body stubbornly insisted on breathing.
    Then she’d met Nicolas Flamel. He’d courted her hard, used every advantage he had with her. He’d gained first her trust, then given her what she’d thought—again—was love.
    And maybe it
was
love. Maybe that’s all love ever was and ever could be, despite the grand tales and stories. Maybe love was something that bloomed like a bright flower in spring, only to inevitably wither away and eventually pale into a withered, brown husk: a mocking reminder of what it had once been.
    But now, with love a barely-remembered and colorless stem, she carried another gift for Nicolas . . .
    â€œMadame, here, you must smell these!” A peppercorn seller thrust his wares under her nose, bringing Perenelle back to the present. The astringent smell wrinkled her nose and nearly brought back the nausea that struck her every morning recently. “Fresh, and ready to spice your supper. Only six deniers for the lot, just half a sol. You won’t find a better bargain anywhere in the city.”
    Perenelle hefted the bunch. “Two deniers,” she said. “They’re small and so old that they barely have any smell at all, but I might be able to make some use of them.”
    The man’s eyebrows sought to reach the eroding shore of his greasy black hair. “Two deniers!” he nearly shouted. One of the dogs wandering around the stalls glanced up at them, then continued sniffing the ground as it searched for dropped food. “Why, Madame must wish my children to starve and be cast out in the streets. The very least I could accept is five deniers, and even then I’m barely paying for my own costs.”
    They eventually settled on four deniers, and Perenelle tossed the peppercorns to Marianne, who placed them in her basket. They continued walking the stalls, buying fish, vegetables, and wine, and stopping in the nearby boulangerie for bread. With the servants sufficiently burdened, they walked back down the street toward home.
    Â * * * 
    The houses of the rue des Saints Innocents leaned against each other like gossiping washerwomen or old men crowded around an ale-spattered tavern table. Nicolas’ house—Perenelle no longer really had any belief that it was at all
her
house—nestled among the others, three stories high, with Nicolas’ store taking up most of the ground floor. The sign,
Nicolas Flamel: Scrivener & Manuscripts,
was nailed above an open stall window stuffed with scrolls and flyspecked parchments bound in frayed leather. Rust stains from the nail heads flowed in static red rivulets over the gilded scrollwork. Perenelle saw Telo, Nicolas’ apprentice, a thin boy of eleven, sitting on a stool in the open doorway.
    â€œWhere’s your master?” she asked him as the maidservants slid past him, taking their baskets into the kitchen at the rear of the house’s ground floor.
    He lifted his chin. “In his laboratory, Madame,” he said. His voice was high, still that of a child. “I’m to call him if we have any serious customers. Otherwise, he said not to disturb him until dinner, as he’s working.” He ran a finger under his nose, smearing snot across his upper lip and cheek. “There’s been naught but idlers, though even that’s terribly hot work today.” He sighed dramatically.
    â€œGo on to the kitchen,” she told the boy. “Tell Marianne to give you some wine, cheese, and bread, and you may bring it back here. I’ll watch the store while you’re gone. Hurry back!”
    Telo jumped down from the stool, bowing his head.
“Merci beaucoup, Madame,”
he said, and ran off. Perenelle watched him go and leaned against the doorway of the house, her hands rubbing her stomach. She imagined she could feel a swelling there, though it was far too early for