The chamber Jeanne had been given for the night in Versailles was gilded, but no gold leaf could keep out the chill of dread. The air itself seemed colder than any she had known in her life, the kind of cold that slipped beneath silk sheets and burned the marrow rather than the skin. Every flicker of candlelight on the gilt mirrors mocked her, and the hunting tapestries that covered the walls pressed their cruelty upon her. Stags lay pierced, bleeding into woven grass; hounds reared up in triumph, their snarls frozen in silk. Those triumphs seemed aimed not at the beasts but at her, a reminder that she too had been cornered, and that the chase was over. She was no longer the hunter. She was the quarry.
Her body refused to rest. Each time she closed her eyes, the Dauphin's words returned, drawn in fire across the screen of her mind. Two futures. One bright, one real. The voice had been clear, almost casual, and yet beneath it lay something more cutting than the jeweled knives of any court intriguer. He had spoken not like a boy but like a blade—smooth, cold, final. She tossed restlessly, the silken coverlet twisting about her legs as though to bind her further.
Her gaze wandered up to the painted ceiling where frolicking cherubs bore garlands of roses. She laughed once, low and bitter. Cherubs—children, radiant and innocent, bearing flowers. She saw instead a child with eyes too knowing, a prince who had unmasked her in a single breath. Fight or flight? The question circled, relentless, tightening its grip with each turn.
To fight would mean daring to silence him before his words spread beyond the walls of that study. She pictured it—leaning close as he bent over a goblet, her hand slipping a tincture into the wine. Or else the slower poison of rumor, whispered to courtiers hungry for scandal: the Dauphin was touched, the Dauphin was unstable, the Dauphin was a liar. Could the shadow of doubt be enough to obscure his truth? Her lips twisted, but the smile was made of ashes. Who was she—Jeanne de la Motte, who had clawed her way from gutter to salon—to imagine she could wrestle the heir of France into silence?
No, she had seen it too clearly: the threat had not been theatrical, not the empty menace of a pampered boy. It had lived in his eyes, coiled like a serpent awaiting the command to strike. And then there had been the other, the figure she had not even noticed until the very end, standing silent in the corner like a phantom: a guard, unseen yet watchful, proof that she was never alone in his presence. If she struck once, she would not strike twice. One move, and her game would end in the snap of a trap closing.
Then flight? She let herself imagine it. She pictured gathering the small collection of jewels hidden among her gowns, slipping down the gilded corridors while Versailles still slumbered, vanishing into the winding streets of Paris. She could lose herself among the poor, the vagabonds, the forgotten, where no prince would trouble to hunt her. For a heartbeat the thought carried the sweetness of release.
But memory rose like a cruel tide. She had fled before. Fled hunger that gnawed at her ribs as a child. Fled the shame of her lineage, that cursed name that chained her to a past she had tried to bury. Fled the laughter and scorn of doors slammed in her face when she had begged for a place at the table of the respectable. And what had those flights bought her? Nights in rags, crouched beneath bridges with the reek of the Seine for company. Days bargaining scraps of dignity for crumbs of bread. No. No, she had not clawed her way to gilt chambers and royal notice, only to tumble willingly back into that abyss.
Her chest heaved as she pushed herself upright, sitting at the edge of the bed. Her hands, pale in the candlelight, pressed tightly together until the knuckles blanched. She whispered to herself, though no words came, only the tremor of breath. Fight meant ruin. Flight meant the abyss. What remained?
Surrender. The word came like a stone dropped into still water, rippling outward until it filled her. There was no fight. There was no flight. There was only surrender. And in surrender, perhaps, the chance of survival.
The notion appalled her even as it soothed. She, Jeanne, who had mastered masks, deceived noblemen, seduced fortune itself—reduced to bending her neck. Yet as she weighed it, the bitterness ebbed into something like resolve. Better to bend than to break. Better to play the role demanded of her and live to weave another scheme than to be trampled outright. Had she not always known that survival was the only true coin in which the world dealt?
The hours bled away, measured by the slow guttering of candles. Shadows stretched long across the chamber, and the first gray edge of dawn began to seep between the curtains. Jeanne sat motionless for some time, her thoughts no longer spinning but settling into grim clarity. She saw the path as it must be walked: she would bow. She would lower her eyes, play the penitent, and offer her talents not against the Dauphin but in his service. If he demanded a spy, she would become one. If he demanded a pawn, she would let him move her across the board—while keeping her gaze fixed on the game itself. For even pawns, when guided well, could reach the far side.
By the time the first servants stirred in the corridors beyond, her decision was sealed. Her eyes were rimmed in red, her cheeks drained of color, but her spine had stiffened. She rose, adjusted her gown, and stood before the tall mirror. The reflection that looked back at her was hollow-eyed but not broken. Survival had its own kind of dignity, even if it wore the mask of obedience.
She would live. And to live, she would bow.
In the afternoon, in the Dauphin"s study, one maid announced "The Comtesse de La Motte wishes to see you, your highness."
The Dauphin looked toward his head guard and said "I told you she would come."