“Hello?” I called out. “Madame?”

No one responded, so I picked my way through the maze of clutter, Chris following behind. “Hello?” I called out again.

“I guess there isn’t anyone home,” Chris announced. “We should go – it smells like dog piss in here.”

“Souris likes to mark his territory,” a voice said from behind us. We both jumped. Chris collided with a stack of papers that proceeded to rain down around us as we took in the woman who seemed to have materialized out of nowhere.

“Are you the one they call La Voisin?” I asked.

“That depends,” the woman said, eyeing me up and down. “What do you want?”

What did I want? I stared at the woman in front of me, taking in her brilliant red dress and greying blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun, debating what to say. There was a haughtiness about her not suited to Pigalle – something about the way she held her head that suggested she hadn’t always lived in poverty.

She tilted her head and looked at Chris, who was gathering up the papers behind me. “Pregnant?”

Chris jerked upright, banging his head against an open drawer. “No,” I said quickly. “Nothing like that.”

“What then? Spit it out, girl.”

There was an intensity about the woman that made me nervous, and I could all but feel the power in her words. This was the woman who had made the potion, I was certain of it.

“You gave my friend Sabine a potion. One intended to make a person fall out of love and into logic.” I watched her expectantly, but she turned away.

“I deal with herbs, girl, and medicines. What you’re talking of smacks of witchcraft, the practice of which sees a woman burned at the stake.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “People fall out of love every day without the help of magic. Half the time they fall back in love in a matter of days.”

“Not that quickly and not for no reason,” I snapped, feeling my temper rising for no reason other than she was thwarting me, standing between me and my goal. “She told me it was you who made it for her, so you can quit playing coy.”

The corner of her mouth turned up. “I’m many things, but coy isn’t one of them.”

“I need your help,” I said, trying another tactic. “I’ve nowhere else to go.”

She laughed. “I doubt that. Ladies with fancy clothes and clean fingernails don’t need anything from the poor folk of Pigalle. Go back to your parties and gossip.”

“Please, hear me out.” Far more force went into my words then I intended, a breeze rising and drifting around the shop, the flame of the lamp flaring bright.

Her eyes glazed, but only for a second. “Well, well, well,” she said, realizing what I had done. “Apparently there is more to you than meets the eye.”

The sound of horses outside caught everyone’s attention. Boots thudded against the frozen ground, accompanied by the jangle of steel.