Respawned as The Count of Glow-Up-Chapter 241: Lingering Poison: I

The night-light flickered on the mantelpiece, its flame dancing weakly as the last drops of oil burned away. The glass globe glowed an eerie reddish color, and the dying flame threw wild shadows across the room, like the final convulsions of something alive gasping its last breath. A dull, sickly light spilled over the bed where the young girl lay.

Outside, the streets had gone silent. The quiet was suffocating.

That’s when the door creaked open.

A figure appeared in the mirror across the room, Madame de Villefort. She’d come to check on her handiwork, to see if the poison she’d prepared had done its job.

She paused in the doorway, listening. Only the lamp’s faint sputtering broke the silence. Satisfied no one else was around, she crept toward the bedside table where Valentine’s glass stood. Still a quarter full, just as she’d left it.

With practiced movements, Madame de Villefort poured the remaining liquid into the fireplace ashes, stirring them carefully so they’d absorb every trace. She rinsed the glass thoroughly, dried it with her handkerchief, and placed it back exactly where it had been.

If anyone had been watching, they would have seen her hands trembling as she approached the bed. The dim light, the oppressive silence, the late hour, and most of all her guilty conscience, everything combined to fill her with a creeping dread. The poisoner was terrified of her own crime.

Finally, she steeled herself and pulled back the curtain.

Valentine lay completely still. No breath passed through her barely parted lips. Her white lips had stopped quivering. Her eyes were clouded with a bluish film, and her long black lashes rested against cheeks as pale as wax.

Madame de Villefort stared at that face, so peaceful even in death. Then she gathered her courage and reached under the covers, pressing her hand against Valentine’s chest.

Cold and completely still.

The only heartbeat she felt was her own, pulsing in her fingertips. She jerked her hand back with a shudder.

One of Valentine’s arms hung off the bed, graceful from shoulder to elbow, but the forearm looked slightly twisted, as if seized by convulsion. Her delicate hand rested rigid against the bed frame, fingers outstretched and stiff. Even her nails were turning blue.

There was no doubt left. It was over. She’d completed her terrible mission.

Nothing more to do here.

The poisoner backed away silently, afraid even of the sound of her own footsteps. But she couldn’t help holding the curtain aside, unable to tear her gaze away. Death held a mysterious fascination, as long as it remained just mysterious and not grotesque.

Suddenly the lamp flickered again.

The noise startled her so badly she dropped the curtain. A moment later, the light died completely, plunging the room into absolute darkness. At that exact moment, the clock struck half-past four.

Heart pounding, Madame de Villefort fumbled her way to the door and fled to her room in a state of panic.

Two hours passed in darkness. Then slowly, cold gray light began creeping through the venetian blinds, gradually revealing the shapes of furniture and objects in the room.

Around this time, the nurse’s cough echoed from the stairwell. She entered with a cup in her hand.

A father’s eye, or a lover’s, would have immediately seen something was wrong. But to this hired caretaker, Valentine simply appeared to be sleeping.

"Good," the nurse muttered, glancing at the table. "She drank some of her medicine, the glass is three-quarters empty."

She went to the fireplace and started a fire. Though she’d just left her own bed, she couldn’t resist the temptation of a little more rest while her patient slept peacefully. She collapsed into an armchair.

The clock striking eight jolted her awake.

Surprised that Valentine was still sleeping so deeply, the nurse glanced over at the bed. That arm was still hanging out-

Wait.

The nurse moved closer and saw Valentine’s white, bloodless lips. She tried to move the arm back into bed, but it was rigid, unnaturally stiff. No experienced nurse could mistake that feeling.

She screamed.

Then she ran to the door. "Help! Someone help!"

"What’s wrong?" It was Doctor d’Avrigny at the foot of the stairs, he’d arrived for his usual morning visit.

"What’s happening?" Villefort rushed from his room. "Doctor, do you hear that? Someone’s calling for help!"

"Yes! It’s coming from Valentine’s room, hurry!"

But before the doctor and father could reach Valentine’s room, the servants on that floor had already entered. They saw Valentine lying pale and motionless on the bed. Their hands flew to their mouths in horror. They stood frozen, as if struck by lightning.

"Get Madame de Villefort! Wake her up!" Villefort shouted from his doorway, as if afraid to leave his own room.

But the servants didn’t move. They just watched as Doctor d’Avrigny ran to Valentine and lifted her in his arms.

"What? This one too?" he whispered. "Where will this end?"

Villefort burst into the room. "What are you saying, doctor?" His hands reached toward the ceiling in despair.

"I’m saying Valentine is dead," d’Avrigny replied, his voice terribly calm.

Villefort staggered and collapsed onto the bed, burying his head in the covers.

At the doctor’s pronouncement and the father’s cry, all the servants fled, their frightened whispers trailing behind them. Their footsteps thundered down the stairs and through the long hallways. Then came a rush of activity in the courtyard, and finally, silence. They’d all abandoned the cursed house.

Just then, Madame de Villefort appeared, slipping on her dressing gown. She stood motionless in the doorway for a moment, as if trying to understand what was happening, forcing tears that wouldn’t come.

Then she saw it.

She lunged toward the table, her eyes wide with terror.

Doctor d’Avrigny was examining the glass, the same glass she was certain she’d emptied during the night. But now it was a third full, exactly as it had been when she’d poured the contents into the ashes.

If Valentine’s ghost had risen before her, she would have been less frightened.

It was the same color as the poison she’d mixed, the same liquid Valentine had drunk. It was the poison itself, unmistakable to Doctor d’Avrigny’s trained eye. It was like a miracle from heaven, despite all her precautions, some evidence remained to reveal her crime.

Madame de Villefort stood frozen like a statue while Villefort kept his face buried in the bedclothes, seeing nothing. Doctor d’Avrigny approached the window for better light, dipped his fingertip into the liquid, and tasted it.

"Ah," he said. "It’s not brucine this time. Let me identify it."

He rushed to one of Valentine’s cupboards that had been converted into a medicine cabinet. Taking a small bottle of nitric acid from its silver case, he dropped a little into the liquid.

It immediately turned blood-red.

"Ah!" d’Avrigny exclaimed, his voice mixing the horror of a judge uncovering the truth with the excitement of a scientist making a discovery.

Madame de Villefort’s eyes flashed, then glazed over. She swayed, stumbled toward the door, and vanished.

Moments later, a heavy thud echoed from somewhere distant. But no one paid attention, the nurse was absorbed in watching the chemical test, and Villefort was lost in his grief.

Only Doctor d’Avrigny had followed Madame de Villefort with his eyes. He lifted the curtain to the adjoining room and peered toward her apartment. She lay collapsed on the floor, unconscious.

"Go help Madame de Villefort," he told the nurse. "She’s ill."

"But Miss Valentine-"

"Miss Valentine no longer needs help," d’Avrigny said quietly. "She’s dead."

"Dead? Dead?" Villefort’s voice broke in a paroxysm of grief, terrible because this iron-hearted man had so rarely felt such emotion in his twenty-five years as a prosecutor.

"Dead!" a third voice echoed. "Who said Valentine is dead?"

Both men spun around.

Morrel stood in the doorway, his face pale and stricken with terror.