Standing at the edge, gripping the stone wall, Camille held her breath. Below them, the city spread out, closer than when they’d been up in the balloon. And now it was night, the windows of the dark houses lit by candlelight; the bridges gleaming with torchlight; barges and boats on the Seine, the flambeaux at their sterns reflected in the inky water. Looking out at the lights of the city—a reflection of the star-flung sky—she felt Paris, her own world, was new to her. The games she played at Versailles—the gambling and the cheating, the magic and the flirting and the conversation—she didn’t have to play them here.
“It’s almost like flying, being on the tower,” she said. “Though not quite as terrifying.”
“No.” His voice was very close in the darkness.
“Is that why you come up here? Because it’s like being in the balloon?”
“Nothing is like that,” he said. “But being here, I feel different. Freer, with fewer rules to follow.”
A breeze pulled at Camille’s cloak and this time she let it, opening her arms so that the pale pink silk winged out behind her. “What if I stepped up on the parapet and launched myself into the air?”
Lazare grabbed her arm. “Don’t.”
“I only mean I wish I could.”
“And leave me here by myself?”
“I thought you knew how to fly, monsieur.”
“That’s what the balloon is for. Which reminds me,” he said quickly. “I have something for you, mademoiselle.”
A package, clumsily folded in brown paper and tied with a slippery silk ribbon.
“Did you wrap this?”
“Yes, why?”
Camille shook her head. “No reason.” It was comforting to know that not everything came easily to him. While he watched, she slipped off the ribbon—nicer than any she or Sophie had worn in their hair before la magie—and folded back the paper.
It was a balloon, hardly bigger than her hand.
Its chariot was fashioned of woven wire, thin silver threads like ropes running to the balloon, its oilskin surface painted blue like the midnight sky and scattered with silver stars. “Oh,” she breathed. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
“You don’t like it?”
“Oh, monsieur, it’s—” She swallowed hard. “It’s ravishing. Where did you find such a beautiful little balloon?”
“A jeweler friend and I made it.”
For me? She wanted to ask, but she couldn’t bear it if he said no. “It’s an automaton?” she asked instead.
Lazare reached into his pocket and pulled out a little brass key, which he threaded onto the silk ribbon and gave to her. “A music box.”
Camille fit it to a keyhole in the chariot and began to wind it. In her hand, she felt the spring tighten; when she stopped, the balloon began, slowly, to twirl. A tinkling music poured out of it. As the balloon spun, the stars on it shimmered.
Was it meant to be a souvenir of their flight? It had to be. She couldn’t speak.
“If you put a candle near it—it’s difficult to see it here, in the dark.”
“It’s not difficult at all. It’s absolutely beautiful, monsieur.”
“Please call me Lazare.”
Camille’s stomach danced. “Lazare.” Wonderingly, she traced the pattern the stars made. “Does it have a name?”
“Heart’s Desire.”
Beyond the dark curve of his head, stars dusted the sky. He was standing very close now. His eyes searched her face, catching first on her cheeks, then on her mouth. She reached up, tentatively, and put her hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, low in her ear. Camille’s heart beat so loudly she knew he must hear it.
She started to ask him where he had been when he bent and kissed her. His lips were soft, asking. Her mouth against his was an answer, her whole being rich and alive, weightless and full of stars, tethered to the only thing that now existed. Gently, his hand caressed her jaw, his fingers twining in her hair. She wanted nothing more than to be here, at the top of the world, kissing him.
And then the night watchman flung open the door.
It was over. They broke away, stepping apart, catching their breath.
For a moment, she saw herself as the old man must see her: her hair half-tumbling down, her face and throat flushed with heat—another foolish girl up in the tower at night.
“Monsieur,” he grunted, “you must descend now, or I will lose my position. This is a church, not a—”
“Of course,” Camille said, moving toward the door. “We’ve finished gazing at the stars.”
They walked home, side by side, fingertips almost touching. She was afraid to look at him, afraid of what she might see in his face. What if that kiss had meant nothing? What if it was—just a kiss? She wanted it to mean more, but was afraid to hope it did.
When they reached the courtyard door of 11 rue Charlot, Lazare said, “I’ll wait here until you’re inside.”
“Weren’t you the one who said my disregard for my own life was equal only to your own?” she teased. “Merci, but I’m perfectly capable of walking these last few steps on my own.”
“Of course you are.” Lazare paused. Waiting. “You’ve utterly bewitched me, you know.”
Camille fiddled with the cuff on his sleeve. “Does that mean I’ll see you again? You won’t fly off somewhere?”
“Is tomorrow too early?”
She laughed. “It doesn’t have to be tomorrow.”
“Oh yes, it does.”
Lazare looked as if he might say something else—do something else—but he simply bowed. “Until then.”
31
She watched him walk down the street until he melted into the darkness, and she pressed the music box to her lips, as if somewhere on the star-scattered oilskin there might still be a faint trace of him.
“Camille.”
A shadow separated itself from the gloom.
Camille stumbled backward, her hands scraping against the courtyard wall. She felt for the door, but could not find it. Where were all those soldiers she’d seen before?
“Wait.”
It was Alain. She shrank back against the wall. Please, she begged silently, let him just leave her alone.
Instead he ambled closer, taking his time. His black cape hung too large around his shoulders, his cocked hat pulled low over his waxen brow. His face was haggard and Camille could find no kindness in it at all. Beneath his hat’s brim, his blond hair hung in greasy strands, as if he’d had neither water nor inclination to wash it. His coat was missing buttons, his boots filthy as a soldier’s returned from war, and one of his fingers was inexpertly bandaged. The wrapping was rusty with blood.
Camille’s hand tightened around the metal balloon.
“Overjoyed to see your brother, as always, non?”
Slowly, carefully, she edged toward the gate. When she found it, she jabbed at the lock with her key, but in her shaking hand it skittered uselessly against it.
“I’ll open it for you.” Alain was by her side, too close, his breath dank, his clothes reeking of sweat and strong cologne.
Camille tried again. This time, she heard the thunk of the bolt as it slid back. She willed her voice steady. “Leave me alone, Alain.”
“I need money.”
“For your debts?” she asked, her voice caustic. “No more of your sisters’ dresses to gamble with? Or have you completely stopped being a soldier?”
“Bah, I wasn’t made for it. They wanted to send me to the country. I was to guard the nobles’ bread carts from hungry peasants.”
It was a terrible thing to have to do. But it was his job, just like she had hers. “It’s better than starving, as those poor people do—”
He put his hand on her arm. She tried to pull away but his grip was strong. “I wouldn’t have come but for the man who holds my debts. You have no idea what he’ll do to me if I don’t pay up.”
“He’ll speak to the police? Surely
you have figured out how to escape them by now?”
Alain persisted. “What about some jewelry, something of Maman’s?”
Anger flared inside her. “You sold it all, remember?” Everything but the diamond tear-shaped brooch, and he had been too stupid or afraid to search the burned box for it. “Even the miniature of Sophie and me that hung on Papa’s watch chain—you gambled that away, too.”
He paused a long moment, and when he spoke his voice was distant, melancholy. “Remember how we used to pretend we were in Astley’s?”
The Englishman Astley had opened his Ampithéâtre Anglais in Paris when she was nine years old. Extravagant posters had advertised its miracles. MAN RIDES FOUR HORSES ABREAST! JOCKO THE MONKEY SMOKES A PIPE! CLOWNS! JUGGLERS! DANCING DOGS! After weeks of enduring her relentless begging, Maman and Papa gave in and took them all. They had money then, but the tickets weren’t cheap, and their seats crouched under the ceiling at the back of the smoky second tier. Under the blaze of two thousand candles, the lively crowd applauded and sweated. The rope walkers crisscrossed the air, wobbling on purpose to make the audience shout for them to stop. White horses in blue harnesses flashed by. Straddling their backs was a rider holding a banner that spelled out ASTLEY’S in gold. But when the dancing dogs came out, they were too small for Camille to see. Sophie was already up in Papa’s arms, clapping her little hands. Though Camille strained on her toes to look over the silhouetted heads of the crowd, she couldn’t. It was so unfair!
Then Alain said, Don’t you worry. Put your arms around my neck and I’ll lift you up. He was only twelve, but he was tall, and when he pulled her onto his hip the world of the theater unfurled for her. In ecstasy she watched as Delilah’s Dancing Dogs capered across the backs of twenty chairs, yipping happily and catching morsels in their mouths. For weeks afterward, she could not let the entertainment go. Not Alain, either. He’d loved it as much as she. Inspired, he juggled lemons—then plates—for her and helped her prance along the thick rope they stretched across the salon carpet. He even let her ride on his back, balancing on one shaking leg, like her heroes in the ring.
Sorrow swept through her as she remembered what he had been. How much she had loved him, her big brother. Again she took in his dirty, torn clothes. What had happened to him?
“Have pity, Camille!” he begged. “If I have nothing to give, he’ll take my soul.”
Alain was not prone to nightmares and fancies. Or he hadn’t been, before. Was it drink or laudanum that made him think his creditor could take his soul?
“Please,” he begged. “Only ten thousand livres and he’ll let me go.”
“Only ten thousand?” she said, coming back to herself at the mention of such a great sum. It was more than twice the amount she and Sophie had saved. “That’s more than Papa earned in a year!”
“I won’t tell my creditor where you live.”
“And if I don’t give you the money, you will tell him?” Camille snapped. “You’ll sell us as harlots—as you threatened before? You may not care for me, but think of Sophie!”
“I don’t want to do it.” His voice in her ear was a rasp across stone. “Anything you can give me, just so he stops hurting me.”
Something cold slithered across Camille’s back. If this was true, this person—the man Alain was in debt to—was not a normal man. She gestured to his bandaged hand. “Did he do that to your finger?”
Alain said nothing, but Camille saw it in his face. This man had done it. And if he succeeded in breaking him? What would her brother tell him to avoid more pain? Here, in the suffocating dark, he seemed terrified enough to say anything.
It was dangerous, the idea she now had. What if she gave him some money? Just this once? If she did, he might stay away long enough for her and Sophie to escape the rue Charlot. Tomorrow.
“What if I gave you—” What was the right amount? She and Sophie still needed enough to get away. “One thousand?”
Alain clasped her hands and kissed them, his shoulders shaking.
How had it come to this? Her brother, once so handsome and clever and strong, teaching her to play cards and juggle, was now a raving drunkard. Addicted to gambling or laudanum or both. She still remembered the light in Maman’s face when he had first come home in his uniform, the buttons on his coat gleaming like tiny suns. With Maman gone, who was left to believe in him?
“I’ve been waiting for you every night, ma soeur. This is good, a good start, but I’m going to need a lot more to appease him.”
“I don’t have more—”
He crushed her hands. “I see you when you go to Versailles. I know you go there to gamble. Work magic, too, non? What if I told the constable you use counterfeit coins? Told someone at Versailles?”
Fresh anger crackled through her. It always came back to this—no matter everything they’d shared, she was no longer a person to him but a way to get money. He’d been hiding in a doorway, watching as she stumbled exhausted to the courtyard gate, and never lifted a hand to help her. Where was the brother who had pulled her up, shown her the dazzling world she couldn’t see?
Utterly gone. Now she too had to get away.
“Constable!” she shouted, adding a tremolo of fear to her voice. “Police! Aidez-moi!”
People in the street, who had ignored them until now, stopped, stared, waiting for something to happen. One of them passed on her call: “Police! Dépêchez-vous!”
The crowd rumbled closer, angry.
His back to them, Alain grabbed Camille’s arm and shook it once, hard, like a dog shakes a rat to break its neck. “I won’t forget this. This will cost you.”
“It’s already costing me,” she said bitterly. But tomorrow they’d be gone. “Promise you’ll never bother me again and I’ll leave the money for you with Madame Lamotte.”
“Fine.” He let go of her arm.
“Stay away from me and Sophie. Understand?”
But Alain had already disappeared into the dark.
32
Hôtel Théron was a beautiful fortress. A high wall protected the house from the street, the only entrance to the courtyard an iron gate topped with spikes. Through the black bars Camille glimpsed a mansion of pale stone, its windows reflecting the hot June sky. The house itself was serene and unconcerned. Alain’s appearance at the gate had been the final warning, one she could only disregard at her peril. They had to find another place to live.
“Truly, that’s the one?” Sophie asked. “It’s so—”
“Imposing?” Even after Camille’s time at Versailles and all its blinding excesses, it was a different thing altogether to imagine living in such a place.
Sophie sniffed. “Modest. I thought Aurélie would have recommended something much finer.”
“You know, I haven’t actually become a wealthy aristocrat,” Camille said.
“We are aristocrats. At least half-aristocrats. And I thought you said—”
“I asked for simple.” Camille checked the address Aurélie had scribbled on a receipt for hair powder. “This is the one: rue Saint-Claude, near the church.”
“But I wore my best dress.” Both of them had. Camille had planned to work a glamoire, but Sophie convinced her it was best not to: did she want to have to work magic every day, to disguise herself from their landlord? She did not. They’d laced themselves into their finest silk dresses, trimmed with ruffles and lace. Camille had chosen a ribboned cloak, while Sophie’s cartwheel of a straw hat—one of her own very popular designs—slanted becomingly over her forehead.
The bell in the nearby church began to toll. “It’s time.” Camille took a deep breath. “Let’s knock.”
A maid showed them into the quiet house. In the grand entrance hall, a floor of patterned marble led to twin staircases circling to the second floor. On a side table, peonies curved from a vase. A clock ticked somewhere upstairs.
“May we see the rooms?” she asked the maid.
“Of course,” the maid said as she led them up the
stairs to a set of double doors. Fishing a key from her pocket, she flung them open. In the salon, sunlight streamed through windows and bounced off the high ceilings. The sofas and chairs were freshly upholstered in pink florals and stripes; they perched on plush Savonnerie carpets. She longed to reach down and run her hand through the carpets’ dense pile. Off the sitting room, the two bedrooms were less grand, but just as comfortable. Sophie trailed behind the maid, her hand pressed over her mouth in astonishment.
Downstairs, Madame de Théron emerged to greet them. She was probably close to sixty, wide, and along with her powdered wig, she wore a bright circle of rouge on each cheek. She cast slow, careful looks over their dresses, shoes, their bare hands. Camille resisted tucking them away in her skirts.
“You liked the rooms?” Madame de Théron said finally.
Sophie curtsied. “Very much, madame.”
“The rent is thirty louis?” Camille held out a bulging purse. “Here’s two months’ worth.”
“Hélas!” Madame de Théron shook her head, back and forth, back and forth like a pendulum. “I wish I could accept payment from such lovely young ladies, but I cannot! Such a shame! There is, as it happens, someone ahead of you. She liked the rooms very much.”
Suspicious. “But she did not take them?” Camille asked.
The old lady waved her hands. “Not yet. She wasn’t prepared—financially—to fall in love with my little rooms.”
Madame was lying, Camille knew suddenly. The other woman—if there was one—hadn’t come with ready money. And here Camille stood, holding out two months’ rent to Madame de Théron. If they didn’t need the rooms as much as they did, Camille would have snapped. As it was, she tempered her speech. “If she changes her mind, madame, you will let us know, won’t you?”
“Of course, of course,” she said, all politeness. “I will send a boy to fetch you back.”
Once they were out in the street, Camille took Sophie’s arm. “Come, I’m sure she’s watching from behind the curtains.”
Sophie squirmed. “How could Aurélie be so wrong? Didn’t she say Madame de Théron had found no one to stay with her?”
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