by Kat Dunn
As they watched, a thin film of blue light danced over Olympe’s skin, and gently the feather began to rise until it lay nestled in her palm. She let it rise again.
Al let out a low whistle. ‘Call the Spanish Inquisition, she’s a witch.’
Olympe looked at him warily, mistrust shining in her eyes. ‘I’m not a witch. I don’t think I’m a witch.’ She looked at Ada.
Ada waved Al away. ‘It’s not magic. I told you, it’s science. I think.’
She had gathered them for a better demonstration of Olympe’s powers. Camille had pounced on her as soon as she’d woken up, demanding she use her scant scientific training for a proper assessment – ‘I want to know exactly what I’m dealing with before I’m dealing with too much of it’ – and Ada couldn’t deny she was excited at the opportunity to take out her notebook and pencil and stack of volumes on electromagnetic research.
‘Electricity,’ replied Olympe. ‘That’s what Docteur Comtois called it.’
‘Exactly. If you rub fur on an amber stone you get the same effect, the feather will rise to it. By the same principle an electrostatic generator uses friction on a glass ball to create an electric charge.’
‘Are you sure you’re speaking French?’ asked Al. ‘Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Guil squatted to observe the feather. Olympe let the blue light die from her fingers and the feather drifted slowly down again.
‘But you have no glass ball,’ Ada said. ‘You create this charge yourself.’
Olympe nodded.
‘It does seem as though it is some part of your body’s natural abilities,’ said Ada thoughtfully. ‘May I look at your hands? I promise to be careful.’
Olympe considered her for a moment, then tentatively extended her arms so Ada could take her hands in turn, tracing the lines of her palms. Aside from the mottled, death-like colour and their coldness, they seemed natural. Perhaps the pads of her fingers felt somewhat rough. But that was it. It was no trick.
‘What did Comtois tell you about your abilities?’
‘Barely anything. I don’t think he thought I could understand much. He’s arrogant. This might be my power but to his mind he’s the genius who’ll figure it out.’
‘What about your mother, what did she think it was?’
Olympe’s eyes lit up. ‘She wasn’t scared of me, she was proud of me. She told me that everyone has different skills and talents, but that my abilities were a miracle. She also told me I would have to be brave. All the best people were brave. I – I think she would like you all.’
Ada swallowed against her dry throat and let go of Olympe’s hands.
‘Thank you.’
Camille had moved back to sit in the window seat, watching Olympe, her expression unreadable.
Ada made several more notes in her notebook, but she was struggling to keep up with the ideas charging through her mind. She picked up one of her books and leafed through it, hunting for a diagram.
‘I’ve read about these experiments with electricity – galvanism, they call it,’ said Ada, finding the right page and lying the book on the floor for everyone to see. It showed a meticulous drawing of a dissected frog, before and after an electrical current had been applied to its limbs, demonstrating how they spasmed and contracted. ‘Some scientists think electricity is a fluid inside everything, and with enough training people could manipulate it and even control it in other people. Some think it’s the vital spark of life and have tried to reanimate the dead using it. But this…’ She looked at Olympe, faltering. ‘This is something no one has ever seen before.’
Guil mumbled something uncomplimentary under his breath, jaw set in a tight line.
‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy,’ murmured Al. ‘What? Shakespeare might be English, but he had a point.’
Ada nodded. ‘Any technology far enough advanced is indistinguishable from magic. We’re always learning more things about the way the world works that turns everything we thought was certain on its head. Who knows what science may one day make possible? Painless surgery, travel faster than a horse and carriage – or even long-distance flight.’
Al snorted. ‘Are you sure you’ve not been at my brandy, Ada?’
‘I’m serious!’
‘A girl who can shoot electricity out of her fingers, I’ve seen, so I’ll believe. But flying? Was I the only one who nearly died in a balloon crash recently?’
Camille silenced him with a look. ‘Ada. Was there anything else?’
Ada took a breath, scanning her notes, then pushed up her sleeves and held her hands out again to Olympe.
‘I think you can use your abilities without hurting people. Would you trust me to try an experiment here?’
Olympe nodded and slowly shifted forwards onto her knees. ‘I don’t want to keep hurting people. What do you want me to do?’
‘Try to send a charge into my arms – a very little one, like you used on the feather.’
‘Ada – maybe this isn’t a good idea,’ said Camille, abandoning the window seat to join them on the rug.
Ada shrugged her off. ‘It’ll be fine. I trust you, Olympe.’
She gave her an encouraging smile, and Olympe let her palms rest lightly against Ada’s bare brown skin. The blue light skimmed over her again, but this time Ada felt it, a vibration that set her teeth on edge. At first it tickled and tingled along the length of her arm, and then the intensity increased and both arms spasmed involuntarily, fingers curling into claws, biceps clenching. Blue sparks crackled over the backs of her hands, sharp and hot and painful. She jerked back, and Olympe dropped her hands immediately. Ada slumped, breathing hard. Her heart was racing, dual spikes of excitement and anxiety shooting through her.
‘I’m okay,’ she panted, and held up her unmarked arms. ‘Look, no damage.’
Olympe leaned forwards to check.
‘I really didn’t hurt you? It looked awful.’
‘It felt … strange. But that’s it. I told you you wouldn’t hurt me. Your abilities aren’t inherently good or bad, they’re simply something you can use as you will. They’re whatever you want them to be.’
‘Sounds like the perfect secret weapon,’ said Al.
Camille’s hands stilled where she was rebraiding her hair. ‘It does. Which would explain why the Royalists and Revolutionaries both want you in their control.’
Shaking, Ada made more notes while the rest of the battalion dressed and fetched breakfast. Any memory of pain disappeared quickly, and Ada was left only with the thrum of excitement. That had been amazing. She’d used her knowledge to create a hypothesis, run an experiment and record meaningful results. This was everything she’d ever wanted to do. For a moment, the sheer frustration of being confined to studying borrowed books in stolen free moments when she was barely five minutes’ walk from one of the finest universities in the country hit her. But her excitement overruled it. There was so much she didn’t understand about Olympe, whether her abilities were really her own or if they’d been created by the experiments she’d told them about. This Docteur Comtois or the duc who had hired them might know. Might even have had a hand in it. Whatever it was, she had to find out.
She scribbled quickly to keep up with her whirring brain.
Discovery was addictive, and she wanted more.
8
The Royalist Drop Point at the Madeleine Church
The incessant rain had come and gone again by the time Camille left for the arranged drop with their Royalist employers that evening. A hazy pink sunset was unspooling over the river as she crossed the Pont National. The dirt and cobbled roads were lit by oil lamps strung between buildings. Restaurants and taverns emptied out factory workers, merchants and shop girls, squeezed between the ornate-fronted hôtels of the aristocracy and the high walls of their city gardens. Posters covered any exposed space, advertising the upcoming Festival of the Supreme Being and arrests or rulings for each sectio
n of the Paris Commune. Ada walked with her for a while, drawing closer as they passed the shadow of the guillotine in the Place de la Révolution. It was probably her imagination, but Camille thought the ground seemed almost sticky with years of spilled blood.
Ada peeled off, ready to meet her later or report her absence if things with the Royalists went wrong, and Camille continued down the Boulevard de la Madeleine, coming up short in front of the grand portico of the church of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine. Only the looming columns and pediment had been built; behind them the excavations for the foundations lay untouched. Revolutionary Paris had no use for a church, so building had stopped. The void was like a dark bruise between the glowing windows and lamps lighting the street. Camille waited until an idling group of students had passed before slinking down the side of the abandoned church.
At the far end of the foundations, a wall from the choir of the older church still stood. A storm lamp threw lurching shadows onto its cracked plaster. Two people were waiting for her.
Camille readied herself and pulled her mask out of her pocket. It was a simple black riding vizard, used by ladies to protect their faces from the sun. Made out of black velvet on pasteboard, it formed a rough oval with holes for her eyes. It was supposed to be held in place by a button clamped between the teeth, but Ada had helped her modify it to be secured with string instead. She positioned the mask, then shoved her hands into her pockets and joined them.
‘Bonsoir, mademoiselle.’
The duc stood nearest the lamp. He looked just as he had when he’d recruited Camille, a tall, middle-aged man with a shock of white hair and piercing blue eyes, wearing expensively tailored silk breeches and tailcoat, silk stockings and shoes with immaculately polished buckles. Beside him was a younger man with a ruddy complexion, thick with muscle but impeccably dressed. Something about him didn’t feel right. An air of latent aggression seemed to come with him, making it seem as though his suit was a poor disguise for his true nature, like old wallpaper showing through thin paint. Camille kept her distance from him, hand resting on the handle of her pistol.
‘Bonsoir, citoyen,’ she replied. The duc’s lips tugged into a momentary sneer at the revolutionary epithet. ‘Bonsoir…’ Camille glanced questioningly at his companion.
‘Monsieur Dorval,’ the duc introduced him. ‘An associate.’
‘How do you do?’
The man nodded in acknowledgement.
‘I trust it is a good evening?’
‘Oh, fair to middling, I’d say.’ Camille looked at the darkening sky. A sliver of moon was making itself known among the clouds. ‘Don’t think the rain will last, which is all any of us can ask for. Paris can’t afford another bad harvest.’ She smiled pleasantly. ‘Quite literally.’
The duc’s hand twitched as though wanting to tap restlessly against his stick.
‘If you’re angling for more money, I will need some assurances that you have safely retrieved my daughter.’ The duc made a show of looking around. ‘It would seem she hasn’t made it this far. May I enquire as to her whereabouts?’
‘Not where you told me she’d be, as it turns out.’
The duc tensed.
‘We raided the prison. She wasn’t there.’
The plan had come together in her mind during the walk from the Au Petit Suisse. She wasn’t going to hand Olympe over, whatever Al said, and she wasn’t keen on letting on they had her. But she didn’t want to tell the duc they’d failed to get into the prison either. That was just kicking the problem down the road: he might end up asking her to go in again. So this was the option left after all other choices had been scratched off her list.
‘The directions I gave you were very precise. Did you make some error of comprehension?’ The duc’s finger was twitching against his thigh, rapping out a stucco rhythm. Camille hoped for his sake he didn’t play whist.
‘I can read quite well, thank you. The room you sent me to was empty. No sign of where she might have been taken.’
The duc pursed his lips.
‘How … unexpected.’
‘Indeed. A day of many unexpected things,’ agreed Camille. ‘Not least of which there was no record of a Citoyenne Aubespine ever being held at the Conciergerie. I checked, you see, after we couldn’t find her. A mistake, I thought. Perhaps the poor girl was in some other prison. The Luxembourg, the Saint-Lazare. But no one seems to know anything about her. Though’ – she paused, glancing at the streets on either side of the church, then took a step forwards – ‘I did find one more unexpected thing. There was something left behind in the cell at the Conciergerie. A mask made out of metal. Fitted, it seemed, to close around the entire head.’
She met the duc’s eye, watching for any flash in his ice-blue irises. A muscle in his jaw flickered. Pleasure flared in her gut. Got you, you lying bastard.
‘But, of course,’ she continued, ‘that couldn’t be anything to do with your daughter. So perhaps you’re right, and I got the wrong cell.’
The duc gave a sour smile.
‘A mistake, as you say. Obviously. They must have moved her.’
Camille bit the tip of her tongue to stop a smile rising to her own lips. Her situation was precarious, she knew, but watching the duc squirm was so satisfying.
She bounced on the balls of her feet, readying an appropriate expression of dismay and sympathy as she made her excuses to leave. But before she could, the duc spoke.
‘It seems our deal is not yet complete. I have already furnished you with a significant float to finance your exploits, at no small risk to myself, as you say. I expect to see a return on my investment.’
The satisfaction drained out of her immediately.
‘Then get better information. I can’t rescue a girl who’s not there.’
‘So find her. You seem to have your fingers in every grubby little prison in Paris. You have more than enough money to keep you in gin and bread, Camille du Bugue.’
Camille froze, eyes wide behind her mask. How did he know her old name?
‘Yes, I know who you are. In fact, I know quite a bit about you and your so-called battalion. A deserter. An aristocrat in hiding. A runaway daughter. All people who would rather their business be kept private, yes? Find the girl. Bring her to me.’ He bit off each word like a bullet. ‘Or I might find myself telling your Revolutionary friends just who’s been liberating their most valuable prisoners. Think of it as a penalty for failing to deliver to agreed terms.’
Camille’s mouth had gone dry, that familiar anger roiling in her chest.
‘We never agreed terms. Your side of the deal is as weak as mine. You’re not telling me everything, and that risk nearly cost my battalion’s lives. I’m not so interested in playing your game any more.’
‘Keep your nose where it belongs. I’m paying you. I expect even an arrogant girl like you to do as she’s told.’
She took a step forwards, hand drifting to her pistol. ‘She’s not your daughter, is she?’
An unpleasant smile flitted across his face.
‘Oh, no, I assure you. She’s very much mine.’
‘I’m not interested. Get someone else to do your dirty work.’
‘Watch your tongue around your betters, girl,’ growled Dorval. He had stayed silent until now, watching, calculating. His gaze made the hair at the back of her neck stand on end.
‘Or what? This is the Revolution, citoyen. There are no “betters” any more.’
Dorval hesitated, studying her. ‘You call yourself “Laroche” now. Like you’re some common girl from a back alley. But we know who you are, Camille du Bugue. We know who your family is. Or should I say, was. I saw what happened to your mother and father. I saw their heads roll into that basket like every person before them. Like the heads of your battalion will, if you don’t watch your step.’
Camille lunged forwards, teeth bared as her hand found her pistol. Wrenching it from her belt, she pressed it into Dorval’s stomach.
‘I watched them die to
o. I’ve seen almost all the people who raised me sent to their deaths in this Revolution. I’ve seen people stabbed, and beheaded, and strangled, or simply crushed to death in a riot because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You think you can threaten me? Scare me?’
She leaned closer. She could see the broken veins in his nose and the nicotine stains on his teeth. The image of loosing a bullet into his gut flooded through her, the impact, the wet splatter of intestines, the heady tang of blood.
He tried to back away, but she jammed the gun harder under his ribs, savouring the shock in his eyes.
‘There’s nothing left in me to scare.’
She stepped back, lifting her gun clear. Dorval’s grin widened. She felt the weight of his full attention on her and she hated it.
The duc clicked his fingers at Dorval and he picked up the lamp.
‘See that the job is completed. I will send my people to check on you.’
He nodded towards Dorval, who gave her a short bow, the lamp dangling from his fingers, sending shadows wavering across the broken pillars.
‘I look forward to our next meeting, mademoiselle,’ he said.
The bobbing light passed out of the church, leaving Camille alone.
Hand trembling, she slid her gun back in her sash and swore.
Now what?
9
A Printer’s in Section de la Butte-des-Moulins, near the Jacobin Club
In the thatch of roads off the Rue St Honoré a cluster of law clerks, printers and publishers made their home in the shadow of the Jacobin Club – the political home of Robespierre, president of Revolutionary France and architect of the Terror. Ada passed up the Rue Saint Roch and turned into the Rue des Moineaux. The bookshops and stationers were closed for the night, but lights in many of the clerks’ offices were still lit and the thud of the presses carried on unchecked. Rainwater spilled from clogged drains, the scattered sawdust did little to hold back the tide of effluence that crept across the cobbles. She held her skirts up and picked her way over them. She wore a wine-red riding habit in cotton twill, with a fashionably high waist, gold trim, and an immaculately arranged cravat she’d had Al help her with. Where she was going, she wanted to feel ready for battle.