In their kiss, time ceased to exist.
As did the sea, the wind, and the sky. The boat and the people on it. The dolphins and the birds. There was nothing but the press of his body against hers, his sweet mouth, his hands cradling her face, and the rising of her own desire.
Suddenly he pulled away, the corner of his mouth curling in a smile.
“Why are you stopping?” she gasped.
“I’m sorry, my love—it’s Rosier, as always.”
“Enfin!” Rosier cried out. “We have all had enough of waiting!” He strode forward, Sophie’s hand in his. “I thought you would never get to it, either of you!”
“My nerves!” Sophie laughed. “I wanted you to spot the sloop yourself, Camille, but I had so much work in getting you to see it!” And then Chandon was stepping toward them, followed by Foudriard, champagne bottles like bouquets in their fists, as Sophie skidded along the slippery deck to throw her arms around Camille.
“Fetch the ship’s captain!” Sophie called to Foudriard. “He must marry them immédiatement!”
“Them?” Camille exclaimed. “I wish none of us will ever be parted.”
Like the master of marvels he was, Rosier produced wineglasses from the pockets of his coat and handed them around. Chandon poured the champagne, filling their glasses so they overflowed. First he embraced Lazare, congratulating him on his good fortune on marrying a brave and lovely magician. Then he stooped to kiss Camille and said so that only she could hear, “See? Good magicians always get what they wish for.”
Then he turned to the others and cried, “To magic!”
“And to hope,” Lazare said as they clinked their glasses. The golden wine that bubbled and danced was like her heart, dazzled and too full.
As happy conversation buzzed around her, the smoky blur of land that was France disappeared behind her. Gone from sight was the magic-threaded Hôtel Séguin that had protected and encouraged her as best it could. Adèle and Daumier and the others who had seen fit to care for the house’s magic and history and had given her shelter. The joyous and fierce Lost Girls who’d seen in her a friend. Lasalle, who had taken a chance on her. The brother she had lost, and her parents, Paris’s rooftops and the silvery Seine, the friends she had made at the gambling tables at a vanished Versailles—all were beloved to her. Not long ago she’d vowed never to leave, but now she was an émigré: homeless, cut adrift. There were so many unknowns ahead of her she thought she might drown in them. Lazare must have seen the troubled emotions play across her face, for he put his arm around her shoulders, drew her close.
“It’s hard to leave, isn’t it?” he mused. “Even when there is so much joy, and the chance to finally be free to be who we truly are.”
“It is very hard,” she acknowledged. “You know what it reminds me of? When a balloon is ready to fly, it strains at the ropes tethering it to the ground, as if it wishes to be free. But when it’s airborne, it can only go where the wind blows it. And when the fuel runs out it may crash, get tangled in a tree, fall into the ocean—”
“Mon âme, look at me.”
When she did, she saw the conflict in his face mirrored the one in her heart. What Giselle said once came back to her: You saw me. Then she hadn’t understood what it meant to the flower seller. But now she did. In Lazare’s deep brown eyes, she saw herself as whole. It had taken her accepting her own magic for that to happen.
“We can go back, you know,” he confided. “Or we can stay. No matter where we are, I know you will write, and I will learn the clouds. We will still work for change. For anything is possible.”
She took his hand—strong, steady, alive—in hers. “As long as we are never parted.”
Ahead of them, the white cliffs rose up, taller than cathedrals. The water that had seemed so broad and wild diminished and was gone. As they neared land, a flock of gulls, flashing white and black in the sun, sheered once over the boat before they winged away.
Glossary of French Terms
À bientôt—See you soon
À la française—In the French style
Bien sûr—Of course
Bienvenue—Welcome
Bonne chance—Good luck
Brava/Bravo/Bravi—Good, well done! A word of praise, often for performers (Italian)
Citoyens—Citizens
Comme ça—Like that
Comprenez—Understand
Continuez—Continue
Dieu—God
Émigré—Emigrant
Enfin—Finally
Entrez—Enter
Fais de beaux rêves—Sleep well
Fantastique—Fantastic
Hélas—Alas
J’arrive—I’m coming
Je ne sais quoi—Something extra special (literally, “I don’t know what”)
Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité ou la mort—Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood or Death (Revolutionary motto adopted 1793)
Ma chérie—My dear (feminine)
Marchande de mode—A stylist
Merci/Merci mille fois—Thank you/Thanks a million (literally, thank you a thousand times)
Merde—Shit
Mon âme—My soul
Mon ami/amie/amis—My friend (masculine/feminine/plural)
Mon Dieu—My God
Mon petit oiseau—My little bird
M’selle—Contracted version of Mademoiselle or miss
M’sieur—Contracted version of Monsieur or sir
Naturellement—Naturally
N’est-ce pas—Isn’t it
Ne t’inquiète pas—Don’t worry
Oh là là—Oh no! (what your friend would say if you slipped on a patch of ice)
Protegée—A person who receives special attention and instruction from someone more experienced
Régards/Régardez—Look (at that)
Rien—Nothing
Salut—Hi
S’il vous plaît/S’il te plaît—Please; literally, if it pleases you (formal/informal)
Taisez-vous—Be quiet
Tiens—Well/look/see here
Vive la France/la nation/le révolution—Long live France/the nation/the revolution
Historical Note
This is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes.
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Dickens famously began his novel about the French Revolution by saying, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times … it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” And it really was. Spanning five years (1789–1794), the French Revolution is a complex historical event, full of extraordinary people and actions that set France—and the world—on fire.
Because this is an alternate, magical history of the French Revolution, I’ve taken some liberties with the historical record. For example, I’ve put figures like the Marquis de Lafayette and the king and queen of France in situations they were never in. I’ve also used magic and magicians as a way to raise certain issues, such as emigration and state-sanctioned secret police, that hadn’t yet come to the fore in 1789.
A few anachronisms to note: Today, we’d call Lazare an amateur scientist. But he would have called himself a “natural philosopher,” since the word “scientist” wasn’t coined until the 1830s. For ease of understanding, I’ve used the word “science” instead of “natural philosophy” in this book. Similarly, in this series I’ve used the name “Place des Vosges” to refer to the beautiful park where many of the stories’ events take place, so that readers, especially those unfamiliar with the history of Paris, can follow Camille and Lazare’s wanderings on a contemporary map. Before 1799 it was called Place Royale.
In case you’re curious, here’s a bit more about the people, places, and events that figure in this book.
A brief time line of the events of 1789:
May Meeting of the Estates General at Versailles
June Tennis Court Oath
Fre
nch and mercenary troops sent to Paris
July Riots in Paris
Fall of the Bastille
The Great Fear
Aug. The Great Fear continues
Nobles renounce their feudal rights in the National Assembly
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
Oct. March on Versailles
Royal family brought to Paris and installed at the Tuileries
Palace
Distinctions made between “active” and “passive” citizens
Nov. Church property seized as property of the nation
Dec. Paper money called “assignats” issued by France to prevent its
bankruptcy
The French press: Before the Estates General met at Versailles in May 1789, there were only a handful of state-sanctioned newspapers in Paris. By June, there were more than three hundred newspapers in Paris, not including a deluge of pamphlets and magazines. Historians estimate that 70 percent of men and 80 percent of women in Paris had some basic literacy; those who couldn’t read had the news read to them by street criers or friends. Jean-Paul Marat printed 3,000 copies of his newspaper, L’Ami du Peuple; Jacques Hébert’s Le Père Duschesne had a print run of 80,000 copies in a city of 600,000 people. Since each copy of these radical newspapers was probably read by more than one person, their influence was vast.
March on Versailles: On October 5–6, 1789, a group of about six thousand women marched the fourteen miles from Paris to Versailles to protest the price and scarcity of bread. Among them were women who ran market stalls, sex workers, middle-class and working-class women, as well as men dressed as women (some sources say they were agitators in the pay of the duc d’Orléans). Before they left Paris, they were joined by fifteen thousand sympathetic members of the National Guard. Fearing they would desert if he did not let them march, Lafayette accompanied them. The women ransacked Versailles, threatened to kill the queen, decapitated several guards, and their protests led the king to agree to sign the new constitution. Sixty thousand people marched alongside the king’s carriage as it made its way back to Paris: a sign of the people’s new power.
The Great Fear: In the summer of 1789, people displaced by famine roamed the French countryside, looking for food and work. The revolutionary events of the spring, most important the meeting of the Estates General and the storming of the Bastille, had given peasants hope, but they also feared aristocratic payback. Fueled by fear and lightning-fast rumor, peasants mobilized in large groups and attacked anyone who threatened them (vagrants, peddlers, the homeless, nobles). These attacks fueled more panic, which in turn fueled more attacks. As historian George Lefebvre observed, “What matters in seeking an explanation for the Great Fear is not so much the actual truth as what the people thought the aristocracy could and would do.”
The poor: I drew inspiration for Camille’s pamphlets from Henry Mayhew’s important series of articles published as London Labour and the London Poor (1849–1852). Mayhew interviewed hundreds of poor Londoners, from an eight-year-old girl who sold watercress to a disabled Black boy who, for a coin, swept a clean path for pedestrians crossing the street. Although Mayhew wasn’t as enlightened as he might have been, he brought attention to the plight of his city’s poor. Edmé Bouchardon’s “The Cries of Paris,” (1737–1746) a series of drawings of people who worked on the streets of Paris, also inspired me. You can view them at www.getty.edu/art/mobile/interactive/bouchardon/index.html.
Balloons: Strange as it may seem, when I dreamed up a balloon corps for Lazare to lead, I had no idea that such a balloon corps had actually existed. But it did! In 1794, the French Aerostatic Corps (Compagnie d’Aérostiers) was created to aid the French government with gathering information, communication (through signaling), and the distribution of propaganda. As far as I know, Lafayette was never involved with it. The balloon corps saw action in Napoleon’s imperial battles in Egypt before it was disbanded in 1799.
Revolutionary women: The ghosts of several real-life women of the French Revolution whispered in my ear as I wrote this book. Their names aren’t as widely known as Robespierre’s and Danton’s, but they deserve to be. The first is the playwright Olympe de Gouges, who in 1791 wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Women as a corrective to the Declaration of the Rights of Man after demands for equal rights for women were repeatedly ignored. De Gouges was also an abolitionist. Her beliefs were seen as treasonous, and on November 3, 1793, she was executed by guillotine. The second is Charlotte Corday, who murdered one of the Revolution’s leaders, Jean-Paul Marat, in his bath when she was twenty-four. Few believed Corday herself was responsible, though she insisted she acted alone for the good of the revolution to kill the “monster” Marat. She was guillotined on July 17, 1793. You can read more about these and other revolutionary women in Lucy Moore’s Liberty: The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France.
Émigrés: After the fall of the Bastille in July 1789, members of the queen’s household, such as the Duchesse de Polignac and the king’s brother, the duc d’Artois, fled France. Early on, émigrés were mostly royalists like them, worried about revolution. But the exodus continued and in 1791, a law was passed demanding that émigrés return to France. If they did not, their property would be confiscated. By the end of the French Revolution, more than 100,000 French people from all walks of life had left their homeland for England, Austria, and even the United States, most of them never to return. My own history as an immigrant as well as my father’s experience as a refugee (and a three-time immigrant) make me particularly sympathetic to the émigrés’ plight, which is reflected in Camille and Lazare’s search for home, belonging, and the hardships they’re willing to endure to achieve it.
Acknowledgments
When the performers in Les Merveilleux soar through the air, it’s possible only because of others who, working tirelessly and generously behind the scenes, make magic out of the ordinary. No spectacle gets off the ground without them, and I’ve been lucky enough to have an entire troupe to help give this book wings.
First to my agent, Molly Ker Hawn—though I make my living with words, I find there aren’t enough to thank you for all you do for me. Merci beaucoup for your understanding and advice, your advocacy and sharp sense of humor, and for encouraging me to keep dreaming. I’m lucky to have you in my corner.
Un grand merci to my editor, Sarah Dotts Barley—for your patience as I wrote and rewrote, for the space you gave me, and the questions you asked. At times, writing this book felt like crossing the English Channel in a boat made of paperclips and wishes; your belief in this book (and me) was the beacon on the far shore toward which I rowed.
Thank you too, to all the wonderful people at Flatiron Books: Sydney Jeon, Megan Lynch, Cristina Gilbert, Bob Miller, Claire McLaughlin, Jennifer Edwards, Chrisinda Lynch, Vincent Stanley, Jordan Forney, Katherine Turro, Nancy Trypuc, Kelly Gatesman, Keith Hayes, Anna Gorovoy, Toby Yuen, and Stephanie Umeda. In the United Kingdom, thank you to Rachel Petty, Rachel Vale, Helen Crawford-White, and the rest of the team at Macmillan Children’s, as well as Venetia Gosling. I’m awed by how many people it takes to get a book off the ground, and I’m grateful for your hard work on my behalf.
While a spectacle is about dazzling and wondrous performances, behind the curtain it’s something else entirely: the disheveled dressing room with its cracked makeup pans and tangled wigs, costumes and candy wrappers and wilted bouquets—reminders that there’s both a public writing life and a private one. I’m incredibly fortunate to have writing friends who come sit in that dressing room with me to discuss the show (and what could make it better) while chatting about writing and hopes and fears. And when I need it, they unfurl the safety net below me, saying: Don’t worry, we’ve got you.
To Heather Kassner and Gabrielle Byrne, I wouldn’t have survived this series without you and our daily—hourly!—chats and vats. Your love, friendship, and support made this book possible. To Lillian Clark, for
understanding, and reminding me always to punt into the sun. To Karin Lefranc and Rebecca Smith-Allen, whose insight and friendship means so much. To Julie Artz and Jessica Vitalis for believing I could do it, and helping me get there. To all who read drafts of this book, and kept me going with your positively clairvoyant notes and caring: I couldn’t have done this without you. When I thought all I needed to fix my book were a few more note cards, Robin LaFevers reached out to suggest there might be a deeper issue, and that the soul of my story might be found in a fairy tale. And when I wandered lost through the thorny brambles called Book Two and Publishing, Stephanie Garber so kindly lit a lantern and looked out for me. To Jo Hathaway, Kelly Roell, Sara Faring, Emily Bain Murphy, Kip Wilson: you brighten my days. Thank you all, you wonderful coconspirators.
Thanks too to Zander and Kate of the beautiful schooner Guildive; when asked what would be the best way for my ragtag band of émigrés to cross the English Channel undetected, Zander didn’t hesitate: a fishing boat.
To the dear friends and family who supported me when I was only half in this world and who tugged me back into it, especially Sonja, Jeff Giles, Sabine, Karen, Mike, Dennis, Dina, Dad, Kim, and Mary. Thank you for holding a place for me, and for asking how it was going.
As this series comes to a close, I’d like to salute those who helped roll out the red carpet for these two books: Stephanie Beaver, Jessica Cluess, Rosalyn Eves, Stephanie Garber, Alison Goodman, Alwyn Hamilton, Margaret Rogerson, Christina Russell, Sami Thomason, and every author, librarian, bookseller, reader, book blogger, and Instagrammer who loved these books and shared them with others. Merci mille fois! And to those of you who have taken the time to tell me—via messages, social media, and reviews—how much you loved this series, thank you. You kept me writing long after the curtain fell.
To Tim, strongman, lifter-upper and encourager of writers, thank you for carrying me this long way. And to Lukas, plot magician and wizard of insight and advice on birds and boats and other things, thank you. I can’t wait until you write your own book. I love you both very much.
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