solider or police. Just a low wagon, its one shaggy horse dozing, its driver watching the sky. Shakily, she exhaled. If she had to be wrong about something, she was glad to be wrong about this.
“You came after all!” Rosier exclaimed. “You have changed your mind about Lazare?”
“I had a sudden fear that something had gone wrong. But all is as it should be?”
Rosier nodded, and checked his pocket watch. “Ten minutes.”
“Really? Can you be so precise?”
“One can hope! Who knows what marvels await us?” Tucking his watch back under his coat, he said, “It doesn’t matter to me if he arrives on time or not—such a long journey!—but that he arrives.”
To the west the sky revealed nothing, and she no longer knew what to think about the torn paper. She felt certain Odette had scribbled the notes. But perhaps she hadn’t known what to do with them after? Would the police have believed her? “Still, I worry, Rosier—”
“Do not—Lazare is the hero of this story, and you, its heroine!” His clever eyes sought hers. “Your friend’s death was a great tragedy. As is the threat to magicians and to the revolution itself. But your story ends happily nevertheless, I know it—we are waiting only for the final scene. An apology, perhaps, as the boy descends in his balloon from the theater’s fly loft. A kiss! Then the curtains swing closed and the play is done. Fin!”
She wanted so much to believe his version of the story. Was there only one last scene to be performed before the play ended: danger averted, lovers reunited, the curtains closing, applause reverberating in her chest? Why then did it feel as if she were instead blundering in the dark behind the stage, trapped between props and scenery, her arms outstretched, fingertips searching but touching nothing?
She’d thought she’d stayed just far enough ahead of the wave of violence to be safe. But no matter how fast she ran, the red tide poured after her. She could no longer say she was outpacing the tide. It had filled her shoes and bloodied the hem of her skirts.
“I am worried about the ending.” She held out her hand and Rosier clasped it, tight.
He scanned the sky. “Worry is for smaller souls than yours.” Suddenly he pointed. “Look! He must have been blown off course—he’s coming from the south!”
The balloon was very close, and dropping. This one was the blue of a night sky, the silk painted with stars, as if the music box he’d given her had come to life. It had to be a sign, she thought. A sign that good things were finally coming.
Lazare stood at the basket’s railing, spyglass in hand. She remembered the first time she saw him, when his balloon had been hurtling toward the ground. Now he waved happily as he worked the release valve, smoothly, easily, lowering the balloon until it settled gently on the ground.
“Fantastique!” Rosier shouted. “What a landing!”
She could not look away from Lazare. His smile gleamed wide against the dusky bronze of his skin, worry—over her?—tightening the lines of his handsome face. She had imagined they would talk, she would wait for his explanations, examine them for flaws, all the while protecting herself from more hurt … but she could already see the apology in the tense lines of his shoulders.
My heart.
She picked up her skirts and ran. Lazare leaped lightly over the side of the basket and raced toward her. When they reached one another, he swung her off her feet.
Clutching her to him, he said, “I thought you would not come. I don’t think I have ever been happier to see anyone.”
She kissed him, hard and fierce, and he laughed.
“I feel the same.” She ran her hands down his neck, along the breadth of his shoulders, down his strong arms to his elegant, capable hands. He is here. Whole, and unhurt. “I wish we had not parted like that, in anger—”
“I thought of nothing else when I was away. What I said—” His gaze went to the line of trees by the river.
“What is it?”
He squinted in the direction of the rising sun. Under her palm, his heart beat.
“Attention!” Rosier shouted. There was high note of panic in his voice. “Riders!”
Lazare’s body stiffened against hers. “Don’t turn around, my love.”
She tried to, but he held her tightly against him. “Is it the police?” His heart beat fast, fast, faster. “Tell me!”
“Somehow they must have found out I took the Cazalès—”