solid and real. Back when it had been a rich man’s house, it must have been beautiful. But now it was worn thin, ghostly.
Camille’s fingers clenched the iron bars. Would Sophie come? Rosier? Soon they would find out what had happened. She imagined the street criers would be grimly satisfied to shout out the news of a magician—an aristocrat magician, no less—trapped by the Comité. What a prize!
And then the other, spiraling fear: What had happened to the boys? Foudriard and Chandon she felt certain had fled, warned by the ringing bell she’d heard; Roland, too. Perhaps all of them had escaped to the sanctuary of Bellefleur.
She tried not to think of what happened last night, but it came anyway: the choking smoke, the fire, the shadow that had loomed behind Lazare. Had he had time to run? Use his sword? And if he wounded or killed a Comité guard, what then?
Even if he’d escaped, nowhere would be safe.
She forced herself to take in the blighted courtyard below, the chill of the floor beneath her feet. There was no security. Not anymore. As she sat down on the pallet—to wait, because what else was there to do?—in the secret pocket of her dress, she sensed the weight of the bundled box Lazare had given her. She ran her thumb across the top of it … was there a stone set into the lid? It was tempting to open it, but not here. Next to the box were two tiny vials, both almost empty of tears: hers, made by Séguin through a process she would never know; and Blaise’s. The torment he’d lived through when that woman threatened to cut the magic from him! She closed her eyes against the horror of what he’d wanted her to know.
You cannot cut it from you.
A sharp rap on the door interrupted her thoughts. “Visitors,” the guard said. “A girl and a boy.”
The door swung open and Rosier and Sophie rushed in, bundled against the sudden cold snap that had engulfed Paris. Sophie looked as if she had been up all night. The three of them embraced at once, hugging each other close.
“You smell like smoke!” Sophie coughed.
“Are you not sleeping?” Camille countered. There were so many things she wished to ask, and to tell them, but she was aware of the guard, listening outside the open door.
She shrugged. “I’m fine. It’s you we’ve come to see.”
Camille looked searchingly into Rosier’s face. “Do you know what happened?”
He nodded.
“And?”
“It was such a silly mishap with the pigeons!” he said, exasperated.
What?
“I did not know you kept pigeons, Rosier,” Camille said carefully.
“Oh, it is a new fad with him,” Sophie replied. “There are four he particularly cares for.”
Is it a code? “Which are those?” she wondered.
“I call them my oldest friends,” Rosier said fondly. “They were all frightened by a fox last night! The excitable, toffee-headed one simply took off! And the other one who resembles a soldier with his blue feathers, he vanished too, in some other direction!” He stared at her, willing her to understand. “Both escaped the fox. As did the one who shrieked out the alarm. No doubt they’re safe in a tree somewhere, surrounded by pretty flowers.”
Beautiful flower: Bellefleur. And the pigeons: Chandon, with his hazelnut-colored hair, had taken off. Though Camille had thought Foudriard in his blue coat had escaped with Chandon, it seemed he’d fled separately. Roland had sounded the alarm. But why had Rosier not mentioned Lazare? She willed her voice not to break. “There was a black-headed pigeon that you loved well, wasn’t there?”
His face crumpled. “We do not know what happened to him. Not yet.”
“But you believe he will come home?”
“Of course.”
“And I? I am not one of your pigeons, but I seem to have found myself in a very solid cage.”
“First thing of sense you’ve said,” laughed the guard, his face visible through the window in the door.
“You must be brave.” Sophie took her hand.
“Why?” Their faces were very grave. “Tell me, what is it?”
“First, this new law is ridiculous. Who can show that a magician has ever hurt them?” Rosier said angrily. “The lawyer I spoke to assured me that he could get the charge dismissed. But it seems that we cannot avoid a trial.”
He said more, explaining what had gone wrong, but there was a ringing in her ears over which she couldn’t hear any other word but trial. Jurors, a solemn judge. Odette, eager to provide whatever evidence she could: her thumb on