had fallen out of her memories. Hardly daring to believe, she ran her fingers over the silvered patterns of twining vines and stars. Just as they had done then, the curving letters of the title—The Silver Leaf: A Primer—seemed to unfurl in the firelight. Underneath was written: As You Water the Roots, So Does the Tree Bear Fruit. The ends of the pages were marbled pale green and blue, and when she held it to her nose, it smelled of burned wood and ash and magic. A book of magic created for small children … or those who’d never learned enough.
A blue ribbon marked a place toward the end, and she opened it there. She expected to find the working for the magic called tempus fugit, but it was not there. Hurriedly she flipped to the page on the veil. Only one short paragraph. As she read, disappointment stabbed at her. There was even less information in The Silver Leaf than there had been in Saint-Clair’s journal. Here were only warnings of how dangerous it was. She supposed it was because it was a book for children. Though, she thought, frowning at the page, weren’t children the ones who most needed to know the dangers?
She turned back again to the place marked by the ribbon. In the margin had been drawn—by Blaise?—a pointing hand that indicated a short passage.
… yet for reasons we do not know, there was a change. In our earliest documents, the source for magic was called “avec-le-sentiment,” because of magic’s absolute reliance on powerful emotion as its fuel.
She knew from the portrait that it was her ability to feel deeply that had drawn Séguin to her. It had also been what had drawn Camille to write about the girls, and so put her in Odette’s sights. Both times feeling deeply had thrust her into grave danger.
Over time, “with-feeling” was seen to come from only one of the strongest emotions, which we call “sorrow.” It is impossible to pinpoint the exact moment when this change occurred; the earliest reference to magic worked from sorrow is in the diary of magician Henriette Louise de Clos in 1475. She ranks all the emotions in terms of their power, and concludes that the source for transformation resides most deeply in sorrow. It was a simple theory, and a dangerous one.
A draft from the window shivered across the back of her neck, and she pulled her cloak higher. One woman and her writings had changed everything.
What had once been sympathy was reduced to sorrow. It was powerful, and therefore taught to children to use in times of crisis. But there was a cost to this change. Instead of a connection to others, magic became a dark thing to be feared. Soon magicians created ways to contain their too-painful sorrow: the veil, or blur, which cut a magician into parts by separating one emotion from the whole; and the sorrow-well, which allowed one magician to use another magician’s pain. In both instances, the magician who relied on these would, in the end, cease to feel. The heart is a muscle that must be used.
Since she was a child, she’d been told the wrong story. And she’d believed it: that magic was wrong. That she was wrong. She’d believed she was doomed to live in sorrow if she used magic. A tear glinted diamond-like on her lashes, and she blinked it away.
Remember, children: the strongest magicians are those who are brave enough to accept the whole of who they are and what they feel.
The last sentence was underscored, and beside it, in the margin, was penned: For Camille. Our secret history.
She closed the book and pressed it to her lips. Merci mille fois, Blaise.
Upstairs, she found her way down the corridor and into her room. Sophie was already asleep. Her golden hair spread over the pillow; gently the coverlet rose and fell. So long ago it felt like a dream, Camille had woken in her own bed to find Lazare sleeping beside her. The sheets had fallen from his tawny shoulder. Around him his hair had flowed, dark as the ink she loved, the fan of his lashes resting on his cheeks. That day, the dawn had been full of promise and hope.
She did not know how to hope any longer.
Beyond the window lay the stableyard, a walled garden, the thatched roofs of the inn’s long wings, pale and vague in the moonlight. Alongside ran the road on which they’d arrived from Paris,