in those tunnels, I believed it had. I believed it had destroyed all the happiness in the world, all the magic. All that I loved.”
She turned his hand over and kissed his palm, heard his breath catch. “But it hasn’t, has it?”
He shook his head. “Still, I wanted to tell you,” he said softly, “in case it mattered to you.”
“Nothing matters more.” Once she had feared they were growing apart, like the branches of the pear tree at the Hôtel Séguin. How wrong she had been. And now that they were together, she did not ever want to be away from him again. Could she say to him, Shall we marry? Did she dare ask: Would you walk this new path with me, wherever it takes us?
She steadied herself. To be true to yourself is to be brave. “Lazare, I wish to ask—would you—”
“Camille,” he said, searching her face. “Will you—”
“—marry me?” she said.
He threw his head back and laughed. “You run fast, Camille Durbonne! Yes, a thousand times, if you will have me.”
An inarticulate moan escaped her as he drew her close. Her tears were falling fast, and she felt them dampen the warm skin of his neck, his cravat, his hair. “Yes,” she whispered in his ear, her lips on the tender place where his pulse beat. “Yes, I will.”
He slipped the ring on her finger, where its ruby shone like a heart of flame, and then he bent to kiss her. His mouth tasted of salt and fire and yearning. She kissed him back, aching and desperate, as if this kiss could undo the loss and pain they had suffered. As if a kiss could unwind the past and make a new world. As his hands slid around her shoulders, she twined her fingers into his hair, and there was only this moment, the two of them together.
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