Her small girl’s voice was proud. “I can copy anything. A painting, a will, a contract. I can make it appear exactly as it was, but altered so it says what you need it to say. Odette says there will be paper money soon instead of coins. I can’t wait.”
A forger. Camille blinked. “Pleased to meet you.”
“And the apple lock on the wall?” Giselle said. “That belongs to Claudine.”
A girl with wavy brown hair, cut short like a boy’s, made a bow, complete with a court flourish. “That lock was my father’s, and it’s very dear to me.”
“Did he make it?”
Claudine nodded. “I would have learned how too, but—” She shook her head, as if shaking off a thought. “I didn’t. I can slit a pocket or a purse before anyone notices, though.” And then, from her other sleeve, she pulled a set of needle-thin knives in a tiny flannel case. “Mostly I pick locks,” she said, with a dangerous smile. “I haven’t met one in all of Paris that can resist me.”
The others whooped.
“Who can resist me?” said a tall girl with olive skin and black hair who wore a costly dress with a plunging neckline. Fake diamond earrings swayed from her ears, a collar of the same clasped round her swan-like neck.
“Meet Héloïse,” Giselle said. “Best pickpocket in Paris. Tell her how you do it, won’t you?”
“Bien sûr! I walk comme ça.…” Héloïse took a few, hip-swaying steps. “Then—oh là là, pardonnez moi!—I bump into a rich man, my shawl falls aside … and while he’s busy ogling, he’s forgotten all about his purse.” The others roared with laughter. Camille joined in, too. There was something extraordinary about them, their pride and determination.
“And you?” she said to the girl in the red dress who’d dragged her inside.
“I sell fruit, strawberries or oranges, depending on the season. Nothing criminal, in case you’re wondering.”
Giselle gave her a meaningful look. “You’re selling yourself short.”
“Well, I do have a few tricks.” Margot’s voice had a pretty lilt to it, an accent Camille didn’t recognize. “I use ice to keep them fresh—Giselle does the same with her flowers.”
“It’s well done, Margot,” Claudine the lock picker encouraged. “We must live by our wits, for what else do we have?”
“Speaking of which,” Giselle said, waving forward the last girl, who’d hung back in the shadows, “here is our clever Odette. She stayed with us once when she was in trouble. Now she’s on the up-and-up, but she still visits from time to time.”
Camille bit back an exclamation. She’d seen her only once before, when Odette had been a starving girl fleeing barefoot through a crowded street, a tiny roll of bread in her hand, but she’d never forgotten her. Odette was much changed. She no longer looked as if she were stealing food to eat, and as she faced Camille with her hands on her hips, a proud defiance radiated from her. Where the thin, hungry girl Camille remembered had been painted with rouge, her feet bare under her petticoats, this new Odette was dressed in black, a plumed hat on her head, and most startling of all, wore a brace of pistols on a belt around her waist. Underneath her hat, she had Camille’s vivid red hair and the same gray eyes, though hers were iron-dark.
“The two of you could be cousins,” Margot observed.
“I suppose.” Odette made no sign that she recognized Camille. And why should she? If she remembered Camille at all, it would be as someone who hadn’t helped her when she’d needed it. Camille hoped Odette had forgotten her entirely.
“Odette won’t be able to visit us much longer,” Henriette remarked.
“Why, is something wrong with the house?” Odette asked. “Or are you tired of me?”
“Not with the house.” Claudine jabbed an angry finger toward the door, as if a villain lurked outside. “With them.”
“That’s why Margot pulled you inside like that,” Giselle explained to Camille. “We’re worried people will see us coming and going.”
“Why? Who would care?”
“The people who want to clean up Paris.” Snatching a newspaper from the table, Giselle handed it to Camille. It was worn and soft from having been read many times. She tapped at an article toward the bottom of the page. “Read. Odette hasn’t heard it yet.”
Camille cleared her throat.
Such are the Troubles in the Countryside of France that Vagrants and Brigands have become all too Common and Dangerous. Having made Themselves Known to the police in the country for their Nefarious Deeds,