pull him back. “Come away, Paul. You’ll make things worse—”
The mason strode toward him, fists raised, shouting: “You defend the king? Can’t you see he takes no responsibility for what he’s done?” Wild-eyed, he spat at the butcher. “You are a traitor to the revolution!”
In the butcher’s hand was suddenly a long knife.
“Stop him!” Rosier shouted.
Arms reaching, the crowd closed around the butcher—but not before he managed to force his knife into the mason’s side. The stricken man collapsed to his knees. Blood bloomed across his shirt, thick and fast.
Camille could not move.
“Call the police!” a woman screamed. “Fetch a surgeon!”
Bracing his foot on the mason’s shoulder, the butcher yanked his knife loose. Gore welled from the wound. The crowd fell back, muttering and afraid.
“This frightens you, does it, cowards?” The butcher raised the red blade above his head. “You want revolution? You must get used to the sight of death! Magicians and the traitors who support them will be the first to die!”
“Paul!” his friend shouted. “Come away!”
On the stage, the scarlet-cloaked man from the Comité signaled to one of his guards, who threaded his way toward the stabbed man. The butcher grinned as he wiped his knife on his apron. “He’s coming to congratulate me, I don’t doubt! Any other magician-lovers I can take care of?”
They had to get away.
Under Camille’s feet, the ground rippled nauseatingly. The skirt and bodice of her dress were splattered with blood. A dark red river covered the cobbles and soaked the toe of her shoe. Her stocking was wet with it. Soon, she thought dimly, his blood will fill it entirely.
“Camille?” Lazare said urgently. His face was very close, his cheek hazed with crimson spots. She tried to meet his eyes but could not: instead of seeing comfort there, she saw only his fear. She tried to take a deep breath, to steady herself, but her stays were too tight. Black pinpricks swarmed at the edges of her vision, closing in, and she felt herself falling backward—
“Camille!” Sophie cried.
“She’s feeling faint!” Lazare said to the bystanders. He had his arm around her, holding her up. “I’ll take her home.”
Camille clutched at his coat as if it might keep her afloat. “Walk with me,” he said in her ear. “Pretend it is nothing, pretend—”
Pretend what?
Pretend she did not live in a magician’s mansion where magic seeped from the walls? Pretend that every object and room in the house was not suddenly a death sentence? What of the pamphlets that sold better than any pamphlets had a right to do? The fever that came upon her when she printed them? She knew she’d felt it before. It was as familiar to her as the beating of her own heart.
“It was the blood,” she said, though it sounded unconvincing even to her. “That’s all it was.”
“Please, tell me,” he said urgently. “You have given it up, haven’t you?”
She had tried. For everyone’s sake.
But instead she’d somehow unloosed it. And the consequences had been good—things he’d admired her for. Now what? How could she explain it to him? She could not say, Something happened when I printed the first pamphlet. A fever came on me, and I couldn’t stop. How could magic compel someone to purchase a pamphlet, or a newspaper the story was printed in? It made no sense.
But magic, she knew, had its own logic.
You are extraordinary, mon âme.
She had seen the admiration in his deep brown gaze. But in the tension in his shoulders, the vague wariness in the line of his lips, was there not something else? Judgment? Revulsion, or fear? What would he think of her pamphlets if he knew that magic might be involved?
She knew: she would be extraordinary no more.
“Of course.” As if by saying it she could make it true, she added, “Magic is nothing to me.”
15
She could not wash the blood away. Though they had fled the mob, running back to the Hôtel Séguin, she had not been able to leave it behind. Adèle had thrown away Camille’s shoes and whisked her dress away to be cleaned, but the blood’s dark, iron scent clung to her skin. Lazare had washed his face, but when she looked at him, she still saw the tiny pinpricks of gore on his cheeks.
The boys stayed for dinner, and as the salt was passed and the soup served, Camille pretended she was not afraid. That what had happened in the square was nothing for her to fear. She pretended to eat her