launch had vanished, replaced by a kind of electricity that made it hard for Camille to look anywhere else but at him.
“Will they be under the trees, do you think, or in the arcade?”
Lazare craned his neck to see over the crowd. “Toward the back of this courtyard, I’m sure of it.”
By the time they found the painted sign proclaiming LES MERVEILLEUX, TONIGHT!, an eager audience was already gathering, drawn in by a violinist playing a sweetly melancholy tune. Between two chestnut trees red curtains hung like twinned waterfalls. On either side of them, torches illuminated the waiting stage.
“It seems so much more real, somehow, than before,” Camille observed.
“Rosier promised we would be amazed at the transformation.”
The curtains rippled as Sophie stepped out from behind them and came to stand alongside Camille. Her pleased smile gleamed in the dark. “Just you wait.”
In the evening air, the lilting music floated into the trees. As Camille listened, the buzz and chaos of the Palais-Royal, the criers and the pamphleteers, the arguing café patrons and the intoxicated gamblers faded, until the noise was no louder than wind rustling through dry leaves and all that existed was this glowing space of dreams.
The curtains drew apart. Beside her, Sophie tensed.
On the stage were two puppets—tall as humans, but otherworldly. Long-limbed and elegant, they wore flowing white costumes, touched here and there with golden stars. Behind them stood two puppeteers dressed in black, holding the sticks that made the puppets move.
“Well?” Sophie asked confidentially. “Do you like the new puppets?”
“They are so large, Sophie! Almost like people … or beautiful spirits. Or is that wrong to say?”
“Not at all.” Sophie’s face shone as if Camille had given her a gift. “That is perfect.”
One of the puppets was a princess, wearing a gold crown. She surveyed the skies, her arms outstretched like wings, then she bent low, nearly gliding along the ground.
“A snake!” someone called out.
Sophie frowned. “That is not perfect.”
As the princess searched, the young man watched from the eaves of a forest. He wore a beard, a tall hat, and a gold earring that glinted in the torchlight. A pirate? As the princess ran through the dark forest of firs behind them, one of his feet tapped impatiently on the stage.
“How lifelike it is!” Lazare said in her ear. “Their movements are so human—”
They did seem human, and yet they were not. There was something about them that was like magic—enchanted objects brought to life? But there was no sorrow in it that she could see. Watching Sophie gazing eagerly at the stage, Camille knew it was mostly love.
From behind his back, the young man produced a single red rose.
“Oh!” someone exclaimed, and was hushed.
The princess stopped searching, finally seeing him. He gave the rose to her; she planted its stem in the ground. As the violin played faster, the flower began to grow.
“Regardez!” cried a little girl. “Look, Maman!”
Camille couldn’t tell how they had done it, but the rose grew and grew until it had become a tree full of red roses. The princess plucked one of the blooms and pricked her finger. A handful of petals were tossed out into the audience as great white wings unfurled from her shoulders. As the crowd gasped, the princess lifted into the air. When the young man examined his own back and found nothing there, the crowd demanded, “Give him wings!”
“Just as we hoped,” Sophie murmured.
The princess had landed on a wire, like in Astley’s circus. She teetered one way, then the other, before she reached down and pulled him up. Together they stood on the wire in perfect balance before flying away. Paper snow glittered over them, though where it came from no one could tell. When the curtains swayed closed, the circle of watchers were silent and awed before bursting into applause.
“Fantastique, Sophie!” Camille exclaimed.
“Truly marvelous,” Lazare added. “You are to be congratulated on the costumes.”
“I did more than that,” Sophie said archly. But Camille could see she was thrilled. She had not seen Sophie this happy in a long time. “I must find Rosier before he gives the puppeteers their notes. The princess cannot be mistaken for a snake! And I really do think we need to bring back the bear.” Blowing them a kiss, she hurried through the crowd to the back of the stage. From behind the red curtain, Rosier emerged, pipe in one hand, notebook in the other, as Sophie led him away behind the chestnut trees. The only emotion