“Shall we walk a little?” Lazare offered her his arm, and they strolled away from the torches and gaiety of the puppet theater. Among the walkways, criers shouted the latest news from the Assembly at Versailles, and she and Lazare slowed to listen. It seemed the nobles and the clergy—some of them, at least—were renouncing the hereditary rights that hurt their tenants. “The revolution continues!” the crier said. Nearby a man had set up a table with a metal machine on it, as tall as the top of his head. On the placard it said: EQUAL IN LIFE, EQUAL IN DEATH! A FREE DEMONSTRATION OF DR GUILLOTIN’S EXECUTION MACHINE! As passersby clustered close to watch, the man operating the machine stuck a carrot in the base of it, then let the mechanism go. With dizzying speed, the blade screeched from the top to slice the carrot in half.
Camille blanched. It felt like death was everywhere. “Have you heard of this machine?”
“In the Assembly, Dr. Guillotin has vowed there shall be no more hangings,” Lazare said. “All criminals will die as efficiently as aristocrats have been privileged to do, by the sword. I can’t help but wonder, though, if there aren’t more pressing issues.”
“Like voting rights for women.”
He nodded. “And freedom for French slaves in the West Indies.”
They left the guillotine behind just as a commotion broke out. The door of a jewelry shop hung brokenly on its hinges. Shouts rang out from inside as two red-cloaked Comité guards dragged the jeweler into the arcade, stopping in front of a young woman with a tricolor sash around her waist.
Camille’s heart began to race. This close, the guards were huge, towering over the jeweler. Their dogs growled, showing their teeth.
The woman waved a pamphlet in the jeweler’s face. Camille caught the first few words:
MAGICIANS
TRAITORS
TREASON
A knot of fear tightened inside of her.
“I am innocent!” the jeweler cried. His costly jacket had been torn at the shoulder and his wig was dirty, as if it’d been stepped on. “She has no evidence! Put my diamonds to any test and you will see that they are authentic.”
“Authentic?” hissed the woman. “What I bought from you is no longer diamonds but dust! You are a magician!”
Camille froze in horror.
One of the guards reached out a calming hand to the woman. “Do not trouble yourself any longer, madame. You’ve done the people’s work. We will take over now.” Inside the shop, a pale-faced assistant was locking the door.
“Camille?” Lazare asked, worried. “Is it the Comité?”
She kept her voice low, smoothing the terror from it. It was not something she wished Lazare to see. “That woman said the jeweler had cheated her, that the gems she’d bought had turned to dust … but what proof did she show? With this new law, anyone can be accused!”
The woman’s tale had the ring of truth. For wasn’t that how magic worked, forever fading? But it was also the kind of thing that was printed in pamphlets or on posters like the one the woman carried. Camille didn’t know what frightened her more, that it was true—or that it was not.
“King Mob will soon rule Paris,” Lazare said, his voice flat, as the guards shoved the jeweler along. “And what will become of our city then? Besides, why would a magician run a jewelry shop?”
“I don’t know.” But she could guess. Desperate to stop talking about magic, wanting to keep this night a night apart from these troubles, she cast around for something else to do, another place to go. She had no interest in card games anymore, but there was something else: the magic lantern show, where pictures came to life. She’d always longed to step inside the darkened room where a blazing lantern illuminated painted slides of faraway places. It was, Papa had told her, like traveling without setting foot in a carriage. Impulsively, she asked, “Have you ever seen the magic lantern?”
That lazy smile. “I haven’t, but I would go with you.”
Heat flushed along her throat. “It’s on our way out,” she said as she steered him away from the difficult things and toward what she’d hoped the night would be, to the gaudy sign advertising the magic lantern show.
“When did you last come to the Palais-Royal?” he asked.
“A few hours after we first met, as it happens.” How desperate she had been then, gambling to win back what Alain had taken. “I came to find my brother, who had stolen our best dresses.