himself Philippe Égalité, but no one forgets he’s still the powerful Duc d’Orléans, cousin to King Louis. Or that he himself wouldn’t mind being king if things changed. When it’s convenient for the cause, his name and title will be used against him. What’s to say they’re not using you and me in the same way—to put on a good show?” He crumpled his napkin into a ball. “They’re pretenders, all of them. And I hate the feeling of their hands on my soul.”
The strangeness at the balloon launch came back to her. “Has something happened, Lazare?”
He shook his head. “I wish I didn’t have to pretend right along with them.”
While the toasts rang out in the warm, well-lit room, outside in the streets, the people of Paris still starved. Suspected magicians were dragged from their shops. Bakers who ran out of bread were strung up from lampposts. Only yesterday Sophie had confided she’d heard about a list with the names of antirevolutionary nobles written on it in blood. But Camille had said nothing about these things in her speech. Instead, she’d said what the organizers had wanted her to say.
Was that pretending, too?
There was a sudden commotion in the hall as one of the double doors swung open. A young man appeared, dressed in the uniform of the National Guard. The room stilled, heads pivoting toward him. “Monsieur Mellais?” he called out over the assembled guests. “Monsieur Mellais?”
Lazare rose from his chair, the music fading as everyone stared.
When the guard reached the table, he handed Lazare a letter. He cracked the seal and quickly read through the note. He gave instructions to the messenger, who retreated back through the hall and out the door.
Lazare seemed suddenly very far away.
“What is it?” she asked urgently.
“There’s been an incident, mon âme.” The paper shook in his hand. “The corps had been planning to go eventually to Lille, near the border with the Austrian Netherlands. Lafayette wants a garrison there, with one or two balloons, to gather information at the border. But the time line has been moved up. An Austrian man was caught distributing antirevolutionary pamphlets near there, and Lafayette is sending us now.”
“But why you? I thought he wanted you on the ground.” Safe.
“The pilots don’t have the experience. No one expected an incident so early, not while they were still in training. If I go with them, and we fly together, I can guide them.”
All the way to Lille? “When?”
He tore the letter in half. “Lafayette wants us to leave tomorrow, if the weather holds. It will reassure the people, he says.”
Something else gnawed at him, she could tell. She saw it in his restless movements, the way he raked his hand through his hair. “What is it, Lazare?”
“For it to work, we must fly together … I do not know if they will listen to me.”
Puzzled, Camille said, “The other aeronauts? But they must—”
“What if they don’t consider me their leader?” He tore the letter in half again. “I am an amateur and not military trained. I got my position through … connections. They mistrust me because of the way Lafayette treats me—we are both of equal rank, after all. And there is, as always,” he said bitterly, “the color of my skin.”
At the launch, she’d seen the pilots’ sharp looks. “This cannot be tolerated—”
“No? I am well used to it.” His voice was grim. “And if it isn’t my Indian blood, it’s my title and my wealth. Caught in between, neither one thing or the other, I cannot win.” He managed to tear torn paper in half again. “To them I am different, and that’s what matters. They haven’t disobeyed one of my orders yet, but how can I trust them when I hear the things they say? Their suspicious stares? And yet”—he ripped the letter into tinier and tinier pieces—“I must. For Lafayette, for France, for the Revolution.” He let the shreds of the letter fall onto his plate.
“Look at me.” Slowly, he turned his beautiful face toward her. She loved the scar that sliced through his eyebrow for what it said about his fearlessness, the inky tilt of his lashes that framed the worlds in his eyes. “You are better than ten thousand of those pilots. Fifty thousand! Lafayette knows you alone have the knowledge to guide this flight. That’s why he came to you. There’s no one else in France who can do it. Everything you are goes into what you do. And they