that idled through the rooms and the sudden shadows she’d catch out of the corner of her eye that she could only guess were ghosts. Hôtel Séguin was a magician’s house with its own intentions, and it didn’t deign to share them with her.
But Sophie loved it.
“Imagine!” she’d said when they’d moved the short distance from the Hôtel Théron and stood in the courtyard of the Hôtel Séguin, “we own all this. Our beautiful home.” And she’d thrown her arms around Camille, her blue eyes liquid with tears. “We made it here. This place, can you imagine? And now we will be truly happy.”
Its unsettling magic was invisible to her.
Just last week Camille had pointed to a tapestry in the red salon, remarking how sometimes blood seemed to drip from the lance of the knight riding a big white charger. “Look, it’s doing it now!” Camille tried to keep the horror from her voice. “Don’t you see?”
Sophie had only blinked up from her sewing. “See what?”
Neither she nor their brother, Alain, had any aptitude for magic. Sophie couldn’t see how the house’s magic seemed to seek out Camille, how it clung like smoke to her hair and clothes, how it felt as if it were always trying to overtake her. For Sophie the mansion was luxury and safety, and she deserved to be happy after what she’d gone through at the hands of Séguin. Camille would do nothing to jeopardize that. Perhaps in a few months—once Paris settled—they might find a place that felt more like home.
Finally, up ahead, glowed the green-painted door at the end of the passage.
Relief sighed through her as she stepped out into the wide hall that ran through the middle of the house. Paintings and curio cabinets crowded its paneled walls. And there, just across the parquet, was the blue room, the fireplace visible through the open door. Another minute and the hateful pamphlet would be ash.
She was nearly inside when a shadow caught her eye.
It had her mother’s slim, elegant form. Maman’s small delicate neck, her tiny waist. She had no idea what the house could manifest—it seemed capable of anything. Her heart climbed into her throat as she whispered, “Hello?”
“Are you looking for someone?” The shadow dissolved as Sophie stepped into the hall.
A thread of loss pulled tight in Camille … but what had she been thinking? Of course it was her sister, whose gold-blond hair, milky skin, and deep blue eyes were just like their mother’s.
“Just you!” Camille said brightly. In a minute, Sophie would notice what Camille had in her hand. As she hurried toward the fireplace, the carpet beneath her feet curled. She caught her toe on the edge of it, stumbled—and dropped everything. Roses and papers slid from her arms, cascading to the floor. Out of nowhere, the low persistent breeze that murmured through the house began to rise.
“Merde!” she swore.
“Oh Camille!” Sophie exclaimed. “Your beautiful pamphlets!” Though she was wearing a striking pink dress and jacket, she dropped heedlessly to her knees to gather them up before they blew away. Heat flamed in Camille’s cheeks as she realized that Sophie would know exactly what had happened.
Sophie carefully laid the sheets of paper in a pile. “The bookseller didn’t take them?”
“He took one, in case there was any interest. But he doubted there would be.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “He said it’s not exciting enough. Not the right kind of story.”
“But why ever not?”
Camille stepped on a pamphlet to keep it from drifting away. “He said it was too dull! Ideas and philosophy. But that’s just the kind of thing Marat is printing in his paper all the time!”
“Is it?” Sophie asked. “I thought he had a reputation for being … terribly incendiary.” Squaring the sheets she’d gathered, she handed them to Camille. “I must say I agree with the booksellers; after all, you have to give the people what they want,” she said with a wan smile. Sophie’s hat shop, Le Sucre, was quickly becoming one of the most popular in Paris by doing just that. The people’s appetite for everything blue, white, and red seemed insatiable.
“Oh!” Camille said, surprised. “I thought you didn’t like selling the revolutionary ribbons and cockades—”
“How lovely these roses are!” Sophie scooped up the bouquet Camille had dropped and brought it to her nose. Then she rang a little silver bell that waited on a nearby table to summon one of the maids. “So what if those