silvery blue. Odette stood by the window, looking out. “The room faces the garden.”
Camille frowned. “I thought—that’s what you would prefer. Isn’t it more restful? With the fountain?”
“I like to watch the street.”
Odd. “We can switch it, if you like.”
“It’s not necessary,” Odette said. “I won’t stay long.”
“Let me know if you change your mind. It’s no trouble, truly.” A chambermaid came in with a basket of wood and a candle, and proceeded to lay a fire in the grate. Odette followed her every movement. As if … making sure it was done the way she wished? But surely Odette had never lived like this, a maid to wait on her.
It smells like home. What had she meant?
“I’ll let you settle in,” she said finally. “We have dinner at eight. If you want anything, just ring the bell.”
“Merci.” Odette’s gray eyes met Camille’s. “I didn’t want to say anything when I saw you with the girls, when Giselle first brought you to Flotsam House. But I remembered you right away, from the streets. When I was running.”
She felt the shame of it like scalding water. Camille had been too frightened for her own safety to say, Step into this alleyway. I’ll divert the constable, you run. Here are the last coins I have—spend them quick.
As if Odette could read her thoughts, she said, “I could tell you wished to help. That mattered. Though I didn’t know where you were, or who, I knew I had a sister out there. At least there was one person in Paris who cared.”
Again she was struck by how different this Odette was from the one she’d encountered in that darkening street. “I wish I had done more.”
Odette held up her hand. “It’s water under the bridge.” She glanced around the cozy room. “Would it be possible to bathe?”
Would it be possible to bathe?
There it was again: a refined turn of phrase. The other girls didn’t speak like that. “Of course. I’ll let Adèle know.”
Odette seemed barely to be listening. Instead, she drifted over to a low chair by the fire, kicked off her dirty shoes, and wiggled her stockinged toes into the deep plush of the carpet. Even though her stockings were riddled with holes, there was something charming about it: the fiery revolutionary, who seemed never to think of her own ease and enjoyment, relishing the creature comforts provided by centuries of magic.
Her reddish eyebrows were drawn sharply together, her wide mouth determined, as she stared into the fire. The hardness in her gray eyes was like steel, like that of a general about to send his soldiers into a battle. Camille pulled the door closed, not wishing to disturb her.
As she went downstairs, she wondered again over Odette’s strange phrasing. It reminded her of when an enchanted coin lost its magic. The in-between moment, when she saw what it still was but also what it’d once been. What had Odette been doing when Camille first saw her, running from the constable? What had happened between that time, when their paths had first crossed, and now?
Perhaps there was one more Lost Girl story to tell.
But would Odette tell her the truth?
30
The next day Sophie and Odette avoided each other, like planets in different orbits. They were polite and considerate, but watching them was like watching two wary lionesses in Astley’s circus. Already Sophie had complained that Odette was rude to the servants. “Give her a day or two to adjust,” Camille advised.
Sophie frowned, irritated. “I thought she was leaving in a day or two.”
But she did not. Instead Odette wandered the house, peering in every room that let her in.
Meanwhile Camille dreamed her hands were painted black and she could not wash the color away, no matter how hard she scrubbed. When she was awake she thought she saw, in the tail of her eye, the ghost of the murdered boy. Trees in the garden became the poles from which effigies swung. It was a waking horror she could not blink away.
Only in printing did she find refuge. She lost herself in it, the dark rush of bitter magic engulfing her like a river. Against the helplessness she’d felt in the balloon, the magic gave her power—and she relished it. Though most of her pamphlets were now printed by Arduin Frères, twin brothers who had several presses and apprentices, she still made a few print runs especially for Lasalle. They were signed, and commanded a high price. She printed another twenty of each