Too late. Camille steadied herself against the wall, trying to shake away the wisps of memory that clung to her and the magic-weariness that came with it. “When did she arrive? Is she upstairs?” The vials. “She mustn’t get into Séguin’s room—”
Her eyebrows at her hairline, Adèle said, “Who do you mean?”
“Odette.”
“Oh! She has not returned.”
Camille exhaled shakily. “Grâce à Dieu! Lock the door on her if necessary. Get Daumier to help you if you need it.”
“Of course.” Adèle seemed to relish the thought of it. “And your other visitors?”
She blinked. “Who are they?”
“The Marquis de Chandon and Monsieur Delouvet. They wished to wait in a room without windows, so I showed them to the butler’s pantry. It is hardly the place for such magicians, but I did not know what else to do.”
They were afraid. “You did well, Adèle.”
“You know you can count on us, madame. The old master kept us here by force. But you do it with your kindness.”
Adèle didn’t have to say it, and Camille was grateful. “Thank you.”
“Now, madame, your dress—”
But Camille was already striding toward the butler’s pantry. It was more like a short corridor than ran between the kitchens and the dining room than an actual room. When she reached the door, she said low, “It’s me, Camille.”
The key clicked in the lock, and the door inched open.
Chandon and Blaise were squeezed together in the narrow space. On the long counter that ran the length of the room, a candle guttered. It cast wavering shadows, its light barely reaching to the highest shelves and cabinets where glasses and platters were stored. At the very back of the room was the pantry’s second door, also locked, which led to the dining room. Chandon had found a bottle of wine—or perhaps he’d convinced Adèle to give him one—and he and Blaise each had a glass in hand.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Chandon said brightly. “Your housemaid had no idea when you’d return. But, I will say, your staff are proper magician’s staff, accustomed to strange whims! She knew exactly where to bring us.” The boys pressed against the cabinets to make room for her.
“What’s happened?” she asked urgently.
“What’s happened to you?” Chandon sniffed. “You smell like the Seine.”
She noticed that Blaise in his spotless cream-colored clothes had taken a good step backward. “I was spying on my houseguest. And then, because I didn’t know how to do it without being seen, I took some of the blur.”
Blaise’s calm evaporated. “What blur?”
“I found it here, in the house, an hour ago! Vials of blur Séguin had made. It was as if the house … led me to them. You were right, Blaise—I think it’s been trying to warn me for a long time.” She was giddy with the promise of it. “It’s upstairs, shall we go?”
Both of them stared at her wide-eyed. Chandon threw back a gulp of wine. “How much is there?”
“I didn’t stop to count. Perhaps five or six?”
“And you simply tried one?”
Sharp blue drops on her tongue. The wrenching pain of her memory. “It did have my name on it.” Gently, she added, “There’s one with your tears, too.”
“I’m not surprised,” Chandon said. “Though, I must say, this might be the first good thing ever to come of that brute Séguin!”
“Tell us,” Blaise asked seriously, “what was it like?”
It still lingered, cold and watery at the edges of her mind. “I fell into the past. I was very small. A moment I hadn’t remembered. It was just as the Marquis de Saint-Clair said in his journal: the blur had contained and preserved it, almost as if it had been extracted from my mind.” And she explained how it’d felt, the power of the sorrowful memories flooding into her mind as if a lock in a dam had been opened. How she’d struggled to be both in this world and in that one.
“Just as I do with the magic I feel when I print, I felt the blur would consume me. It really did make me disappear. Apart from seeing my mother in the memory, it was awful. I hope to never have to use it again.”
Both magicians looked grim. “But it might be one of the only ways to protect ourselves,” Blaise said. “That is, when we can make our own.”
Now it was Camille’s turn to stare. “What?”
A faint, gratified smile. “I found a book,” Blaise said.
Far away, in the foyer, a door slammed shut. Around