the door, in the printing room, she heard the quiet hush of a leather sole on a parquet floor. The faint crinkle of skirts held close to stop them from rustling.
“Sophie?” she called. “Are you eavesdropping? I have something to tell you!”
And then she flung open the door.
35
“Surprise!” Odette smiled broadly at Camille.
She could only stare. How had Odette slipped past Adèle?
“Quelle coincidence!” Camille said, finally. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I was living here,” Odette said, a tinge of hurt coloring her voice. “Or have you forgotten about me so quickly?”
Disquiet threaded through her. Even though she’d heard Odette disparaging her at Flotsam House, now that she was here, standing in front of her? Odette was someone else entirely. Someone to be wary of.
“Not at all!” Camille exclaimed. “I meant only to ask why you were standing here, outside the door. I could have hurt you as I came out.”
“I was trying to find a servant to make me some tea.”
“You can always ring for one of the housemaids.” Odette knew this; she’d not been shy in setting the servants running to fulfill her wishes. It was clearly an excuse.
“But I didn’t see anyone, so I thought I’d look for you in the printing room. Where you often are.” Her eyes gleamed like a cat’s in the night. “Instead, I found you in the pantry.”
A warning bell clanged in her mind. “You were listening.”
“All I heard was mumbling voices. The doors in this house are rather thick. Sorry to have troubled you—I’ll fetch the tea myself.” Odette spun on her heel and headed toward the door.
In two steps Camille had her by the arm. “You didn’t hear what we said?”
Odette shrugged her off. “I’m your friend, remember? Not a spy.” Even if Odette had heard nothing, there was something about the way her face sharpened when she said the word spy that made Camille wonder if Odette had somehow seen her using the blur at Flotsam House. But how? It made no sense, unless the magic was much quicker to fade than she’d thought.
The debilitating haziness of the blur made it difficult to remember. She struggled to recall what Odette had said about finding out who Camille was. Perhaps that was why she had crept into the printing room—to see what pamphlets Camille was printing? Something antirevolutionary to use against her? She’d wanted Claudine to come with her to the Hôtel Séguin, to pick the locks. To break in. Find the secret rooms and the evidence. But evidence of what?
Once, when she and Sophie and Alain had had nothing, Camille had gone to a distant neighborhood to buy meat with her last turned coins. At home, she’d unwrapped the piece of mutton, and, as her stomach churned with anticipation for the meal, discovered the meat writhed with worms. It had looked good from the outside.
“Get out,” she spat.
Odette blinked, the picture of innocence. “To the kitchen?”
“I said, get out of my house.” Behind Odette, the edge of the carpet began to curl, rolling itself closer and closer to where she stood. Overhead the pamphlets muttered on their lines. The temperature in the house was rising.
Odette clenched her hand around the doorjamb. “Because I happened to come in here? I thought you cared about us girls.”
“I do. And I’m certain the girls will take you in for a few nights, now that you’re back on your feet.” Quiet, she thought at the house. Settle. The carpet uncurled but the wind remained, yawning through the rooms. It snagged at the ends of Odette’s hair and in her cloak’s tasseled trim like a warning.
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t wish to leave yet.”
Odette had been against Camille writing the pamphlets from the beginning. She’d never fully embraced what the pamphlets had brought the girls. She’d cared nothing for the subscriptions that kept the girls in money every week. Then there had been her strange comments about the effigies she had seen at Versailles, at the march. And worst, what she’d said to the girls and her attempt to bring Claudine to the house to pick its secrets.
But why?
It reminded her of how Chandon had shuffled playing cards through the dazzling nights in the gaming rooms at Versailles, his hands setting the pips to spinning, the cards flashing like falling snow. It was misdirection, a distraction so no one would look at what he was really doing.
“Daumier!” Camille called. The house sent her voice out as an echo through its hallways and