Odette frowned as sturdy footsteps came closer. When the footman came into view, Odette crossed her arms, bracing. “I demand you leave me alone.”
“I only take orders from the mistress of the house.”
Just as Adèle had said, staunch and loyal. “Daumier, would you please escort Mademoiselle Leblanc while she packs her things. She has decided to leave.”
“How dare you?” Odette spat. “Everything you did for the girls—for us—was a lie! You only pretended to care!”
“You know that’s not true,” she said coldly. “But if it makes you feel better, by all means, believe it.”
Odette took a step closer. The floorboard creaked menacingly beneath her feet. “You will regret making us enemies.”
“You’ve done that all on your own. Adieu, Odette.”
Daumier grasped her arm under the elbow. “I’ll show you the way, mademoiselle.”
“Let go of me! I can walk myself. I have no wish to stay here any longer.”
But Daumier held firm, as if he were taking her out onto a ballroom floor for a minuet, and led her away.
Once they were gone, Camille rested her forehead against the glass cabinet. It was cool, and soothing, and slowed her pounding heart. It had been awful, but it was over. The minutes ticked away as she waited for Odette to leave. Far away, the front door shut, solid and reassuring. The house creaked and sighed, as if it too were relieved, tucking itself to sleep the way Fantôme the cat did.
She should have felt safe. But as she left the butler’s pantry, she couldn’t shake the feeling that that was not the last she’d see of Odette. That on the great pile of wood a new piece of kindling had been lit and was beginning to smoke.
36
“Sophie?”
After Odette had been escorted out, Camille wandered the house, searching for her sister. As each room turned out to be empty—the red salon, the kitchen, Sophie’s bedroom and sitting room—she considered the day’s events. The bright hope of the valise of tears, with its tiny vials of magic, the book Blaise had finally found, and their plan to make enough blur to use if an escape became necessary. Against all of that weighed Odette’s betrayal.
But again and again, she came back to the fight with Lazare. It felt as if they’d stripped away the grease paint smiles they’d worn for a performance and now, with them gone, neither of them recognized the other. Had their paths taken them so far apart that they couldn’t be brought together again? The thought of it was a stone inside her. I will not cry, she told herself. If that was who Lazare was—someone who could never accept magic—there was no future for them. No final act, no encore.
Camille finally found Sophie kneeling by one of her mannequins, surrounded by heaps of white feathers and lengths of white organza. In the middle of one pile slept the black cat Fantôme. From pegs on the wall hung several puppet costumes—fox, bear, fawn, and others—mysterious and beautiful. The mannequin wore one of the princess’s white costumes, the plainer one she wore before wings transformed her into a bird. Around its chest was wrapped a bright tricolor sash, which Sophie was tying into a bow.
“What’s happening with the costumes?” Camille asked.
Sophie didn’t turn around, but continued to fuss with the knot. “I am fixing them.”
“With revolutionary ribbons?”
“Rosier didn’t tell you?” She sat back on her heels, studying the effect. “A patriot complained about our second performance at the Palais-Royal. He called it antirevolutionary. ‘There was a princess! Magic!’ Now we must change it so that it’s realistic. In line with revolutionary values.”
Camille hated the weariness in her sister’s voice. “How can they care so much about a puppet show?”
Sophie got to her feet and fluffed the ribbon. “We had an enormous audience. Rosier had advertised and has sold tickets already for the next one. But apparently puppets are dangerous.”
“Need you go this far with the trims?”
“I should, but I won’t!” She yanked the tricolor ribbon off and crushed it in her fist. “Revolution, revolution! I am well tired of it, Camille. I could have designed costumes for the opera. Or the Comédie-Française. But it will never happen.”
“Surely you still could—”
Angry spots flamed in Sophie’s cheeks. “All over Paris possibilities are shrinking. Soon we’ll only be allowed to wear the tricolor and plain hats and dresses. Soon there will be no play or opera that doesn’t praise the government or the revolution. The characters will shout out patriotic slogans instead of declarations of love