or funny jests. ‘Vive la Nation! Vive la Révolution!’ As if there were nothing else in the world than this.” She threw the crumpled ribbon on the floor in disgust. “There will be no more paintings but those horribly stiff ones by Jacques-Louis David. And the worst of it? If I may be selfish?” A stifled sob strained her voice. “It’s happening just as I’ve discovered what it is I love to do. Now fantasy and beauty and fairy tales are forbidden.”
“Magic, too,” Camille said.
Sophie seemed to see her then. Her hand went to her mouth. “Dieu, what has happened? You said Lazare left but—”
Camille bit her lip. “Rien, truly.”
“Nothing?”
Her throat constricted. “I promised not to tell anyone.”
“Anyone does not include your sister. Especially when you look like you might cry.”
Camille sank to the fabric-covered floor. It took too much strength to stay standing. “He has left the balloon corps and is—against the law, and really, against all reason—flying an émigré family to England.” As Sophie listened intently, Camille told her about the Cazalès’ plight and Lazare’s plan. “And do not dare tell me it’s romantic! He might be killed.”
Sophie restrained herself. “He’s a very good aeronaut. If anyone can do it, he can. But that’s not all, is it?”
“He wished for me to go with him.”
“To emigrate?”
“I won’t leave.” She blinked, hard. “He said he was taking them because I’d inspired him with my work with the Lost Girls. His father had got him the commission for the balloon corps, and he hadn’t wanted to tell me because I had such high standards, I would despise him for it!”
Sophie gasped, incredulous.
“It was utter madness. I didn’t want him to fly over the sea, in the cold, so I thought if I told him … please don’t be angry.”
Sophie cocked her head, considering. “I can’t promise I won’t be. But I will still love you.”
Gathering her courage, she explained to Sophie about the pamphlets, and the uncontrollable magic in them. Sophie’s eyes grew wide with shock, but to her credit, she did not criticize Camille for what she had done.
“If he knew,” Camille said, “I thought he’d realize how foolish he was being and stay here. If I wasn’t a saint, he needn’t be one, either.” She dropped her head into her hands. “It did not have that effect at all.”
“Oh, Camille.” Sophie squeezed her hand tight. “You gave away your secret and he did not care.”
Bitterly, she said, “Oh, he cared, but not in the way I’d hoped. He called me a pretender. He said he loves me but wishes I were not a magician. But what if I can’t purge it from myself, or even contain it? What if it is who I am? If he loves me, how can he ask me to be someone else?” She wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. “When he was leaving, we kissed, but Sophie! He pulled away and I felt so small. I have been making the same mistakes, over and over, like the girl in the tale who spins straw into gold, but it doesn’t help her at all. I should have told him earlier! I should have told you earlier.”
Sophie sifted through the piles of fabric for a scrap that would make a suitable handkerchief and gave it to Camille. Kindly, she asked, “Why is this magic so bad?”
She couldn’t believe Sophie was asking this question: Sophie, who hated magic. “Because it’s a lie, a trick. Pretending.” She heard Lazare’s voice saying the words, incredulous hurt closing him down. “Because magic almost killed me—and Maman. Because it’s against the revolution—”
“Is it? You sound like Papa.” Sophie found a half-sewn white organza rose and began to shape the fabric into petals. “To me it seems the opposite of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told the girls’ truth. How is that pretending? Working the glamoire and using a fake name at Versailles is pretending.” Her needle flashed as she sewed. “Remember when you’d turn the metal scraps into coins? When they lost their magic, they’d slowly start looking like what they really were underneath the magic. This is the opposite.” She took another stitch and petals bloomed in her hand. “Other people pretended the girls were not worth helping. They pretended the girls didn’t deserve the house they built with their own hands, because they were thieves or flower sellers or wore low-cut dresses or were somehow not deserving. But your pamphlets scraped that away, like the tarnish it