the embroidered ferns that spiraled between crystal-studded flowers. How desperate she’d once been to don this dangerous dress and work the blood magic it required. And though she’d been afraid, she had done it. They had gone into battle together: determined but hopeful.
She had been such a fool.
She’d believed that, though anti-magic pamphlets and posters had inflamed the people of Paris, underneath they were good at heart. That they all wanted the same things. After all, hadn’t the people of Paris helped the girls? Didn’t they all believe in freedom and brotherhood?
This night had shown her otherwise. She thought back to the other time she remembered it snowing, when she’d walked out onto the ice of the Seine and it had cracked. It had seemed solid, but it was thin. And underneath was always that black water.
She had been wrong not to see it.
Kicking off her shoes, she crept onto the high bed and lay down on her side, pulling her knees up tight. Around her the dress’s skirts fanned out like great wings. Oh Lazare, she thought as she hugged the pillow close. There was no trace of his scent there. Have I lost you too to magic?
As her tears fell onto the sleeve of the dress tucked under her cheek, its threads began to stir. Not hungry, as it’d been so often before. But resolute and calm, as it had been that dreadful day of her marriage to Séguin and during the duel, when she had been so hopeless. It had helped her when no one—not even Lazare—could. It had believed in her when she had not believed in herself.
In her grief, she tucked herself tighter into its shell.
In return the dress fit protectively around her. She closed her eyes and the memories it held of Camille shimmered through her in a blur: the hushed glide of a gondola through the Grand Canal’s mirrored water, cool dew on grass, the thwack of a paille-maille ball scudding over the lawn, the daring crush of Lazare’s embrace. Then, endless as the sea, her ancestress’s memories, held so long in the dress, followed after in waves. As they swept over her, they were like a veil that hung between her and her sorrow and rage, so that she might finally sleep.
Her hand loosened its grip on the list and it fell, crumpled, to the floor.
The house creaked and fretted.
And outside the snow fell steadily until Paris was shrouded in white.
41
Two days passed in grief. Slow and heavy, curtains closed over windows. In the library, the books could be heard to weep, and the weapons in the armory clanged against the door, wanting out. The house closed off rooms and hallways it had opened before. Its wind keened through the rooms, overturning vases and tilting paintings. Its melancholy was its own, and also Camille’s.
When Sophie recovered, she tiptoed into Camille’s room to sit on the bed, but Camille didn’t wish to talk.
She needed to think.
Her mind went back to the things Blaise had said, things she should have paid more attention to. He’d been worried about leaving Les Mots Volants unattended for too long. Strange people had come into the shop, peering at the books. Someone had tried to force his way inside the night Blaise was murdered. The doorknob’s violent rattling haunted her. But he’d also told her the shop was warded. Who then could have got in and pulled him out into the street?
“Camille,” Sophie said, “what do you think about selling off the magical things in the house? In case the Comité comes? Or simply get rid of them?”
“What shall go first—the dress? The tapestries? Why not the entire house?”
Calmly, infuriatingly patient, Sophie persisted. “You must see that any hint of magic is more dangerous than it’s ever been. I saw Blaise…” She laid her blond head on Camille’s shoulder. “Whether magic is good or bad, why not finally be free of the magical objects? Know that you are safe?”
It was a safety that reeked of coffins and locked boxes.
From her bed Camille could look out over the inner courtyard and the garden. Beyond it, the stable roof, the walls, in the corners where shadows collected: Was someone there, watching? Waiting? How long would it be before someone came forward, saying they’d seen her at Les Mots Volants? How long before the Comité stepped out of the night again, the signed warrant a sheet of doom in their hands?
How had her Paris become this Paris? Lazare, with his dreams