Enchantée(128)

But perhaps magic was more than survival? The queen might have had Séguin banished, or stripped of his estates and money, if he did not cheat for her, as she’d called it. He’d worked magic to survive, just as she had, in the beginning. But why had Chandon used it to win at cards? He had money and he was the best player at court, even without magic. Why endure the sorrow if he didn’t have to? She remembered again the itch of magic on her skin, the way it nearly compelled her to transform herself. Perhaps that was the beauty and the terror of la magie: taking things that no one wanted—bad cards, scraps of metal, sorrow itself—and then making something of them.

Camille said, “We no longer need the money, do we? And the dress was damaged in the duel.”

The bird hopped across the coverlet, pecking at a row of silk tassels.

“I could mend it if you like,” Sophie said. “I’ve done it before.”

This time, though, the dress felt dead. “If I’m not going to work magic anymore, does it matter?”

“I was so envious, you know,” Sophie said then, quietly, “that you could work magic.”

“But why?” When Sophie was silent, Camille pressed on. “I didn’t like having to be the one to do it, but—I’m glad you were spared.”

“Don’t you see what it means, that you could work magic? You missed our parents. I did too, bien s?r, but I also thought everything would come right, in the end. But you understood what we’d lost,” said Sophie. “And from that sadness, you worked magic.”

Magicians needed sorrow. And deep sorrow existed only because of love. That was why Séguin had wanted her, hadn’t he said so? Because she felt deeply. And, she wondered, was it also because there had been something about her that made him feel deeply? Even if it were only his fear at losing her.

“You always wanted to change things, Camille. Our situation, our lives. You even wanted to help Papa change the world.” A proud smile crept across Sophie’s face, as if she were playing her best card. “Et voilà! Now you don’t have to work la magie any longer. You needn’t worry about me, at least for a little while. I have plans.”

“Already?”

“I gave my notice to Madame Bénard. Before Alain brought me here, we stopped at the shop and I told her I was leaving.” Sophie smiled wickedly. “She was not pleased. She knows everyone came for my hats, not hers.”

“Well done! But, Sophie—what if we have to leave Paris?”

“Because of the Bastille?”

Camille was haunted by the wild, righteous jubilation in the faces of the window-breakers that night the Bastille was stormed. And the boys shoving that aristocrat into a dark future of—more beatings? A grisly death? After the Bastille fell, life in Paris had continued on, but the shadow remained. In the way that one can see in a lake the reflec tion of what’s around it and what’s underneath, Camille sensed the violence of that night was still there. How did everything return to normal, after something like that?

“You’re not worried?”

“Even before the Bastille was destroyed, people were setting fire to aristocrats’ houses,” Sophie said. “Will it really get worse? Is Paris no longer safe?”

Once upon a time, Camille knew what it was to be safe. Or thought she knew: food, shelter, freedom from hurt. All those things were still necessary—there were so many people who had none of them—but this was something else. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but she could feel it, like sun on her face after a long winter. A chance to rise up and catch the light: to be something more than she’d believed she could be.

“I don’t know, but something is happening, Sophie. Perhaps something great—I hope so—but perhaps something terrible. If we stay in Paris, and I start a press, I can do my part in telling the truth about it.”

“You must,” Sophie said brightly. “And things will settle, I know it. I have too much I want to do. The confectioner’s hat shop will be fantastic, non? I’m already imagining a revolutionary hat—it’ll be a lovely one, not one that sticks a brick from the Bastille on top and calls it macaroni.”

Camille laughed. “What’s a macaroni?”

“Someone very fashionable.” She waved Camille toward the door. “Now go! And buy a printing press with all the money you have in the bank, d’accord? And thank Lazare for Louis?”

Camille nodded, blinking back sudden tears. “I will.”

As she opened the door, the canary—in a flash of yellow—settled on top of its bronze cage and began to sing.





69


There was a quick rap on the door and a maid came in. “He’s here, madame. Waiting downstairs.”

Camille stood at the long mirror, wearing a pale yellow dress and pinning her hat onto her elaborately coiffed hair. Working magic had taken its toll on her, but today the shadows were gone from her face. She couldn’t help smiling. “Tell him I’m coming.”

Two weeks had passed since Séguin’s death.

His la magie–ravaged body had been buried, quietly, with no family present. It seemed he had none, or none who came to claim him. Camille had let her maid dye one dress black, for the funeral, but had refused to wear mourning any longer than that. No one had reprimanded her; everywhere there was a feeling as if something had shaken loose, as if slowly the old ways were cracking, if not yet crumbling. Without much fuss, the marriage document was produced and Camille Durbonne, no longer a faux baroness but a true vicomtesse, took possession of a large estate west of Paris and an elegant mansion in town. At first she’d thought to sell it and put everything that had to do with Séguin behind her, but slowly it grew on her, the aristocrat’s house. She decided she’d keep it as her prize.