Enchantée(52)

He was looking directly at her, his gaze a caress on the side of her face. She wondered if a boy—if anyone—had ever looked at her like that before. It was so different than the hungry eyes of the boys on the streets, with their whistles and their fast, rough hands, different than the cool stares of the courtiers at Versailles, who hid their feelings behind double entendres.

Lazare’s gaze was nothing like that. It felt honest. True.

She flushed. She found a spot of dirt on her skirts and rubbed at it with her thumb.

Rosier was still fuming, loosening his cravat and scribbling notes for a conversation he was going to have with Armand that would put him in his place.

“Almost there,” Lazare said. “See?”

The carriage window no longer showed Paris’s gray buildings, but instead, a green field, its brightness topped by a sweep of watery blue sky.

Camille bit the edge of her fingernail. What if the balloon had problems again? What if there was no one like herself waiting around to save them? What if she fell out?

“Have people died?” she asked. “In balloons?”

“People have died sitting in their armchairs,” Lazare said.

Her stomach flipped. She smiled as bravely as she could, and clutched the edge of the seat more tightly.





27


Now that she stood in the woven chariot, gripping a sketchpad tightly in one hand and the chariot’s railing in the other, she felt sick.

When Rosier had handed her into the balloon, Armand had ignored her offers to help or her questions about where she should stand. As she watched him test the ropes and check the fire in the brazier, she felt more out of place than she had at Versailles. What had she been thinking? She shouldn’t be flying in a balloon at all, she told herself, as hot panic spread under her skin. She should be back at court, fleecing the nobles for all they were worth. She should be saving her money, hiding it under the bricks so that Alain could never get it again. Or at least mending her dress. Not sailing in the air.

“Ready?” Lazare beamed at her, the lead-ropes taut in his hands. “Watch your dress, mademoiselle!”

In the center of the gondola, the brazier sparked, the air above it shimmering with heat. Gathering her skirts, she stepped away from the stove, only to feel the hard line of the gondola’s edge against her back. There was nowhere safe to run to, she thought, as she wiped her sweating palms on her skirt. Either she’d be burned alive by the fire or she’d plunge over the edge.

Above her head, the silk of the balloon trembled as if it were alive.

Rosier stood on the rough grass outside the basket, furiously sketching the balloon and its crew. “Do something exciting when you’re up there,” he said. “Anything, really, except falling out. Then come back and tell me all about it.”

Peering up at the underside of the balloon, Armand called, “It’s time to go! The sky stands open!”

“Let us go that way,” the other boys responded in chorus. Rosier rolled his eyes.

With a nod at Camille, Rosier tucked his notebook under his arm and stepped away from the basket. “Bon voyage!”

She hadn’t forgotten when the balloon dropped out of the sky like a shot bird. Nor what it felt like to stand on her roof, only the little railing between her and death. Her hands clawed tight onto the basket’s edge. She had no sense. Why ever had she listened to Sophie?

The basket sloped drunkenly as one set of ropes was released. Camille choked down a scream. The boys who’d come to help were whooping; Lazare pushed past her to do something at the other side of the balloon. One of the ropes had hooked itself on a stake and he worked hard to tug it free. The basket shook.

She shouldn’t be here at all. She might vomit. Or jump out. Because if she died, who would take care of Sophie? If Alain was the only one left, he’d marry Sophie off for money and—Camille stepped across the basket and unlatched the door.

She froze when Lazare yelled, “Don’t leave us now, mademoiselle! We’re going up!”

Beyond the perilously thin edge of the basket, the grass plummeted away. The balloon rose. On the ground, the gang of boys cheered and, hands shielding their eyes from the sun, watched the balloon climb. “More fuel!” shouted Lazare, and Camille dropped to her knees before the little stove and pushed straw and small logs into it until the fire roared.

In a heartbeat, they lifted past the green tops of the trees. In another, they passed the spire of a stone church. Lazare fed the fire as Camille edged away from the center of the basket, pulling her skirts clear of the sparks. Standing at the lip of the wicker basket, Camille dared herself to look down. Below her, Rosier and his helpers’ faces dwindled to nothing larger than stones. Then they were small as pebbles, grains of sand, dust.

The world blurred. Camille gripped the edge of the chariot so hard her arms ached.

“We’re going so fast.” Her voice came from far away; pinpricks of black winked at the edges of her sight. She felt herself swaying but she couldn’t stop herself. Her cold fingers slipped.

Lazare was suddenly next to her, his hand under her elbow, holding her up. “Steady now,” he said, his breath warm in her ear. “It’s the ascent. Breathe as deeply as you can.”

Camille inhaled, her ribs straining against her stays as she filled her lungs with cool air. Then she exhaled and felt her shoulders uncrimp. She breathed again and again until the world below stopped getting smaller. Now that the balloon had achieved its intended altitude, Armand began taking measurements from the barometer.