Enchantée(72)

“I did.”

“And?”

“Sophie, he was dressed as an aristocrat! He is an aristocrat!” Camille paced to the fireplace and back to the window.

“Are you sure he wasn’t pretending? Like you?”

“He has a title! He’s the Marquis de Sablebois.”

“Oh là là!” Sophie laughed. “You’re being courted by a marquis!”

Camille leaned her forehead against the window’s cool glass. “Don’t you see it’s a problem? Why did he never say anything to me?”

“Perhaps he thought you wouldn’t like it. And he was right. Even if you are an aristocrat yourself.”

Sometimes Sophie was too perceptive. “It’s about how you behave, not your bloodline.”

“The aristos don’t see it that way.” Sophie began to unravel a long length of silk ribbon. “Alors, what will you do?”

“I don’t know. Why has he kept this hidden? Why is he at court now? He knows all the same people, Sophie. It’s beyond strange.” Unsettled, she remembered how—slowly, slowly—Alain had changed and become someone else. A stranger in her brother’s body. How she’d counted on him for so long and then one day, the person she knew was gone. She wasn’t sure she could endure that happening again. “I want the truth, that’s all.”

“You do realize you are also using a disguise. A magical one.”

“It’s not the same! I can’t afford the number of dresses one needs to be a courtier at Versailles.” She held out her hands. “The redness is still not gone from my fingers, even though we have someone to cook and clean for us.” The longer she held them out, the more they trembled. She let them drop. “I could never pass for an aristocrat without magic.”

“Perhaps he needs the disguise.”

“Why would an aristocrat need to do anything he didn’t wish to?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

What would she say? She imagined seeing him again at Versailles, crossing paths in front of the mirrors in the Galerie des Glaces, calling out to him, “Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur le Marquis!”—and then what? She would have to reveal herself as a magician, and after what he’d said about magic last night, she did not wish to at all.

That kiss at Notre-Dame, among the stars. Those moments in the air, in the balloon, soaring over the city. He was becoming something to her, and now that she knew he was an aristocrat, she was afraid. Afraid that there would be, somewhere inside of themselves, a fundamental mismatch. Afraid that he had a reason for not telling her. Because why would an aristocrat pretend to be someone else, when his position gave him such privilege and power? What could be so terrible that he wished to hide it?

She needed to know.

Whistling out of the summer sky, a pigeon dropped onto the windowsill in front of her and ensconced itself there, shuffling and settling its wings. A second bird came. And then a third, and a fourth, until the sill was full of steely gray birds, cooing.

She knew where to find him.





37


The blue door to the aeronauts’ workshop yawned open.

“Bonjour?” Camille called into the cool, dim hallway. “Anyone there?”

From deep inside the building, a boy shouted, “Come in!”

Camille stepped out of the warm June sun and over the threshold. “Hello?”

Pressing her skirts close, she made her way down the narrow hall, where, in the murky half-light, she promptly stumbled into Armand, jacketless in his shirtsleeves. He skittered away as if she’d bitten him.

“Mademoiselle!” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You weren’t expected!”

“Pardon—I’d hoped I might see—”

“Lazare isn’t here.”

She tried to smooth the disappointment from her voice. “And you don’t expect him?”

Footsteps echoed from behind Armand. “Who are you talking to? Mademoiselle Camille?”

Elbowing Armand aside, Rosier came forward, beaming. His curly hair was even more disheveled than usual. “You are always expected, mademoiselle!” he said, beckoning her with his pipe. “Entrez, entrez!”

As they entered the riding ring, the pigeons rose from their roosts in a thunder of wings, careening through the space before settling on the beams on the ring’s opposite side. Camille was surprised to see the striped balloon, lifeless and strangely small, lying on the floor. Two seamstresses bent over it, each of them sewing an endless seam that ran along one side. A third worked to attach a large, irregularly shaped piece of fabric to the balloon. A letter.

“What’s happened to the balloon?” Camille asked.

“Mice,” said Rosier, crossly. “They chewed up two entire panels of fabric, which now must be treated with rubber and resewn. A foolish expense, when we could have imported a cat instead.”

“Cats make me nervous,” Armand said.

“As if he wasn’t already nervous,” Rosier said, waving his pipe at Armand. “Bah, things are not well in our world of balloons, mademoiselle.”

“Don’t,” Armand said.

“What?” Rosier retorted. “It’s none of your business.” He turned his clever black eyes on Camille. “As I was saying, our balloon adventures have reached a nadir.”