Enchantée(83)

“I’ll stop la magie soon. I’ll even stop going to Versailles,” she said, though it didn’t sound as convincing she’d hoped.

Fant?me pressed against Sophie’s skirts and she picked him up. “Do you go to see your friends?” she asked. “Chandon, Aurélie, Foudriard? And the other one, Séguin? Do you see him very much?”

“Not very.” The less that was said about Séguin, the better. “Bien s?r, it’s my friends. It’s hard to give it all up.” When she’d first pulled up to Versailles in her rented carriage, she’d been determined to hate it. Instead, the palace had sunk its million tiny claws into her—and offered her the unexpected freedom of being someone else. “It gives me so much, Sophie,” she faltered.

“And it takes.”

Sophie didn’t say it, but Camille could almost hear her think it: it doesn’t just take from you. It takes from both of us. Out of the corner of her eye, Camille saw Sophie turn something in the palm of her hand. Something violet. A card. A folded letter.

“Is that from Aurélie?” Camille gasped, reaching for it. “Were you were hiding it from me?”

“I was waiting for the right moment,” Sophie conceded. “Take it.”

Camille broke the seal. Aurélie’s note was a baroque scrawl of loops and dashes.

“What does it say?” Sophie asked.

Camille read aloud: “It says, ‘The Paris Opera. Tonight! We have a box and miss you terribly—’”

Sophie’s smile wobbled. “How lucky you are! A night at the opera.”

It did feel like a bit of luck. Beneath her weariness, she felt the itch of magic under her skin, the whisper of the dress in her ear, but she didn’t want to go back to Versailles. Versailles felt haunted, strung with snares in which she might get caught. And she felt like a fool after the way she’d behaved the last time she’d seen Lazare.

The opera in Paris would be perfect. Safe.

“I think I’ll go,” Camille said slowly. “Though attending the opera without working a glamoire is not an option, not tonight.”

And if she were being completely honest: perhaps not ever.

Sighing, Sophie set the cat down. “If you insist on going, make your dress a pale, sea green. And don’t put too much powder in your hair—it’s no longer done in Paris.”

“Thank you, ma chèrie,” Camille said, embracing her sister. As she did, she felt again a wave of fatigue sweep over her, the magie-sickness.

“Camille, you’re shaking,” Sophie said. “Why not stay—”

She shook her head. She did not wish to stay at home to rest. She knew that as soon as she worked the glamoire, the tiredness would disappear. “Off I go then.”

As she rang for the maid to order the carriage, Camille’s gaze snagged on the little music box balloon, sitting silently on the writing desk.

“Why can’t you let yourself love him?” Sophie said, quietly. “Lazare being a marquis—how can it matter so much? I hate to disabuse you of your high-minded ideals, but they’re our people, too.”

“It’s not that.” She struggled to explain. “How can I trust him? When we played paille maille, he asked me what kind of tune my music box plays, as if he were reminding himself of a girl he gave a music box to”—Camille’s voice wavered—“a girl he’s in danger of forgetting. And then he called me baroness and gave me these looks.” As if he had forgotten Camille.

Sophie’s smile curled. “I thought looks were what you wanted?”

“Not like that! This is serious! Sophie, what if there’s something about the baroness that reminds him of the real me, so much so that he’s fallen for her instead? She’s prettier than I am, more sophisticated, with a better wardrobe and more money—”

“Why would those things matter to him?” Sophie said. “He likes you.”

“I’m afraid he won’t, not if he knows who I am. What I do. He dislikes magic, even more than you do.” Camille understood why. She often felt the same way about it, with its gruesome tithe of blood and sorrow. The way it wore at her, until she felt as though she were less and less Camille, and more and more magic. Illusion. If he disliked magic, how could he like her? “I’m afraid. Things haven’t worked the way I’ve hoped very often.”

“You’re in love, that’s all.”

“Is it that obvious?” Camille picked up the balloon and turned its tiny key. It began to play its lilting, melancholy tune.

“It is,” said Sophie. “And you know what? Take my advice: kill off that baroness sooner rather than later.”





42


But not tonight.

Once she arrived, she was certain: better to be at the opera, where life was a giddy, spinning top that ran on rumor and innuendo, on desire and lust for all that sparkled, than perplexed and wondering in her rooms. This evening, Camille and Aurélie shone; as they climbed the stairs to Chandon’s uncle’s box in the balcony, people bowed low and remarked on them behind their fans.

Aurélie tucked her hand around Camille’s elbow and squeezed. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen Mozart’s opera yet! The Marriage of Figaro isn’t even his latest. There’s a newer one, if only I could remember the name.” She waved to a friend as they merged with the crowd streaming upstairs.