Everything That Burns Read online

  “Oh?” He began to fill a purse with coins from the box.

  “A subscription, for a series called ‘The Lost Girls Speak.’ I’ve written two so far—why not keep going? If the girls get money ahead of time, they’ll be eager to continue. And might not a subscription bring in even more readers to the shop?”

  “Clever!” Lasalle declared. “Indeed it might. I’ll let people know. You keep interviewing. Keep writing. And don’t send your pamphlets anywhere else, I beg you.”

  “I promise,” she said as she took the heavy purse from him. It had the reassuring solidity of a hard-won victory. She and the girls had changed public sentiment. There was no turning back now: she must tell their stories a while longer.

  And somehow learn to manage her magic.

  * * *

  After she left Lasalle’s shop, trying to forget the anti-magician pamphlet she’d seen there, she crossed the busy street of the old rue du Temple without looking. Out of nowhere a young man roughly plowed into her. Scrambling on the damp cobbles, she nearly lost her footing.

  “Have a care, citizen!” Camille cried.

  He wheeled around. With the carved head of his cane—an ivory dog with a jewel for an eye—he tipped up his hat. His was a handsome face, with high color in the cheeks and a wide, square jaw. Under his tricorne hat, his wavy, walnut-colored hair was free of powder, tied back with a blue ribbon. But the hazel eyes she knew so well were not full of merriment, not this time. Instead they were very grave.

  “Chandon!” She could hardly believe he stood in front of her. “I’ve been thinking about you! What are you doing in Paris?”

  “Hush!” he hissed. “Keep yelling at me!”

  “What?” she said, bewildered.

  He raised his voice. “It was you who crashed into me!” And he gave the tiniest tilt of his head to the right. Under the brim of her hat, she looked in that direction. In the crowded street, she saw a closed carriage drawn by a sweat-darkened horse, an empty vegetable cart. Nothing out of the ordinary. She was about to turn back when she saw: two streets away, a Comité guard under an awning. His black-hatted head was bent over a newspaper, but she could have sworn he wasn’t reading it. Instead, like a raven, he was waiting.

  Watching.

  Pretend, she told herself. “Hardly, monsieur! You are at fault and owe me for dirtying my skirts!”

  “Foolish girl!” he shouted. “Take it up with my lawyer if you must—here is his address.” He pressed a piece of paper into her hand. “I myself am finished with you!” And with that he pulled his hat down low and strode off into the crowds, his coattails flapping in his wake.

  * * *

  She did not dare study the card he’d given her until she’d returned to the Hôtel Séguin. In the red salon, she closed the door quietly behind her. The tapestry knight’s lance dripped crimson; the windows rattled a kind of ghostly welcome. When she was certain that no one was coming, she opened her fist. What she’d believed to be a card was only a piece of white paper. It was folded in a complicated way, though when she pulled at one of the corners it undid itself. From it rose the faintest hint of smoke.

  A Meeting

  8 o’clock, tomorrow night

  The cemetery of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre

  She frowned at the paper. Perhaps there was a kind of double meaning with the address, because as surprising as some of the parties she’d attended at Versailles had been, a meeting in a graveyard on an autumn night would top them all. Somehow, she thought as she ran her thumb over the ink-black words, it did not seem like that kind of invitation.

  Camille flipped it over to see if there was an explanation, but the back was completely blank. Disappointed, she was about to set it down when a single line of text appeared where there had been nothing before.

  Tell no one.

  The back of her neck prickled.

  Magic.

  She sensed it thread into her, insistent as hunger. Irresistible as the warm tang of bread when she was hungry, the cool relief of water when she was thirsty. In themselves, the words that had appeared on the paper were not persuasive. Or even ominous. They could mean the dinner was a secret. But something about the gleaming blackness of the letters unnerved her. She decided then, almost without realizing it, that she would in fact tell no one. Not Sophie, nor Lazare. It would be her secret.

  As she stared at the invitation, the paper began to gray around the corners. Then cracks appeared in it, and before she could even think to let go, the note was nothing more than a pile of ash cupped in the palm of her hand.

  18

  The graveyard behind Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre was shabby with overgrown grass. Parishioners still used the weathered church, but its burying ground had long been abandoned. A grove of cypress trees made gloomy shapes under the evening sky and in a few places, roses grew among the graves. With no one to tend to them, they’d run wild, their bare, thorny canes covering the graves like shrouds.

  As she walked hesitantly between the tilting stones, searching for anything that resembled a door, a figure stepped into the light cast by a lamppost at the cemetery’s edge. He wore a heavy monk’s habit that dragged the ground, a hood shadowing his face.

  Camille stiffened. “Who are you?” she said with more bravery than she felt.

  He inclined his head. “A servant of the Marquis de Chandon, who awaits you inside. Come, you must not linger here where eyes may see you.”

  She followed him through damp grass and past funerary urns to where an ancient chapel stood. Beside it crouched a marble sarcophagus. On its lid perched an angel, its wings veined with lichen. The man grasped hold of the statue, and pushed.

  The enormous lid pivoted away to reveal stairs descending into nothing. From the opening came a cold wind heavy with the scent of rot. It made Camille gag.

  “Après-vous,” he said.

  There was nothing she wished less to do than to follow this unknown person down through a tomb into a—a crypt? “Chandon is down there?”

  “He gave me this token to show you.” In his palm lay a tiny jeweled box, decorated with a silvery pearl. It was the snuffbox Chandon had won from her when they first met at Versailles.

  Camille squared her shoulders. “You first.”

  He went down a few steps and held the lantern high so that she might find her way. Carefully she placed her feet on the moss-slicked stones, one after another, as they descended into the ground. Chandon would never go to these lengths for a lark. His dream of happiness was strolling the apple orchards with his beloved Foudriard in Normandie. For him to be in Paris, asking her to come in secret—here—meant something was terribly wrong.

  The tunnel she found herself in filled her with foreboding. It was no wider than her outstretched arms, and only a hand’s width higher than the top of her head. Its sides curved slightly, and in the wavering light of the servant’s lantern she saw they were bricked with bones. Wedged between them were skulls with sightless eyes. And everywhere the cold smell of decay.

  She swallowed. “What is this place?”

  “A private catacomb. Very old.”

  Only bones, she told herself, and pressed the edge of her cloak over her nose and mouth. For several minutes they walked in silence, the lantern light bobbing, the bones gleaming close and white and then sinking into shadow. When she felt she could stand it no more, she choked out, “How much farther?”

  “Nearly there.”

  It was true that the tunnel seemed finally to be widening. Ahead, she thought she heard faint voices, though it could have been the strange breeze shifting among the bones.

  And then the man—and the lantern—disappeared.

  “Where are you?” she cried. She took a step forward and bumped into him.

  He shouted, “Open up!”

  A door creaked wide. Dim light illuminated a set of dry stone steps. “Straight up, through the gallery—you’ll see him there.”

  * * *

  She found herself in a long room, both its
walls and floor made of pale gray stone. Above her, the wooden ceiling was covered with painted diamonds in greens and faded reds. Here and there, still-bright silver stars shone out, and in the corners, carved wooden angels, their paint long gone, peered down at her.

  In the air hung the heavy fug of magic.

  A bolt slid back and a door opened in the hall’s far end. And there was Chandon, striding toward her, his heels clacking on the ancient floor. His face was serious, as if he’d just been told something he did not wish to hear.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry about the bones,” he called to her. “They can feel extraordinarily grabby. And forgive me for our encounter in the street. How rude I must have seemed! You saw how they watch me—I did not want to come to your house and endanger you further.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she said warmly. “I’m so happy to see you!” She would never have predicted it, but simply being with her friend reassured her. It had been true even during their time at Versailles, when he’d been, of necessity, very secretive. Only now did she understand why: around him she did not have to pretend magic was nothing. “Tell me, what is this place?”

  “Pardon! The king’s announcement has so rattled me I’ve forgotten whatever manners I might once have had. Besides, without my invitation you won’t be able to pass through the wards.” He threw open his arms. “Bienvenue à Bellefleur, my ancestral home! The oldest part of it was once a monastic house associated with the church of Saint-Julien. This room was the refectory. Imagine if you will long tables, hooded monks bent over their gruel … how terribly medieval it must have been!” He raised an amused eyebrow. “My ancestors pulled down the monastery and used the stones to build our house. But the refectory remained standing because of the tunnel. It makes a helpful entrance or exit when kings are persecuting magicians.” Any momentary mirth vanished from Chandon’s face. “As kings are wont to do.”

  “Then why have you come back to Paris?” she wondered. “When you might have stayed away?”

  “My parents were reluctant to let me come. They fear we will be blamed for everything. A house burns because the thatched roof is too dry? Magicians. A well goes foul? Magicians. A child dies?” His hazel eyes were grave. “But I said to them: must we give up and hide until this is … over?”

  Hiding seemed less risky than speaking out. “Why, what do you have in mind?”

  “We must plot, bien sûr! I invited all the magicians I know but most were too afraid to come. One had his house set on fire, so naturally he declined. The rest prefer to hide behind their moats rather than come to Paris to help find a cure.”

  She imagined an inoculation, like for smallpox. “For what?”

  “Revolution.” He chuckled at her startled expression. “A jest, nothing more! Come, let’s join the others.” A hand on her elbow, he steered her through a stone archway into a long, dimly lit gallery, part of the house proper. On the gallery’s walls hung portrait after portrait. Some were painted on wooden boards, clearly hundreds of years old. Men in costly cloaks and hats, ringed hands resting on the pommels of their swords. Women in velvet and brocade, their jewels gleaming. Their proud faces gave nothing away.

  Chandon brushed a speck of dust off a portrait’s frame. “My ancestors are all handsome and clever-looking, don’t you think? Except for a few who worked magic for ungrateful kings”—he gestured at a man in armor, his helm tucked under his arm—“most of them probably never did anything more horrible than order dinner. They worked small magic if they had to and tried to avoid beheadings.”

  How matter-of-fact he was! She wondered what it must have been like to grow up in a family where magic was so much a part of everyday life, where no one had to renounce their magical ancestors but instead displayed them casually in the hall, where their faces could be seen to resemble one’s own. If Camille had grown up like this, she might know what was happening with the pamphlets. She might even know how to control it.

  And, said a tiny voice deep inside, perhaps you wouldn’t be so ashamed of what you are.

  As they walked on, Camille’s eye snagged on a portrait of a young man. His long dark hair coiled over his shoulders, his mouth defiant. Set into the forest green of the background was a small seal, no bigger than a coin: a gilt circle with an M inside it, surrounded by five tiny stars. From the corner of his eye dangled a lapis-colored tear. His fingertips were black, as if ink-stained.

  “At the house there’s a portrait of Séguin”—Chandon flinched—“painted just like this.”

  “It’s a kind of iconography.” With his ringed finger, Chandon pointed out the unusual features. “The tears indicate the sorrow the magician uses to work his magic. The blackened hands represent the burned smell of magic, and how it scorches to use it. The stars are a bit bold, I admit—they mean the person is a magician. This style was fashionable until the purges under Louis XIV. After that, these kinds of portraits were hidden in back halls like this one, warded against non-magicians who might start shouting for inquisitions. The style is known as à la merveille. I find it quite beautiful.”

  In the style of marvels. But spells and wards could fade, couldn’t they, like the glamoire worked on Versailles? A portrait like this would be an admission of guilt, and yet, here they were. “You’re not afraid to have them hanging here.”

  “Where else would they hang?” he asked, genuinely curious. “The house protects its magicians.” A shadow shifted across his features. “Or did you mean I was afraid of what they’d done? I’m not my ancestors—not at all!—but I am rather pleased with who I am. Not even a king has the power to make me hate myself.”

  Again that little voice whispered: Can you say the same of yourself?

  She pushed it from her mind as they came to a pair of carved wooden doors. “Here we are,” he said. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what? I thought we were here simply to listen to your plan.”

  “I’m afraid it may be a bit more complicated than that.” He took her arm. “Shall we go in?”

  19

  Chandon flung open the double doors. Beyond was a room of candlelight and shadow. Where she had expected at least a handful of people, there was only one frowning young man, elbow on the mantelpiece. Wearing a foppish high collar and extravagantly tight clothes, he raised a monocle to his eye and glared.

  “Come in!” Chandon said, practically pulling her along. As she hurried toward the fireplace, she took in the heavy oak furniture, long rows of black bookcases, tapestries so fine they could have come from the Gobelins. Beneath her feet lay a fantastical carpet crowded with curvetting dragons.

  “Ignore every stick of the furniture,” he said under his breath. “It was Maman’s idea to have medieval things to match the house. I won’t answer for it. Roland!” he called to the magician by the fire. “Our final guest has arrived. May I introduce Camille Durbonne, the Vicomtesse de Séguin?”

  “Vicomtesse,” the young man said. “The Comte de Roland, your servant.” He was a little older than she and Chandon and slight, with a sharp, arrogant nose and wavy mahogany-brown hair. He wore a haughty smirk, and the small bow he gave Camille was, according to any standard of etiquette, a certain snub.

  But he was not the only one in the room. Another young man in a military uniform was kneeling by the fire. As he rose to greet her, the Baron de Foudriard, Chandon’s lover, was as fiercely handsome as ever. Dark-haired and possessed of a lion’s grace, he looked as if he could spring into action at a moment’s notice. The scar on his cheek curved white against his newly sun-browned skin, and his smile was wide and kind.

  “Foudriard!” she exclaimed happily. “When Chandon said ‘magicians,’ I didn’t expect to find you here.”

  “Not a magician, merely a steadfast supporter,” he said with a bow. “Baroness—I mean, Vicomtesse—it is a pleasure. Chandon would have been devastated had you not come. There is, as I’m certain he’s told you, much work to be done.”

  “Foudriard will not let me rest for ev
en a minute,” Chandon said affectionately. “But he is right—we face great dangers as a result of this new anti-magic law and must work hard to protect ourselves. The first step is—”

  “Chandon, do not be ridiculous!” Roland laughed. “We have nothing to worry about.”

  “There you are wrong, monsieur.” The quiet authority in Foudriard’s face brooked no argument. “Among the people, the fear of magicians grows, and the king has just shown us he intends to wield that fear as a weapon. For many, what magicians do matters less than what they’re believed to be capable of doing. The more afraid and distrustful everyone becomes, the more people will cheer the king and his Comité.”

  In her mind’s eye, Camille saw again the fight in the Place de Grève, the blood welling dark around the butcher’s knife, the reverberating screams of the mob as it called for death to all magicians. Imagine if they had known the magic she’d loosed to write the pamphlets? It would have been her in a lake of her own blood. The hatred was ancient, but not extinguished. It had taken only a spark to rekindle it.

  “To make things worse, France’s borders may soon tighten,” Foudriard predicted. “Even when émigrés fled France after the fall of the Bastille, there was talk of restricting aristocrats’ movements and seizing their assets so they could not raise armies for a counterrevolution. It’s only a matter of time before they do the same for magicians.”

  “Magicians will then be trapped in France with no escape,” Camille said. “Jailed, murdered, or forced to stop working magic…” What would she do if it came to that?

  “Exactly,” Chandon agreed. “We magicians will need a way to protect ourselves. And a way out. The Comité is confiscating books on magic and reading them. If we do not stay one step ahead, they will devise ways to catch us.” He raised an eyebrow at Roland, as if to say: Understood? “But before I tell you what I believe we must do, there’s one more magician I wish you to meet. I’ve searched everywhere for someone with his knowledge. He is a bookseller on the Île de la Cité. Delouvet?”