Everything That Burns Read online

  Gritting her teeth, she went in.

  It had been emptied of anything personal and might have been anyone’s room but for a gold-and-black lacquered Chinese cabinet that seemed vaguely familiar. She opened a set of drawers and listened, feeling like a fool. Rien. She peered inside a towering armoire: nothing. And then she looked more carefully at the lacquerware cabinet. The knobs on its doors had been bound with red string.

  Her first thought was that it was a kind of magical protection. Then she realized they’d been tied together to keep them from flapping open—the cabinet was one of the things that been sent back from Versailles when Séguin’s rooms had been cleared out. She hadn’t wanted to look inside. Her memories of his apartment in the palace, what he had done there …

  She grabbed a letter opener from the desk and sliced the string. The doors creaked open as the sharp smell of magic filled the room. The sobbing grew louder. Clothes were piled in the bottom, coats and robes heavy with embroidery. Underneath them lay something hard and smooth. With an effort, she dislodged it. Pulling it out, she fell back on her heels. In her hands was a rectangular object.

  It was a valise, covered in worn maroon leather.

  The sound of crying was coming from inside.

  There was a lock on it, and she thought of the key ring downstairs and how many she’d have to try to find the right one. But the house, both Chandon and Blaise had said, cared for her. Maybe it would open if she tried.

  She put her hands on the lid and the top lifted free.

  Lined with worn rose-colored silk, the box held a small wooden rack. In it were rows of crystal vials, each labeled with the words Larmes de … followed by a name. It was a collection of tears. Hands shaking, she found one labeled Larmes de Jean-Marc Étienne de Bellan, Marquis de Chandon. There were a few more, the bottles dusty and discolored by age.

  Gooseflesh rose on her arms.

  She ran her fingers along them, touching them, reading the names aloud, and somehow this soothed the magic in the box, because eventually the crying quieted. The vials were in no particular order, though the labels on some seemed newer. The one with the cleanest label rested in the bottom rack. His last victim. Plucking it out of the case, she held it up to see.

  In Séguin’s spidery script was written: Larmes de Camille Durbonne, Vicomtesse de Séguin.

  He had taken her tears after all.

  She held the tiny vessel to the light. The liquid inside was tinged pale blue and slightly thick, as if it had been condensed. Tipping the bottle, she watched the substance that had been her tears slide slowly from one side of the vial to the other. Had she cried while she slept? Had he scraped up the tears that laced her cheeks after he’d trapped her?

  She wondered what sorrows lay inside.

  The vial had a miniature cork stopper, covered with a thin layer of silver decorated with a pattern of tears. Prying it loose with her fingers, she brought the bottle to her nose and inhaled. A familiar powdery smell, like dried roses. The liquid scent of ink. Cold water in a well, dark and deep and quiet. Muffled cries.

  They were her own, caught in the tears like flies in amber. When she covered the mouth of the vial with her thumb, they quieted. When she removed it, they rose up to her. Around her, the room thinned, becoming transparent. She sensed herself, very small, a child hiding under a table, a sob choking—

  She shoved the cork back in.

  The memories were so potent they had nearly crawled out of the vial.

  Shaking, she unlatched the window. The sharp autumn air helped clear her head. The cries faded, as did the memory they’d contained. A childhood hurt that still felt raw and humiliating. Something nestled so deep inside her that she no longer remembered the wound. But it had power, she had sensed that.

  Saint-Clair had been right.

  She shut the valise’s lid before setting it safe into the wardrobe and pocketing the crystal vial. It wasn’t the book they needed, but the valise was still a treasure. She knew it was dangerous to use others’ tears, but in an emergency? Even if the magicians never found the secret of the tempus fugit, there was enough blur to get them past the gate, past a checkpoint or out of France.

  As she closed the door behind her, a loud bang echoed downstairs. It was unlike any of the maids or footman to let the glass doors slam shut. Instead it sounded as if the Hôtel Séguin were trying to get her attention. Summoning her courage, for the first time she let down her guard. Here I am. She let herself truly feel the house around her, its changing corridors and unexpected rooms, its enchanted objects, the life and history webbed into its nearly sentient stones. Show me, she thought. Tell me.

  And then, from deep inside the walls of the house, came a single, rushing susurration: Hurry.

  33

  When Camille reached Odette’s room, the door swung back silently on its hinges.

  The window stood slightly open, a breeze ruffling the curtains. The room was empty, the bed made. In the wardrobe hung the dress Odette had worn during the women’s march, when she came to the Hôtel Séguin. It had been laundered and pressed. The bloodstain that had run along the collar was gone. On the desk sat the breakfast tray. The dishes that had been sent up to her, heaped with bread and chocolate and butter and the apple tarts were clean, shining. Not a crumb left behind, as if Odette had licked her finger and run it over the plate until she’d caught every last speck.

  Otherwise there was no sign of her but for a small, worn satchel. Camille went closer. She had almost put her hand inside when the curtain twitched.

  The house will warn you.

  There, in the park, under the trees—Odette. She wore the coat Camille had lent her, as well as one of Sophie’s broad-brimmed hats. As if she could feel Camille watching her, she hesitated and looked back over her shoulder. Under the swoop of the hat, her face was angry and determined.

  Camille’s pulse hammered in her throat. Odette was going somewhere, and didn’t wish to be seen by someone in the house. But where?

  Hurry.

  * * *

  For ten minutes, Camille followed her.

  She could hardly believe she was doing it. Was it because she’d heard a voice in the house—that the house had warned her? Stranger things had happened. After all, the house had denied entrance to the Comité’s guards. But it was more than the Hôtel Séguin. It was the prickle on the back of her neck when Odette had mentioned the effigies of magicians. The way she had run her fingers along the press’s iron lever, like a caress. The suspicion that Odette’s story had, at its heart, a missing piece.

  A secret.

  She’d kept well back, making certain there were people between her and Odette. It was easy to keep track of her, her red hair like a flare. Odette knew Paris well, taking the shortcuts Camille also knew, as she walked briskly toward the river. When she reached the Pont Neuf, she did not cross but headed down the bank, under the arch.

  Flotsam House.

  By the scrim of trees, Camille paused. Candles were already lit in the cottage. She imagined the girls by the fire, toasting bread and talking. The subscriptions Lasalle sold had brought in more and more, and she sent it all to the girls. There was no reason Odette shouldn’t go there, too.

  But she trusted the voice inside her that whispered something was wrong.

  Slowly, deliberately, she edged down the bank. The door of the house opened, and Odette stepped inside. She could hear the girls exclaiming, and the hubbub of voices gave her cover to come closer. Poised outside, wondering once again what she was doing and why, she heard someone say her name. “Really? Camille?”

  And then Odette’s response, fierce and angry: “She will betray you all.”

  Camille stopped, held her breath.

  Someone—undaunted Claudine—challenged her to explain.

  “It’s simple,” Odette said, “unless we stop her, she will hurt the revolution! And you will suffer because of it! You have no idea what she’s capable of.”

  Camille’s heart ticked fast
er. Was this because of what she’d written in the pamphlet on the women’s march? She’d made one criticism, and suddenly she was a counterrevolutionary? A tumult of voices broke out from inside the house and little Céline came outside to play, away from the arguments. Camille pressed herself against the wall and Céline passed her without noticing. She wished she were inside, a listening spider hidden in her web.

  Then she realized she could be.

  From her pocket she pulled the tiny crystal vial. There was not much in it—three or four drops—but she guessed she didn’t have to use them all. When the Comte de Roland took the blur, it had faded fast. She would have to get in and out quickly before the magic wore off.

  Inside the tears glittered like rain. She twisted loose the stopper. The scent of cold water, sharp ink, and lavender drifted toward her.

  She didn’t know if she could do it.

  Even the scent of the blur had carried with it a terrible memory. What would it be like to swallow it? To have that despair bloom inside of her? She already feared she might lose herself in magic. This would be worse. She had seen it with Roland—not only had his body vanished, but also his mind. He had disappeared into that girl’s memories.

  She was not certain she wanted to return to hers.

  The portraits at Bellefleur came back to her, the long line of ancestors in that darkened hall. The way they looked as if they were about to speak and tell her their stories. She had wondered: if she had grown up with her magician past around her, might she be less ashamed of what she was?

  Might she also understand who she was?

  The blur was a memory from the past. Perhaps it was also a key.

  She let a single pale-blue drop land on her tongue.

  It was bitter as sorrow.

  In a storm, sensations overtook her. They had the dim feel of stories long forgotten. Lost, or never meant to be retrieved. An achingly sunny day, bright with promise. A scatter of sharp furniture tacks on the floor. A child trying to keep quiet as sobs stuck in her throat.

  The magic was consuming her. Memories, trapped in tears, unleashed.

  Camille rubbed at her eyes, trying to see in this world, this time. She made her way to the cottage’s half-open door. From inside came angry, hushed voices. She was nearly inside when the blur took hold once more.

  The sound of weeping. Thin, muffled. Somewhere, a child was crying.

  Around her, the river and the buildings of Paris receded until she only dimly sensed them, as if from behind a pane of dirty glass. Instead, there was a bright, quiet room. High in a house. Ferns of frost etched the windows. A pitcher of water, cracked ice on top. And the weeping?

  It was coming from herself. A red-haired little girl sitting on the floor.

  She was hugging her knees tight. Maman squeezed her shoulder, reassuring, as waves of sadness rolled through her. “Try now,” Maman encouraged. “You are strong enough.”

  Picking up a black tack, Camille rolled it between her childish fingers. It pricked her, and she squeezed her finger to see the bright jewel of blood. She let the sadness stream through her, wishing the tack smooth. Soon its point dulled and the tack collapsed until it was nothing but a small, iron disk.

  “Better?” Her voice was very small.

  “Very good,” Maman said in Camille’s ear. In the haze of the blur, her mother was close, so close. I love you, she wanted to say. Do not leave me yet.

  “Camille?”

  Who had called her? Was it someone there—or here?

  With that sharp, panicky question in her mind her childhood vanished, and in its place was the cottage’s warmth, the watery rush of the Seine, the splash of firelight on the girls’ tense faces.

  Odette glanced over her shoulder, right at where Camille stood—as if she could see her—and Camille flattened back against the wall. If her luck held, for a few more minutes, she was invisible.

  Giselle took a step toward Odette, then faltered. “Why are you wearing her clothes?”

  Odette tossed her head, making the plume in Camille’s hat dance. “I’m staying at her house.”

  Giselle’s chin wobbled. “Why?”

  “I needed to spy on her to find out what she truly is.”

  “And that is?”

  Her smile gleamed like a knife. “I promise I’ll tell you later, once I have proof. But trust me, once you know … you’ll wish you never knew her.”

  Tiny Henriette, the forger with the cloud of blond hair, jabbed a finger at Odette. “You know she helped us keep this house. Those subscriptions keep us in food and clothes. You’re telling us to throw that away?”

  Sly, Odette asked, “Haven’t you wondered if she’s using you?”

  Suddenly the little room wavered as Maman’s perfume and her comforting warmth flooded back. Softly she murmured, Remember, mon trésor. Some will say magic is a terrible thing. A lie, a parlor trick, cheating. But they are seeing it wrong.

  Camille the child hadn’t tried to understand what her mother had said. It had been too grown-up and far from her own wants and fears. But now she wanted say to her mother, Tell me! What is the right thing to do? Who should I be?

  The fire crackled, and she was back in the warm cottage, the girls shouting among themselves, Giselle scowling at Odette.

  “It isn’t true!” Margot said.

  Worried, Claudine said, “But what if it is?”

  “You could help me prove it. See it for yourself.” Odette’s eyes gleamed with persuasive cunning. “There are rooms in her house that are locked, that I cannot get into. I need evidence. Come with me, Claudine, pick the locks and I will show you—”

  Prove what? And the terrifying question, its slow dark tug like an ebb tide: Who have I let into my house?

  Camille backed out the door.

  Hurry.

  The girls were still arguing. “And even if it was true,” Giselle interrupted, “what of it? She has been good to us!”

  “It’s nothing but pretend,” Odette sneered. “When you learn what she has done, come to me. I’ll still be here. I’ll still be your friend.”

  And then, like a cold intake of breath, the last of the blur dissolved and the hard edges of her own world came into sharp focus once more. Fatigue crept into her lead-heavy limbs. Her skin crawled as if a thousand pins pricked her. The magie-sickness was coming, and she had to get away.

  Odette pulled Camille’s cloak close around her and swept out of the cottage and up the bank. Camille watched her go. If she could return to the Hôtel Séguin before Odette, she could lock her out. The house would protect her and Sophie.

  A barge clanged its bell, and the girls paused to listen.

  Now.

  Forcing her unsteady legs to carry her, she moved as fast as she could along the muddy shore. The ache, the disorientation, all of it was worse than what she’d felt when she’d worked the glamoire. Each heavy step took an eternity. Finally, she reached a chestnut tree by the riverbank. She clung to it, gasping as her breath rattled in her throat. Above her, the branches of the tree made a heavy shadow. She wondered if she could nestle beneath it, like the time she’d played cache-cache in the gardens of Versailles. A yew hedge like cut velvet under the distant stars. Lazare emerging from the trees to catch her. His smile, gleaming in the dark. What had she done, letting him leave her? She had broken everything.

  She was so weary. Another step, and she would hide until she was well enough to get home.

  But she never reached it.

  34

  Camille stood on a high bluff. Below was a silver-tongued sea, storm clouds above. The air crackled with thunder. Lightning split, revealing high white cliffs and a balloon, sailing across the water.

  It was losing altitude.

  Closer and closer it came to the water that roiled with the tentacles of sea monsters. Distantly she saw Lazare putting on a cork vest as the balloon plunged into the waves. Could he not see the creatures?

  Around her hips hung a brace of pistols. She unbuckled the
m and tossed them out over the sea: Catch them! They sailed out—so far, so impossibly far—before plunging into the water just out of Lazare’s reach. A sickly white tentacle slithered into the gondola. Lazare didn’t see it as he reached for the sinking guns.

  Why hadn’t she shot the sea creatures instead of throwing the pistols?

  “What’s happening?” asked a soft voice.

  Hands held her, and she struggled against them. “He’s fallen into the sea!”

  “What sea?”

  “Tell him to stay in Dover, or else he will be lost!”

  “Hush,” said the voice. “You’re only dreaming.”

  Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes. Giselle’s worried face hovered over her. The tense conversation by the fire came back to her, and she scrambled to her elbows. Her head swam. She did not feel wholly there. “Where is Odette?”

  “You were outside?” Giselle gasped. “You heard what she said?”

  The blur’s fog still hung at the edge of her mind. It was hard to remember. “She believes I’m hurting the revolution. Hurting you.”

  “I hate her,” Giselle said fiercely. “We don’t believe her. At least, I don’t—”

  It didn’t matter, not now. “Help pull me up,” she said, and together, they stood. The river tilted uneasily behind her. “I must go home.”

  “Should I walk with you? You don’t seem at all like yourself, Camille—”

  “It’s nothing, mon amie. It will pass.” I hope. She was grateful for Giselle’s kindness, but she had to hurry, to prevent Odette from getting inside the house. “Thank you for believing in me.” And then she was in the street, stumbling at first but slowly finding her feet here, on the Quai des Ormes, and not there, in the cold room where her mother told her she was strong, running until the steady rhythm of her pumping legs carried her home.