29

It’s a stupid idea; I realize it as soon as I get out of bed. Somehow, I make it across the room and down the hallway, stopping when the pain gets too much. The stairs are easier, I just cling to the bannister. Once I’m downstairs there’s no going back.

The guard on duty by the prison hatch is Ginger Moustache. Word must’ve got round that I’m not a spy because he greets me like an old pal.

‘Call me Monsieur Cedric,’ he says.

‘Magpie.’ We shake hands.

‘Can’t think why you want to talk to her,’ Monsieur Cedric says, when I tell him why I’m here. ‘Nasty piece, if you ask me.’

But he helps me through the little door and leads the way with a lamp. At the top of the steps, I hesitate, my heart thump-thumping. I still don’t like cellars.

‘You all right?’ Monsieur Cedric asks.

I take a deep breath. I’ve flown in a balloon and survived a sword attack; yes, I am all right.

Camille’s wide awake in her cell. Though she keeps her distance, I’m still glad of the prison bars between us. I ask Monsieur Cedric for something to sit on. He brings me an old wine crate which I sink down onto, gladly, my legs feeling like chewed string.

‘Comfy enough, are you?’ Camille says.

Though I can’t quite see her face, I’m nervous.

‘I want to ask you something,’ I say.

She shrugs. ‘Ask away. Doesn’t mean I’ll tell you.’

‘Why did you want the brooch so badly?’

Camille narrows her eyes at me. Thinking. Deciding what to say. It’s prickly, being stared at like that. Makes me want to scratch myself all over.

‘It’s mine,’ she says. ‘My mother wanted me to have it when she died.’

‘So why was it hidden in Monsieur Joseph’s valuables box?’

‘Everything in our family goes to the men, right down to the paintings on the walls and the carpets on the floors.’

‘The Montgolfiers told me you’re related,’ I say. The idea of them being family is going to take some getting used to, though it explains why she knew the inside of the house so well.

She comes towards me now, so at last I see her properly. She’s wearing the gold brooch at the neck of her dress, and all over again I’m struck by how beautiful it is.

‘Do you have a family, Magpie?’ she asks.

‘No,’ I admit. These days, more and more, my parents seem as faint to me as shadows. ‘It’s just me and Coco.’

‘You’re lucky,’ she says. ‘An unhappy family is worse than no family.’

‘But you must’ve grown up in Annonay in that nice house,’ I point out. ‘And, all right, so Monsieur Etienne’s a bit sure of himself, but Monsieur Joseph is kind and—’

She raises her hand. Those gloves are looking proper tatty. ‘Enough about my brothers. It’s my father you need to hear about – the great paper manufacturer of Annonay.’

I nod. I know about the family paper factory.

‘Everyone used to say what a fine man he was – good to his workers. Fair. But what they didn’t know was at home, with us, he was a tyrant. Do you know what that means?’

‘He was mean?’ I offer.

‘Exactly that. The worst thing was I wasn’t allowed to think. Being a girl, I stood by while he forced my brothers to learn, bullying them through lessons I could’ve picked up in an instant if I’d been given the chance.’

I can picture it, she’s sharp, all right: blade-sharp. Next to her, the Montgolfiers seem slower, rounder at the edges. They’re a darned sight kinder, too.

‘So I took it upon myself to learn.’ She pauses, flexing her fingers on the bars. ‘I liked building things, making equipment and solving problems – exactly the sort of knowledge my father thought a girl shouldn’t have.’

Funny, but I know what she means because that’s how my brain works too.

‘I started working on a special machine in secret. It was meant for cutting paper. Father was always complaining how they didn’t have a decent blade at the factory, so I wanted to surprise him. To show him what I was capable of.’

‘And did you?’ I ask. Already, I’ve got a bad feeling about this story of hers.

‘It was his birthday,’ she says. ‘As the machine was ready and working, I gave it to him as a present. Everyone else had made him stupid little cards, but I’d created something original and clever. And do you know what he did when he saw it?’

I shake my head.

‘He ordered the servants to take it away. Then, in front of everyone, he told me I was an embarrassment to him and my brothers. I must be ill, he said, to think I could invent something when I’d had no education, and if that was the case then I should go to my room straight away.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes. I stayed there for three whole months,’ she says with a defiant lift of the chin.

I don’t suppose for a second she spent the time crying in bed, either. What she says next confirms it.

‘If anything, my father’s reaction spurred me on. Whilst he thought I was in my room resting, I was busy designing – a bigger, better cutting machine, and not one for paper either. This machine would bring me the recognition I deserved. In a few months it was ready. What I needed now was something to practise on. To cut. Something different.’

She keeps talking like she’s getting into her stride. But the words ‘cutting machine’ snag on me. I need her to explain.

‘What sort of “something to cut”?’ I ask.

‘A neck, I thought.’

I’m glad I’m sat down.

‘I tried to borrow a hen—’

‘Borrow?’

She ignores the interruption. ‘But my sneaky brothers caught me and threatened to tell our father, which is all rather rich, isn’t it, considering they used three animals in their flying experiment today?’

I’m glad they did, frankly. It saved Coco and Voltaire from the pot. Not that I expect Camille to understand.

‘In the end, I had to make do with a watermelon. But it went wrong. Horribly wrong.’ And she lets go of the bars, pulls off her stained old gloves and there I see it. On her right hand, the two middle fingers are missing. The stumps are smooth and scarred. On the left, the thumb is crooked, like it broke and never mended.

‘Oh!’ I cover my mouth in shock.

‘I was holding the melon to stop it rolling off the table. The blade dropped too soon, on to my hands and . . .’ She mimes the horrible chopping action.

I wince.

She looks strangely pleased. ‘Father said I deserved all I got.’

I stare at her mangled hands. I hate this woman. I’m scared of her. But right now, I also feel sorry for her. Even me, who’s never known a father’s love, can’t believe he’d say such a thing to his own daughter.

‘Did your father send you back to your room again?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t give him the chance,’ she replies, tugging the gloves back on with some difficulty. ‘I was sixteen by then, so I ran away. I got my revenge in the way I knew best.’

‘Which was?’

‘To marry the enemy – an Englishman. Real name Delamere. We changed it to make it sound more French.’

‘To Delacroix,’ I say out loud.

I’d not noticed before but there’s definitely a Montgolfier look to Camille – the way she kinks her eyebrows is just like Monsieur Etienne. All this time. All those years. The bitterness eating away at her like blowfly in a horse’s neck.

My gaze slides back to the brooch, glinting in the half-light. ‘What’s the brooch got to do with all this?’ I ask, because I’m still not sure.

‘You’ve heard of Monsieur Guillotin, I take it?’

I have. He’s the man behind the gruesome head-cutting-off machine that’s in all the news-sheets and that I, in a darker moment yesterday, feared we were being lined up for.

She taps her chest. ‘My idea. My cutting machine. I invented it first, though who’d believe a woman, eh?’

No one. The awful thing is, she’s right.

But the guillotine!

With a shudder, I think of all the cartoons of sharp blades and blood and heads collected in baskets. What a dreadful thing to put your name to. Though of course if she’d had her way it would’ve been the ‘Delacroix’, or the ‘Delamere’. Either way it’s a killing machine. I can’t imagine it: sitting down with notebook and pencil, sketching out designs, getting excited at the thought of it actually working.

No, I think, my brain isn’t like Camille’s. Not at all.

‘My mother wasn’t cruel like my father. She always told me I could do anything, that all I had to do was work hard and hope.’ Camille touches the brooch. ‘This was her favourite piece of jewellery. She’d tell me stories about how when she wore it, it made her feel as if she was floating on air. It was silly nonsense, really.’

Yet I’d felt something when I’d worn it, hadn’t I? Like I was about to be lifted off my feet. ‘It’s not silly,’ I blurt out, but she’s not listening.

‘Years later, when my mother died, my father refused to hand over the brooch. When I heard Guillotin had copied my idea, I became fixated on that brooch. It was like a talisman to me. If only I had it, I could do anything. I’d challenge Guillotin’s patent, I’d make a name for myself. Like my mother promised, I’d be walking on air – do you see?’

I do see why she wanted me to steal back the brooch.

‘But why did you pretend to want the papers?’ I ask.

She smiles: nastily, spitefully. ‘I wasn’t pretending, Magpie. I simply wanted to scupper their chances. The more it looked like they’d succeed, the more I was set on ruining it for them, just like they’d done to me.’

It sinks in, bit by bit. She was never really interested in the papers themselves. They were just a reminder of what her brothers were achieving and all she’d lost.

‘I won, though, didn’t I, Magpie?’ Camille says. ‘It was all worth it in the end.’

‘Was it?’ I’m amazed to hear her say this.

It’s no good me feeling sorry for her either, I realize. Though I’ve a clearer sense these days of what’s right and what’s definitely wrong, it’s a line Camille Delacroix doesn’t understand.

The pain’s back in my chest. I’m weakening. It’s time to end our talk. ‘You got your brooch if that’s what you mean,’ I tell her. ‘But you’re the one in a prison cell, not your brothers. They’re the toast of France.’

She stares at me. Like she might try to hit me, even with the prison bars between us. Then, her shoulders start to shake. Her head goes down. I sit forward, alarmed: is she crying?

No.

She looks up, her face all twisted. She’s laughing.

Unsteadily, I get to my feet. I’ve had enough of Camille Delacroix. I’m sorry for her horrible life, but being vengeful and bitter doesn’t pay in the end. We succeeded today, and she failed. I look her straight in the eye, one last time, and I don’t shrink at all.

As we head up the steps, Monsieur Cedric lets me lean on his arm. I need it.

‘I feel a bit sorry for the son, to be honest,’ he says. ‘His mother blamed him for everything – threatened to kill him and his horse! If that’s how the English treat their children, then I don’t think much of them.’

I don’t tell him that actually she’s French. Nor do I let him see the tears in my eyes. Because any fool can guess who the son and horse are in this sorry story.