‘So did you.’
‘I know but I’ve done that before. This time you were in danger and I put you there and I’d never, ever forgive myself if something happened.’
Ada pulled her close again, so close their breath mingled. ‘Now you know how I feel when you pull stunts. How I felt when you were on trial. I felt so powerless – and stupid for having let my father separate us. He should have known I’d never forgive him for keeping me away from your trial. I’ll never let him come between us again.’
‘But he didn’t come between us, not really. That’s what I’m trying to say. You’re here with me now. And when my world was falling apart, when the Revolutionaries had executed my mother and then my father too – I thought I’d lost everything. But you showed me it was only a small world. It wasn’t the whole universe. And I could have a new world, if I wanted one. With you.’
Their movement had slowed so they were standing face to face, arms closed round each other.
‘I know I don’t talk about it much,’ continued Camille, ‘but I don’t think I would have made it without you. I know it can’t have been easy to leave your father…’
Ada tensed in her arms. ‘After what he did I never want to see him again.’
Camille tilted her head to kiss Ada again, clinging to her like a rock among the waves.
‘Thank you,’ she mumbled against her lips. ‘For everything.’
Ada was so used to Camille the leader of the battalion she sometimes forgot she could look like this, her hair curling at her temples and the edges of her eyes crinkling in a smile. The girl she’d run away for.
‘I meant it,’ said Ada, letting herself sway to the music still filling the air. ‘We can have our own world. When the Revolution is over, we’ll find a way to live. I’ll study – the universities will have to start admitting women – and you, what do you want in your world, Cam? When this is over?’
Camille shrugged. ‘You.’
Ada smiled. ‘You’ll have me. But what else?’
Camille opened her mouth, then shut it again. For a moment, Ada had the unshakable sense that no one had ever asked Camille what she wanted before.
Then the moment passed, and Camille’s arms snaked tighter around her waist.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘That’s it. Just you. Because in all the huge, unknowable universe, there’s only ever been you that I’ve loved.’
Ada kissed her gently. ‘I love you too.’
As they danced the stars of Paris shone above them.
7
The Parlour, Au Petit Suisse
16 Prairial Year II
Sitting on the rag-rug in front of the cold fireplace, Olympe held her hand over a feather. Feeble daylight streamed through the shutters, picking out stains on the wooden table and threadbare patches on the chairs. It was the morning after the Conciergerie job took an unexpected turn and they’d slept late. Gathered round her were the battalion in mixed states of dress, Ada in a smart cream sprigged muslin day dress, Al still in his voluminous nightshirt, hair like a haystack. Ada had lent Olympe a clean outfit and Camille’s brush for her shorn hair.
As they watched, a thin film of blue light danced over Olympe’s skin, and gently the feather began to rise until it lay nestled in her palm. She let it rise again.
Al let out a low whistle. ‘Call the Spanish Inquisition, she’s a witch.’
Olympe looked at him warily, mistrust shining in her eyes. ‘I’m not a witch. I don’t think I’m a witch.’ She looked at Ada.
Ada waved Al away. ‘It’s not magic. I told you, it’s science. I think.’
She had gathered them for a better demonstration of Olympe’s powers. Camille had pounced on her as soon as she’d woken up, demanding she use her scant scientific training for a proper assessment – ‘I want to know exactly what I’m dealing with before I’m dealing with too much of it’ – and Ada couldn’t deny she was excited at the opportunity to take out her notebook and pencil and stack of volumes on electromagnetic research.
‘Electricity,’ replied Olympe. ‘That’s what Docteur Comtois called it.’
‘Exactly. If you rub fur on an amber stone you get the same effect, the feather will rise to it. By the same principle an electrostatic generator uses friction on a glass ball to create an electric charge.’
‘Are you sure you’re speaking French?’ asked Al. ‘Because I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
