‘No – that’s not true,’ said Ada.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Whatever he did only woke up a latent ability you already possessed. What you can do with it – the way you can manipulate and control the electric current – that’s all you, Olympe. I think you have made yourself even more powerful than anyone could have imagined.’
‘What good is being powerful if I will always be hunted for it?’ A shiver of blue sparks ghosted her jaw. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to lose control. But I will never,everlet that man get hold of me again. I will die first.’
Camille held her dark gaze, willing her lungs to take normal, even breaths.
What if she didn’t find a way out of this? What if Olympe was forced to make that choice?
She looked away. ‘What about Comtois? How did he get involved?’
‘He was working for the duc,’ explained Ada. ‘That’s how he found out about Olympe. How he knew to take her.’
‘Do you think he knew what the duc had planned for Olympe?’
Ada shrugged. ‘I can’t say, but it wouldn’t be hard to guess.’
Camille fell silent for a moment. ‘We need to take you out of their hands – out of everyone’s hands but your own.’
‘All that’s going to do is make them more determined to hurt us. To eliminate us,’ said Al.
Camille shrugged. ‘We can deal with them.’
‘Really? Because I’m not so sure we can. Look what happened at the theatre.’
She drew herself up, squaring her shoulders. ‘We’re trying to do the right thing. This isn’t just a job. We’re standing up for Olympe’s right to choose her own future. What happened at the theatre is exactly why we have to keep fighting. The Royalists are planning to hurt people to get their king back – terror, that’s what Dorval said. They want Olympe for god knows what reason, but we can very safely say their intentions are not good. The same goes for Comtois and the other side. They want to hurt people. We’re not going to let them.’
‘What’s to say we don’t end up being the ones hurting people?’ asked Olympe quietly.
Camille swallowed. ‘We won’t. I swear it. I won’t let something like that happen again. I can make this right – we can make this right.’
‘Do you even have a plan?’ asked Ada.
Camille didn’t blink. Then she started to smile, a curling cat-like thing that lit her face with a dark light.
Al narrowed his eyes. ‘What’s that expression? I don’t like it.’
‘We need to get the Revolutionaries and Royalists off our case. We can only hope Dorval didn’t make it out of the theatre alive, but even then that leaves us with too many people breathing down our necks. We can’t do anything for Olympe like that.’
‘As you said. But how do we do that?’ asked Al. ‘You can’t politely request the government and royal family leave you alone for a bit.’
‘Oh, I don’t intend to be polite. They both want her, don’t they? So let’s make each think the other has her. Set up one drop, bring both of them to it and accuse the other of having snatched her already.’
Ada made ahmphnoise, and looked out of the window, the dim candlelight showing the rosy warmth in her brown skin. Camille so desperately wanted to reach out and touch her hand, pull her into her arms.
James cleared his throat. ‘It’s not the worst plan I’ve heard. You said the deadline to give Olympe to the Revolutionaries was the twentieth of – Prairial, is it? Am I getting the new months right?’
Al nodded. ‘On the Festival of the Supreme Being, of all days.’
James hesitated, bracing his elbows on his knees. ‘Looks like you have your drop point figured out. Easy to lose track of who has who in a crowd like that? What was it your father always used to say, Cam? There’s no such thing as fate, no destiny. Everything is a choice.’ He gave her an encouraging smile, pleasant and trusting. ‘I think we have a choice to stand up to some pretty nasty people, and that’s always going to be the choice I make. I understand why you didn’t want to tell me the truth. But you can trust me, Cam. You know that?’
She hesitated, feeling the weight of all their eyes on her.
Did she trust him?
‘I think what you’re doing is right, and brave.Liberté, égalité, fraternité, that’s what it should be about. I’m with you. I always will be.’
