She almost laughed. It was too much. And yet, it made a terrible sense. Her father had always done whatever he thought necessary to achieve his goal, even when her mother died and they were alone in the world, when they came back to Paris and struggled to survive while he set up his publishing house. He’d published the Revolutionaries’ work, but maybe it had always only been a means to an end.
Just like now. He was doing whatever he thought he had to to get her back. She nearly laughed. He must really think he was doing the right thing to protect his daughter.
‘Let me go!’
‘Shhh, there now.’ He pulled her tight against his body, her back nestled against his front. He’d held her like this in the days after her mother died, when her sobbing wracked her body so she thought she might snap in half.
A shiver of pure anger sparked in her.
‘Traitor,’ she spat, then a cold, noxious-smelling cloth closed over her nose and mouth.
She wriggled and thrashed, trying desperately to twist away. She sucked in foul-tasting air through the rag, and her head began to spin.
As her knees gave, she felt herself being lowered to the ground. But then she was gone, spinning eternally into a cold, black pit.
All she could think was that she didn’t want it to end like this.
7
At the Top of the Mountain
In the empty space where Olympe had stood, Camille felt her heart break. The last thing she’d seen was Olympe’s eyes, pooled with inky black. Then the recoil of her pistol had smacked into her.
Olympe was gone and her gun felt hot in her hand.
Molyneux was leaning over the edge, yelling something she couldn’t make out. Comtois had fled, scrambling down the path to hunt for the body.
Trembling, Camille lowered the pistol and tucked it back in her belt. The barrel burned a line against her side.
‘What have you done?’ Molyneux roared, face tomato-red and throbbing. ‘You stupid, hateful girl.’
He made a lunge for her and she skittered back.
‘She’s safe now. She said she’d rather die and so I made the only choice I could. That kind of power should never be in your hands, nor the duc’s.’
‘You’ve ruined us! You’ve doomed us all.’
The screaming of the crowd reached them at the top of the mountain.
‘I did what I had to do. You’re sick, all of you. Did you read what the duc did to her? What Comtois did? They cut her up and drowned her and shocked her. That’s not science, it’s torture.’
‘You think sacrificing the future of the Republic is the better choice?’
‘Find an alternative,’ she said, hating the churlish note in her voice.
‘Oh, dear, stupid Camille. You get the wrong end of every stick, don’t you?’
He crossed the summit towards her, and she whipped out her gun again to hold him at bay.
‘Stand back!’
Holding his hands up, he paused by the tree, then gestured to her gun.
‘Your father’s,’ he said. ‘You hold it with such pride.’
‘Yes. Because he was a far better man than you. He believed in the Revolution, but he would never stoop to such cruelty.’
‘The wrong end of every stick, as I said.’
