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Her brother is dead. For the last time, he has left her behind, and this time, she can’t follow him. The fact is like a dull drum in Solene’s mind, beating on and on and on, never fully sinking in, but a sort of noise that is always there. She walks forward, hopeful, fearful, mind full of memories. Fixe-- She knows those glassy eyes, looking ahead towards something she can’t see. He is there, his body is there, cold and lifeless, still in a way he had never been in life, but it cannot breach through the barrier in her mind that says that her brother can’t be dead, that Ronan can’t be dead, not yet, not so soon, not before-- Fixe-- She doesn’t pay attention to the shouts and sounds of thousands of shoes hitting stone as they storm the Bastille. There’s very little she’s capable of understanding, less that she cares about. She hears a woman’s screams, sees someone she’s never met before cradling the body, begging him not to go, however she hears it like someone underwater would, muted and unfocused as she feels the sob tearing her throat to shreds, collapsing onto the ground. Numerous hands reach out to clasp her as her fellow sisters in the night, the women who have been her only support for a year, reach out to comfort her, but she can barely feel their touches. When they finally take the body away, it finally sinks in that her brother is dead, and she is alone in the world. Fixe. There is one comfort: Ronan is not dumped into a pauper’s grave, nameless, as their father had been. His friends are kind enough, rich enough to see to it. A small headstone is erected with his name, a birthdate that is somewhere close to accurate, and the phrase “Martyr to Liberty” inscribed beneath it. Being the sister to a martyr to liberty is the same as being the sister to any other dead man, she takes no comfort from it. There are others there, Desmoulins, Robespierre, Danton (who has the kindness to suggest they “forget their sorrows” together afterwards. With no word of payment, she refuses).  There is a woman there, and as Solene looks at her, she tries to remember where she’s seen her before. Women like her generally aren’t seen in the streets where Solene works, unless they’re meeting a lover. She’s dressed like she has money, clothed in black damask, with small lace gloves on her hands and a black necklace drawn across her pale neck. Her brown hair is swept up from her face, with not a lock out of place. A middle-aged man is standing near her, clutching onto a cane, her husband, her father? Not long after the other three men leave, he hobbles over to the grave, gives one brief nod at it, and then goes off to a waiting carriage.  The two women are alone, on opposite sides of the grave. She doesn’t know what brings her to stand by her side, curiosity, fascination. Either way, she is there, standing by the unknown woman’s side. There is a long moment of silence, and then finally the other woman speaks.  “My name is Olympe,” she says, and Solene is surprised at how smooth her voice truly is, “Olympe du Puget.”  “Solene Mazurier.” A pause. “He was my brother.”  “He was my-“ Olympe halts, and Solene can see her struggle for a moment, “He was my fiancee.” It’s then that Solene remembers where she’s seen her before, when the Bastille fell and Ronan laid dying on the ground. She had been the one to hold him in her lap, screaming. She doesn’t offer more, however, and Solene doesn’t press. “He hadn’t told me about you.” There’s a nervousness to it, a hesitation to go too deeply lest she strike some long-buried family nerve. Solene’s profession is obvious in the cut and fabric of her clothing, and a woman of her social standing would have to know that Solene is not a woman to be paraded in salon rooms. How Ronan had ever managed to keep her interest, Solene will never know. Her brother was so…Ronan.  “We had quarreled before his death.” Memories flood her mind of him coming up to her earlier that month, desperate, pleading, and how she had refused him and turned away. She was furious then, at him for his abandonment and his hypocrisy, at the world, but now… “As had we.” There’s a brief, awkward moment of silence, and then they both begin to laugh. At first, it’s uncomfortable and nervous, the kind of laugh that is done when someone has no other option to fill the silence. Then, it quickly descends into a genuine laugh, and she doesn’t know when she’s laughed like this and she can’t stop. When she stops to wipe at the tears that are falling freely from her eyes, she realizes that sometime in the whole mess either she had taken hold of Olympe’s hand or she had taken hold of hers. There should be guilt, she knows. Laughing at her brother's funeral, at him isn't respectful. But what would there be if there wasn't laughter? Her returning to her dirty apartment room, curling up into a ball, and waiting for the night to come so she can go about her business and pretend that things are normal again? Avoiding the other women because, as kind as they can be, there comes a time when being comforted requires too much energy?  Solene’s hand falls down at her side. “I never understood him.” She almost wonders if Olympe will take her hand again, as she had before, but she knows that it is not the kind of thing to be done. They are not friends, after all, and women like her tend to avoid women of Solene’s profession as much as possible.  Even though she doesn’t take Solene’s hand again, Olympe’s fingers brush lightly against her knuckle, and Solene wonders if it is intentional or not. “Nor did I.” She glances at her, and Solene catches a glimpse of dark brown eyes that, in the sunlight, seemed to be tinted with honey.  They stay like that, in a silence that is not just silence, until Olympe joins the older man in his carriage and Solene is truly alone for the first time.  She turns to leave, her thoughts filled of the woman with her perfume and her smooth voice and her pink lips, but as she does so, she sees a form emerging from the shadows. Carefully, she darts behind a tombstone, as Lazare de Peyrol comes into view. Hatred and disgust fill her as she looks at him, the man who deprived her of two members of her family, two people she had loved. Who she loves still. He should be the one in the grave, not Ronan. There are rumors that, for his part in suppressing the people, he is going to go to trial soon, that he’s been suspended from his position in the army, that most of his troops have abandoned him, but it’s a cold comfort. Peyrol could walk free if she could have her father or brother back, for all she cares. She is tired of bloodshed.  He looks down at the grave, long and hard, and then, barely audibly, she hears two words, and if her hatred of him was not complete before, it is now.  
“Little fool.” 
 That is when she wants to strangle him herself. It wasn’t enough for him to kill Ronan, but now he intends to gloat over him? Her brother was a naive idiot, yes, but he has no right to call him that. He has no right to call him that, he has no right to be here, he has no right to be alive. Not when so many others aren’t.  But then he closes his eyes and kneels down in front of the headstone, pressing his forehead against the stone, and he looks like a man in prayer. He stays like that, it could be an hour, it could be a day, but he stays, and Solene watches.  When he rises, she moves to leave, only to trip on a stray stone she hadn’t seen before, hitting the ground. She quickly recovers, grateful that her ankle wasn’t twisted in the fall, however he’s now fully aware of her presence. He turns to her, and they hold each other’s gaze.  Solene straightens her back under his scrutinizing glare, and there’s a brief recognition in his eyes, quickly replaced by something she can’t place. Her profession has made her an expert in reading the human face in all its variations, from arousal to amusement to anger, but she can’t place him. He opens his mouth briefly, something at the tip of his tongue, but then turns and walks away briskly.  Solene rushes after him, “Monsieur de Peyrol! Monsieur de Peyrol!”  No matter how much Solene tries to pursue him, he doesn’t turn or acknowledge her further, climbing into a nearby carriage.  Shortly afterwards, the rumor flies through the streets that the Comte de Peyrol has disappeared. The usual belief is that he’s betrayed the people again, that he has emigrated like the Comte d’Artois, that he will help to raise an army against the French people. They are itching for his blood, wanting him to join Foulon on the lantern. More death, more pain, on and on and on.  They never find him, and Solene will spend the rest of her life wondering what he might have told her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

She is leaning up against the wall of a building near her apartment in Rue Saint Denis, looking out at the huge stone arch that towers over the area imposingly while hoping for customers when they next meet one another. It is August now, late in the afternoon, the first hints of dusk creeping through the city. Workers are beginning to amble home, bodies covered in sweat from the work they’ve done under the hot summer’s sun, a few of them eyeing her before turning away. The artisans and their wealthier customers are more discreet, masking their interest beneath scowls when they escort their wives and sweethearts along the street. Of the two groups, they’re the ones that she has the most confidence will come when the night falls and her day begins. She remembers a few of them that other women have warned about, the ones who think because she sells her time she sells her body. (Whatever she does with a man, whether it's against a wall or on her knees, her body is hers, just the same as with a servant or a laundress. When they all crawl into their separate beds at the end of their days, whether the sky they sleep under is a sunlit or moonlit, they still own themselves. No matter how little she's had otherwise, she's always had that.) She makes a note that, if they return, to find a way to get out of it. Dogs bark and roll together in the street, covering themselves in dirt, the church bells toll in the distance to mark a new hour, and the steady, deafening roll of wagons and carriages continues. And in the chaos of everyday life, the Little Cat runs into her, only muttering a quick “Sorry!” before dashing off, Solene finding herself clutching at the wall in an attempt to keep herself upright. Everyone knows the girl, in some way or another. Everyone from washer-women on the Seine to the scribblers at Palais Royal know who she is, not least of all the various policemen who can often be seen trailing behind her before she ducks into some long forgotten alley or simply seems to disappear into the ground itself. She has no parents, at least as far as anyone can remember, but she has been more or less adopted by the other women, so Solene is well used to her company, with the girl occasionally sitting down with them at a tavern before leaving them for someplace new. This time, though, it is not the police who trailed behind her, but another girl of roughly the same age, who is a blur of blue as she races after her. “Charlotte, wait for me!” “You’ll have to catch me first!” Solene finds herself being supported by a pair of slim arms as she hears a familiar, smooth voice close to her ear. “I am sorry for them.” She turns, coming face to face with Olympe, who gives a slight smile at seeing her. “Mademoiselle Mazurier! It is so good to see you again.” “Mademoiselle du Puget.” She has not forgotten the name, despite how briefly they met. She doesn’t have the luxury of living in her thoughts that others do, but, sometimes, when she sees a well-dressed woman on the street or a flash of brown hair in the sunlight, she imagines that it’s her. In a sterner voice, Olympe calls out, “Charlotte! Françoise! Come back here!” She could tell Olympe that it’s hopeless to cage the Little Cat; but at the moment she’s too caught up in being in Olympe’s arms to speak. She feels a happy, contented warmth go through her at the contact, so different from how she’s normally touched. Olympe rights her soon, and she recovers, but she can feel her skin burn where Olympe had touched her. To her surprise, both Charlotte and the other girl return, the former skipping along, hands on her hips, while the other looked considerably more subdued, bowing her head as she trudges back. Now that she’s slowed down, Solene can see the contrast she makes to Charlotte, wearing a silk dress that in everything but color is a match to the pink striped gown Olympe wears, albeit one with a fine coat of dust around the skirt. They both look guiltily at Solene. “What do you say?” The Little Cat interjects, “I said I was sorry!” At a glare from Olympe that is more exasperated than stern, she relents. “I’m sorry. I didn’t look at where I was going.” The other one, the one Olympe called “Françoise,” keeps her head bowed. “We really are. It was not our intent to cause you any harm and I’m sorry for not noticing that you were in distress.” It’s been ages since anyone’s bothered to apologize to her; she almost doesn’t know what to do. “I’ll survive.” Then, realizing that their class tends to want more from this sort of thing she adds, “Your apology is accepted.” Françoise leans over to Olympe and, in a whisper that is loud enough for Solene to hear, says, “Will you tell Father?” Olympe shakes her head gently, “You know I wouldn’t.” Françoise looks like she might say something further, but Charlotte’s tugging at her arm, “Come on, Françoise!” At an encouraging nod from Olympe, she runs off to join the other girl. As they do, Olympe calls out. “Charlotte, be careful! Take care of her!” “I will!” Comes the faint answer. Olympe sighs and leans against the wall, sharing a small smile with Solene that makes her heart skip a beat. “I love my sister, but sometimes she is harder for me to handle than children with no relation to me.” “The Little Cat is hard enough to handle on her own. I’ve never known her to stay in one place.” “Together, I fear what they’re capable of.” She looks at Solene apologetically, "I am truly sorry for them, they didn’t mean it.” “Think nothing of it. They are still children,” Solene says, “They don’t think before rushing. It’s the privilege of childhood.” A pause. “We were…like that once. Ronan and I.” When they found moments in-between chores that caused their eyes to sting from sweat, when Ronan hadn’t taken out additional time to work on another farm to possibly bring in some more money, when they had been allowed to be children. “We had a whole world of our own at our command.” Class and education didn’t matter in the world of Make-Believe, where the two of them ruled supreme, nor did sickness and death. They could adventure to their heart’s content, going over every rock and tree to see if there was long-buried treasure hidden by giants centuries ago and fleeing from vampires and werewolves when the night began to fall. (It was strange, she thought, how what she once feared was now one of her closest allies.) “I was the only child of my mother and father until Françoise’s birth, when I was eight years old. It came as something of a shock.” Olympe makes a half shrug, holding her hands out helplessly as she does so. "I do my best to look after her, especially since the Bastille, however...” “There is only so much you can do for them.” To distract herself from where her mind is taking her, she adds, “The Bastille?” Olympe nods hesitantly, her next words slow and hushed as she smooths out her skirts, barely looking Solene in the eye. “My father was the King’s Lieutenant there, second only to the Governor, Monsieur De Launay. When the Bastille fell, he narrowly escaped with his life. If it hadn’t been for Ronan…” Solene remembers the man in the uniform that Ronan jumped in front of to stop the bullets from Peyrol’s men, putting one more sliver of the fuller picture into place. (It reminds her of the time the three of them, her father, Ronan, and her had gone to the big cathedral at Chartres, looking at the huge stained glass pictures there, when Solene wondered how a group of people could spend their lives hunched over glass without worrying about anything else. So many small pieces of glass, painted and fixed together to create a picture, but still broken and fragmented and fragile, with snakelike black lines showing where they had been put into place beside each other.) “Even then,” Olympe says, “There were many who wanted him dead—Who want him dead still. He had to escape in disguise. I thought for a moment that he would die as well.” Olympe’s fingers tighten around her skirt, and Solene notices that her knuckles have turned white. She looks down and, noticing the condition she’s in, relaxes. “Since then, our family’s been in chaos. Papa hasn’t been reassigned anywhere, even though he has applied for a pension and reimbursement for his losses.” Olympe looks up, her eyes meeting Solene’s before they both look away. “That is why you didn’t tell your father about this.” Solene gestures to the two girls playing in the street together. “She deserves some normalcy,” Olympe’s lips tighten, and Solene can’t help but notice them again, marking the lines and curves of them in her mind. “And I cannot provide that for her when I am on duty in court. Charlotte makes her happier than anything else, I could never take that away from her when she is already in the middle of such turmoil, nor could I take her from Charlotte. She has so little as it is.” “‘On duty?’” Solene can’t help but tease her a little, "I had no idea that I was speaking to a decorated soldier.” Olympe dips her head, “I work as an under-governess with the royal children under the supervision of Madame de Tourzel, though with the Dauphin…it has been difficult, recently.” Solene can’t imagine. Two children, brought up without any idea of what it’s like to go hungry, surrounded by people who will wait on them every hour of the day. There is a distinct edge in her voice when she asks, “And how are the royal children? What is it like to care for the children destined by God to rule France?” “The same as it is for any child, Mademoiselle Mazurier. They need love and guidance the same as Charlotte or Françoise, they sometimes cry when they scrape their knee, and they are just as fragile in their illnesses. It is just a pity that all don’t receive it.” Her lips tighten again, and Solene notices the quirk, notices that she seems to do it when she is debating something, as if she is fighting the words from coming out. "It’s an injustice.” "Not words I'd expect from a royal governess." Though, when she thought of it, the more she saw of Olympe du Puget, the more of a mystery she was. She was a noble born woman, daughter of one of the most important jailers in the Bastille, who spent her days in the court of the Austrian, tending to her children, and yet she was...attached to Solene's brother. How had they even met? "I might not always have the freedom to express myself as I would like, but I do have the freedom of my own thoughts. Growing up, Papa always taught me the equality of humanity. Regardless of where we come from or what our education is, we all come into this world the same and," she looks at Solene, her eyes so sharp and so dark that it is enough to make her lose all the breath in her body, "We all leave it the same as well. Everyone deserves fair treatment." Solene wonders if she and Ronan had discussed this, at one point, long conversations on the rights of man, but it doesn't seem to fit her brother and, with the knowledge that they'd quarreled before his death, she considered it unlikely. Her brother rarely had the patience for debate, even when they were children. Wherever her mind is flowing at the moment is disrupted as they both turn and look to where Françoise and Charlotte continue to play, running around the area. Françoise has caught Charlotte now, who gives a happy shriek. Olympe looks up in alarm, her face bone white, but when she sees that all is well, she returns, the little smile that seems habitual to her returning. “How did you meet her? The Little Cat?” “It is impossible to simply meet Charlotte, rather, she meets you. I first knew of her because of my sister; they met one day and met for months before it was discovered. It was impossible to keep them away from one another, and so I would occasionally escort them around town. She has been a great help, in the past. Since Françoise and her became friends, I try to help her whenever I can, with reading, clothes, and food, such as she will accept. I have a small salary with the Queen and no real use for it." That reminds her of something she'd wondered when she saw the look on her face when she heard Charlotte and Françoise playing. "Were you with him when he died?" Olympe looks at her, and Solene realizes the “him” that she might have been referring to, so she clarifies. "The Dauphin?" Olympe closes her eyes and nods. "It was expected. When I was first appointed to the post, I was given very strict warnings that the Dauphin was in ill health, but there was still some hope that he might yet recover, however...I should have done more. If I had simply looked harder-" “I can’t believe that,” Solene says, and Olympe startles. Solene remembers that this is not the way that upper class women speak to one another, that they aren’t equals, that she’s probably asked too many questions, that she’s spent too long here. Still, she adds, carefully, “You look after your sister, you look after your father, you look after the royal children, and you still take time to care for a child who has no relation to you. You seem, Mademoiselle du Puget, to care for everything.” It is a wonder, Solene thinks, with all that she puts on herself, that she isn’t dead or mad yet. (A very unkind, quickly silenced part of her brain helpfully supplies that she was engaged to Ronan.) “I try to help those who have been kind to me, that is all.” “Well, what’s this?” Charlotte somehow pops up right between them. “Have we missed anything?” “No,” Olympe says, and then smiles at her and Françoise, who is close behind the other girl and looking fatigued, “No, we were just admiring the sunset together.” Solene notices the way Olympe’s hand lightly pets Charlotte’s hair as the two girls join them and falls a little in love with her then, seeing this woman who spends most of her time caring for children with everything and the rest caring for a child with nothing. It would be easy to kiss her, looking like this, the sun bleeding around them, easier still to lean over just an inch or two and let their hands brush. She swallows it down, feels it stick uncomfortably in her throat, and they stay as they are. She was Ronan’s fiancee, and for all her brother’s flaws, she’ll respect that much. It isn’t like she’ll see the woman again, anyway. And, after this, night will fall, the stars will dance above the lights of the city, and Solene will go onward, as she always has.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The law is clear: It’s illegal for women to ply their trade inside a tavern or on the streets. The men who interpret the law are less sure on the matter, finding that women of the world can be useful for leads on a case or for relieving the cares of a hard day’s work. And there’s no law in France that says anything about a group of women sitting at a tavern together, talking with each other. Whatever happens next depends on the men involved; they have nothing to do with it.  
“I don’t want any trouble, Mazurier." The tavern girl, Colette, who is a mass of red curls above a dress and apron, wipes down a table with an old rag, “Now, I have my eye on that one,” she nods towards a man sitting alone at one of the tables, nursing an ale over a meager plate of fish and some half-chewed bread, "I have my rent due tomorrow, and if you steal this dupe from me I’ll tear out your eyes and throw them in the Seine. Am I clear?”

“Really Colette, when have I ever caused trouble?” Solene asks, raising a brow.

The other woman just shakes her head and goes back to her work, “They’re at the usual table. Some fancy piece is with them this time. And remember: Stay off my dupe.”

Solene makes her way to the long table of dark wood in the corner, which is brightly lit by the small candelabra of wood hanging above it, as well as a roaring fireplace with a huge cauldron hanging over, where she’s greeted with a round of “Solene!”s from the women assembled there.

“Glad to see you could come.” Marguerite is a tough woman, the kind usually seen working as a fishwife along the Seine, carrying the large baskets filled to the brim with fish in their strong arms. Like Solene, a life under the sun has blistered and burned her skin, matching tones with her light brown hair. She was married, once, but when her husband became jealous, threatening her whenever she so much as stepped out of doors, she ran away, finding that dealing with a hundred men who posed the threat of a moment was easier than dealing with a single one who held the threat of a lifetime.

“Where’s Marie?” Solene asks.

“Kid’s got colic, she’s spending all her time either working the dupes or tending to it."

Athenais sits at the head of the table, opposite Solene. She is older than the others, closer to forty than thirty, wearing the silver hairs in her head with the same confidence that she wears the faded lilac court gown that brushes against the knees of the two women sitting next to her and the white powder that covers her face like snow over a valley. She’d been lucky in the twilight years of Louis XV, catching the eye of the old lecher for a few nights before he moved on elsewhere and then taking her consolation with the lesser nobility. It was there that she’d taken the name Athenais, the ribbon girl Sophie becoming the aristocracy’s most favored plaything for the season until, finally, her extensive gambling debts forced her to settle for managing a small brothel that bordered somewhere on the line of respectability, enjoying the tacit toleration of the police in exchange for certain services rendered. She sits there like a queen holding court, her back to a shelf holding a collection of pewter plates, confident even as the sounds of a dog chasing a cat can be heard throughout the place.

Susanne sits nearest her, to the right, almost obscured from the heavy skirts of the other woman. In contrast to Athenais, she’s young, barely 17, barely fitting into the dress she wears to make herself seem older than she is (It’s strange to Solene that, at her age, she was in training to be a farmer’s wife, her father and Ronan had been alive, and there’d been no signs that their lives would follow anything more or less than the patterns of the weather and the seasons. The period after Lent to marry, November or December to give birth if the banns were a little rushed, then the christening if they were lucky or the wordless, unsanctified funeral if they were not. Then, when the child would be weaned, the cycle would start again and again until her body either refused to do it again or she died.) Susanne's father died a year or two ago of a sudden sickness, and so her mother, lacking the ability to spin straw into gold and already working her fingers to the bone as a washerwoman on the Seine, put her daughter into the only type of work that was left in order to support herself and her two small siblings.

“So, Solene,” Marguerite says, resting her head on her hand, “I’ve heard that you were having quite the tryst the other day, with that aristo girl.”

There are a number of “oooooooohhhhssss” from those assembled at the table, as they all suddenly become young girls waiting to find out who had managed to steal a kiss during a festival.

Solene puts a hand on her hip in a great show of sternness, using the other to gesture at the table, “Before I’ve even sat down?”

“You may sit, Madame,” Emilie says from her seat on the other side of Athenais, gesturing grandly to the rickety stool that had its best days some fifty years ago. She’s a year or two Solene’s junior, with hair somewhere between brown and gold. Solene doesn’t know as much about her, though she has heard it said that she once worked in the theatre, picking up the trade there before going to the streets. The older woman turns her small, snub nose up at the movement, sniffing audibly even as she says nothing.

Solene sits down in front of the fire, the heat warming and soothing her back, which is slightly sore after being held against a wall all day, holding herself up to the table more through force of will than any effort of the stool, which teeters dangerously as she applies herself to it.

Emilie leans forward, putting her hand beneath her chin. “So, the aristo girl.”

“Is a friend,” Solene says.

“Oh, a friend?”

“Who was engaged to my brother and currently works with L'Autrichienne.” It’s like she’s a child again, being asked whether she likes a boy or not simply because she wants to be friends. She doesn't know how many friendships she’d lost because of presumption, whether from the small circle made up of the village children or from the boys themselves.

"Oh, L'Autrichienne!" Emilie says, rolling her eyes for exaggerated effect. "And we all know where her interests lie. No wonder she's taken such a liking to you, Solene."

“Your brother landed a woman like that?” Marguerite says, her face a mixture between disbelief and a touch of outrage.

“I don’t know; he was cute,” Susanne says, with no small degree of wistfulness. "I'm sure there were many women who'd have taken him."

“How would you know what she's like?” Solene asks, hoping to clear her brain forever of the words "Cute" and "Ronan" being put together. She knew her brother was a favorite target for girls, even back at their home village, though most knew fully well that he had different tastes. (Then again...Olympe's existence as his fiancée did complicate that image. Perhaps she was an exception. Solene could certainly understand it if she was.)

“The city is full of little eyes and ears, some of whom are easily bribed,” Marguerite says.

“Charlotte.”

“Charlotte,” Emilie says, "She said she was like 'a princess from a story’ and that you talked for hours, walking hand in hand.”

“It’s no business of yours if I did.”

“We’re all just curious, Solene,” Marguerite says, “All the time we’ve known you, you’ve never talked about your family until your brother showed up, no friends, no lovers. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you came into creation one day, fully grown.”

“It’s true, we talked. She’s…different, from the rest." She finds herself smiling at the memory of their hands touching, feeling the brush of their skin even as the only thing she touches is the hard wood of the table, "Kinder, with something sharper underneath all the lace and ribbons. And she is...very beautiful. With one look at her-" At the stares of everyone around the table, who look at her as if she'd suggested an expedition to find the Northwest Passage in their petticoats, she shrugs, "She doesn't turn up her nose at us. Of course I'd like her company. The friendship of anyone close to Ronan is important to me.”

Athenais sniffs, obviously put out at not being the focus of the conversation for more than four sentences. “And what would a woman like that want with you, besides as a charity cause? A common drab, uneducated, filthy as you are? Oh, this street urchin of yours tells a charming tale, Emilie, but it’s a fantasy. The aristocracy doesn’t care for any but their own, at heart, and the amusements of a moment or two.”

The four of them, Susanne, Emilie, Solene and Marguerite turn to her, having more or less forgetting her intrusion. Solene feels her temper prick. She isn’t sure which part motivates her more, treating her as if she’s common dirt or treating Olympe like a fickle, mindless caricature of herself, as her fingernails clench around the edge of the table. They were both raised poor, and they'd both made their money on their back to eat. If she'd not done anything to filthy herself when she was doing it for a king for a chestful of ruby and emerald necklaces, rings, and bracelets that she'd later sell off to pay for her gambling debts, Solene hadn't by doing it for a piece of crusty bread to keep her alive during the winter when she was friendless on the Parisian street. She doesn't need the approval of men who've spent their entire lives rolling in gold to cleanse herself, or of any man. (She's reminded, vaguely, of her argument with Ronan, when they'd been reunited in Paris.)  
 
“Perhaps she seeks my friendship because she’s tired of dealing with women like you, Madame."

“Me? I have spent the last decades of my life tending to the needs of the aristocracy. Every whim and desire, for some of the greatest men in the land. You know, I once met your old friend the Comte de Peyrol,” Athenais said, her voice somewhat absent but with a hint of eagerness underneath. “The other officers in his regiment put together all their funds so that I could make a man of him when I was staying at Madame Gourdan’s establishment.”  
“Really?" Susanne asks, and as she does so Athenais’ lips curl upward as she gets her chance to reminisce over her days of glory. “What was he like? Was he cruel?”

Athenais gives a throaty laugh even as Solene’s stomach drops at the reference. She is never going to be free of the man, even here. And Athenais knew it. Marguerite seems to realize the drop in Solene’s mood, her hand clasping Solene’s shoulder in a sign of solidarity.

“Oh, I had my fears, especially at seeing the price they were paying. The aristocracy, you know, can be very peculiar, especially when they believe they’re entitled to what they've not paid for, come what may. But, I am nothing if not a woman of my word, and so I went up to my room and waited. Much to my surprise, what should come up but a little skinny colt of a boy, serious as a castrated monk, who took off his hat when he entered in, as formal as you’d like! I tried to coax him, but he would only pace about, looking at the floor!”

Susanne is leaning as closely as she can without being assaulted by a pannier. “Did you get him eventually?”

“Oh, I was able to get him to stop his pacing, but I couldn’t lead him so much as five feet near the bed. We ended up playing chess for the rest of the night. It was the hardest pay I ever received, I’ll say that much. Give me a few minutes on a man’s cock anytime over that. But, the officers were happy, I was happy, and he was happy, in his fashion, so it was a successful night.” She raises her heavy mug, as if giving a toast, "The most hated man in France, and the only man I've known who'd rather look at the floor than a naked woman."

Solene feels the weight in her stomach twist and turn and suddenly she needs to be out of there, as something seems to brush at her mind that she can’t trace, some feeling that she can’t place and isn’t sure if she wants to. It’s hard to think of Peyrol as young. It’s hard to think that he was born and had a childhood and was once a young man who was more legs than not just like Ronan had been and that he’d once been nervous as he faced the possibility of going to bed with a woman for a first time. It’s hard for her to put him as a human being, even one who passes in and out of her life like the dupes. Peyrol shouldn’t be a human being. He’s a dog, a machine that does as its master commands it to and then leaves a trail of destruction. That is all she knows of him, that is all she cares.

Barely, she notices a sly look appear on Athenais' face, like a cat sizing up a bird, and her voice seems lower, “That’s the advantage of working in a fine establishment. You interact with a a higher quality of clientele than some scum off the street. And there’s safety involved in it. We look after our own, you know. You’d be safe, and within a month or so your earnings—“

“Will be nothing compared to being up to your knees in debt,” Solene, who’d been drifting in and out of the familiar points of Athenais’ speech, finds herself snapping. “But you don’t mention that, do you?”

There are a few nods and murmurs of assent.

Athenais looks unperturbed, smiling, “We only charge what we’re owed, and in exchange we clothe our girls, feed them, shelter them, and they still keep a good portion of their earnings, which, in the present state of the world, is more than most can say. Really, we are incredibly generous; the deal would be entirely in your favor, my dear. But, if you are persuaded otherwise…” She shrugs, “I suppose that there are others who could fill our rooms easier. There are always girls coming in from the provinces. Look at your friends here; their stomachs provide testimony enough, I should think. ”

As Susanne opens her mouth to respond one way or another, Solene stands up and walks off, not bothering to see what happens next. That’s up to them; she won’t witness it one way or another. She finds herself joined on the narrow, uneven cobblestone streets shortly thereafter by Marguerite, Emilie, and Susanne.

“So, you’ve decided against becoming women of fortune?” She asks, a little smirk on her mouth as she hears Athenais squawking in the background.

“We like the company out here better,” Emilie gives her a friendly shove.
 
“And besides, someone’s got to help you stay out of trouble, and there’s no doing that if we’re in her fancy house tending to men of the aristocracy.”  Marguerite mimics Athenais’ high airs and flourishes, earning a chuckle from Solene.

“Do you not think it was rash, to reject her offer so quickly?” Susanne says. “She did seem kind about the whole thing."

Emilie shrieks with laughter. "I'm sure a fox looks kind to the chicken, doesn't mean the chicken's happy for the company in the end." 
 
"To have a steady roof over our heads, and with the money, my family—“

“Did you want to?” Marguerite asks.

Susanne pauses, as if considering her own choice for the first time, “Not particularly.”

Standing there, not looking them in the eye as she clutches her shawl about her beneath the faint, pale light of a street lamp, she suddenly looks very young. Even though it’s been a long time since she’s been in the position to do anything like this, at least since the last of the Mazurier siblings besides herself and Ronan died, she brushes her hand against the girl’s cheek.

“Don’t ever allow yourself to owe anyone anything. No matter what they promise, no matter how they promise it. Don’t allow yourself to be bought because then, you’re at their mercy.”

“But-“ Susanne says, but by that time Solene’s already walking away.

“Don’t ever owe anyone anything,” Solene repeats, walking into the night air, ignoring the feeling of someone's eyes on her, “It will only lead to pain.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Against her will, time passes. The Comte de Peyrol shows his face for the first time since the Bastille at his trial for his actions on the 12th of July, and he is acquitted. Solène doesn’t have the energy to be disappointed, knowing in her bones long before that no matter how much they talk about equality, an aristocrat is never going to be executed for crimes with the King’s stamp on them.  He hadn’t been before, he wouldn’t now. She is part of the crowd that sees him leave the court. His face is as expressionless as the day of the funeral, haughty, still, but pale as a sheet, the blue coat seeming to hang off of him even as there’s still not a hair out of place and his black boots shine in the daylight. He doesn’t notice her this time, just as he doesn’t notice anything or anyone else, just puts one foot in front of the other as he pushes into his carriage, as if the rest of the world has ceased to exist to him, or he's going to dinner with some aristocratic woman rather than being surrounded by a mob of thousands who would see him on a lantern if they could. Maybe after so many years of being around death, his compassion numbed like an arm that’s been laid on for too long, he’s stopped caring about even his own. Or (more likely), even after the Bastille, he still refuses to believe that a great man like him can be killed by commoners . The crowd murmurs and jeers, she holds the anger inside of her, like a small cinder that burns her hand, holds it and tosses it onto a pile of a hundred more, letting it smolder silently.   Solène pushes thoughts of that day to the back of her mind, of him, of the courthouse, of Mademoiselle du Puget, of the sight of golden light bathing the Rue Saint-Denis, of the lonely graveyard, even of the tavern and Athenais’ horrible white powdered face, focuses instead on her hungry stomach. The cost of bread is high, and customers who can barely afford to feed themselves will spare little more than a look of derision towards her. The hunger is everywhere, every home, every minute, so that it feels as if she’s being devoured on the inside. The others try to help, they pool together their earnings, but even that can scarcely feed two of them combined on small portions, much less the group. The hope that had taken hold after the Storming of the Bastille, as faint as it ever was (she is not her brother, she doesn’t believe in castles in the air), is now all but gone. The aristocrats roll in wealth in Versailles while they are lucky to eat for the day. Every gesture towards unity the King makes, the Queen and her men block. The men who claim to speak with them sit limply by, gutless. Nothing has changed. Rumors circulate in the air, from person to person, in the alleys, in the streets, in the taverns, each one worse than the last. That the aristocrats are hoarding grain, that they mean to starve the people of Paris out, pay them back for the 14th of July, that the bakers are in on it, are deliberately raising the prices so they can profit on it. It is a rainy morning in October when they learn of the orgy, where rich officers stuff their faces and stamp on the cockades with the King and Queen while she has had to go two days without bread in her stomach, and it is a rainy day in October when it is finally enough . This is the last insult. Nothing can be done while the King is at Versailles, surrounded by those leeches. They gather together all of them, marketwomen, cleaners, prostitutes, fishwives, women who would never have looked her in the eye during the day and women she’s known and fought beside for months, walking with one step and one mind. They stamp through the mud, skirts tearing and staining, the rain falling steadily over them. Solène’s hair is undone, tangling and falling about her face, but she doesn’t care. Marie, the woman who had been absent from the tavern that one day, brings her infant with her, gently hushing its crying by releasing a breast for it to feed on during the long march to the Hôtel de Ville. Some of the men laugh at them along the streets, pointing and poking at them as if they were animals in a zoo before trying to edge into their crowd.  Furies. That’s what they call them, these men who mock them from the sidelines but can’t help but try to join them anyway. Solène doesn’t know what the term means properly, but she knows that they consider it to be an insult. She finds she likes it, though. Fury, anger, are they only appropriate when the men have them? Are they only important when Great Men die for a pipe dream? Let them be furies. Let them be angry, because who has earned the right better than the women who've sat by again and again while gutless men told them it would be fine? Who has the right better than those who starved time and time again, and watched their families do the same, while being told to wait and not create a fuss ? Why, if they’re so unimportant, are they silenced and shoved aside? One of them pushes up against Solène as he attempts to get into the crowd, and she pushes him back hard, the man falling onto the ground. They reach the Hôtel de Ville and begin to beat down the heavy doors. Men continue to try and succeed in filtering in, making their way into the crowd and, together, they succeed in taking down the doors. Solène, grudgingly, admits in the moment that they do have some use after all. They take whatever they can from the building, papers flying through the air like snow as the crowd arms itself. Someone hands Solène a gun, the cold metal alien in her hand as she puts it down in disgust in favor of an axe. It’s enough to defend herself with. A large man with thick matted hair, dressed all in black, who some of the women in the crowd recognize as one of the Bastille vainqueurs , runs up to them. “My dear citoyennes ,” he says, “There’s no need for this unpleasantness. Go back to your homes, I can take it from here. Whatever grievances you have will be addressed.” “What can you men do?” Solène’s anger, the famous Mazurier temper, explodes. “You’ve had your chance, and what do we have?” “NOTHING!” The crowd responds in a single, furious roar. “You men don’t have the guts for action!” He continues shouting, frantically moving throughout the crowd as they go throughout the building. “There’s nothing you can do, anyway. I’m sure if you send a deputation to the council-“ Had he sent a deputation to Peyrol when the royal troops were sniffing down their backs that July? Had he asked him if he would please, if it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience, of course, consider not murdering them all in the streets? Had Ronan’s old friend Desmoulins, when he mounted that cafe table in Palais Royale, told the people that, surely, if they asked politely, their needs would be seen to? No. They had all decided on direct action. One of the other women shouts in reply, “The council? A bunch of traitors and aristocrats! To the lantern with them, Lafayette and Bailly first!” He turns white at that, especially as more and more seem to agree with her, running off to receive his orders like the good dog he is. The Hôtel de Ville is theirs. He is right about one thing, though: The Hôtel de Ville won’t be enough to get what they want, to see their children not starving in the streets. This began with the king, and it will have to end with him as well. So, on a day when not even mongrels wander out on the streets, they make the decision, together, to go to Versailles. Marie leaves, fearfully clutching the babe at her breast. Solène catches her eye and gives her a nod. She can look after the child; Solène has enough of a fight for two. The man joins them again, begrudgingly, and some of the men who joined them at Hôtel de Ville continue, packing in alongside them as they all scramble to accommodate them. It becomes harder to find familiar faces as they all seem to blend and merge and scatter. Solène fights off the disgust she feels. She knows the look in their eyes too well. These are angry young men, men like Ronan. Too in love with the idea of violence, too closed off from life. They are barely restrained, looking for a fight anywhere they can rather than just when it is necessary, and there is a sense of danger with every step, every time she accidentally brushes against one of them and they snarl. But they know, all of them, that the men of the National Convention will never listen to a group of women. They’d laugh at them just as the men in Paris had laughed at them and they would have wasted the day for nothing they couldn’t have gotten less than ten feet out of their homes. She doesn’t trust this man, him or the others, but just as his title of a Bastille vainqueur makes her distrust him, it will make the men of the National Convention listen more than an hour of her shouting will ever do. It is a long, slow trudge, walking through the mud as their dresses drag, mud squishing between the toes of even the women who have shoes. They have several canons with them, but it is treacherous to move them, pushing them foot by foot through the mud and the rain, but they will not be defenceless. It is late in the afternoon when they reach Versailles, splitting into two separate groups. Most of the group go to the palace to wait for news, the second group, which she's attached to, goes to the National Convention, their dresses, now soaked through, dragging along the floor as they drop their weapons at the door, and many of them collapse onto the hard benches. They have had a long day’s work with little to keep them strong besides their own wills, and even as they stay there, it seems less and less likely that they’ll have anything to show for it by the end of the day, if the men have any say. Speakers come up, ambitious men with flattering words and little action, men with fine educations and little knowledge. Ronan’s old friend from Arras is one of the few exceptions; there is something about him, an honesty, a certain compassion that makes them quiet to listen to him, and when he takes the stand, his thin frame seems to turn into a lightning conductor as he defends them and why they’ve come, and so they settle long enough for the man with the matted hair (Solène does not care for his name) to negotiate for them. The discussions continue on, the man with the matted hair speaks confidently on behalf of the women he’s known for only a few hours, telling the assembly exactly what they want, within what he understands, at least. Which isn’t much, but it’s more than what they would’ve gotten if it’d been a woman representing them. She finds the delegate from Arras watching her closely. It’s not how men who want her services look, there’s nothing hungry or dark in it, just watching as he goes out among the women, talking to them, listening to their complaints, taking their hands nodding while saying something indistinct. Some of the others aren’t so distant, such as the Vicomte de Mirabeau, who can be seen freely going around the room, trying to touch the breasts of some of the women. He comes to her, greedy fingers twitching, and soon finds himself on the floor. He quickly makes his apologies and scurries back to his seat while Solène smirks, the delegate from Arras, who had been watching him with clear disgust on his face, giving a small smile as well that he quickly buries behind his thumb and forefinger as the Vicomte passes him. The delegate from Arras, Robespierre, she finally remembers his name is, approaches her at some point. “Have we met before, Citoyenne ? You seem familiar.” “My brother was Ronan Mazurier.” He grows quiet, his gaze turning downward as he nods to himself. “I’m sorry. He was a good friend as well as a good patriot. He gave his life for the patrie .” He tries to smile, spreading out his hands even as she can see the pain in his eyes, “We would still be dancing on the First Estate’s strings if it weren’t for the blood of men like him. I only hope we can live up to his promise.” “If it’s all the same, I would rather have my brother than his promises.” She’d heard so many promises from her brother in life, they had stopped having any effect. In the end, he was a corpse the same as any other, and his promises burned out with him. The smile freezes on his face, as his hands fold in on themselves, so different from the fire he showed on the stand. “You’re very like him, you know.” She jolts at that. Of all the things people had said about them growing up, that had never been one of them. Her brother would come limping home with cuts and bruises; she had to stitch them up. He let himself be carried away by smooth talkers and high ideals; she’d had to focus on surviving. He lost his temper easily, but let it settle quickly; her temper was a slow-boiling pot of water that threatened to overflow when it became too much. If she’d been a boy, things might have been different, but she was the only woman in the household, and it didn’t matter if she was seven or seventeen. The neighbor women tried to help, teaching her how to cook and clean and run the house while the men were in the fields, and that was when she’d learned to enjoy the company of her fellow women, crowded together in front of the fire the Mazuriers kept in the center of the house, smoke filling the air as they shared secrets and tips, what to put into a soup to fill her belly even when they had nothing, how to find the initials of the boy she would marry with an apple peel, and, later, when she was older, how to remove an unwanted child from her womb. There seemed to be so many things to remember, as a woman, and she’d done her best to remember, even as it all seemed too complicated. Well, some things didn’t change, she thinks as she looks around at all the women crowded near her, exhausted, drenched, but there , where the men would say they have no place. Seeing her discomfort, he adds. "He always said exactly what he thought, and he always fought for what he believed in with all the courage of a lion.” Yes, and it’d killed him in the end. But that wasn’t convenient. Now that he was dead, her brother could be neatly placed in a little box and buried, and that was how people liked him best. The rest, she had to carry with her. Mademoiselle du Puget had really been the only one who’d understood that, when she thought of it. Perhaps that was what drew them to each other. They had seen Ronan, the good and the bad, and they’d still loved him. (Though when she thought of them walking down the Rue Saint-Denis together, hand in hand, or when she thought of Mademoiselle du Puget’s dark eyes looking into hers, that explanation seemed weak.) “I'm not here for my brother, or his ideals. I'm here because otherwise the aristocrats will see us starve to death rather than give up their power. If your men of the National Assembly can fix that, good. If not, we’ll go somewhere else. I just want to be able to eat and live another day, as do they. The rest, I don’t care about.” Robespierre smiles, showing white teeth, head dipping down slightly. Solène crosses her arms across her chest. “What is it?” “Oh, a reminder. Of something Ronan once said,” he sobers, he face relaxing again as he tucks a hand into the pocket of his black, patterned coat, “An argument.” Of course it was an argument , she thinks, “I know that to you, I’m a lawyer with an education, with no understanding of suffering or sacrifice, but I promise you, I will do everything I can to see that your demands are met, Citoyenne Mazurier.” He gives a firm nod to her, a slight, hopeful smile returning to his face, and that does remind her of Ronan. “I’ll believe it when I see it, Citoyen Robespierre.” Long after he’s moved to talking to someone else, head bent intently as he listens to her, the phrase I’m nothing like my brother rolls through her head. She ignores the thin voice in her head that tells her that, if that was the case, why did she need to repeat it so often? Everything goes well until it gets to the King himself. A group of the women, four or five, are chosen to meet with him, and Solène is one of them, a woman who’d been a stranger to her before they walked side by side together lifting her arm up as she nominates her for the position. These other four…they are respectable women, middle-class, with only a few tendrils of hair that have escaped their carefully pinned hats to indicate that they’ve gone through anything the last few hours, and when they look on her, she can feel their disdain. She raises her head as she accepts, looking each one of them in the eye and daring them to contradict her. No matter what they claim, they all starve together, they all walked here in the rain and the mud to be heard, and their limbs all ache the same. She’s not sure about this, meeting with the King. She’s not sure what he’ll say or what he’ll be like, this man who’s always been more of an idea than a person, like a distant saint that could be appealed to for intercession, but not seen in the flesh. But she has made it this far, farther than she ever imagined, her feet tired, sore, and calloused from the walk that really hasn’t ended since she left the village over a year ago (had it been a year? Only a year?) And she will not be pushed aside and silenced.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The sun is setting as they enter the Palace of Versailles together, casting the building in shades of pale gold while the light glints off the windows as it would a rich woman’s diamond necklace. It’s like they’ve entered into a different world, one made of marble and gold and glass. The few aristocrats who have remained, clutching onto their necklaces and their canes, look at them fearfully as their muddied shoes join the hundreds and thousands of other footsteps that litter the floors, from men and women and dogs alike. They’ve shown them they’re vulnerable, that even their fantasy world can be invaded by something as tedious as everyday life. And suddenly, the gods are mortal, the same as anyone else, and, more importantly, they’re outnumbered. The king himself hides his fear well, greeting them with a smile that Solène knows is forced (after all, she’s worn it herself many times, when she’s tired or angry but she still needs to charm a man for the five seconds it takes for him to part with his coin), agreeable (too agreeable, she thinks, she knows not to trust a smiling face, especially not if a pike’s pointed at it at the time), kind, and benevolent, generously agreeing to their demands. “You ought to know my heart,” he says, and she believes she can even see a single, glistening tear in his eye. Compassion for them, or worry for himself and his family? “I am going to have all the bread in Versailles collected and given to you. The pain of the people is my pain.” As they leave, she can hear the others going on about it, about their good fortune to have met such a noble man. She pays no attention to it. He’s a man, the same as any other who’s paid her a sous or two for her time, but he’s a man with a pike to his throat. For a moment, Solène almost allows herself the luxury of hoping, if not in a world of peace and freedom, if not in a person, then in a day, in a step. In the king’s self-preservation instinct. There’s a tall woman standing on top of one of the staircases, looking at them down her narrow, snubbed nose. Her grayed hair is only halfway dressed up, the rest tumbling along her back in loose curls, a wide brimmed, light blue hat angled off to the side. She wears a light gown tied with a sash, that looks, to Solène’s eyes, as if she’d decided one morning that, as an aristocrat, she had the right to wander around in her chemise. Which Solène wouldn’t mind, given that she’s never had an interest in being to a prude (wouldn’t be good for business, anyway), if it weren’t for the fact that this was the same type of woman who’d turn around and call her a whore in a second. Not that she would use that term. It was too beneath them to use it, even if they thought it. Far better to wipe away their existence with pretty terms, like, “undesirable” or “unfortunate.” Solène is reminded of Athenais and her large panniers sticking everywhere, looking at the contrast between them, finding she likes Athenais better. At least Athenais is the type of beast that signals that she's going to strike. “I hope whatever you were paid was worth the cost to your immortal souls,” the woman says, her voice harsh and brittle as she shakes her head at them, “For violently abusing a sovereign who has always endeavoured for the happiness of his people. Even now, see how he treats you with all the magnanimity that is his nature, even as you’ve barged into where you have no right to enter. Brigands, ruffians every one of you. If I was in your place, I would weep of shame to show my face in the street.” The others fall back as Solène steps forward. “You want to talk about souls? When you can look at people who’ve come here to beg because our stomachs are empty because your side steals grain from the people, and turn your nose up? I’m not worried about showing my face on the street; I’m worried about how you sleep at night.” “All these false accusations, and there’s not a woman out there who doesn’t have a clean apron and white teeth. The Duc d’Orleans must pay you well.” The Duc d- It hits Solène then: She doesn’t think they have brains. It’s impossible for her to understand that they’re here because they choose to be. Their natural state is to be quiet and obedient and to do whatever the King tells them; anything else, and someone must have put the idea in their head, and she’ll grasp at anything to prove it. She’s probably never spoken to someone like her before in her life, except to give orders or charity, and the last one only from the position of being up high, pretending to be the gracious lady. She’s still up high, but Solène is meeting her eyes, black to pale blue, and she has no way of dealing with it. She’d feel pity, if she could feel anything through the hunger and the pain. “If it’s my teeth that bother you, I can always smear them with tea. God knows it works well enough for you. But until I hold the bread they promise for myself I won’t leave.”   The other woman tries to stare her down, opening her mouth to no doubt say something else that she thinks will bring Solène to her knees, but she’s interrupted by the sounds of heels striking against marble. “Madame de Tourzel, the children-” Olympe curtsies, and it’s the first time Solène’s seen her like this, in a closed environment, formal and dutiful even if her voice wavers with anxiety. It had been easy to forget, in the streets, that Olympe was one of them, that she spent most of her days here.      Her eyes briefly meet Solène’s, and there’s a moment of recognition. She leans forward, and Solène wonders (or hopes?) that she’ll say something, but just as soon as that comes, it’s over, and she turns back towards Madame de Tourvel, lips closed in that now familiar, tight smile that is more a grimace than a smile now, ducking her head back down. “My duty awaits me,” Madame de Tourzel says, “Good evening.” She gives a single, rigid nod to Olympe, at which Olympe immediately rises from her curtsy, the two of them walking off, leaving the rest of them alone, in a hallway that seems to grow darker and darker by the second, without the moon or the stars to guide them, only the faint, flickering glow of candles and the glint of gold. In the dead of night, the soldiers come in. She scans the front of the crowd, half expecting the blue coat that sometimes still haunts her nightmares, but she knows it’s pointless. Even in the darkness, where any man can be mistaken from another, she knows he’s not there. The last anyone has heard of him, he’d kept quiet after the trial, though sometimes rumors resurface, like a rotted fish in a lake. The Comte de Peyrol is emigrating to aid the Comtes d’Artois and Provence, the Comte de Peyrol has been called back to make a massacre among the people, the Comte de Peyrol has run back to his estate so that he can summon the Devil. Each time, it’s nothing. (Though she has her suspicions about the last one.) Instead, it’s Lafayette himself, leading the National Guard, the so-called Army of the People. Tension fills the air, as the soldiers do not retreat and do not fire. No one in the crowd knows what they will do, as all of their lives balance on a single twitch of a guardsman’s finger. Sleep comes, uneasy and anxious. For many, it is a moment of peace and celebration. The guards have not fired, they claim to be there to support them, more people are on their side. After all, these are French troops, they will not fire easily on their own mothers and wives and sisters. But Solène doesn’t trust those uniforms, no matter whose side they claim to be on. Uniforms and bayonets have never mixed well for her, and she refuses to believe that Lafayette came to aid them over his king. No, these officers, they’re decent enough clients, when they’re not going to one of the expensive brothels, but they all have their own game.   Instead, it feels as if Death’s come to Versailles, walking among them, raising the hair at the back of her neck as they all press near each other. For the second time today, she thinks of her childhood, of her mother’s whispered stories about the Ankou. She told Solène, so many years ago, that he walks her family’s old home of Brittany, an old, skeletal man, inhumanly tall, seizing the young and the old alike in their homes, long scythe in hand, and tossing them onto his cart. His skin is bone white, thinly stretched along him, eyes hollow and black, stringy white hair hanging down the loose black cloak he wears, so that it seems like a shadow falls everywhere he walks. His head swivels around, side to side and front to back, her mother said, holding her one day as they sat together in front of the fire, so that no one is safe from his sight, rich and poor alike. They all meet the Ankou in the end. The only ones spared are the last to die each year, who instead take the shadowy cloak of the Ankou for themselves, losing themselves to it until the end of the year when they can find their rest again. Solène believes in what’s real, what she can touch for herself. She doesn’t have time for pipe dreams or fairy tales about lost princesses and cauldrons that are always full of food for the brave and good. No, but she believes in the Ankou. Her family had carried him with them when they’d left Brittany, in their way, and he’s haunted their steps ever since. And she can feel him here, in the crowd, among the soldiers, in the castle, at the gates, even as they try to reassure them that they mean no harm to them. No, she gets no sleep tonight, her eyes locked on the bayonets as they gleam in the moonlight. She lays and waits and thinks. Several hours later, a shot rings out in the dark. All the demons of Hell break loose, the only thought on Solène’s mind being that of another night, another volley of shots. They mean to massacre them all. The Queen has changed the King’s mind again and they will all be killed. Every part of her knows it, screaming in her mind as they make their way for the Queen’s quarters, all else, all other thoughts disappearing. A panicked voice asks them what they think they’re doing and another voice, she doesn’t know if it’s hers or one of the women with her, replies, “We’ll cut off her head, rip out her heart, fry her liver, and that won’t be the end of it!”  They are done with this, done with the queen, and they will take whatever they can get. They have endured too much pain at this point to just curl up and die. This wasn’t a fight they wanted to begin, but if it was a fight they needed to survive the night, they could give it to them. They could give and give and give as they had always done, all of their lives. A few guardsmen try to stop them, but they disappear beneath the wave of bodies flooding the palace. One of them breaks free, runs and pounds on the door, his bloodied hand staining the expensive, gilt wood as it slams against it before he’s tossed aside. “Save the Queen!” A door slams ahead of them as they reach the room, the room itself is deserted, except for one woman who rushes in front of them all. “I am the Queen!” Solène recognizes the voice even before she can see her in the light of the torches, still wearing the clothing that she’d worn the night before, and she freezes.  Olympe . And suddenly, like water on a hot summer’s day, Solène’s anger disappears, replaced by a cool, sinking terror that twists her gut. What is she doing here? They will kill her without a thought, many of them. “Get out of the way!” One of them shouts, lowering a pike to her breast. Olympe’s eyes dart between them all, at the weapons, at the door only a few seconds away if it weren’t for them blocking her, locking gazes with Solène briefly before saying, in a voice made of sheer steel. “I am the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne . Whatever business you have with her, you may take with me.” The words are slow, obviously to buy as much time for the Queen as she can manage. They get closer, and Olympe backs away, floundering before straightening her back. “My ladies-My ladies have all deserted me. I am as you see me.” “Tell us where she is, or I swear, you’ll be flayed and fed to the gutter rats!” If she hesitated once before out of fear of her own life, there is none of it now as she looks at them all, the torchlight giving her eyes the appearance of two small, hard stones, “That may be so, but nonetheless I cannot tell you.” They won’t wait forever, Solène knows, and Olympe is just an aristocratic girl who’s standing between them and what they need. Just one more casualty. She sees one of them, the one that had lowered the pike, making to lunge, and she throws herself against Olympe, who looks at her in startled recognition. There is only one thought in her mind, desperate, ringing out again and again like a church bell in the last hour of the world: Not her not her not her not her not her.  “Leave her! She’s a friend, she’s a friend!” “She’s here, isn’t she? She’s an aristocrat just like them, conspiring with the Queen so that the Austrian Bitch can save her own skin!” Another, “Let them all die, for what I care. What do we owe them? Kill the little bitch!” One of them tries to pull her away to get closer, but Solène holds fast, kicking hard to keep them away. “Whose side are you on, anyway?” Solène stares them in the eye, each one of them. “Not. Her. You will have to kill me first, you understand? Leave her.” She’ll die, she thinks in that moment. She knows she will, and she thinks of Ronan running in front of the bullets. Had he known then? Had he always known what he was racing towards? It had been painful, she remembers, and longer than it had any right to be. Would it be the same here? Would they leave her to bleed out on the marble? Would there be enough of her left to bleed out? “Leave her!” In her desperation, she shouts. Then she feels Olympe’s grip tighten on her, and briefly breaks her glare to look at her. She is defiant, even as Solène can see the way her eyes widen and the quick rise and fall of her breaths, and Solène knows that she’ll give her life for her. It might not be much, but she’ll kick and bite and claw as much as she can until it’s over. They will not kill her. Solène might die, but she will not live through this again. Never again. One of them looks ready to attack again, this time aiming for Solène, and she has a few seconds to accept that this is how she’s going to die, exhausted, starving, at the hands of women who were her comrades minutes before while trying to defend an aristocrat who could never return whatever feelings she has for her because of a lingering attachment to her idiot brother. (For once in her life, she hopes Heaven doesn’t exist, because she can already hear whatever comment Ronan would have on hand and she’d rather have endless night than that .)                             The woman stops suddenly, face frozen, sabre half-raised, suspended in the air, looking at them as if she’s seen a ghost. ( Ankou, Ankou, Ankou , her mind says, wondering if she’ll see her childhood nightmares brought to life.) As she follows the woman’s line of sight, though, she sees that it isn’t a spectre, but Olympe, raising a pistol to them, the torchlight showing the glint of the trigger as her finger moves to it. “Leave us,” she says, tone icy even if there’s a trace of fear lurking underneath it, and it’s the first time that Soléne truly sees the steel that she’s always known lurked beneath the surface fully unsheathed, and she looks like a storm trapped in the form of a woman, awesome and terrifying and beautiful and radiant . (Not the time, she tells herself.) They look at her, look at Olympe, wondering what to do. She can see them weighing it over in their minds, whether it will be worth it to kill them there or to pursue the Queen somewhere else, and tension fills the air as two lives, as millions of lives hang in the balance of a few moments. Then, they decide to go for the greater prize, picking up their feet to search for the Queen elsewhere, stabbing the mattress several times for good measure. Solène doesn’t care, all her energy on the woman who holds her tight, their heads nestled together as they both collapse onto the floor of the Queen’s apartment, the gun, unloaded and harmless, clattering to the floor beneath them as white feathers float in the air above them like snow from where the others had pierced the Queen’s mattress. They do not part until the soldiers come in, ushering them out and back into the yard. With the morning comes peace, as the King agrees to accompany them back to Paris. She has exactly what she wanted. The King is theirs now. Finally, they were listened to, but there is a hollowness to it. Olympe is pressed up against her side, and even as she keeps her face passive, Solène can feel her trembling, as all the fear that she’d felt the night before but couldn’t express is finally allowed to rise to the surface. On and on the thought presses through her mind that They could have killed her and, even as she looks at the throng of women triumphant as king and people are reunited, there is a sense of dread that haunts her, and it is only compounded as she sees the heads of the two guards killed in the night. Death, death, death, everywhere, all the time, even when they just want to live and feed their families in peace. The Ankou never lets them go for a second. And she had participated in it, until she saw Olympe there. What would she have done if it had been anyone else? If it had been the Queen? 
We’ll cut off her head, rip out her heart, fry her liver, and that won’t be the end of it!
 Perhaps, in the end, even while they had different goals, she is not as different from her brother as she thought, and she feels a chill go through her spine. The Queen, she hears, handled herself well. She went onto the balcony herself, perhaps tired of watching as other people put themselves onto the pike for her, and Lafayette, ever the good officer, kissed her hand. Solène doesn’t have any trust in her body left for officers or queens, but she can appreciate the courage it took to walk out before a crowd that wanted her dead. More courage than she’d seen from any man there, at least. She hears the triumphant cries ahead of the steady procession. “We’re not likely to starve again! We’ve got the baker, the baker’s wife, and the baker’s boy!” That is the common phrase from their mouths, while multitudes of women and men carry loaves of bread around, singing and rejoicing. It's a perfect success. They’ve achieved everything they’d set out to do and more besides, but Solène can only follow Olympe’s vision to the heads on the pikes, members of the King’s Body Guard who hadn’t been so fortunate the night before, trailing behind the carriage that rumbles down the streets like a butcher’s cart. In the window, she sees two children pressed tightly together, straining to see more before they’re held back by the aristocratic woman who’d confronted them on the steps just the night before. Then, she had been the great lady, but there is little of that now as she holds them back, even as she frowns imperiously. Instead, there are deep shadows that linger beneath her eyes, and it seems as if she has gained twenty years. Solène quickly grabs a loaf, splitting off from the celebrations along with Olympe, navigating her way through the streets to her apartment.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Thank you, Mademoiselle Mazurier,” Olympe says, keeping her eyes trained down as she sits on Solène’s thin straw mattress. “If not for you—“ “You seem to be fairly capable yourself, you know,” Solène says, remembering the hard look in her eyes when she’d faced off against the crowd. Hesitantly, she offers up the half-eaten loaf to Olympe, “Do you-?” Olympe shakes her head, forcing a faint smile on her face. “No. No thank you, I have no stomach for it.” Olympe looks out of place in Solène’s cramped apartment room, the light green dress she wears the only color amidst the grays and the browns of the cool brick and plaster that covers all four falls of her apartment, with no paint or panelling to show it for anything other than it is. Solène considered herself lucky to scrape together enough to get a room for one, still does, really, even if it’s at the highest floor of the apartment building and she has to climb up a stairwell that smelled like a sewer to get up there. Solène breaks the silence. “You can shoot?” “I’m a soldier’s daughter,” she says, crossing her arms, and there’s touch of warmth and pride underneath despite how rattled she still is, “He was right.” Despite her stomach still protesting, even as she’s gorged herself, Solène finds that she has little appetite, putting the bread aside. “I’m sorry, Mademoiselle du Puget. I hadn’t meant for it to affect you. I--” she swallows, “I wasn’t thinking of anything except my own anger.” “I could never sit by while the Royal Family is put in danger,” Olympe says, “Whatever affects them affects me.” Solène remembers her words, so long ago it seems. I try to help those who are kind to me, that is all . And what had she gained for it? Had they so much as asked about her after she’d put her life on the line for them, or had they sighed and decided that her life was an acceptable loss? “What did they do for you?” Olympe looks at her strangely, so she adds, “To make you loyal enough to put yourself in front of the pike for them?”

“They gave me their trust, when I was just a newly presented jailor’s daughter. They gave me my own rooms, an occupation with a steady income, their favor, their intimacy, all of it before I was the age of twenty.” It’s the last, the intimacy , that causes jealousy to prick at Solène. “And they let you take the bullet for them.” Immediately, she regrets it. She’d thought it, sure, but she wasn’t going to say it. Ronan was more the “Talk first, pay for it later” one in their family, at least when it came to people that Solène wanted to like her, and this is just one more confirmation that she has more of her brother in her than she’s ever wanted to acknowledge, the good and the bad. But it’s out now, and...it is true.         “I chose to do that.” Solène finds herself shaken to the bone by how fierce her tone is when she’s saying it before she calms herself, “I hope you think better of me than to believe that I have no thoughts of my own.” “I just saw you point a gun at a crowd that wanted us dead. Only an idiot would think that.” But there were other things that went into a choice. People could be manipulated or led on. People could lie and decieve. People could promise friendship and a roof under her head, tossing out crumbs and expecting a feast in return. “Your brother did.” Soléne’s surprised by the anger that Olympe can fit into three words, and she can see a hundred half-reconstructed arguments, because she knows her brother would never leave it alone. “That proves the point.”   And, for a moment, against her own will, she can see Olympe fighting off a smile before she sobers. “He had one of the best hearts I have ever known, but there were times that he would get so angry at the Royal Family.” She closes her eyes, swallowing as she fights the memory. “So full of hatred, I could barely say a word to him. And nothing I could say--” Solène reaches out a hand on impulse, only for Olympe to flinch away, looking guiltily at her immediately afterwards.   Olympe steadies herself. “Nothing could convince him. And then it would pass, the next time I saw him.” She crosses her hands across her shoulder, as if she’s feeling something pushing at her. “When I saw you there, I thought…” She’d thought that she was seeing the past repeat itself. This time, the words stick in her throat when she tries to say, “I’m not my brother.” It doesn’t matter what she has in common with her brother or not, what matters is what Olympe’s seen . Instead, she chooses another route. “When the Comte de Peyrol killed our father, Ronan left me, scrambling from one smooth talker to the next, while I tried to put together enough money to feed myself once a day.” At Olympe’s pitying glance, she attempts to shrug as she looks down. She doesn’t want her pity , she doesn’t want to be a charity case. She wants- What she can’t have. (Her brother had castles in the air, she has grand romances that collapse to dust at a touch.) She continues, “When we met again, it was months later, and we were strangers. And that was that. We both lost him to the Revolution, in the end.”  She looks at Olympe then, daring to meet her eye to eye. “I would never do the same. I know where my priorities lie.” She kicks herself for it after. She’s met Olympe du Puget three times, now, and she’s already gotten attached to her, even if she knows it’s going to end in tears.   “If I hadn’t been there, what would you have done?” Solène looks at her then, at those dark eyes piercing hers, probing, liquid amber in the light that filters through the small window that stands at the other end of the room, looking down at the street. “I don’t know.” “Is that all that you can say?” “It’s the truth. If you want someone to lie to you, Paris is full of them. But me? No. I might have stopped, I might not have. I’m not a saint. I don’t want to be a murderer, either, but I won’t pretend to know what I might have done. It never happened, so there’s no way of knowing. Either way, it’s done now, I made my decision, and the rest is smoke. Would you have done any different with your gun? Do you know?” She tries not to dwell on “might have been”s. If she spent all her time thinking about what could have been, she’d never move on with things. If their crops hadn’t failed, if Ronan hadn’t rushed in front of the Comte de Peyrol when he came to arrest their father, if Peyrol hadn’t given the order to fire, if Ronan hadn’t decided to go to Paris, if she hadn’t chosen to follow after him, if they’d found a pot of gold buried at the foot of an old tree, if Ronan hadn’t been at the Bastille-- They’d happened. She’d survived, life went on. Olympe shakes her head, watching as a rat scrambles across the floor, “I never wanted to hurt anyone.” “Neither did I,” her voice is weaker, more tired than she wants as she shrugs, trying to get the blurred images from her mind, her survival instinct causing her to move away from it as she focuses on the brick walls that surround them. “I suppose you won’t want anything to do with me now that I’m inconvenient .” 
The aristocracy doesn’t care for any but their own, at heart, and the amusements of a moment or two.
 Olympe shakes her head, and then there’s that tight smile of hers again. “You saved my life. That is surely convenient enough for me.” Still, there’s a distance between the two of them that they didn’t even have when they were strangers, and she can hear the hesitation in Olympe’s voice. She wonders if they’ve lost something, then, something that they’d never had the chance to have, though she reminds herself that there was never anything there, that she was Ronan’s fiancée, that… She has no time to consider it before Olympe’s arms are around her again, not out of fear as it’d been out of Versailles, not out of desperation, but out of comfort, fingers wrapping around where they had earlier gripped, and for the first time Solène can allow herself to relax into it, losing the tension of the past days, taking it in, how soft the skin of her neck is as she presses it to Solène’s shoulder, the perfume that fills her nose as she leans into the touch, not heavy like the stuff that Athenais marinates herself in, but a light Jasmine that floats off of her, even as she feels some guilt for the longing that pierces through her because she knows that Olympe might be able to forgive her so much, but she can never give her that, and even if she could… There are some boundaries that aren’t crossed, and even though she doesn’t have any of Ronan’s strange touchiness over, say, sleeping with a sibling’s friend (if the money’s good, it’s good), there’s something wrong about wanting someone who her brother would have been married to had things gone differently. As if...she would be dancing on his grave. And it’s too close, still. Even as it grows distant, it lingers, coming back at the worst times to remind her that, yes, she’s an orphan with no family now. She tries to swallow it and contain it, moving on, but it can never fully die, though at least she hasn’t cried since the funeral. If she can keep it buried, not think about it except for times likes this when it’s impossible and move on with things, she’ll get by, like she always has, but it’s still too close for any kind of comfort. And Olympe is still no doubt in mourning herself, and Solène knows that she’s not always the best person, but she’s not going to be the person who takes advantage of someone’s grief for her own pleasure. Her sense of herself and who she is might be shaken by the events of the last day, but she knows that that is not who she is. So she enjoys the touch, the comfort, the fact that, despite everything, they’re there , and they’ve not destroyed the friendship they’d had. “Mademoiselle Mazurier,” Olympe says as they part, breaking the embrace but keeping the closeness, their noses almost brushing. “There is-” The door flies open and the moment’s gone. Marguerite stands at the end of the room. All things told, she reminds Solène of a rabbit that’s just been chased by a fox, all tussled hair and frantic breaths. “Solène, I just heard--”        “Olympe!” Charlotte bounces in, and then Olympe gives a smile, a real smile, as she hugs the girl. “So, you finally flew the coop, hm?”

“Charlotte!” The sound comes from both Olympe and Solène at the same time, their voices mixing. “What?” Charlotte wedges herself between them on the bed, legs dangling off the side as she gleefully snatches ahold of the leftover bread. Olympe sighs and pets her hair in response.
“We had a few problems leaving Versailles,” Solène says, putting both of her hands in her lap like she’s a young child getting caught stealing an apple from the local orchard. “A few problems? The way the city’s talking, you’d think a group of devils just crawled out of Hell to hand-deliver the royal family to Paris, and then Marie came up to me, squawling baby in hand, to tell me that you were part of it.” Olympe darts up. “Is the Royal Family safe?” “As far as I know, at least. Nothing more’s happened since they arrived. Everything looks like it’s quieted down.” Olympe clasps her hands together in response, raising them to her face in thanks. Then Marguerite smirks, looking between the two of them, and Solène knows that she’s dead. She glares at Marguerite, putting her hand against her throat horizontally and then making a back and forth cutting motion, hoping Olympe won’t see. The last thing she needs is for Olympe to hear-- “So, this is the aristo girl you were telling us about. And just as as you said, too.” Maybe, if there is some sort of greater force, fate, destiny, God, she doesn’t really care about that sort of thing, it’s fated that she’d end up murdering someone that day. Because otherwise she doesn’t understand how so many things could be working together to make her do it. Olympe’s eyes seem to regain some of their warmth as she glances over at Solène, giving a small, tight smile as she looks at the floor, and Solène wants to crawl under the thin, moth-eaten blanket that covers her bed. It’s times like this when she wonders whether the family legends about some ancient Mazurier offending a witch are true after all. (Not that she believes in witches, they’re stories made up by men scared of feasting on the fruit of their own actions or of dealing with the uncertainties of life, but it would explain things.) “A princess!” Charlotte chimes in. It’s the way things go: Escape death at Versailles one day, die of embarrassment in your own apartment the next. “I didn’t know I had such a reputation,” Olympe says, her usual quiet, smooth voice giving nothing away. She must be embarrassed, unless she’s used to it, which would make sense, though...women are allowed to find each other beautiful. There doesn’t need to be any other meaning to it. She’s overthinking it. Starting to sound like Ronan, when she knows she’s better than this. After all, who had to finish the fights he always started when they were children? If she just settles down and looks at the situation, it’ll be fine. After all, she’s survived worse than this. Though she’s still going to strangle Marguerite with her bare hands when this is done. Just...not in front of Olympe and the child. “You don’t--” Solène says. “Only to those of us who’ve heard old Solène here talk about you. Marguerite le Blanc, by the way.” She reaches out a hand. After a moment of hesitation, Olympe takes it gingerly, “Olympe du Puget.” “Pleasure,” Marguerite says. “Well, Solène, now that we’ve got that out of the way, I hope you’re not going to leave me in suspense. You’ve got an eager audience waiting to hear about your adventures.” “There isn’t much to tell. I went to ask for bread, things took a bad turn, and I ran into Mademoiselle du Puget on the way.”
“And you saved my life,” Olympe said, “Unless that isn’t worthy of your report, of course?”
“No kidding?” Charlotte said. “Not that you needed it,” Solène added, as if by reflex, “You were doing a good enough job of that on your own.” At Marguerite’s questioning look, Solène added, “When I met her, there were others with me who thought that a pint of aristocratic blood spilt was worth it, no matter who it came from. I didn’t see the point in it, so I chose to take her side. And then Mademoiselle du Puget drew out a gun and it wasn’t important anymore.”   Marguerite shakes her head in a heavy, exaggerated motion. “ One day , Mazurier. I left you alone for one day .” “I did meet the Royal Governess, Madame de Tourzel, I think. She had no liking for me.” Solène leans backward dramatically, throwing her hand across her heart as she catches Olympe’s eye to see her smiling, which only spurs her on further, “My dreams of being invited to a salon are ruined ! My hopes are dashed ! I might never even make a respectable match. Whatever will my poor family say? I’ll have to be sent away to a convent, locked away from the world!” Then, sobering, she adds, “The King was kinder, at least.” Marguerite gives out a strangled wheeze that sounds vaguely like a dying cat’s yowls mixed with Solène’s name. She turns to Marguerite and shrugs. “What? It was only a few minutes.” “A few-A few…” Olympe gives a smile that is almost conspiratorial, making Solène’s stomach flop. “You never heard her afterwards. For three hours afterwards, at least. In the short time I’ve known her, I can say I’ve never seen Madame Severe so angry.” “Madame Severe?” Solène finds herself smirking as she remembers the woman standing tall and imposing on the staircase of Versailles, holding herself up like an old rooster. The name suits her. Olympe dips her head, and this time it’s her turn to look like she’s been caught in the act, “A nickname the children use for her. After several months, I can say that it is not unfair.”   “Careful, that almost sounds like a criticism . You might be exiled.”

“I did tell you once that I have my own thoughts. I didn’t lose them when I accepted my position there. And just because we both love the Royal Family, that doesn’t mean she has my trust. I do what she orders me to do in caring for the children, nothing more. And for the rest, I take the victories I can.” Marguerite looks from Solène to Olympe again, this time more resigned than curious as she gives a long, drawn out sigh that reminds Solène of their father when Ronan had found some new way of getting into trouble (Which was at least five times a week, sometimes twice in one day.) “You two deserve each other.” "Told you!" Charlotte says, though it’s muffled from the bread that she’s still stuffing into her mouth.    “How’d you start running with Mazurier’s brother, anyway? Or do I even want to know?”

“Ronan?” Charlotte asks, sobering, looking between them like they’ve just told her that the sky’s actually a beautiful shade of pink. Strange, she’d have thought that Charlotte would know more about that. It seems like the child knows everything, for better or worse. (Definitely worse.) “It is something of a long story,” Olympe says, making a great study of her clasped hands and offering no more than that.                        "Well, at least the two of you are safe, that's the important part, I suppose. These are odd times we're living in."                                       "The time...the time!" Olympe rushes to the small window of Solène's room, lightly brushing aside the thin, fragile fabric that she uses as a curtain, only to be met with black pierced with the amber glow of the street lamps that line the city streets. She starts to pace around the room, every inch of her in deep, frantic agitation, gown dragging along dust and dirt and wine stains that’ve probably been embedded in the floor longer than Solène’s been alive. “My father--He will be so worried. I have to go, I am-so, so sorry.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Solène has no idea how it is even so late. It seems like only an hour or so ago that they’d been rushing through the back-alleys of France together, side by side. Had they really spent all that time together talking?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            “With the streets how they are right now?” Marguerite asks. “Do you want to die after all?” “I saw very little violence on the way back, the worst should be over.” “Solène…” Marguerite sighs, “Talk to her. You and I both know that it can turn on an instant. And when a crowd is that happy over something, they want to celebrate, and when they celebrate, they get pissed, and when they get pissed…” Charlotte throws her hands up in the air, “Danton appears!” Well, it isn’t like she’s wrong. A few times she’d been able to get work just by knowing where the wine was flowing and letting it lead her to Danton, who was generally reliable for a few sous, at least, like a lonely traveller walking along a river until they came to the nearest town or village. Not what Marguerite’s edging at, but not wrong . And...Solène thinks, at least that much of Charlotte’s innocence remains intact. God knows what she’s seen on the streets after all this time, but at least she has some innocence left. For however long that’ll last. Olympe looks at Solène, who looks down, hating the point Marguerite’s making but finding herself agreeing with it. “It’s true.” “See?” Marguerite lays a heavy hand on her shoulder, “The troublemaker agrees with me.” “Troublemaker?” Solène glares at her. She is not the troublemaker. Things just happen and then she has to deal with them. Sometimes with an axe. (Before, “things” meant “Ronan” but now the world seems to be set on creating turmoil on its own without him as its agent of chaos.) Marguerite raises a hand, “Wait until they’re all hair-ached in the morning; they’ll have more to deal with then. Give me your address, I can find your father to tell him you’re safe.” “I know it!” Charlotte said. Olympe looked from Marguerite to Solène to Charlotte and then back to the floor, playing with her hands, the small diamond ring that she wore on her finger moving up and down, up and down. “I don’t want to be an imposition.” “You wouldn’t be--” Solène says, too quickly, and immediately regrets it as Marguerite gets a very knowing look that says Of course you don’t without needing to say it while Charlotte props her chin on her hand, sighing wistfully. “It isn’t like I’m going to have any company tonight.” It’s the best she can do to salvage it while her cheeks are burning, hoping that either Olympe or Marguerite won't see it as she tries to focus on a crack in the ceiling that looks like a lightning bolt that splits down across the dull plaster. “I would hate to save your life one day and then find you dead on the street the next.” Marguerite groans, dragging her hand along her face. “Then I...accept,” Olympe says slowly, brows knitting in confusion as she watches Marguerite. She’s never going to want to be around her again, Solène thinks. Marguerite and Charlotte’s alliance will have managed to terrify her away."Glad you've seen reason," Marguerite says. "Well, I'm going to be off to see your father, then, tell him the good news that you're alive.” As she’s about ready to walk out the door she turns, as if suddenly remembering something, ”Please don't burn the Hotel de Ville while you're alone. Charlotte?" "Do I have to?" She asks, almost dragging her hands along the floor. Olympe bends down so that she's eye level with the girl. "When things settle down, I will make sure you and Françoise can have some more time together. Would that make it better?" Charlotte nods. Olympe smiles at her affectionately, though Solène notices a certain sadness there, hand brushing against Charlotte’s cheek. "Good. Then I hope I'll see you soon." Charlotte hugs Olympe then, though it's more a tug than a hug proper, sudden and jerky and foreign to everything Solène had known about her before, burying her face in Olympe's shoulder. Olympe relaxes into it, smoothing out the hair on her on the head before the girl pulls away almost as quickly as she'd started it, as if the entire thing had been a trick of the light. "Sure thing! I won't let you down!" After they leave, Olympe shakes her head, more to herself than Solène. “She tries so hard not to show that she cares. I only hope that one day, she learns that not everyone who cares for her will abandon her.” “Not likely, given where she’s currently at.” Then, at the look on Olympe’s face, she softens, “I’m sorry for Marguerite, by the way. I know that she can be...a little demanding if you’re unused to her.” And if you are , she thinks, “If you want to go home, I can take you. To me, the moonlight’s a better guide than ten suns; no one would bother us.” After all this time, she knows the city better in silver than gold, knows where they're most in danger, where they're least in danger, the back-alleys and streets no one would think of. If it was her in the same position, forced to stay in one place by people who think they know her better, she can only imagine how furious she’d be, and she doesn’t want that for Olympe. If there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s that as much as she wants Olympe with her, as much as she enjoys her presence, her company, the few touches they exchange, she never wants Olympe to feel trapped with her. If she’s going to be there, even if things between them only stay as a friendship, then she wants it to be because she chose to be with her. “No,” Olympe says. “I agree. If my family knows I’m safe, then it’s surely better to stay that way. Unless…” She draws her hands across her waist, looking down at the floor, and Solène tries not to follow her hands to the ruffles that trimmed the upper skirt of the gown. There was no way that line of thinking would do her any good. “No! No, I’m-I’m happy to have you,” Solène panics, realizing that she had overshot her target. Only slightly better than Olympe feeling like she’s being imprisoned: Olympe feeling like Solène is trying to push her out the door. Olympe looks ready to say something, and Solène wonders if it has anything to do with what she was about to tell her before, but then her lips tighten, and it’s lost. It’s the thing, with her, Solène guesses: There’s what she says, and then there’s a hundred things laying under the surface, and trying to find those is like looking at the bottom of the Seine on a cloudy, dark day. But, she supposes, that’s what comes with being friends (she muffles the voice in her head before it can betray her by adding and more ) with an aristocrat. There’s them, then there’s their breeding. The men who lifted up her skirts every night don’t care about their breeding, because she’s a nameless face to them. They use her for a service, they leave, and if she’s lucky and they don’t try to be clever, she has several more coins in her pockets to show for it. But to Olympe, she’s Someone, and so everything’s mist. It would almost be a compliment, if it wasn’t frustrating as much as it could be charming. Odd thing, that. The ones who know them best know them least. No wonder they had so many problems. She does wish that Olympe would come out with it, though. What does she think she’s going to do, shun her? Mock her? Then, Olympe lowers her head again. “How am I going to sleep?” “It’s the same as any other place, on a be-” Before Solène can finish, she understands what Olympe is saying, looking at the huge amount of fabric that hangs off of her. It’s the kind of dress she’s never worn before, never even really thought of wearing because it would be too inconvenient, unless she somehow snagged a comte or marquis for herself (and even then, she’s never really pictured herself as a kept woman, playing the harpsichord and singing while men gather around to applaud her in a room the size of her old home. After all, the second the fop tired of her, where would she be then? Alone? Again?) That type of dress is made to have someone else help her in and out of; it isn’t designed to be handled by one person. “I can handle the gown and the stomacher, however,” she grimaces as she jerks her head sideways, to her back, where there seems to be an unbroken length of green fabric that leads down to the rest of the back, and Solène doesn’t entirely understand she means except for-- oh , the pair of bodies . “I believe I might need some help elsewhere, if you are willing to--” “I...think...I can do that.” Of all the ways this day has gone, somehow undressing Olympe du Puget is the one that she can’t begin to put her head around. Normally, she’d laugh at how men lose their minds (and their money) at so much of a scrap of fabric raised in the right way, but at the moment, her mind’s scrambled in a hundred different directions, and she isn’t sure if there’s nothing there are if there are a thousand thoughts going through it once because, no matter what, there isn’t a single coherent thought in the mix. Thank God Marguerite’s gone. She’d have never heard the end of it. She can storm Versailles, she can stop any fight with a glare or a shove in the right direction, she can put a dupe in his place if he tries to take his liberties, but she can’t deal with a scrap of fabric. (She doesn’t think about if Ronan was there, telling her to get on with it. She doesn’t want to think of him, especially not now, when she’s like this. Especially not now, when she’s like this, with Olympe . So she doesn’t.) Olympe begins to unpin the dress from the stomacher, slender fingers clasping at pins smoothly, systematically, moving each one of them off in perfect order, and it’s easy to become lost in the simple, easy repetition of the quick movements. Then Solène realizes that, given everything else, that is actually a very, very bad idea and nearly trips over herself trying to get behind Olympe. “Are you hurt?” Olympe asks. Only her basic pride, dignity, and sense of self-respect. But other than that, fine. They’d been hurt enough today, anyway. They were getting used to it. How did people even do this? Live with this kind of thing day in, day out and not explode?   She was never going to laugh at someone going through the pangs of infatuation again. She’s learned her lesson.  “I’m fine.” She replies, and she’s happy that she can at least speak French still, instead of going straight to gibberish like her mind seems to want. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely!” She scrambles to get behind Olympe, already dreading what’s to come. If she can’t go this far without nearly killing herself, how is she going to do later? But she also can hardly ask her to do anything differently, because that would be suspicious. She’s survived this much. She can survive the sight of Olympe du Puget down to her shift. In her room. With the two of them alone. She’s a woman of the world, she’s not supposed to be bothered by any of this anyway. It’s all the same. It’s….one more almost naked body. That is not paying her to also be almost or completely naked. So, really, that makes it easier. She isn’t the farm girl anymore, she’s long since learned how to own the night with the ease of a queen ruling her court. And with better results. So, she does what she does best, turning her face into a mask as she looks over the line of crossed strings that run down Olympe’s back like a second spine. She’s done this thousands of times every day from the time she was a small girl, just...from the front instead of the back, and it’s always been a simple part of her morning routine, the same as helping in the fields or cleaning the house, but it’s different helping someone else do it, seeing them spread out like this. Olympe breathes in sharply as Solène’s fingers brush against the string, her back shifting against her touch, and Solène freezes, trying to block out all the images that that gives her and the heat that pools in her stomach (so different from what she feels when she’s working, unexpected, uncalled for. Sometimes, she enjoys her job, depending on the customer and the circumstances, but at the end of her day, when she falls into her bed as dawn breaks, alone, it’s still a job .) This is normal , she can do this. There’s no problem. No problem at all. String loosens and unravels around her fingers as she draws it out of the small holes that line the edges of the linen and baleen, the pair of bodies gradually becoming undone with each pull and tug of her fingers, the narrow gap of Olympe’s shift that’s visible beneath the bodies widening more and more. Finally, the pair of bodies join the rest on the floor and it’s just the shift and the bare skin of Olympe’s neck, the hairs that line it, raised in the cold draft of Solène’s room, the little birthmark that’s partially obscured by the shift. And still, the scent of jasmine. She tears herself away, not wanting to gawk. She didn’t see anything, she wouldn’t see anything. She saw absolutely nothing. “Thank you,” Olympe says, head inclining towards her, brown hair pooling down her back, and Solène tries not to notice that she really does have a beautiful neck, elegant and long. It was hard to believe that just a little while ago, it had almost been severed.  “It was-It was nothing. Nothing at all.”   She smiles softly, not the little smile she usually gives, the one that tends to hide a grimace, but a genuine smile, “Still...I would hardly call saving my life, giving me a place to rest, and acting as my maid ‘nothing.’ I owe you very much, Mademoiselle Mazurier, and I’m not sure that I can ever pay it in full.” “No need. Really, I’m simply...glad that you’re safe. Marguerite was right, the streets are no place to be in right now. I’ve lived here for over a year and I still wouldn’t step foot on them.”   “I still can hardly help but feel like an inconvenience.” “And I have no idea why you keep thinking that I don’t want you-want you here. Believe me, you’d know if I didn’t.” “A force of habit, I suppose. It can be...difficult, at times. In the Palace--They are all very kind, of course! However...there is always the feeling of being out of step, particularly when you weren’t there from your cradle.”  Impositions , inconveniences , how much of Olympe’s life had been spent cutting herself to fit into what they wanted of her? (How much of Solène’s life, before fate had interfered? How much of Solène life would it have been, had it not?) And what kind of world did she live in that demanded that of her, day after day? But she knows that it’s useless to bring that up, at least for now. It’s obvious that Olympe’s defensive of the Royal Family at the moment, it won’t help to meet her head on. Today, she was within a hair’s breadth of losing Olympe’s friendship; she’s not going to risk it again. She never wants to see that look of fear in her eyes again, much less because of her . “Things change every moment, but what I said stands: I’ll never lie to you. I’m happy to have you, even if I wish the circumstances were different.” Olympe dips her head, “I understand. Even so, thank you for being willing. And for your honesty as well, though I hope that you will forgive me not fully accustoming myself to it for some time. Now, do you need help?”

“No!” Then, realizing how she sounds, she adds, trying to seem like the thought of Olympe touching her isn’t more likely to be her cause of death than every weapon and disease of the world combined, “No, no, it’s fine. I can manage. I’m used to it.” “Oh, of course.”   Solène tries not to be self-conscious the entire time as she gets out of her own clothes, tries not to think that Olympe’s there and seeing her undress, tries not to wonder what she sees when she looks at her. Absolutely not what she sees when she looks at Olympe. She loved Ronan, probably still does. Probably always will, at least a little. She loved him enough to marry him despite him having nothing but a hundred dreams that turned to ash at the walls of the Bastille, it could hardly have been a simple love. Which further solidifies that she never had a chance, and it’s important for her to remember that, because she can’t let herself stumble, especially now, when everything seems to be caught in transition and even the ground beneath her feet seems to be unstable. She can almost feel it when she finally crawls into bed beside Olympe finally, drawing the thin blanket around them, forcing herself to part with it when she notices Olympe shivering. Just slightly, but there nonetheless, far beneath the high room, far beneath the apartment, far beneath the horses and carriages that pass down the street and the people who are still rejoicing over the victory at Versailles, beneath centuries of marble and pavement and decay, straight to the very foundations of the city, shaking, rumbling. But, beside her, she sees Olympe, eyes closed as she tries to go to sleep, a calm look on her face, moonlight spilling across her hair, her face, her lips, the scent of jasmine still floating around her, and it stills, for a moment at least, and it’s all the time the world seems to have stopped moving since this all began. This sells it: she definitely has a problem.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the night, Olympe tosses and turns, and Solène lays a hand across her shoulder in an attempt to steady her, like when she was younger and one of the little ones had a nightmare (though it hadn’t saved them from the cruelties of the day, as hunger and disease had wracked their bony forms to nothing). At the touch, she settles, leaning into her, arms wrapping around her waist as she nuzzles into her neck, her body fitting perfectly against Solène’s. Which then poses its own problems, as Solène has no choice but to accommodate her, the two of them laying side by side, heat by heat, and Solène buries the urge to take any pride or pleasure in it. Olympe’s actions aren’t her own, it’s an impulse. And even if she was aware, she... “Water….” Olympe murmurs, faintly.  Solène doesn’t know what to do. There’s no water here, nothing that can be safely drunk; the two sous a water carrier would charge for delivery is too steep when funds are short enough as it is, but Olympe has had a hard day, and if she wants it… Before she can think of a way to sneak free of Olympe’s grip and make her way to a well or fountain, Olympe stirs, opening her eyes slowly. “In my dream. Water surrounded me, and no matter how much I tried to swim, I couldn’t escape it. It kept pulling at me. The more I tried, the more it pulled me in, until…” She swallows. “I felt myself choke on it.”  “You’ve had a hard day,” Solène tries to say, the words foreign after so long.  Olympe shakes her head. “This was different.” She sighs, “It probably seems like madness to you, but there are times when I’ve had dreams just before-” And there was the tightening of the lips, “Before terrible things happened. They’re always...very intense, very frightening. I wake up and I never know whether-whether what I just saw was real or a dream, the two work their way into one another so thoroughly.” It isn’t really news for Solène, in some ways. Growing up in their village, they’d been surrounded by a world of witches and curses and vampires and strange creatures that lingered just on the borders of the safe and secure.  If cows or pigs suddenly started to disappear - Perhaps it was the work of a werewolf, a neighbor who’d assumed the skin of a wolf and waited in a ditch for whatever prey it could find until someone else took on the skin for themselves. Children caught ill and died in the night - the work of a jealous witch (more likely someone they wanted to be rid of), or else a fairy who’d taken the children to its own realm out of jealousy, one more pretty bauble to fill the fairy courts.  People in the village caught a sudden illness - A witch had poisoned the drinking fountain.  A hailstorm - The local priest was a bitter old goat who wanted to squeeze them for more tithes and brought disaster on them because of it.  And, of course, the Ankou’s black cloak always trailed just out of sight, at least for the Mazuriers.  Plague, drought, flooding, famine, they all had their causes, and they found security in the insecurity of it, clutching onto saint’s relics and hoping for the best. (Though Solène had little use for them, since they’d done them little good. A 700 year old tooth hadn’t saved her mother or siblings, and it certainly had no impact on a lead bullet. The best security she’s ever seen for herself is a cold coin in her hand and warm bread in her stomach.)   She’s more surprised to hear a woman like Olympe say it. In Paris, all the talk is on the rational, the scientific, no room for what they call “peasant superstitions.” There’s no room for werewolves and witches in a city that’s stacked on top of itself, especially not for those who can afford a steady doctor’s services, and even less understanding for those who can’t. City women, the ones who grew up and around the streets of Paris, the ones who’ve never seen a blue sky that wasn’t crammed with buildings, they have nothing to do with it. Country superstition. And among those who came to the city from the provinces...well, they’ve left that part behind them. No use dredging the past up.  But, then again, she’s having to accept that Olympe du Puget is nothing like she’s ever prepared herself for, so it only makes sense, in its way. She’s surprised her with everything else, so why not this? And looking at Olympe, shivering in the darkness, she believes her.   “The Bastille?”

Olympe nods her head. “And other times.”  “How are you feeling?”  “Well.” She gives a half-laugh, “As well as can be expected. Disturbed. Uneasy, but it’s familiar. There’s no need to trouble yourself over it, you’ve been kind enough already.”  “And what if I want to?”  Solène finds her hand reaching out, if by its own accord, against Olympe’s back. The other woman settles into it, her muscles losing their tension beneath the touch.  “I need to speak with you. There are some things-there are some things that have been weighing heavily on me-on my mind and I don’t fully believe that I will have any peace until they’re dealt with.”   “I need to speak with you” almost never means something good, in Solène’s experience. Especially when it’s accompanied by that look. The one that says Things are going to change.  And, with Olympe’s face downward as she says it, not even looking her in the eye, Solène feels a pit developing in her stomach as she imagines what’s going to come next.  
“I’m sorry, Solène, but I can’t stay here any longer. You’re too close, and I don’t care enough for you to stand it.”

“I still can’t forgive you for Versailles.”   
“Did you really think that I would stay in some common prostitute’s lodgings? I’m a lady of the royal court!” 
 (That one, she thinks, is unfair to Olympe, and perhaps that’s why she doesn’t hear it in Olympe’s voice, but something shriller, higher, older. Madame de Tourzel, when she thinks of it. And it’s unfair to her, given that, normally, if someone has any problems with her job, she has no issues with telling them to go fuck themselves, but the thought of hearing those words coming from Olympe after all this time, of having to deal with that kind of betrayal when she thought they were alright, stings .) “Of course.” She forces a small, faint smile on her mouth. “Whatever you’d like.”  She expects a ton of possibilities. Many-Most of them are the worst possible scenarios, the ones that haunt the back of her mind. The things that will take the foundation that she thought they’d had and smash it to crumbs. The ones that she prepares for anyway because she knows better than anyone how things can change in a second. She doesn’t expect what comes next, or at least whatever she can glean from the words that tumble out of Olympe’s mouth, not the cool, well-thought out words that she’s used to, but something that rushes forwards, then backwards, and then sideways. About Ronan, about a meeting that had gone wrong one night at Palais Royal (though Olympe skips over why she was there and though Solène notices, she’s more concerned with the rest).  “--And then I couldn’t let him stay there for what I’d done and so I snuck into the Bastille to free him.”  “Your father?”  Olympe shakes her head. “He only knew what I told him. Other than that, he had no part in it. He’s a good soldier; he would never have left his post if it wasn’t for—“   July 14. The day the world had turned on its side.   She continues, “There was a brief attraction-Very brief, but it was gratitude on his part, just gratitude. And then we both decided that we weren’t compatible, that we both wanted different things and so we parted ways but remained friends and it was easier for both of us to pretend that we were lovers than to admit the truth, which was that-I never loved him like that.” She closes her eyes, and Solène can see her willing herself to breathe, "And have never loved any man like that. And I never will. Had things been different, we would have ended it after a time and said that circumstances--only circumstances had made it impossible to continue, but that we could never move on, and that would have been it, but-”  She’s sober and still, all that worry, all that excitement of her tale gone, and she’s just as she was that day at the graveyard, which seems so long ago now. “He never had that chance. And I mourned the one friend who ever understood me that day.”  It takes Solène a moment to understand what she is getting at, or rather a moment to believe that she understands what she’s getting at. Did she just admit to being—?   And she doesn’t want to think of it, for the moment. If Olympe was never, could never have been attracted to Ronan, and he to her, that means that Solène will have to confront the lump in her throat that appears whenever Olympe looks at her.  Whatever she does from now on is done because of her own feelings for her, not out of some lingering devotion to Ronan’s memory.   Solène looks down and realizes their hands are close together. It would take little effort to put them together, like it was at the funeral, but this time, there would be no pretense.  “You’re saying-“  Olympe nods, eyes still closed, and Solène wonders if its so that she doesn’t have to look her in the eye and say it. “Women. I couldn’t go on like this, not when you’ve saved my life, but I know you did it only because you believed that I was your brother’s fiancee and I wanted us to remain friends, if you can forgive me.” Her voice is soft, barely distinguishable from a whisper, and hesitant. Whether it’s because she’s afraid of Solène’s reaction to her real relationship to Ronan or because she’s afraid of Solène’s reaction to her real interests.  That explained her brother’s sudden change in tastes, at least.  Solène should be angry, she knows.  Olympe lied to her, even though Solène knows that it’s what her brother would have wanted (another well thought out scheme of Ronan’s), but she can’t be. Not when Olympe is there, in front of her, the heat of her hand so close to hers, not when anger is exhausting to hang onto, not when, for the first time in so long, Solène can feel hope filling her chest and she can’t smother it immediately.  She’s aware, suddenly, that they’re on her bed, alone. That the girl she’s imagined kissing is there, in front of her, with only her shift acting as a barrier. That it would be easy to lean over and press her mouth to hers, to feel her lips part under hers, and she wonders how it would be, to be with someone for the sheer pleasure of it. Or to kiss and kiss without a thought to when it’ll be over or how much she’ll be paid for it.  She doesn’t mind her job. It’s a Hell of a better option than a lot of what’s out there. But business is business and pleasure... She settles for moving Olympe’s hand over to hers, their fingers entwining. “We are.” Olympe exhales and grips her tighter, and it’s like Solène’s just lifted a heavy, heavy load off of her back. They stay like that, sometimes with Olympe’s slender fingers running along Solène’s hand, sometimes with Solène stroking Olympe’s palm, and it’s strange, the shift from what it had been like before. No false pretenses now, no lies, just the two of them in Solène’s apartment, an autumn night’s wind blowing through the room.  At first light the next day, they begin the walk to Olympe’s house. They don’t talk about the change, about what it means now, but Olympe reaches out a hand to Solène nonetheless and she accepts, and perhaps, for the moment, that’s all they need. The streets have calmed, for the most part, though they still take the long route, going several streets over, towards the Seine. The Rue du Roule, where Olympe’s situated, is a busy, narrow street, and even if the worst of the tumult is over, the less people they run into, the better.  It’s different, looking at all the people at the Seine now. On the surface, everything seems perfectly normal. Laundresses work from the laundry boats that dot the river’s banks. Fishermen cast their nets into the waters, pulling out dozens of wriggling eel and salmon, whose pink scales flash in the strong morning sun. Fishwives linger closely with their large knives and the heavy baskets they wear on their backs, packed so high with fish that a few tails are visible over the top of the basket, loudly proclaiming the prices for the catches of the day while street dogs hopefully follow their trail. On the banks of the Seine, a pair of street urchins, not much younger or older than Charlotte, fight for a pair of black leather boots, probably from one of the poor devils who fell in. Tragic, but not uncommon, and...nothing’s wasted, in the end. And, of course, like anywhere else in the city, there are women like her plying their trade to whoever is willing to buy a few minutes of their time (she can swear that she catches sight of Emilie at some point, using her best pitch on some bourgeois-looking man who’s surveying a market stall.  All of them sights perfectly normal not too long ago, but now Solène has to wonder how many of them were by her side just two days before, how many of them, when pressed, would have killed the two of them.  If Olympe feels the same, she hides it well, her face betraying nothing as they move through the area They don’t even see a servant first when Olympe knocks on the door. Instead, it’s Monsieur du Puget himself, wrapping his daughter up in a tight hug. “Olympe!”  “Papa!”     “We were so worried! We’d received word that you were safe, but with the mob…” As he talks of the mob, it’s almost as if she can see the flames of the Bastille in his eye as he runs a trembling hand across his daughter’s cheek.“I was well looked after,” she says, and before Solène knows what to do, Monsieur du Puget is clasping both of her hands while she can only blink owlishly at him.  “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, my dear woman. You’ve preserved one half of my greatest fortunes in this life. I’m forever in your debt, Mademoiselle…?”  “Mazurier,” Solène is able to choke out. (Thank God Marguerite’s not here. She’s got enough on her at the moment as it is.) At the name “Mazurier,” she can see the look on Du Puget’s face grow distant, a certain sadness settling over him. “Ah, I see. Once again, we must be indebted to your excellent family. Your brother...there is nothing that I can ever do to repay what he did for me that day. If there is ever anything you need...I’m not sure what an old jailor can do, but I’ll do my best.”        Solène’s thankful that she doesn’t have to come up with a response, as, before she can say anything, she’s interrupted by a blur of pale yellow as Olympe’s tackle. 
“Olympe!” Françoise says. “We thought you’d been murdered! Is it true that the mob roasted a guard over the fire and ate his heart while he was still watching?”  “Not that I could see,” Olympe leans over, and then, seeming to remember her career of choice and that she was supposed to be the older sibling, straightens up, folding her hands across her stomach, “And it cannot be good for you to spend too much time dwelling on such awful things. I have no idea where you hear them from.”  “I heard the cook talking to someone in the street, who said that he heard it from a servant, who heard it from his cousin, who was at Versailles herself and saw it.”     “I was there and I saw nothing of the sort.”  “You were there?” Françoise asks, eyes growing wide as saucers. “What was it like?”Olympe puts both hands over her mouth as she realizes exactly what she’s said and that, now, there’s going to be no peace, looking between her father, who looks like he’s aged several years in the course of a moment, and her sister, who looks like she’s just been told that Christmas has been extended an additional week. “In the area. At the time.”  Solène leans down, knowing that she’s dangling herself over a cliff’s edge here, but that the part of her that remains pure, untempered Mazurier is thrilled. “I was in the crowd when they stormed the Queen’s bedroom.”

Françoise’s eyes grow wide as saucers, “What happened?”

“Well, the mob would have killed the Queen, but your sister dove in front of them and terrified them all into leaving, but not before they took several long stabs into the Queen’s bed with their pikes. The feathers were so thick, it was like a blanket of snow had fallen.”  “Really?”

Olympe glares at her, even as a slight, genuine smile tugs at her lips. “She exaggerates.”

“Which is why you should listen to her.” 
Françoise doesn’t say anything, but looks between the two of them and nods her head hurriedly. “I think I’ll go back to my needlework. I believe that it would be very industrious of me to do that, wouldn’t it, Olympe?”  “Yes, I think that would be a very good idea,” Olympe says, placing her hand on Françoise’s shoulder, and then Françoise all but runs into the house.  Olympe turns to Solène apologetically, and she understands. Siblings .  “Again, thank you, Mademoiselle Mazurier,” Olympe says, clasping her hands, and Solène feels like she might very well die on the spot, freezing at the contact. She would’ve thought that she’d be used to it, but it seems like every touch is different now that she knows that it’s purely for her sake, because Olympe wants to. She doesn’t know what their relationship is or what it could become and she’s not going to rush into something that she isn’t sure of. It could be gratitude. It could be more. But Solène knows that, no matter what, she can feel her heart stop in her chest anyway, and it’s dangerous  “Will I be seeing you?” Solène asks, and this time she uses Olympe’s usual method of not looking in her eye.  Olympe smiles. “I’d like that.” There’s a crash from inside the house, and Olympe turns to look before regretfully prying her hands away from Solène’s, folding them in front of her again. “I’m sorry, I have to make sure that Françoise hasn’t destroyed the dining room again.”  “I might not know much about needlework, but I have a good enough idea that it isn’t that.” “I have no idea how she’s able to get in so much trouble,” Olympe sighs as she walks away, and Solène considers reminding her that those are strange words from the woman who ran through the Bastille in a soldier’s uniform in order to save her brother, who she’d accidentally thrown in there in the first place, roping her father into the business along with her. And then she’d thrown herself in front of a mob of furious women and expected a single pistol to save her. Sweet, demure, ladylike Olympe du Puget, who somehow never ceases to find new ways to surprise her.  Really, she shakes her head as she walks away, hands still blazing from where Olympe touched them, a slight smile inching along her face that’s totally unrelated to it, it’s a miracle Françoise isn’t more of a troublemaker, given the family record.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It’s difficult to forget Olympe du Puget after a single meeting and it a challenge after a second. After a third, it’s impossible. 
 
Solène finds herself thinking of her often in her spare time, wondering how she is, what she’s doing. It extends and stretches into the hours when her mind should be at rest as well (though “should be” is far from “has been”: Dreamless nights have become scarce as rubies in recent days, with Olympe thrown into the muddle of images that spin in and out of her mind.)
 
Sometimes, Solène chases her through a maze in the middle of a field, the two of them running from some unknown threat. 
 
 (When she wakes up, Solène remembers flashes of blue and white, sometimes followed by pure shadow.)
 
Sometimes, she figures in the better dreams, where things are normal again. Ronan perches on the end of her bed, needling her relentlessly about Olympe just like he had every time she’d shown interest in a boy from their village when they were younger and, even though she knows he’s supposed to be dead (even in her dreams, she has vague memories of the gunshot) and that this is an impossibility, she accepts it until it fades away, the light of morning providing her with harsh proof of reality. 
 
Sometimes, she just dreams of kissing her, the press of their lips together, and she finds herself flushed and disconcerted the next morning, as she has to remind herself that it isn’t

real

. 
 
No matter what, though, Olympe’s presence is there, warm but distant, closer than she’d have ever thought, but still seeming hopelessly far away when she wakes up alone. 
 
It’s not helped by the ritual they develop between the two of them.
 
It starts not two days after Olympe’s return to her family’s home. Solène, collapsed on her bed in the mid-afternoon, the sun warm on her face as she stretches out as far as she can in the narrow confines, a bit of straw poking at her back, hears a knock on her door, very, very faint, but insistent. Immediately, her mind scrambles to figure out who it is, even as it struggles to wake itself fully from her rest. 
 
None of the other women would dare disturb her from her rest, unless it was a matter of life and death (and God, she hopes it isn’t). None of her dupes know where she lives, she makes sure of that much (an alleyway can be just as good as a bed if you know what to do and how to do it), so it can’t be one of them (which sets her mind at ease). 
 
Cautiously, she opens the door, preparing herself for anything. (She doesn’t want to hope that it’s Olympe, especially so soon after everything else.)
 
Instead, she only sees the empty air, until she looks down and sees Charlotte, impatiently tapping her foot, her hands full with something covered in a heavy cloth. (She doesn’t realize how disappointed she is at first, even though she tries to hide it in front of the child.) “Took you long enough! Olympe asked me to give you this.” 
 
She holds her hand out and, hesitantly, Solène takes what’s in there, her hands instantly warmed by whatever’s in there. It’s not so much that she doubts either of them. Charlotte doesn’t seem like she has the capacity to lie, or at least to lie well, and Olympe…
 
Olympe wouldn’t do that to her. She’s shown that enough. 
 
But Solène’s also not used to receiving something and so continues to hold it in her hand, momentarily stupefied.

“What is it?” 
 
“Open it up and see for yourself.” 
 
Solène picks at the edges of the cloth, finally letting the wrapping fall open, and she’s faced with a warm, fresh brioche roll, golden and fluffy. It must contain more butter than Solène’s seen in ages, just at the look of it, but it’s been kneaded firmly so that there’s no grease or sogginess to it. This isn’t the kind of bread that’s tossed to them usually, definitely not the kind she can afford.

“I think she likes you,” Charlotte says, and Solène’s reminded of a group of small children watching a street puppet performance, their attention rapt as they happily cheer on the heroes and boo the villains. 
 
Solène looks at her incredulously, and Charlotte shrugs. “What? It’s there, as plain as the nose on your face.” 
 
“I’m sure she’s just thanking me for saving her.” 
 
Charlotte throws her hands up in the air with all the theatrics of an exhausted twelve year old. “Alright, alright, whatever you want to believe, so long as I can get my cut.” 
 
“Thank you,” Solène says, her thumb still sliding across the flaky crust. 
 
“But she does.” Solène can only shake her head at the parting shot. Stubborn. 
 
It would be far, far easier to assume gratitude if it was simply a matter of one gift, delivered shortly after a trying event. God knows that, whenever she’d had flour enough to put beneath her hands, it’d been soothing to put some use to them. Knead all her troubles out along with the dough. 
 
But it isn’t. 
 
Every few days, Olympe sends her something, an apple, a small pie, a loaf of freshly baked bread, usually delivered by Charlotte, though Olympe sometimes steps away from her job to visit her.
 
The others relentlessly tease Solène about it (if her goal was ever to convince them she wasn’t totally smitten with Olympe, she’s failed, and they all know it,

especially

Marguerite), but it becomes one of the highlights of her week, and she’ll often find herself wondering whether Olympe will come the next day as a man labors above or beneath her, Solène taking the coin he tosses her and fixing her skirt as he buttons up his breeches, but still thinking about Olympe. 
 
 At first, Solène tries to argue against it, her pride, which she has to admit is distinctly Mazurier, preventing her from just

taking

food. 
 
“You can’t expect me to just-”

“You offered me as much when I was staying with you.” 
 
“

Once

.” 
 
There’s something about that, about

owing

people something, that doesn’t sit well. After all, once you become obligated to someone, you never know when they’ll come to collect on the debt.
 
Farm living often relies on other people pitching in, of course, but there are still expectations attached to it. You help your neighbor so that your neighbor helps you, because God knows when a fox will get in with the chickens or a sudden storm will ruin the crops, and the only people you can go to are the ones who are right next to you. But you just don’t take

charity

. You never want to get into a situation where someone’s done so much for you that you can never even the balance, or to give someone so much that you can’t feed your own family come winter. 
 
“And it means far more from you than it does for me. Please...Mademoiselle Mazurier, let me at least try to repay it. You can hardly be the only one who dislikes owing something, and I,” she laughs softly, “I hope my life is worth more than a few pastries.” 
 
Underneath the humor, though, there’s something so earnest about it, and Olympe’s eyes are so entreating, Solène can’t find the words to say no. 
 
It’s worthless, she thinks. She’s becoming

reliant

on her, and she’ll go away. Like her mother, like her father, her brother, and Solène will be left with a wounded heart again, left to silently bleed out onto the streets. 
 
But Olympe’s convincing, and Solène’s never turned down a free meal, so she takes it all. If this is going to end, she’s going to take it for what it’s worth. 
 
“They’ll say I’m taking the Austrian’s coin,” Solène says several days later, barely swallowing the small pie she’s holding in her hand. (She’d almost forgotten what the bite and tang of fresh fruit tastes like, much less with a flaky crust to protect it, warm and filling.) 
 
Olympe brightens, straightening her back and folding her hands in front of her as she leans in, “We have to make sure that the people are content, to make sure there are no more riots. I’m simply doing my duty.” 
 
“Speaking of your duty, how are they?”

Things have quieted down since the March, to a certain degree. There’s talk here or there, but with the Royal Family in Paris, away from their old castle on a cloud, they’ve got what they’ve always wanted: Their undivided attention, away from the schemers. (Solène’s just cynical enough to doubt that it ends here, but at least it’s a welcome calm before the storm.) 
 
As soon as she says it, she regrets it, because Olympe seems to deflate instantly, all that good cheer gone, and she just looks very, very pale and tired, like a fading ghost. “They are...adjusting. As well as can be expected. Even though sometimes-” 
 
Then, her eyes widen in a moment of pure horror, and she seems to pull herself up, putting on a smile that doesn’t seem to suit her, plastered on like a coat of paint on an old sign that can’t quite hide the old colors . “They are dealing with it with far more grace than anyone else could be expected to have.” 
 
“You look like death warmed over.” 
 
She shakes her head vehemently, as if trying to make up for the unpardonable sin of seeming less than pleased with her duties for a second. “It is my pleasure to do whatever their Majesties wish. They are very kind. Sometimes… others are… less so, but it’s really nothing. Everyone is under a tremendous amount of pressure, and… certain members of the court are simply doing what they feel are in the best interests of the Royal Family, and even then with very little reward.”
 
The image of the proud Royal Governess flashes in her eye, and Olympe doesn’t need to say a name for Solène to know exactly who’s been running Olympe to an early grave. 
 
“They let that old bat torture you?” 
 
“They have many more concerns. And Madame Sev-De Tourzel means well. She is far better than-” And then she winces. “Nevermind. All that needs to be said is that it’s far better now than even three months ago, and everyone means well.” 
 
“You don’t have to stay with them, you know,” Solène says, “You’ve already done enough.” 
 
“For them?” Olympe says, and she pauses before she shakes her head, even if Solène can see doubt mix in with the exhaustion before it’s replaced by that determination that she’s come to expect from her, “It can never be enough.” 
 
Solène worries that she’s right. It’s all smiles and talk of reconciliation now that the Royal Family are in the Tuilleries, but that doesn’t mean it always will be. Things change quickly. One second, the Bastille’s standing, one second it’s not (and how many it took with it on its way down). One second, the Royal Family’s in Versailles, the next they’ve been dragged to Paris, and something tells her, deep in her gut, that it isn’t over. She might not have Olympe’s nightmares (she would never ask for them), but she can tell when the wind changes direction. 
 
And God help Olympe if she’s still there when the storm breaks. 
 
But Solène knows it’s no use to say it. Olympe won’t be turned away from them, she knows that. She was willing to take on a mob of women armed to the teeth for the Queen, she won’t run away at the first sniff of danger. That isn’t her. 
 
She’s brave and foolish and determined and so blindingly compassionate that she’d give her last breath for others, whether it’s an urchin on the streets or a Queen in a palace of gold and that’s why Solène--     
 
Solène wouldn’t want her any other way. She wouldn’t be

Olympe

otherwise. 
 
She looks into the crowd. The streets of Paris are busy, as always, tons of people milling about their everyday lives, going from place to place and scarcely stopping to look at the ground, a feeling of tension behind every brushed shoulder or dropped basket. There’s an agitation still underneath the surface, a shadow that’s taken hold of the city. No one puts a name to it, not in this era of newfound good feelings, no one dares, but it’s there, itching, waiting to break. Not as bad as the Bastille, not nearly as bad as that, or the March, or any of the months before it. Not anything like that. But different, unnameable, the question of

What Now?

lingering heavily. 
 
She turns away, but as she does, her ears are filled with the steady roll of a cart and, out of the corner of her eye, she catches a flash of black.
 
Despite something primal in her head telling her to turn away, now, screaming, she finds that it’s ceased to obey, and she instead stays focused on the crowd where, for the briefest of moments, she sees one more cart rattling along the streets, pushed by a cloaked figure. Rooted in one spot, she can only look at him as he slowly weaves his way through the crowd, moving effortlessly through them as if they were thin air. Then, he stills and turns, pulling the cloak away from his face so that she can see the skull that glares out of it, and all breath seems to leave her body.
 
It’s one thing to imagine the supernatural all your life. It’s another to have it staring in front of you through two soulless, empty pits. Time slows and fades around them, as she can only wonder what he’s going to do now. 
 
But then he turns away, shaking his head, as he slips the cloak back on his head and disappears into the crowd. 
 
Olympe gingerly touches a hand to Solène’s shoulder. “Mademoiselle Mazurier, are you alright?” 
 
“Fine! I’m fine!” Solène says, but at Olympe’s skeptical look, she relents, “I thought I saw an- an old friend in the crowd. It’s probably just bad water. That’s it.” 
 
Soothsaying, Ankous, what’s next? Werewolves? Ghosts? 
 
Olympe looks out of the crowd where, not a second before, the Ankou had made his way through, “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary now. Perhaps a moment of rest away from the sun will help.” 
 
“Where would you suggest?” It’s hard to have that dissonance, between what she’s just seen and Olympe, there, so different from that death’s head. It hardly seems to have any importance when she’s there, even as it stays buried in Solène’s skull.
 
“One of my favorite ribbon shops should be nearby.”

At Solène’s horrified expression, she adds, “If you can’t bear any more, I promise I won’t buy you anything.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll resign myself to only selfishly indulging my own whims.”

“Good.” Then, she sighs, “I don’t think you could be really selfish if your life depended on it.” 
 
They leave arm in arm, Solène leaning a little more on Olympe than perhaps she normally would, but they can scarcely go ten steps footsteps come up from behind them, frantic against the cobblestone. Solène instinctively clutches Olympe closer, already ready to come face to face with that skull again, and Olympe touches Solène’s arm as if to say

I have you too, you know

, even though she can’t know the exact reason for Solène’s worry, and then they turn. 
 
It’s no skeleton they come face to face with, though, but Charlotte. 
 
“What is it?” Olympe asks, immediately going into that strange mixture of sister and mother that Solène’s grown to associate with Charlotte. Charlotte looks between the two of them, silent. Olympe’s face drops. “Is it Françoise? My father? Has something happened?” 
 
“No.” Charlotte shakes her head. “It’s the Comte de Peyrol.” 
 
The two of them look at one another. The Comte de Peyrol haunted both their pasts, but neither one of them cared to mention him. He was too associated with some of the darkest chapters in their lives for them to discuss, even if he lingered in every conversation in his own way and had since the graveyard. 
 
“What is it? What did he do?” 
 
“He’s dead. Everyone’s talking about it.” 
 
Solène steadies herself, finding that the news isn’t as sweet as she thought it might have been. Since de Launay, she has thought about what it might be like to see Lazare de Peyrol’s proud head being put on a pike. He’s certainly hated enough. But for him to be dead so

suddenly

...
 
She can’t feel

anything

about it, not least because she can’t believe that it

happened

. 
 
“The people-?”

Charlotte shakes her head. “Himself. Threw himself all the way down into the Seine. I suppose it’s a little sad, given-” And then she looks between them and apparently thinks the better of it before puffing herself up, very obviously trying to hide how shaken she is, casually adding, “Isn’t in too good a condition, either. Vivienne down by the river said that his arms and legs fell off by the time they found him. Not a pretty sight, huh?” 
 
“Charlotte!” Olympe says. “He’s still-”

“I know, I know. It’s just weird, huh?” 
 
“Weird.” Solène can barely focus on what Charlotte’s saying, even as she mouths the word, the only thing she’s really capable of comprehending is a black cloak hiding a bleached-white skull. 
 
He hadn’t come for her that day, nor the day of the March to Versailles, because

she

had never been his intended target after all. 
 
Over the following days, more information comes out. 
 
It had actually taken the authorities several days to make the final identification from any other corpse, as Charlotte said, the Seine has not been kind to him, and the family does everything they can to keep it quiet (which means that the streets of Paris know about it within the day). The midnight flight of the body to the family’s estate for a private burial in a carriage accompanied by a (steel-stomached) servant only fans the rumors.
 
 There are suggestions of murder, revenge, but Solène has long since known that the man she’d seen the day of Ronan’s funeral, the skeleton that had walked out of the courthouse several months later, was not one who’d intended to keep on fighting. 
 
Something had died in him, and she’s only just beginning to understand what, even if she doesn’t want to.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Of course the city is on fire with the news as soon as it comes. The most hated man in Paris is dead, not two weeks after their great triumph. Rumors swirl like the waters of the Seine, each one more hair raising than the next, as everyone struggles to outdo their neighbor in coming up with shocking reasons for the Comte de Peyrol to have taken his own life. 
 
And while Solène isn’t interested in it, it does lead to some rousing conversation among the others. 
 
“Suppose the Royals did it,” Marguerite divies her time up between the gossip and the stew she’s downing as if her life depends on it, dunking a piece of bread that could be skipped across a river into the thick, brown broth. 
 
“Why would they do that?” Susanne does not look at her own soup, wide blue eyes fixated on the other woman. “He’s-

was

their man wasn’t he?” 
 
“And the things he must have known! Now all that dies with him, though. Mark my words, he won’t be the first to die for the sake of Madame Deficit’s secrets.”
 
Solène’s quiet, spooning at her own stew, turning it over again and again as if something will surface in the liquid. (Many things surface, but none of it what she’s looking for.) 
 
The Comte de Peyrol is dead. She’s thought of it since that day Charlotte broke the news, but it can’t seem possible.
 
 Lazare de Peyrol is dead, at his own hand. She should feel relief, she guesses. After all, the man’s haunted her nightmares for over a year, now. (God, the things that can change in a year, the things she would tell her old self if she could reach back in time.)
 
 Instead, there’s just a sense of numbness that accompanies it, a sense of unfinished business that will never be finished. 
 
Lazare de Peyrol is dead, and so are her father and brother. So are hundreds of other people, dead, dying, lords, bishops, knights, kings, and peasants alike. 
 
Then, Marguerite stills, eyes locking on Solène with a

knowing

that’s unnerving. (It’s the problem with having friends, it means that someone knows her, that she loses the mystique of being the queen of the night, that her walls can be broken and crumble like the walls of the Bastille,) “You’re quiet, Mazurier.”
 
She shakes her head. “Not hungry.”

Marguerite scoffs, “Not hungry? And I’m the queen of France.”
 
Solène finds it in her to smile. “Just thinking, I suppose.” There are some things that she can’t tell. Not to her, she’s not sure if she can tell it to anyone.

Pity

for the Comte de Peyrol? Who did she think she was? He was a monster. A

monster

. 
 
“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” Colette strides by, carrying a pewter cup in her hand and a rag in the other, scrubbing at it as she talks. 
 
“Oh,

fuck

you.” 
 
“See that gentleman in the corner?” She nods to someone. This time of night, the tavern’s filled with men, cramming themselves together in the hopes of a quick drink, the odd man slipping on the floor when his feet collides with some spilled wine that will later be licked up by a stray dog.

Solène follows her gaze and eyes him, or what she supposes to be him. He looks decent enough, she supposes. Blond hair, little bit of scruff on his chin, dark clothes. “So what?”

Colette smirks. “He just did.” 
 
Solène smacks her with her table cloth, “I’m going to another tavern next time.”

As she walks away, Colette responds, “You love the soup here too much!” 
 
Solène rolls her eyes as she slumps down into the chair, “Can you believe her?” 
 
Marguerite, though, is sober. “Really, Solène, what is it?” It’s serious, she’s calling her by her first name. 
 
Olympe, she thinks, might understand it better. Maybe. 
 
It isn’t like she wants to hide things from her friends, or to throw them over for Olympe. Nothing’s changed between them all. They’re the same as ever, but…
 
There are some things they can’t understand. Hell, there are some things that Olympe can’t understand and they can. Maybe if she tried to tell her, Olympe wouldn’t be able to understand why she held back saying all’s forgiven now that he’s dead. It isn’t like he can harm anyone, after all. Two different sides of this thing, and neither of them can quite understand. It’s like she’s in between two separate worlds, but not fitting into either one of them. 
 
“Do you really think the Royal Family killed him?” She asks, finally. It’s as good a question as any, and it’s a distraction. The Comte’s waterlogged, limbless body is always a good topic for conversation, if nothing else, particularly over food. 
 
“Why wouldn’t they have?” Emilie asks, “You know they’d have killed Rohan if they’d had the chance, back in the day. That’s how they are.” Her voice is quiet then, quieter than Solène’s ever heard it, “They use people and then get rid of them.” 
 
Solène only shakes her head. “It just doesn’t seem right. None of it does.” 
 
In private, hushed tones, Olympe’s told her the fear among the aristocracy, even among the royals themselves, that it had been retaliation. That the Comte de Peyrol was unpopular was as obvious a statement as saying that the sun shone in daytime and the moon shone at night (save during an eclipse). And, after de Launay...The Comte had walked away from the Bastille when few officers did, but he didn’t walk for long. Olympe’s own father is frantic, having many of their valuables packed and ready to move at a moment’s notice. Not across the sea, where the mass movement of nobles and those that depended on them had already sparked notice, but to a small country house, someplace where they could live beneath the notice of either side of the conflict. It could be that the royals are lying, trying to protect Olympe from the truth (she does not believe that Olympe has it in her to lie, not to Solène, not about this.)
 
 But it doesn’t fit, anyway. 
 
None of it does. 
 
Any man of theirs who’d killed him would be a hero on sight, they’d have no reason to pretend like he’d jumped into the Seine of his own accord. And he’d not been relevant for

months

, not to anyone but the ghosts of his victims and those that’d been left behind. If the royals had wanted him dead, why wouldn’t they have done it after the Bastille? Why now, when it’s only dredged up more murk from the depths? 
 
“I’m sure the man had his own reasons.” And there Athenais is, exactly where she can always be expected, when Solène wants to see her the least. 
 
“And I’m sure you’re going to tell us all about them.”

“Please, my dear, I pride myself on discretion.” 
 
“More like you don’t know,” Solène says, “But since no one’s coming to your place anymore, you have to sell something, so you’ve decided to sell secrets instead.” It’s the problem with having an expensive place that only aristocrats can afford: When the aristocrats are worried for their lives, most of them, with the exception of those who want one last fuck, aren’t in any mood to come calling. 
 
Marguerite grips her arm, and she can practically here the warning of, “

Mazurier

, don’t test her.” 
 
Athenais glares at her, blue, cutting eyes slicing into her. “Always the leader, aren’t you? With a temper like that, you wouldn’t have survived in my house for a day.”

“And you’d have not survived in mine for an hour. We both took different routes, Athenais, I’m not here to argue that. But from where I stand, either you know what happened or you don’t.” 
 
“Come on,” Emilie adds, “The man is dead, anyway. There’s not much else we can do to him. Someone else is doing the judging there.” 
 
“Very well,” Athenais says, “If you insist on begging.”

She sits herself primly in a rickety stool near them, settling her skirts around it. (The difference between her and Olympe, Solène has to think, is striking. Olympe wears simple gowns, sometimes in pastels, sometimes in jewel tones, sometimes in the pale chemises the Queen favors that look like glorified underclothes, but she can always get around in them.) She breathes in deeply, as if there’s something spectacularly refreshing in the smoky tavern air. 
 
Emilie leans over to Solène, “She missed out on a career in the theatre. They could see her all the way from the gods.” Solène bites back the urge to laugh in response, only smirking as Athenais goes about her ritual.
 
Finally, she leans forward. “He was being watched, in the days leading up to the Bastille.” 
 
“Who?” Solène asks, and Athenais smiles, that infuriating, closed mouth smile that screams victory without saying anything. 
 
Athenais leans forward, whispering. “The Secret Police.”

Susanne gasps. “No!” (She’d have made a fine career in the theatre too, Solène decides.) 
 
Solène crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Why would the Secret Police be following him? Didn’t they have anything better to do?” 
 
“That, I don’t know. They didn’t say. They were….otherwise occupied with one of my girls. It’s not unusual, the royals have made use of them to survey aristocrats for over a century, since the time of Louis XIV. It’s how he kept rebellions in check.” (Does this mean, she wonders at the back of her mind, not wanting to deal with the full horror of it, that someone is watching her and Olympe?)
 
“The Secret Police told you about their job while they were fucking one of your women?” Solène asks. 
 
Athenais grimaces, but then restores her face to a picture of tranquility. “Men talk when they are occupied, surely you know this. I simply take...advantage of it. I don’t know how you’ve been in this career for so long, at this point.”

“For my part, I’m a little busy on other things.” She doesn’t say that those “other things” involve desperately trying not to imagine what Olympe du Puget’s mouth might feel like against her throat, where his mouth is pressed, or how her hands might feel where his hands are pressed. 
 
Marguerite snorts in response and Emilie raises a cup in a mock toast. “Like trying not to smell their breath.”

“Our clients don’t exactly have much in the way of secrets, sorry to disappoint you.” She doesn’t know exactly what a half-drunken fishmonger can tell her, besides begging her to not tell his wife while he’s doing his pants up. (She’d remind him, if she wasn’t too relieved at the feeling of a coin in her pocket, that telling the spouse isn’t exactly good for business.) 
 
“You’re missing out on a great opportunity, I assure you.”

“But what does this have to do with it? If it’s so normal?” 
 
“Tell me, the Comte de Peyrol died without a wife-”

“The women of Paris are saved,” Emilie clutches a hand across her breast like a dying heroine.

For once, Solène isn’t the target of one of Athenais’ glares, “Yet did you ever hear of the Comte de Peyrol with a lover? In his entire life? Any rumors? Any scandals?”

They all shake their heads blankly. For her part, Peyrol’s love affairs were the last thing she was concerned with. He could fuck his horse for all she cared, it still wouldn’t be the reason she hated him the most. 
 
“But I’m sure you’re going to provide us with one. Let me guess, he was fucking the queen.” 
 
Why not? It’s not like he’d be the first. They’d make a fine match, the two of them. 
 
“It would be more likely the

king

, I would think.” 
 
And then Solène is silent, her mind a complete white space. 
 
“No witty repartee, Mazurier?” She turns to Emilie, “No time to re-enact the dying Cleopatra?”

Silence. 
 
“How would he-?” Susanne asks. 
 
Marguerite gently takes her by the arm. “I’ll tell you later.” 
 
“So, he-”

Plenty of aristocrats have male lovers. It’s a problem in their world, because it means less to go around for them. It doesn’t mean anything. Aristocrats put it anywhere they can, because they have nothing to stand in their way, whether it’s money or the law. 
 
“He had a lover. He kept him in fine style in his apartment, very lavish. Had the servants held to a very strict vow of silence on the matter and paid them generously to do so. A pity, really, that the Secret Police paid more.” 
 
“I wonder how much he had to pay the poor thing,” Marguerite says, laughter brimming in her voice, “Not enough, even with the fancy apartment, I’ll bet. To have...

Peyrol

. Stick….in….

there.

” 
 
Solène, though, doesn’t laugh.

Little fool, little fool, little fool, little fool, little fool, little fool...

It’s a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence, because if it isn’t, then…
 
Athenais isn’t laughing either. “You’d do well to be quiet. Who knows if there’s anyone around?”

Emilies snorts, “What? And watch a few washed up whores go about their business? Are they really that bored now that they have nothing to do?” 
 
Athenais is serious, an edge of worry undercutting her voice, and it is clear that this is not an idle threat to scare them into obeying her will. “Just because the king is imprisoned, that does not mean the full power of the royal family is gone. You would do well to remember that. They are here, in the city, and even though the Comte is dead, that does not mean their business with him is. You never know who might be watching.”
 
Solène looks around the tavern, but no one seems to be paying them any attention. Except for Colette’s friend, who is dozing in his corner. Poor thing must have spent some of his last coin on a quick fuck from a tavern maid. But, his loss is Collette’s gain, at least. And if he’s fool enough to spend his money there, he’s going to get exactly what he paid for and nothing more. They all have to have a roof over their head and something to fill their bellies with.
 
“So, what drove him to the Seine, then? He got in a fight with his little friend?” Emilie asks, even as the noise of the tavern seems to grow louder and louder, like someone was using Soléne’s head for a drum. 
 
“Oh, he

had

a lover. But, a few months ago, he suddenly vanished. The staff suspected he ran off after the Bastille. Perhaps he had thought blackmail would work, after the initial ardor faded. He would hardly have been the first. The problems of taking a lover below one’s station and pretending that they are anything more than what they are. Better to have it all in writing so there’s no confusion.” 
 
After the Bastille- 
 
“Did he have a name?” Solène asks, her mouth moving while her mind screams. “The lover?”

“No,” Athenais replies, “It was never mentioned. Apparently, they thought that that information alone was deadly enough. It certainly would have ruined him had he survived. Both of them. But,” she shrugs, because what would this matter to her? “These things do happen.”  
 
Just one small tragedy, a love affair gone wrong, the perfect thing to talk about over a bit of ale and some soup. 
 
Athenais’ smile broadens, eyes closing in contentment. “I knew there was a reason for him rejecting me all those years ago. It is a pity though,” and while the calm stays, the contentment does not. Her years begin to show, cracking beneath her makeup, age and exhaustion overwhelming expensive silks and powders, and she is an old woman then, an old woman who has outlived the time that she had thrived in, left with faded, gilded memories. “He was so young then. Just a boy, really. Not a bad boy, either. Not the worst I ever met. Not like what it is said he became. I wonder if his boy thought the same, and that was why he stayed for as long as he did. Or whether it was simply the promise of a hot meal.” 
 
Solène can’t answer, no one alive can. There are some things that died with the Comte de Peyrol and that can never be pulled from beneath the Seine. Whatever happened, he’s dead now. (They both are, which is why there’s no point in

thinking

-It’s impossible, anyway.)
 
And the tavern is still loud, the place filling with voices as the night goes on. Shouting, arguing, laughing, it all blurs together into white heat that pierces her ears, and she wants out, and Athenais is still there with that smirk and- 
 
“Sorry, I have to go,” she says. 
 
“But-” 
 
“Are you alright?” Marguerite asks. 
 
“I’m fine,” Solène says, “Just need to get some fresh air.” 
 
The cold night air hits her hard in the face as she leaves the door, but it still isn’t enough, she can still hear the tavern ringing in her ears, and she just needs to move her feet, she needs to

think

. She wants to see Olympe, she needs to

see-

She doesn’t want to be alone. And Olympe would understand, Olympe would listen to her with those sad, caring eyes and take her hand and remind her of how unlikely it is. 
 
But it’s late, far past the time a decent girl like her would be in bed. And, anyway, she doubts that the servants would open the door to anyone at this hour, much less a woman like her. And, what if they did? Disturbing the entire house just because she’s gotten used to Olympe du Puget holding her hand? 
 
The worst thing is that she knows that Olympe wouldn’t have it in her to tell her to piss off. 
 
And she has been tired lately, even as she tries to keep up that small, neutral smile when she assures Solène that it is an

honor

to serve the Royal Family in their time of need, her skin growing more and more pallid each time Soléne sees her, the dark circles under her eyes becoming like twin shadows. In the short time since the discovery of the Comte de Peyrol’s body, they have seen each other one time, and she fell asleep on Soléne’s shoulder then. Soléne let her stay, the calm rise and fall of Olympe’s breath some of the only stability she’s known in months. Afterwards, Olympe stirred, eyebrows scrunching as she tried to remember why she wasn’t on her bed, only to profusely apologize when she realized exactly where she’d fallen asleep on, saying that she was a terrible friend.
 
No, she needs her rest. 
 
Soléne can sort out everything on her own.
 
Anyway, she decides, her feet dragging her to the door of her drafty apartment, tomorrow, it will be better. She falls into bed, not bothering to undress herself. 
 
Tomorrow, she’ll raise herself out of bed and feel herself again, even if “herself” is something that she’s becoming less and less familiar with, a concept that seems to be constantly ebbing and flowing like a river, instead of fixed like the stars in the night sky. 
 
Tomorrow, she’ll go about her business, put on her best, sultry smile, snag a few dupes, and make enough to earn her bread for the next day.

Tomorrow, this conversation will be faded, remembered only in bits and snippets of whispered gossip among the roar of tavern life, and she’ll laugh at Athenais’ smirks and her airs while hating what she’s made herself into for the sake of snatching onto her one, pale moment of glory. 
 
Tomorrow, she’ll slap herself for jumping to conclusions that don’t make

sense

. 
 
She tugs her thin blanket around her and waits for sleep to pull her body down, the world becoming a black void as she falls into a blessedly dreamless sleep. 
 
When she wakens the next day, the sun is already beginning to set, the light filtering through her windows in a dark gold. She stretches her arms out, hitting her hand against the borders of her wall. The conversation from the night before, the conversation with Athenais, it’s all distant. 
 
What a stupid thought. 
 
She’d been right all along, one solid sleep to distance herself from it and she’s fine. God, everything’s getting to her now, too. All the intrigue, all the death, and she sees ghosts and secrets in every corner. Not everything needs that much thought. Wasting time on delusions, fantasies...next thing she knows, she’ll miss out on what’s important now, in the present, and women who do that never live long. 
 
Shaking her head at herself, she heads out the door, her foot stepping against something metallic on its way across the threshold. She bends down, picking it up. It’s a key, a string wound tightly around it, and attached to it, a tag with a name she can’t read. 
 
Her thumb runs against it, a sense of dread coiling in her stomach, the same coil of dread she felt when she met the Ankou’s eye. Her mind says that there is something deeply wrong with this, that it would be better to throw it out the window and forget about it, forget everything. But there is still enough Mazurier in her that she can’t stop looking at it, touching it, finding herself drawn to trouble like a moth to a flame, knowing it’s going to be burned but unable to stop looking anyway. 
 
Finally, she pockets it, the metal heavier than it should be in the folds of her dress, weighing her steps down. 
 
Fuck it, she’ll deal with it later.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

At first, she doesn’t want to touch the thing, afraid of what she might find. It’s better to just leave it, in her pocket, where it belongs. As much as she wants the confirmation of the Comte’s death and the envelope’s arrival to be two entirely separate things, everything is becoming too tightly wound for that, and she doesn’t want her suspicions to be confirmed. Better yet, so she doesn’t have the temptation, she could stuff it under her mattress and forget about it, go on with her day. Drop it in the Seine, let it rest there with Peyrol and whatever secrets died with him. Lose herself in the night.  But then, when the night is over and she staggers home, ready to collapse onto the thin, bumpy mattress, her mind won’t stop returning to it. Why did the Comte de Peyrol show up at her brother’s funeral? Was it guilt, from a man never known for it? Was it something more? Was that what had led him to the Seine? Had her brother— But the entire thing falls apart because it's Ronan . He had abandoned her in his attempt at getting his revenge, and he was stubborn. He would never just give into an aristo like that just because he asked, living as his kept man in an apartment with everything provided for. That wasn’t her brother.  But it's also Ronan. Her brother felt everything in extremes and acted on it. If he had a moment where he hadn’t hated Peyrol, or had at least a moment of desire, he’d have thrown himself into it, and if he’d done that— She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t. They’re both dead now, anyway. There is nothing to be gained and everything to be lost. The Revolutionaries are happy enough to deify Ronan as a saint, a martyr, a blood-stained youth clutching the flag of liberty in his hands. They’re happy to let him be a picture in a storybook. And she should be honored, to be a sister to a great man who died for the sake of making France free. It’s a good story.  And it isn’t her brother. Her little shit of a brother who fell out of trees and got into scraps with the local boys from the time he learned how to open his mouth. Her brother who left for Paris on a whim because he he was so carried away in hatred and vengeance.  She doesn't care about the hero of the Revolution or what happened to him, she cares about what happened to her brother, and if this damned thing helps... She ends up on Olympe du Puget’s doorstep that day, holding her hand against the marble columns that frame the doorway while trying to explain to a servant that, yes, she is a friend of Mademoiselle du Puget’s even while he scowls.  “And what would Mademoiselle du Puget want with a woman of your…calibre? Do you really expect me to believe that she would willingly associate with you?”  Solène is about to storm out when she sees movement on the staircase, catching Olympe’s eye. She gives a small, tight-lipped smile, hurrying down the stairs.  “Mademoiselle Mazurier!” She squeezes her, though the grip is weaker than she would expect, and Soléne finds herself clutching back at her, wanting to bury her head in her neck and just breathe. Instead, she can’t help but briefly lock eyes with the servant, who turns away awkwardly and then quickly backs off. There is a sense of worry in Olympe’s eyes as she pulls away, and it makes Soléne ache. Even as tired as she is, she cares about her. “What are you doing here?”  “There is something I need to do. And I would like for you to do it with me.”   When she goes there, consulting Olympe for help in reading the address, she’s surprised. The place is not one of the places that the high aristocracy visit, but it’s respectable nonetheless. It’s certainly better than the drafty hole that she pays for.  There’s a sense of unease even before she fits the key into the slot and turns it. This is wrong, this entire thing is wrong. Why now? Olympe places her hand on hers, and she understands. You are not alone in this. I’m here. Solène turns the doorknob and the two of them step into the room together.  Like most apartments of this type, there are multiple rooms to it, all of them dark and shadowed. There are no cobwebs; the spiders haven't had time to settle there, nor rats, but it is still, cold. Most of them have a metallic color scheme, dark silvers and blues dominating ("In fine style," that was what Athenais had said), but occasionally, there is a sign of color, in a chair, a couch, a stool, breaking up the austerity. A reception room that is bare of any signs of habitation, a dining room, a small library, thinly coated with dust with the exception of the chess board in the center of it, which had been overthrown at some point, with queens, kings, knights, and bishops alike being scattered along the floor. In that one, she finds herself stooping to hold a fallen rook, running her thumb along the ivory horse's head, before she hears what sounds like a crash coming from outside. "What was that?" She jolts up. "No idea," Olympe says, and she's clinging onto her now, then loosens her grip and leans forward protectively. They wait for several breaths, but don't hear anything more.  "We should move on," Soléne says, and Olympe nods in return. None of these rooms offer what she’s really looking for, anyway.  Those answers lie in the master bedroom, and she finds herself looking at the hardwood floor as she enters, as if, any moment, there'll be wet footprints staining it. It has a similar design to the rest of the apartment, very little in the way of furniture, austere. She can almost see Peyrol dictating exactly where everything. There's a window, framed with two heavy curtains, and she can almost see his dark silhouette looking down on the street (him or the Ankou or whatever devilish combination of the two of them). Can almost see it now, every stray shadow making it feel like he's in there with her. The room looks more or less lived in still, though there is something off about it all. Even having never walked there before, Solène feels as if the weight of the room is somehow wrong, as if things that are supposed to be there are gone. Someone (she knows exactly who, but she’ll allow herself the luxury of ignorance for as long as she can) has picked through the place with a meticulous eye, leaving only what they wanted her to see. That illusion is shattered as Olympe walks over to the highboy in the room, pulling one of the drawers open. “Solène…"  Inside, she recognizes at least two of Ronan’s outfits: One the mustard coat that she’d seen him wearing when he’d tried to talk to her that last time, in scraps, as well as the blue one he’d worn at their reunion, and several others besides, none of them matching Peyrol’s style, along with a collection of scarves. There is no possible way it is a coincidence; she doubted anyone else in Paris would choose something as hideous as the yellow coat alone, much less choose it in the same style.  This is where her brother had lived in the days and weeks before his death. She swallows the terrible feeling in the back of her throat and continues.  One half of the bed is still made up exactly as Ronan had left it, the sheets rumpled and scattered, while the other part is neatly made up, with not so much as a wrinkle. As she walks over to the rumpled side, she feels something underneath her shoe, looking down to see a long blue ribbon half-hidden in the shadows beneath the bed. She darts away from it and looks at the rest of the room.  
What had Ronan gotten himself into? 
  Besides that, there are few personal belongings in the room. A bare desk stands at the corner of the room, along with a candle that has been burnt to less than the height of her thumb. There are a number of papers scattered around, most of them blank, some of them with only a dot or two of ink, and Olympe bends down to take one, handling it as if she’s afraid it will crumble into dust. Perhaps it will, Solène thinks. Perhaps it will turn to dust along with the rest of this place, a simple illusion.  But it doesn’t; the apartment stands, and Olympe’s eyes scan the paper, grimacing at one point beneath her usual polite smile. “His attempts to justify himself for his actions on the 12th of July.”  Solène scoffs. The man truly is unbelievable.  “I suppose he had no other option but to kill innocent people.”  She can believe that Ronan had lived with the man, possibly loved him.  She can even believe that he had loved Ronan, as much as he was capable of it, but some things are harder to accept. That the Comte de Peyrol simply didn’t have a choice but to shed blood time and time again throughout his life was one of them. She thinks of the October Days and her choice to break away from the mob, how close they had come to killing her and Olympe. Whatever she’s done, it will remain on her conscience, but he had done worse for years. And he’d never broken away. He faced the same choice she had, and he chose the one that destroyed him.  But, she remembers the look on his face that day at the funeral, perhaps he’s paid for it. She lost her brother, he lost his lover, and with him, apparently his reason for living as well.  Olympe nods unsteadily. “Something like that, yes. It seems like he had some amount of trouble with it, given the number of drafts.”  “I never thought I’d see the day when the Comte de Peyrol ran out of excuses.”  Olympe glances at the papers again, most of which have nothing more than a single black spot against stark white paper, lingering on lines between lines that Solène wouldn’t know the meaning of even if she could read, “An entire life of service to the Royal Family, and this is all.” Her voice is soft, even for Olympe, trailing off as she shakes her head before putting the offending paper down.  
Mostly blank paper, excuses, and death. For him and everyone he came into contact with.  
 She leaves them on the desk, organizing them so that they’re neatly stacked onto one another, and Solène thinks that Peyrol would have approved. Everything else is in ruins but at least his papers are even.  The only thing left is a chest at the foot of the bed. She kneels down to open it up, the lid of it heavy enough that Olympe has to help her, the two of them throwing it open. When opened up, it contains nothing but another, smaller chest. When she opens it up, she finds a large number of gleaming, golden coins, 1500 livres in all. It is more than most men make in a year, in two, even. It is more than her dowry would have been if she’d stayed in the country.   Blood money. She’d never put Peyrol down as the sort to have a fit of conscience. Was it her he was trying to compensate, or himself? Had it worked in the end?  Beneath that, there are a large number of papers, all bound together in a red string, and one paper laying unfolded on top of them all. Solène nudges it towards Olympe, who takes hold of it, eyes scanning over it.  “What did he want to say to me?” She asks. “Sorry” seems like it might be an understatement, at this point. She’s not sure what wouldn’t be.  “Not to you,” Olympe shakes her head, “Me.”

“You?”

Olympe nods, eyes locked onto the page, knuckles white. “To Mademoiselle du Puget, in the hope of justice. But how?”

“He was at the funeral,” Soléne says, he must have known we were in contact. At the tavern, before Versailles, she had felt eyes on her. Had it been the Ankou, or had Peyrol kept his ears pricked, waiting for the right moment? The Royal Family aren’t the only ones who could afford to have someone followed. And he was a wealthy man, one who had very little else to spend his money on. “He must have seen us there, and so he knew-”

“That we would go here together,” Olympe finishes.  “That clever bastard .”  Lazare de Peyrol was a firm military man in life, but in death, he turned out to be a courtier the same as any of them.  “In the name of justice? What justice?” Olympe loosens the knot on the string, brows knit, hands rifling through the papers as if one will come into her hand that will reveal all. “What could he mean to say in these?”

Finally, she picks one up. “I have received your letter, my poor Comte, and it hurt me deeply to see you in such distress. However, you reach me in a merciful mood. As per your requests, I will offer you once last chance. The...the Chevalier du Puget has betrayed his country, aiding and abetting traitors. You have refused this once before, however if you refuse me again, there will be no power in Heaven or in Hell that will save you. Punish him appropriately, and all will be forgiven, and you will find a generous friend at court. Fail, and yours will not be the only body on the funeral pyre. Tell no one of this. Charles d’Artois. July 14, 1789.”

She crumples the paper in her hands, hissing with a hatred that Soléne hadn't thought was possible in her, “Such a friend!”  Well, Athenais was right on one thing: Peyrol had been blackmailed. It just hadn’t been Ronan who’d done it.  “My dearest Comte, the time has come to relieve a mutual friend of ours from a position which he has no claim to. You will need to do very little, only support me as necessary, and give your own military opinion on the present state of Paris. My words will do the rest, I assure you. Despite your years, you are very respected, and not so volatile as the Marquis de Lafayette, I am sure that, with some proper preparation, my brother will listen to you. And, of course, once you have helped me in saving France, your reputation and career can only gain from it. Charles d’Artois, July 11, 1798.”  “Yes, his career could only gain from it,” Soléne drawls, “And if it failed, Artois would step aside and leave Peyrol to take the blame.” Just like he had for the massacre at Place-Louis XV. Just like he had for Peyrol’s actions at the Bastille. If the Comte de Peyrol was a rabid dog, his master was certainly never far behind him.  Olympe goes through all the other papers, picking up one, then another, then another, eyes only skimming each one before putting it down. “Troop orders, commands, blackmail, personal receipts, every single scrap that shows what has always been known, but never proven. 1789, 1788, ‘87, ‘86, ‘85, ‘84...all the way to when Peyrol arrived back from America. He has had his hooks in him this long.”

“And Peyrol got tired of it.”

Olympe nods her head. “Every scrap, he preserved.”  “All the Royal Family’s darkest secrets, put on display.”

“Not the Royal Family,” Olympe’s voice is firm, firmer than she’s ever heard it before, even when Olympe was facing a mob. There is no sign of that elegant wistfulness that tends to characterize Olympe’s voice, it is all steel and dogged determination. “The Comte d’Artois. They are very different from one another, and I am sure…”  Her rifling grows more frantic.  “Olympe…” Soléne reaches out to touch her shoulder, but she is too busy poring over the pages, searching for answers that can’t be found. Finally, she pauses at one, and there is a long, deathly silence, and if she even breathes, Soléne can’t see it.  “Orders for the Comte Lazare de Peyrol to take whatever action is necessary in suppressing revolt. This was done at Versailles on July 10, 1789. Signed...” She swallows.  “Louis.” She shakes her head, looking at the paper with a blank expression. “No, he couldn’t have known. It is totally unlike the king to fire on the people, he could never have condoned… ” “Why not? He didn’t have any complaints when my father was shot down in cold blood.” The words leave Soléne’s mouth, unbidden. Had it been any other place, in any other time...but it isn’t. Everywhere around her, she is reminded of her father’s death, of Ronan’s death, of all the other lives caught and lost to time because they weren’t important enough to be remembered. Hell, even Peyrol. How long until he's forgotten by the people who claimed to be his friends in life? In 50 years, would anyone really care for him?  “He didn’t know, if he had-He is a very generous man, a very kind , good man. ”  “Yes, and look at how kind he was to Peyrol. Ordered him to do his dirty work for years and then, when he wasn’t convenient, cut him off so that he could take the blame and leave him spotless.”

“The Royal Family wouldn’t. They would never- ”  “They were perfectly fine to leave you to die for them in October.”

“I was willing to give my life for my country. We have discussed-”

“So was Peyrol! And look what they did to him! They chewed him up and spat him back out.” She remembers Peyrol in the graveyard, Peyrol at the courthouse, Peyrol losing, bit by bit, every ounce of life that he’d once possessed, and though she’s sworn off any tender feelings towards the man, she is slowly starting to understand what they did to him. She is seeing it unfold before her eyes now. “Look at you, Olympe. You don’t sleep, you barely eat, you’re pale as a ghost, you're left to the mercies of that Severe woman-” 
“ No !” Olympe takes a step, only to stumble, gripping onto the bed post. Soléne steadies her, one hand at her back, moving her gently to the side of the bed that’s been made up. Olympe crumples, head buried in her hands. She lingers there in what seems to be an endless moment of despair before she places a hand against her diaphragm and steadies her breathing. She takes several long, deep breaths before she raises her head, staring her straight in the eye. “You sound just like him when you say that. You have let your hate and your vengeance obscure all the good that-”  “Are you in love with her?” The words scratch Soléne’s throat as they leave it, like boulders rolling out of her mouth. She has thought it, on occasion. Dreaded it. But never dared to ask it. 
Olympe looks up at her and doesn’t answer, and that is all the answer she needs. Stupid, stupid, stupid , to think that a noblewoman would-It never turned out well.  They don’t talk after that, because there is nothing more to talk about. Olympe gathers herself together and leaves, folding her hands in front of her and not sparing a glance her way, as if she's one more ghost in the house, and Soléne watches her go from the bedroom window, fearing for her with each unsteady step, knowing that there is nothing she can do, the weight of their conversation bearing down on her like a bag of twigs bound to her back. There is nothing more to be said or done, just watch as Olympe du Puget grows smaller and smaller, becoming one more anonymous figure in the gray city. Finally, a carriage rumbles past the road, and by the time it has passed, she’s gone.  For months, Olympe du Puget’s existence has been a highlight of her life. Not intentionally, not purposefully, against her will, because she knew the consequences of it. But still, she had gotten used to her. She had gotten attached . And now, in the course of a few seconds, it’s all ashes. It’s the danger of trusting people, you can spend ages caring for them, talking to them, thinking that they’ll be around the next day and the next, and then in the course of a few moments, it’s gone.  She can’t stay long. There are too many ghosts in that place, and the knowledge that the last person to walk into the room is now dead sits uneasily, like at any moment, the door will open and one or the other of them will be there, and she isn’t sure which one she’d least like to see. She can see Ronan striding in there, chest stuffed full of bullets, or Peyrol, his shiny leather boots trailing behind all the muck of the Seine as he paces back and forth, maybe still trying to complete one of those letters of his, the two of them stuck in different places forever. She pauses at the chest, finally taking the gold. She can’t turn down the blood money, as much as she wants to charge up to Peyrol and throw it in his face. (Just because he was a victim of that scheming piece of pond scum, just because she could admit that she, sometimes, pitied him, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t brawl him in the streets if his body wasn’t already well and truly buried in his ancestral estate.) It would be satisfying for a moment, and then she wouldn't have a roof over her head the next month.   The letters, though, she leaves. Let him have his secrets. It isn’t any of her business. They were for Olympe, anyway. Not her.  This is not her place, and she feels no welcome here. She pauses at the door, coins weighing her pocket down considerably, she pauses at the door of the bedroom.No. No. No. Absolutely not.  Fuck it.  She grabs one of Ronan’s scarfs, the same bright red one that he had left the Beauce in, though she doesn’t know why. Idiot.  In the tempest of her mind, full of swirling, clashing thoughts, there is one thing that crystallizes: There are some aspects of her brother’s life that she will never know, and more that she doesn’t want to.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

She’s fine. She’s absolutely fine.

Olympe was-She was a friend, but they weren’t-

She’d thought,

hoped

, but-

Imagined-

But Olympe-

Mademoiselle du Puget

has made it clear that she has other priorities. Soléne is, as always, second best. Second best to Ronan, when they were children, second best to Ronan’s revenge, when they were forced to grow up, second best to Danton’s wife, second best to Marie Antoinette.

And, no matter how persistent Charlotte is, hounding her footsteps, there is nothing that she can do to change that. Charlotte is clever and she’s quick, but she can’t steal Olympe’s heart from the Queen, as if it was a jewel or a ring, and drop it in Soléne’s lap. The word doesn’t

work

that way. 
 
She doesn’t know why she goes to a tavern to drown her sorrows. That was more Ronan’s thing, for whatever good it did him. (Always trying to run away.) For her part, she’s never seen the point in being miserable when everyone around her is trying to have a good time, and looking around her now, she doesn’t know why the Hell she bothered to try to change that thought. Someone is singing “The Tomb of the Aristocrats”, though he’s drunk enough that he’s forgotten all the lyrics except “I’m going to fuck your wives and you will be cuckholds/Aristocrats/You will be horned!”, which he sings very passionately and loudly, clapping his hands together and drawing a crowd around him until he slips on some spilled ale and has to be escorted home by a very exhausted looking man about the same age as him. 
 
Oblivious to that, a young couple sits at the far end. Not unusual for a place like this, since it’s a convenient place for women of the world and men of some amount of fortune to meet up quietly. No one really expects a respectable woman in a place like this, and it suits them perfectly well that way. No, what makes them different is that they don’t seem to

notice

. Oh, they’re not a “respectable” couple courting on a park bench, her clothing is too ripped and his is too well put-together for that, but they don’t act like the average pair here. His head bends over to her ear and she bends over to laugh, the man smiling as he does so, and then her hand touches his arm, they share a look, and Solène feels something deep and ugly burrow into her. 
 
He’s probably using her. Will run off with the next piece of skirt he sees. Or else his parents will make him marry someone else. 
 
But they look so

happy-

Ronan’s scarf feels heavy in her pocket, where it’s sat since that day in Peyrol’s apartment.
 
“You’re scaring the customers away, Mazurier.” Colette pours some more ale into the tankard that Solène’s been staring down for the past half hour. It’s not the best stuff in the world, cheap, looks and tastes a little like piss, but it does its job.

“Thinking so loud, they’re going to throw us out.” Marguerite perches on the bench opposite her.
 
“It’s nothing.” 
 
“This about that aristocratic girl?”

“Shut the fuck up.” She tips the tankard against her mouth, letting the drink spill against her mouth. 
 
The toughest thing is that Marguerite isn’t right, but she isn’t

wrong

. 
 
Yes, it’s about Olympe. It’s about Olympe, it’s about Ronan, it’s about Peyrol, it’s about everything that’s happened the last year, it’s about none of them, it’s about her. And she can’t begin to explain it because she doesn’t even know where to begin.

“Our story begins around 20 years ago, when a small, peaceful village in the Beauce was unfortunate enough to witness the birth of not one, but two Mazurier siblings.”

Emilie walks over, her own tankard in hand, looking to Marguerite. “No luck?” 
 
“None.” Marguerite shrugs her shoulders. “But at least I got a ‘shut the fuck up’. We’re making progress. Why don’t you try?”

Emilie plops down next to Marguerite, the two of them sharing a long look. Sitting by one another, they look like complete opposites, Marguerite in her ripped clothes, looking halfway dragged through the Seine, Emilie with her hair pinned up, in a dress that is...well, it’s not like the clothing that Olympe wears, silks and satins in light shades and

she’s not going to think of her

. But she’s wearing a dress in a powder blue that’s at least clean and in one piece, though the bodice looks like it was flimsily tied that morning, the two sides of it uneven. 
 
Emilie looks at Solène, then back at her ale, then back at Solène, sighing. Then, she opens her mouth, “So, an aristocrat, a priest, and a revolutionary walk into a brothel, and the keeper there takes one look at him and says ‘Monsieur de Talleyrand! I didn’t think you were coming!’” 
 
A cackle escapes her mouth, and she can hardly breathe enough to get the words out. “The-The-The man looks at him and says-he says, ‘I hope so, Jacques. I certainly hope so.’”

All three of them are laughing now, Marguerite shoving Emilie playfully. 
 
Solène can swallow down the laugh that claws its way through her throat, but she can’t stop the smile that forces its way onto her face, despite her best attempts, shaking her head. “That’s the worst.” 
 
“But!” Emilie says, “It worked!” 
 
Solène shakes her head. “You’re terrible. All of you. Terrible.” 
 
“Mazurier-

Solène

...” Marguerite says, drumming her fingers on the table. “There was actually something that we wanted to speak to you about.” 
 
Emilie groans, drawing her hand across her forehead. “Can’t this wait? We’ve only just gotten her to crack a smile. I feel like I’ve just lifted a ton of stone on my back all the way from Brittany.” 
 
“She should know what you’re planning.”
 
“What, going to try to assassinate the Queen? No need to keep it quiet, most of France would help you.” 
 
“Sort of.” Marguerite’s deadly serious, and Solène sobers. 
 
Solène looks around, trying to see if there’s anyone that could listen in on them. She doesn’t believe Athenais’ warnings about the Secret Police still being in the city, more likely a paranoid old woman trying to stir up a feeling of suspicion so that she could have a more eager audience. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t take it seriously. “I’m listening.” 
 
Marguerite and Emilie share another look, before Emilie gestures out to Solène. “You started it, might as well continue.” 
 
Marguerite leans forward. “The time for people like Athenais is running out. Big, fancy houses for aristocrats to go to aren’t all they used to be. Where are they going to get money, when all their usual dupes are off to England? She built her empire on the backs of other girls, by giving aristocrats exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it, but that can only go on for so long.”

“What are you saying?” 
 
Marguerite looks over her shoulder before giving a guarded, conspiratorial smile. “I say we have a revolution of our own.” 
 
“You must be joking.” 
 
“Look,” Emilie says, “The three of us all have heads on our shoulders.”

“Some more than others,” Solène replies. 
 
“If we can scrape just a little together, we can figure out something.” 
 
“Athenais is only able to do what she does because she has her hands in the pockets of everyone who could do anything to stop her. Whenever someone wants to complain about ‘clearing the streets’, all it takes for her is to raise one of her fingers and no one troubles her. How can we begin-” 
 
“Giving up before it’s begun? That’s not the Mazurier spirit,” Marguerite says. “Anyway, we’ve done the numbers: A small place at Palais Royal would be 12 livres. Stock it with a few things here and there, a bit of wood polished the right way, a few pamphlets that Athenais would never sell, that sort of thing, as well as what’s always been for sale, and we could make it work. We wouldn’t topple her overnight, but we could build on it, so long as we can keep our heads down.”

“What Athenais would never sell?” Solène raises a brow. “That leaves out our eternal souls.”

12 livres.

And she has 1500 lying beneath her mattress, 1500 livres that she can never speak about, because it would open her to questions that she doesn’t want to answer, as well as questions that she

can’t

. 
 
Emilie gives a sly look, and then hands over a pamphlet, the letters blocky and grand across the page.
 
Solène pauses before taking it, giving a long, deadpan look at the two of them. “You know I can’t read.”

“It does all the talking, don’t worry about it. ‘

The Austrian Bitch and her Glee Club at the Royal Orgy

.’” 
 
Solène turns the page and there, blown across the page, is the Queen, Artois, and Polignac in a threesome, Artois seconds away from getting into the Queen while she kisses Polignac. She narrows her eyes. “Does he really have that moustache in real life?” 
 
(She doesn’t want to focus on anything more, because if she thinks too hard about the Queen kissing Polignac, it won’t be

Polignac’s

face she’ll see in that scene. Though Olympe would have better taste than Artois, she

knows

that much.)

Marguerite shrugs. “Does it matter?” She takes the pamphlet back. “Look, I have a man who’s willing to supply us with all the pamphlets he makes, exclusively, for a cut of the profits, among other things.”

“‘Other things?’” 
 
Marguerite smirks. “I’m persuasive. He likes doing business with me. Women like Athenais earn their way to where they are by knowing the right people at the right time, but there’s no way that she would ever sell this sort of thing when she’s made her money off the nobility. She’s too much of an aristocrat for the revolutionaries to stomach. This is our way in. The people don’t just want a quick fuck in the alley-”
 
“All other evidence aside.”

“They want something a little bit more for their coin. Palais Royal’s the safest place to run it out of; the police don’t dare go in there for fear of the Duc d’Orléans, and God knows

he

won’t have any trouble with this. From there, we can work our way onward.” 
 
Emilie puts her hand on Marguerite’s shoulder. “None of us here want to die looking for our last meal. I don’t have any care for joining ‘respectable’ society, I don’t care for being rescued by a man who wants to save the harlot’s soul, but I’ll be damned if I die like this. There are plenty of other jobs, but you’d have to damn near claw ten other girls to get them.”

Marguerite nods, “And any single time, it’s a game of chance.” 
 
Emilie shrugs, and for a second, Solène sees a shadow flit across her face. “Not much worse than being a servant to a great lord, but still.” 
 
“Think of it, Mazurier: None of us are getting younger. We’d have our own place, run it our own way. Not like Athenais. We wouldn’t lure girls in from the country and trap them in debt, we wouldn’t take most of the earnings while leaving the girls with nothing. If we did well enough on selling alone, we wouldn’t even need to offer the usual services to men. We could have a comfortable retirement. No one of us could do it on our own, but if we work together-”
 
If Olympe could know Solène is considering it, Soléne knows very well that she would kill her. Or simply go cold and not speak to her, which could almost be worse. But Olympe isn’t there, she’s chosen where she wants to be. And this is a chance at something

stable

. She’s past believing that life can ever go back to normal, that she and Ronan could ever go back to living in their little plot of land, rebuild the house, raise their families.
 
 She can’t turn back time and, even if she could, she isn’t that girl anymore. 
 
She’s done things, even beyond her employment, that that girl had never imagined. (She’d have never thought that she would have gone to Versailles, she never thought she’d see marble floors and gilded walls, even if they were stained with blood at the time.) That girl would have been horrified at some of what she’d done, proud of some of the rest. Maybe surprised by how much of a spine she could grow and how much she would be willing to do to survive on her own. 
 
And she is tired, her bones feeling well beyond their two decades. Tired of the Ankou’s shadow. She is tired of being second best. Tired of clawing for everything she needs to live another day and still coming home with empty hands. At first, her job was a way of supporting herself, and it was great to have some amount of power in her life. Intoxicating. There was an entire city out there, and it felt like there was an entirely new world that had opened itself to her, a world that didn’t force her to rely on a brother or a husband or a father. But all day, every day, no breaks, no rests, otherwise it’s poverty and starvation...it’s exhausting.

Her hand touches her pocket, feeling the outline of Ronan’s scarf. She knows what he would say.

“Why are you bothering with this crap? Chase her!”

“What the Hell Solène? If you love her, go after her!”

“Save her from the Royal Family! Don’t you care about her?”

Ronan wouldn’t give up until there was no hope left. He would fight until he fell over if he thought that there was a chance in Hell. He would go straight to Olympe’s house and tell her as much, and perhaps they would even be happy. Perhaps Olympe would give in, agree that it’s all a terrible mistake, and say that they’ll go into the country, run a farm, raise chickens, and have a family of ten children together. Stranger things have happened in the last two months alone.

Her hand digs into the fabric of the scarf.

Ronan had chased after an impossible love. Ronan had died. And she knows, she

knows

, that she has to live in the present. She can’t live on burnt-out dreams forever.

She opens her mouth and is then surprised when, “Let me think about it” comes out.

She needs to think.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Whatever Solène considers scheming up with the others, though, that does nothing to dissuade Charlotte. When they gave her the nickname of “The Little Cat” all those years ago, long before Solène first saw the gates of the city, they had named her right.  Cats are patient creatures, once they have the motivation to be. Oh, they’re lazy, she remembers hearing Madame Paquette constantly scolding the family cat back when Solène was a child, complaining about the number of rats that lived on their farm, but, with the right motivation, they can be patient. They hunch down after an insect or a mouse, tail wagging in the air, wait a few seconds, and then jump, and if they can’t get it, they keep batting around it for a little while. If they aren’t let out immediately after they request it, they keep rattling at the door every five seconds, yowling loud enough to wake the entire village and, depending on the cat, possibly the dead as well.  “You should see her,” Charlotte stands by her side as Solène leans against a building in Rue Saint Denis, skirt hiked up to her knee in order to advertise her wares. Which would be more effective without a ten year old child hanging onto her arm. “She doesn’t want to see me.” She dips her head at a gentleman passing by, giving a sultry smile. “Monsieur.”

He waves her away as if she’s nothing more than a stray dog, walking on, earning a scowl that he doesn’t even notice, back hunched over, hands in the pockets of his tan greatcoat, as he walks onward with a sense of self-righteous determination.  “She misses you, though!” Charlotte tugs at her arm, not noticing Solène’s momentary inconvenience. “You should see her. Françoise says that she can hardly get ten words out of her.” “Then you should talk to her, then. Leave me out of it.” She eyes the streets, seeing if there’s anyone new coming along, like a housewife looking at fish in a stall.  Charlotte crosses her hands over her chest. “You want to see her and you know it. Why are you holding back?” “Charlotte,” Solène sighs. “When you’re older, you’ll understand.” “I’m not some kid .” Charlotte says, “I wish people would stop acting like it. I’ve been watching the streets of Paris for years, I know them better than anyone. I’ve seen things, things that the older people don’t-“ She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you can change things around! If you weren’t so stubborn.” “I’m not stubborn,” Solène says. “Are.” Charlotte says, “It’s how I knew you were related to Ronan, you know, he always fought with-“ She’s quiet now, as if she’s afraid of summoning Ronan’s ghost by mentioning his name. “Nothing.” Solène narrows her eyes, turning to look at Charlotte with one hand propped on the wall. “Who did Ronan always fight with?” Charlotte shakes her head. “No one. No one.” “Charlotte-“ Charlotte had been surprised that Marguerite believed that Ronan and Olympe were lovers, Charlotte had mentioned that it was “sad” that the Comte de Peyrol had died, “given…” “Given” what? No one in the city had any love of the man, no one except Ronan, who Charlotte liked . Charlotte who knew everyone in Paris. Knew their business, where they were, what they were doing. Charlotte who almost always changes the subject when Ronan was mentioned. “It’s nothing, alright?” Charlotte says, and Solène can see her grow defensive, see the cat’s fur bristling just beneath the coat. “Just…don’t. Don’t let her go.”   “You knew about Ronan and Peyrol, didn’t you?” “No! No I didn’t. I didn’t know anything.” Charlotte shakes her head sharply. “Ronan and Peyrol? What were they even doing?” “Charlotte…” And Solène wishes that Olympe is there, now, since Olympe is always so patient with her, she always knows just what to say to calm her down. Then, she feels anger, white-hot, because why couldn’t Olympe have been there? Why couldn’t she have just listened ? Though, really, it isn't Olympe’s fault, not really. The Royal Family are the ones who treat them like they were old rags, using them up and then tossing them away. Olympe, Peyrol, God knows how many others. But Olympe should have known . But she didn’t. But, Solène’s gut twists, love is stupid. And Olympe…she loves the Queen. God knows why, but she does. Not her. She can do many things, but she can’t save Olympe from her own heart.  And Solène doesn’t know which one of them she’s more furious about, since, at the end of the day, she can never be truly mad at Olympe: The Queen or herself. The Queen for being the one that Olympe loves, too stupid to realize it, herself for not being the one she loves and knowing exactly what it means. Not that self pity will fill an empty stomach. Fine. Olympe isn’t here. She can stay…wherever she is. Solène won’t care, because it can’t change anything. Which means that she has to try to do what Olympe would do, racking her brain for answers. She bends down, her knees, already sore and exhausted, resisting the pressure. “Charlotte, I know that you know something. Please .” It’s an odd mixture of her and Olympe, not as blunt as Solène, not as polite as Olympe. Charlotte looks up at her then. “I don’t want him to get in trouble.” Solène shakes her head. “He can’t get in any more trouble, Charlotte. He’s beyond that now.” She pries herself away from the wall, jerking her head towards some nearby benches. “Come on.” Charlotte follows, plopping down like a man would, legs spread out, twisting her hat in her hand. Solène joins her, crossing her legs even though, really, of all the things for her to still carry from her old life, trying to be prim and elegant should have been the last one that was actually useful.  Around them, a hundred bodies shuffle about their business, none of them paying any care to the woman of the world and the street urchin, the two of them just two more bodies that make up the mass of Paris. It had rained earlier in the day, the raindrops falling as cold and sharp as diamonds on them, and now the streets lined with brown puddles that the odd carriage splashes everywhere, their drivers not caring about the odd dress soaked through. The afternoon’s sun splashes the stone wall that lies behind the bench a rich, golden color, the shadow of the wall long and dark. Now that they are beginning to stare down winter, the days have shortened. Though it seems like a warm day now, she knows that it will soon darken and grow cold, the rags she wears little guard against the first bite of winter. (She doesn’t think about another time when she had met with Charlotte on a day when the sun was shining, that first time that she’d begun the process of falling in love with Olympe.) She wants to say something, but she thinks about what Olympe would do and keeps silent, waiting for Charlotte to come to her and give the information out. The girl isn’t a Mazurier, but her mind isn’t too far off from one, and Solène knows very well that if someone tried to force her to answer, she’d have dug her feet into the ground like a bull.  “It was a couple months before…” Charlotte swallows. “Before the Bastille. I saw Ronan in the streets, but he didn’t notice me. I thought it was really weird, since it wasn’t the type of place I’d expect him to be, y’know? So I followed him. He went to this big apartment and knocked on the door. I thought then that I could jump out, give him a scare, but before I could, the Comte de Peyrol was there, in the doorway. He sounded a little mad at Ronan, telling him that he was late.” She shuddered. “That man had a voice like ice. Anyway, I thought that he must have been blackmailing Ronan, or that something was wrong, so I was going to protect him, but then Ronan started kissing him.” She stuck her tongue out. “It was really gross, too. Why do adults do that?”

“No idea,” Solène replied. “No idea.”  “Anyway, Ronan told him something like….’I couldn’t make it easy for you.’ Something like that. I think the Comte de Peyrol wanted to say something, but then he saw me there. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look on his face. He went totally white! Ronan saw me there too and he said-something like ‘It’s alright, Lazare, she’s a friend’ and then he asked me to come inside with them. I don’t think the Comte de Peyrol wanted me in, but Ronan asked me before he could say no.”

“ Ronan .”   “Ronan took me in, and there was a huge salon! Very nice cushions, too. They were fun to bounce on a little. I don’t think the Comte noticed, because he spent the entire time pacing around. I thought he was going to wear a hole in the carpet! Ronan got me some hot chocolate, though, and said that it was really important that no one ever know about what I’d seen, and that it could get the two of them in a lot of trouble. I didn’t give a shit about Peyrol, but I didn’t want Ronan to get hurt, so I agreed. I never said anything about it.” She shrugs. “But the hot chocolate was nice.” Well. She had her priorities. Not that Solène can really blame her.  She knows she’s going to regret asking this when it doesn’t matter, but, once again, her mouth fails to stop the words from leaving once they’ve slipped off her tongue. “Did they seem happy?” “Well, the Comte de Peyrol mostly seemed worried, but…” Charlotte’s eyebrows scrunch. “Before they saw me, when they were kissing, they looked happy. I never saw the Comte de Peyrol smile in the streets or in his carriage, but he did when Ronan kissed him. Even if it still kind of looked like he swallowed a lemon. Do you think-?” She swallows. “Do you think that he would have been mad at me, for telling? I didn’t want to. But it was hard, every time someone talked about him or the Comte de Peyrol, especially Peyrol, since they never knew . About any of it.” Charlotte shuffles a little on the bench. “Ronan was nice to me. He didn’t treat me differently for being a kid, and he always said hi. Some people are nice, but they don’t really notice me until I make it easy for them, you know? Or they only pay attention to me for a little while, but it still feels like I’m an annoying kid. Ronan wasn’t like that.” Ronan’s recklessness aside, Solène has always thought, privately, that he would have been the better at understanding children of the two of them. Maybe it is because, despite everything, despite the death that had always clung to the two of them, despite the hard work both of them had to do from a young age to keep their family intact, despite the fact that snow always signalled death and hunger, instead of something to play in, despite the anger and spite that could take over him in a second...some part of him never quite lost the boy he’d once been, and that part of him spoke to them.

Solène ruffles her hair absent-mindedly. Lazare de Peyrol had made sure that, even beyond the grave, she would be able to understand some part of the life he’d had with her brother, down to making sure that his old letters were found exactly where she and Olympe could find them. “No, no. I think they’d have been happy you told me.” “Happy” was probably an over-statement, especially since, if Ronan was alive still, he might very well not have been for long, but at least…. understanding . As much as either one of them could be.  Once Ronan got done being chased around the city for a few hours, he would have been fine.  Charlotte nods. “At least try to talk to Olympe, alright? She misses you, you miss her…”

“You know it isn’t always that easy.”  Charlotte pulls herself off the bench, turning to look at Solène then. “So what if you don’t agree on anything if you love one another and want to be together?”  Solène doesn’t have time to respond before Charlotte’s lost in the sea of bodies that shuffle through, and she’s alone.  She pulls out the scarf from her pocket. It’s filthy, stained with Ronan’s sweat and grime, dotted with ink stains (how the hell he was able to get ink stains on his scarf is beyond her) and, though it might have once have been a deep red color, it’s washed out and faded. Really, it’s a wonder the Comte de Peyrol allowed it to touch his precious furniture.  (This is the scarf, she knows, that he wore when he left the farm, the first one Peyrol would have seen him in, when he shot their father, and perhaps that was the reason why.)  “You-” She grits her teeth and pockets it again. She won’t get what she’s looking for here. She wishes that she could say she has no idea how she ends up in the graveyard, that her feet simply betray her, but she is many things, but a liar is certainly not one of them: She seeks out the graveyard, every footstep certain, even though she pulls the shawl she brings with her tighter around her, tight enough that she reminds herself of one of the old women of the village. (She doesn’t know whether she does it to keep out the winter’s chill, or whether it’s the breath of the Ankou she feels on her, rolling down her back and leaving a valley of gooseflesh in its wake.)  The church spire looms ahead of her, the clock rolling out the first long, mournful knell in a sequence, the force feeling like it would shake the earth and the long rows of graves around it. In the night, shadows lurk behind the stones that rise up from the ground, the crosses above the graves giving the ever steady impression that she isn’t alone there. Though she cannot read the gravestones, and it has been so long since she was last here that she does not remember much more than which side of the church it was on, she knows the rough outline of Ronan’s name well enough to know what is it and what isn’t right (she knows the look of her name, and she knows that Ronan’s name looks like hers, but different in the front), eyes scanning the newer graves to find the distinctive M-A-Z . The first three letters are sharp, that’s what she remembers, sharp and pointed, before the name becomes curved.  There is no paved road here, only the path worn by the footfalls of the bereaved over the years, and the rain that had taken over the whole of Paris earlier that day had not spared this one church, turning the dirt road to mud. Her shoes squelch in the thick mud that tries to cling onto them as she puts one foot in front of the other, turning to look the graves that line both sides of the pathway. She stumbles more than finds it, in the end, looking at another grave so much that she almost falls over the grave in front of her, and though she can’t read all of it, she can see the M-A-Z-U-R-I-E-R carved into the front, can see that it’s one of the newer graves, the gravestone barely worn at all compared to some of the others. More than that, though, there’s a distinct feeling in her chest when she sees it, the same feeling that she had the instant that Ronan fell to the ground. Her brother is here, she knows that much, knows it deep in her bones.  She looks down at the grave, at the letters she can’t quite read and the numbers that aren’t quite right, and she doesn’t have the eloquence of the Comte de Peyrol when he sat there and knelt all those months before.  “You fucking idiot,” she says, gritting her teeth. “What the Hell were you thinking?” She paces around, hands in her pockets. She sighs, turning back to face the grave. “I know, I know. You never think. But that’s the PROBLEM. Peyrol? Fucking PEYROL?”

The grave is unresponsive, even more so than Ronan usually was when she was having it out with him.  She slams her hand against the gravestone, the force not enough to even raise a satisfying THUMP. “He ruined our family’s life. He killed our father in FRONT of you. Hell, he would have killed YOU, if he hadn’t decided that one dead peasant was as good as another. I don’t understand it. I don’t! You hated him. We BOTH hated him. Or at least, that was what I believed. Did you lie to all of your friends as well? Say that you wanted nothing better than the Comte de Peyrol to be dead and all the aristocrats strung up before going home to fuck your boyfriend? Peyrol?”  She looks at the grave then. “I don’t understand it,” she said, quietly. The two of you had nothing in common. What did you even have? Besides,” she rolls her eyes, already imagining Ronan’s answer. “The obvious .” Peyrol wasn’t even that handsome. He was rich, but “soulless, gaunt corpse that runs around doing the Royal Family’s bidding” was never her sort of person. She’d have fucked him, if he paid her enough, but Ronan was in a relationship with the man. That was different. He went home every day and kissed those clay-cold lips and slept with him after they’d fucked.  “What the Hell was it about him, huh?” She looks down, her arms dropping limply to her sides. “Was it worth it?” She pauses, letting the night air speak for her, chilly and brittle as it rustles her hair and shawl. Being there, seeing him, she learns nothing. If she was hoping for some answer, some affirmation that he’d done the right thing, all those months ago (not even a year, months ago), she has nothing to show for it. Ronan is beyond talking.  “Anyway,” she sits down in front of the the grave, her arms looping around her knees. “I’ve come to tell you something. Olympe is in trouble. A lot of trouble, I think. And I believe you know, very well, that she is very…” She gives a placating nod of her head before throwing her hands in the air. “Difficult, when she’s angry. And I know-” A lump threatens to form in her throat, but she swallows it down. “I know what you would do in my place. You would follow your heart, throwing your fortune to the wind and saving her from the Royal Family. But don’t you see? I’m NOT you.”  And maybe, for the first time since she’s arrived in Paris, when she says it, there is no confidence behind the words, no sense that not being Ronan is a benefit, because sometimes in life, even if his had been short, Ronan at least lived . Even when she lashed out, even when her anger reached the point that she thought that she could set the entire city on fire or else sink it into the Seine and let it sit with years of rot, she only survived . Ronan always took the most difficult option, not because he had to, but because something, some part of him compelled him to and he didn’t have the sense to say no.  And maybe, just for once, she wishes that she had the same compulsion, luring her to danger like the song of a siren.  “You tried to do the same,” and she doesn’t know who she’s reminding, him or her. “And look what happened to you. You’re here, the Comte de Peyr- your Comte is buried miles away, on the other end of the country. They couldn’t take him away from you in life but they did in death, anyway. And you can’t help me anymore, you’re-” and there’s that wobble in her throat again, but, even though she tries to swallow it again, it’s too large and too hard to swallow entire, a sob escaping along with the tears that she can’t force back into her eyes. “You’re dead.”

He should be there. He should be able to listen to her talk about the girl that she-that she cared for, she should be talking to him instead of a cold, lifeless stone. He should be looking at her then, eyes sparked with that reckless fire that could blaze or warm in an instant, and saying Hey, we’ll figure this out! I know we will! Before suggesting that, Versailles not being enough, they should storm the Tuileries. Because she knows, just as surely as she knew where the grave was, that Ronan would never leave her to do this on her own. He might have run away once, choking on his own guilt, but not with this, not when he had the chance to be the hero and fight away some dark force, like the heroes from their childhood stories fighting ogres who feasted in stone halls. He should be proposing some daring scheme, something that would be so stupid but that would at least let her think, somewhere, deep inside her, that it isn’t over .  She shouldn’t be facing this alone.  The tears are liquid hot against her cold skin as they roll down her cheek onto the ground. She forces herself to rise off the ground, looking down at the stone again. “And I have to do this. This is for me to decide.” She nods her head to herself. “And I’m deciding to close the door. I don’t want a part in it anymore. I’m done. I’m done with you, I’m done with Peyrol, I’m done with hopeless pining for something that will never happen, I’m done with trying to fight for anything that I want, anything . I’m going to be content with my life. I’m going to try for better, and then I’m going to stay there.” She isn’t sure whether she says it because she believes it, or whether she says it to spite Ronan.

He would hate it, just being content , but then again, if he’d never left, she would never have had to. It would have been hard, living on the road, but they would have been together, at least. They would have had four hands and four feet to find work with. They would still have struggled, but they would have at least had one person in the world that they could trust, one person to turn to in a city that seemed like a world of its own, filled with alleys and corners that she had to learn on her own.  She turns to leave, but then looks at the grave once again, the stone slab rising above the earth and the small cross at the back of it, all that the rest of the world will ever know of Ronan Mazurier. “I’m sorry.” And she doesn’t know who to say it to, Ronan, Olympe, even the Comte de Peyrol, just that it feels right to say it now. “I have to do this.”  She pulls her shawl around her tighter and leaves the cemetery then, never losing the feeling of something being at her back the entire time.

She returns home to Rue Saint-Denis, dawn just beginning to glint over the city, feeling...not free, not really, but certain. She knows what she has to do and she’ll do it, and she will try not to think of whatever could have been. If she focuses on “could have been”s and dreams of a better life, she won’t be able to focus on the very real future she can obtain. There’s no use feeling a certain sense of regret, because it’s done. She can’t be Ronan. And that’s how she’s going to survive, not throwing herself on the nearest cannonball for the sake of a love that can never happen, even if it is reciprocated.  Even if Olympe didn’t love someone else, more than Solène, more than her own life.  It feels as if someone dropped a load of stones on Solène’s back, and finds herself staring up the stairs to her room, dread knotting in her stomach. The stairs might as well lead up to the moon, with how far they are.  She needs to sleep, that’s it. It’s been a long night, and she needs her rest.   One foot on the stairs, the wood creaking beneath her foot.  Then the other.  Then hauling her foot up the next.  Again.  Again.  Again.  Again.  Again.  She works her way to the top of the stairs, breathing in deeply as she approaches the door to her room, not sure why it feels so empty. It’s her room, the one luxury that she can afford herself being enough privacy to have her own space. She’s made her decision, there’s no going back now. No room for second-guessing. It will do her no good.  Tomorrow, when she goes to accept Marguerite and Emilie’s offer, then she’ll feel better. Then…  Whatever thought she has is stifled because there, in front of the door to her room, is Olympe du Puget, her satin skirt and cloak pooled around her on the uneven floor, reading a book while chewing on her lower lip. Though it wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who doesn’t know her, Solène can see a certain amount of tension in her body, in the way that her movements are a little too abrupt, without the polish and elegance that she’s accustomed to.  Solène stands perfectly still, almost wondering if twitching a muscle will ruin this. Hell, if blinking will ruin this, and she will open her eyes and return to her drafty, dark apartment.  Then, Olympe looks up, and promptly nearly jumps back against the wall before bolting upwards.

“Mademoiselle Mazurier! If you want me to leave, I will leave! However-oh, I do not know where to begin. But if you would-” Before she has even finished speaking, Solène has opened the door, gesturing for her to come in without a word and giving a small smile, in spite of herself, at the totally blank look on Olympe faces as she scuttles in. As Solène joins her, though, the smile disappears, as the two of them find themselves on opposite sides of a small, cramped room, both of them at the mercy of the awkward, tense silence that fills the air around them. The last time they’d shared this space, they had just begun to open up to one another, sharing one another’s heat after the March to Versailles, which seems so long ago now even if it only a month separates them from it now. Now, she doesn’t know what to do, seeing her there, feeling herself being pulled towards her but pushing against it with all her power. Olympe seems to be as aware of it as Solène, folding her arms in front of herself and lowering her face when she notices Solène watching her, to which Solène turns away to focus on the wall intently, trying to catalogue the different types of mold that she can find.  She can go over to Olympe’s side. It would be so easy. It would be so easy to walk up to her, but she knows, very well, what kind of Hell that would be. To find herself falling in love with her again, over and over, without any hope. To find herself, once again, dancing on the knife’s edge of potential , only to find herself stabbed with it.  Still, if they keep on like this, it is going to be more of a Hell, everything drawn out.  “Why-” “I-” They both open their mouths to speak at the same time.

Olympe straightens her back. “I am intruding on your hospitality. You should go first.”  “I’m-” Solène sighs, the words that she knows have to be formed if she wants any sort of closure painful. “I’m sorry for what I said. I was upset at the time.” She hasn’t changed her mind, not in the least. She doesn’t think she ever will. But she’s very aware of when she’s kicked a hornet’s nest, and she’s felt the sting quite bitterly over the last week.  Olympe nods, in a way that’s almost absent-minded, and Solène has no idea what is in her mind in this moment, or whether her words have reached her at all. “There is something-Oh, there is something that you must know. Something important.” She walks clear to the other end of the room, her cloak flaring behind her, and then she turns to Solène. “It began with-no, it didn’t begin there. It was-No, not there either . If I just-” She throws down her hands in frustration.  Solène walks to the bed, patting next to her, and she knows that this will be Hell, but if it can be any comfort to Olympe... “You have time.”              Olympe places a hand across her ribcage, calming herself, before she joins Soléne on the bed. “Thank you. It began-I suppose it began with a nightmare. I had it for several nights after our…” she turns her face down, not looking Solène in the eye, and God, she’s reminded, once again, of how easy this had been last time, after they had revealed what needed to be revealed. Then...there had been an awkwardness, a sense of trying to understand where they stood with one another, but not this distance . And yet here they are once again, with Olympe once again dancing away from the truth and Solène just waiting . Olympe tightens her lips, and the motion is so familiar, even now, like this, that it makes Solène’s heart ache, though she is proud enough to keep her face impassive. “Our disagreement. And, of course, whenever they are persistent, then…”

“Then you start to worry, because things aren’t the way they should be.” She’s been feeling the same, even if she didn’t know how to describe it. Not just not having Olympe there, but things have been feeling...off, in ways she can’t exactly explain. Much less with Olympe's sensitivity to this sort of thing. ("Water," Olympe had said that time, and she'd thought it meant that she wanted water, or else that it was a bad dream brought on by the March to Versailles, but no, she'd known when Peyrol took his life. Maybe even down to the moment it happened.) Olympe nods her head. “I attempted to go about my life, however it felt as if there was something.” She knits her brows together. “Wrong the whole time. Part of it, I knew, was having left things in such a way with you.I was...overwrought, as well. I did say certain things, with regards to Ronan-”

“We were both in no mood for it.”  “I should have called on you immediately afterwards the next day, to see if you were well.” Olympe’s liquid brown eyes raised to meet Solène’s, and there it is, that bolt of lightning between them that Solène’s missed, that moment of remembering, time after time again, that beneath the silks and satins, there’s a spine of iron and ice. Olympe must see it too, because she tears away from the gaze, looking just off to the side. “However, I didn’t. And for that I do blame myself, believe me.”  “You don’t have all the blame.” Every single part of her is screaming to take Olympe’s hand, because that is what she’s supposed to do when Olympe is upset, that is how to calm her, however she holds back, only offering a glance (funny, how in some ways, they’re even more formal than they were the first time they ever met), and Olympe returns it with a warm, partial smile instead, albeit one still pricked with tension, and, at least, there is some of the awkwardness between them gone.   Despite herself, despite everything, despite the pain that she knows it will bring her, she cannot stay mad at Olympe du Puget. It is a special talent of hers, to dim even the famous flare of the Mazurier temper.  “Still, the permanent loss of your friendship-” She shakes her head, twisting her hands together. “It will do no good to do this forever, not when-I was unable to think of anything but what had transpired, even when doing my duties to the Queen, and then the nightmares…I had to go back. I needed to see them again, with a clearer head, and make the decision from there. So, today, I finally found the courage to go in. I wanted to ask you to go with me, but after what happened last time-I believed-I thought...so I went on my own. I anticipated that you wouldn’t have remembered to lock the door after you left.” “You took the letters?” Solène asks. Olympe, the girl who couldn’t go ten words without praising the Royal Family, really took an entire stack of incriminating letters from the house of a suicide?  “That is just it.” Olympe looks at her then, black eyes wide, and Soléne, for the first time, realizes, fully, why she has been so uneasy, as she sees the full amount of panic just barely concealed beneath, feeling it spike in herself as well as she anticipates the words that are to follow. “The letters are gone.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Gone? What do you mean ‘Gone’?” The world is washed out around her, buzzing filling her ears as the autumn draft that fills the room nips at her skin, sharper in the haze. In that moment, she exists, she knows she does, she knows that she’s there, in that room, with Olympe, but it feels like her mind and body have disconnected from one another, that it isn’t real. It is the same feeling that she had when Ronan was lowered into the dirt, the feeling of something permanent and drastic happening without the ability to understand it. The letters are gone. “I don’t know-I went there, exactly where I’d left them, and they were gone! I checked all over the apartment, in case you’d-” “I didn’t touch them after you left.” Someone had to have taken them. It couldn’t have been either one of them, so who-She collapses onto the bed, drawing a hand upwards from her forehead into her hair. The sound is halfway between an “uh!” and an “ack!”, not quite a scream or a groan, but one that comes from deep within her throat. Olympe sits beside her, skirts spread out neatly on the bed as she touches Solène’s arm tentatively, purse at her side. Solène jerks up from her frustration to look at her, and Olympe shrugs her shoulders, looking at her with eyes that have lost their shine but not their hope, wordlessly offering her comfort. Still, Solène can’t be reassured. Someone is out there, in the city of Paris, with the letters, someone took them from her, from them, and she doesn’t know who, or where they are, or what they intend to do with them, just that, one day, they were there, in the chest, and the next gone. And it isn’t even loss she feels the most, though loss is there. They were Peyrol’s secrets. Peyrol’s attempt to-what? Make things better? Atone for the past, like he could just wave his quill around and up comes Ronan from the tomb? No. Most of all, she doesn’t feel grief or pain, but anger, anger and a deep, deep frustration because she was there. She’d held them in her hands and she’d left them. She could have taken them to her apartment, she should have taken them to her apartment and now they’re gone and she didn’t want them, but she can’t stand to have them gone. They are hers, hers, hers, and they were taken from her and it’s one more thing, one more thing that people have snatched from her, and she doesn’t know where they are, but they have to be somewhere, just out of reach. Someone was currently going about their lives with them, and she had no way of knowing who or how. Especially because now, that one last little bit of accountability, of clarity is gone, scrubbed clean off the face of the earth.Scrubbed clean- And just like that, the red fog in her mind clears. Not entirely, but enough to begin to see the outline of something, something more important, greater-She’d said it herself. All the Royal Family’s darkest secrets, put on display.She just didn’t know what it meant at the time. But who would know-Athenais’ voice, mocking, fills her head.
Just because the king is imprisoned, that does not mean the full power of the royal family is gone…

He was being watched, in the days leading up to the Bastille-
The Secret Police were interested in Peyrol, they’d been watching him all that time, and if they knew those letters existed, if they’d had the slightest idea-
They are here, in the city, and even though the Comte is dead, that does not mean their business with him is. You never know who might be watching.
They were….otherwise occupied with one of my girls. Which meant they’d been in the city recently, which meant that they could have taken it, because the letters could prove-
He has had his hooks in him this long.
Scrubbed clean. “I know who took them,” Solène says. “But God knows how we’ll find them.”“Are you sure about this?” Olympe clutches her cloak tightly, though it does nothing to disguise her, the filmy purple fabric that she wears over her head and the velvet purse tied to her wrist screaming “money.” “It’s my fault it was lost, I intend to do everything I can to make it right.” Her back is ramrod straight, even as she looks down nervously, every inch of her set in pure, frustrating determination. She is still pale, a sickly pallour having settled over her, and she is thin, gaunt, but she is more herself than she was the last time they had seen one another, and that is something. (Solène will not think of Peyrol in his final days, when the Ankou’s breath was on his face, she will not. That thing will not take one more this year.)They are standing outside Athenais’ place, an otherwise-unassuming set of apartments next to the Opera. It’s how Athenais has made her money over the years, with a stream of customers at the peak of the season and an even steadier stream of desperate girls who find that, just because they appear on stage one time, they haven’t made their futures yet. “I can’t ask you to-” “Then it’s a good thing you aren’t asking me, I’m going.” Olympe walks ahead of her. Solène sighs, and Olympe turns her head over her shoulder. “I trust you’re coming?” Athenais is many things, but she isn’t a fool. There’s a footman at the door who eyes them critically, a burly meatsack of a man. He might have been in the army at one point, from the look of him, maybe a butcher or someone who worked at the docks. Wherever she found him, he’s there now, and he’s been there long enough to cast a jaded, cynical look at the pair of them. “And what are the two of you doing here?” “We’re here to see Athenais. We have business with her.” Solène says. “You and everyone else.” He stays rooted to the doorway, and Solène doesn’t budge away. They stand off against one another, like two trees in the middle of a high storm, each of them daring the other to bend first. “You aren’t the sort she’s interested in.” “Such a pity,” Olympe says, nudging her way in-between the two of them. “For I had very much hoped to meet her about a certain problem of mine.” The man’s hard glint is replaced with appreciation, his eyes roving over Olympe’s face. Solène swallows hard to hide the low, threatening sound that arises from her throat and is almost a growl. Then, his eyes travel lower and see the clothing that, while not as rich as some of the gowns that Solène’s seen her in, especially the one at Versailles, isn’t anything like what even a middle class woman would wear. Olympe’s nobility, there’s no hiding it. It’s in every thread of silk, it’s in every hair on her head, and it’s there down to the marrow. He scowls. “She won’t want you, either. Too much trouble to take in a noble girl, especially these days.” “Of course I understand, Monsieur. You are very good at your job. It’s just…” Her eyes widen, and she frantically places a hand on her stomach. “The baby. I do not know how I will be able to provide for it. The officer offered me marriage, how was I to know?” Her hands fly up and down before gripping onto the man’s shoulder, and, despite knowing otherwise, Solène fully believes that, somehow, Olympe has thrown herself in with an officer and is now a woman in vulnerable circumstances. “And now my father has turned me out of the house and I have nowhere to go but this place. But...” She nods her head solemnly, raising a trembling hand as she pulls away. “I understand. You do your job very well.”Olympe moves to walk away, holding her head with the air of an aggrieved martyr, determined to carry on despite the weight of the world on her shoulders, and it’s all Solène can do to keep her mouth from hanging open. Olympe du Puget - A governess, a damn good shot, and the best actress in Paris. “Wait! Mademoiselle…” Only Solène can see the smile that slowly spreads on Olympe’s face before she turns around. I’ll talk to her, see what she can do.”“Oh, really, Monsieur?” She clasps her hands together. “You are too kind!” “No promises, though,” he waves his finger like he hasn’t just been taken by one of the oldest tricks that they know, “And…” he pulls Olympe closer, “I get to be the one to try you out first.” “Of course,” she grimaces, a hand jolting up on impulse before she lowers it, casting her eyes down in exaggerated modesty masking disgust. “Of course, though I would not wish to displease Madame.” The man chuckles, removing his hand but not leaving Olympe’s side. A pain shoots through Solène’s hand, and she looks down to see that she’s dug her own nails into her palm, her knuckles pale. She slaps the offending hand, forcing it to loosen. Olympe knows what she’s doing. She has to trust that. She can’t ruin it by committing a murder in the middle of the street, no matter how temping it might be at the moment. Violence isn’t the language that they’ll be speaking this day. “You leave the old bat to me,” he says, leading her inside. “Just leave the old bat to me.” Athenais isn’t a creature of dark halls and cobwebs like Peyrol, she’s a creature of marble and glistening gold, pale, colorless statues of women seeming to glare down at them beneath shadowed eyes from lofty pedestals, their naked bodies twisting unnaturally. The floors are hardwood the color of honey, no boards creaking beneath their feet, waxed so well that Solène can almost see her own frowning, dirty reflection staring back at her. She looks at Olympe, trying to see (hoping to see?) whether she feels the same discomfort that rolls down Solène's back like a thick, trailing sweat, but there is nothing. Olympe's posture is straight, her head held high, and she walks fully with the confidence that this is where she's meant to be. Of course, Solène thinks, she's never been told that this isn't where she belongs. She's never known a life away from this sort of thing, even if it is, when the night dawns, one more brothel in a Parisian street. And though Solène wants to take her hand, cling onto it just like Olympe had clung onto hers during all that followed the March to Versailles, she doesn't, only trailing behind the other woman, while Athenais' perfumed and powdered courtesans glare at her as if she is a piece of rubbish, each of them dressed in the same white muslin gown. Some of them still have baby fat clinging onto their cheeks beneath the rouge, looking even younger than Susanne, but with emptier eyes. They weren't that different from her, at one point -- country girls, maids, servants, middle class girls who'd had a bad day and fell into the jaws of the she-wolf. But they were given rooms and fine dresses and then told they had to pay for them with aristocratic men who will tire of them within a few months, while Solène starved but never had to bend her back for anyone if she didn't feel like it. Her suitors are fleeting in their attention (some of them more than others), but there is an honesty to them -- She is never given false expectations or false hope, and each night, regardless of anything else, the cuts and bruises and sore knees that she’s accepted are a part of the job, she walks away a free woman. She holds her head high, imitating Olympe's straight posture, glaring at them and daring for them to say anything, but there is only silence. They're taken to a sitting room with wide windows that let in the pale winter sunlight beneath velvet white curtains, the cushions on the couches a light, creamy yellow that reminds her of the lemon confections that Olympe would sometimes smuggle to her. A large, marble fireplace sits between them, the flames warm against the November air. Of course Athenais never has to worry about anything as inconvenient as a winter's chill. Several servants bustle around, carrying plates of pastries and several porcelain cups, the smell of hot chocolate briefly wafting past Solène’s nose, causing her treacherous stomach to rumble, before disappearing into the next room.Sitting on one of the two couches are a woman and a girl of about twelve years, a year or so removed from Charlotte, but where Charlotte is free in her movements, with swinging legs and a face that conceals nothing, this girl is quiet, sitting primly with her hands folded in her lap while her mother sips at a cup of tea, hands trembling. They look middle class, by the looks of them, clean clothing, good, strong fabrics, and two pearl earrings in the mother's ear, but nothing notable. "Wait here." The man jerks his head to the couch and Olympe, dutifully, sits down. Solène looks critically at the couch, looking to the other women to see how they sit, even to the child. They all look so...natural here. And she doesn't know why it bothers her, she doesn't give a damn about what Athenais thinks of her, and she doesn't care if she breaks the couch as she sits down on it, but...Olympe. Her heart twists. She wants to blend in for Olympe. Even if it means resembling one of Athenais' perfectly perfumed birds. After their separation, it is as if she is doing everything she can to ensure that she appears...like they would fit. It's frightening, almost, the knowledge that Olympe could change her way of doing things, even without her realizing it. That, after only a week without her, she's terrified of the thought of another rift between them. But...Olympe's never judged her before, and Solène is enough of a Mazurier to know that, all else aside, if Olympe was the sort of person to judge her for how she can sit on a couch, she wouldn't be good company to keep, anyway. Giving up sitting with anything resembling dignity, she lowers herself down, her skirts spreading out, and Olympe gives her a reassuring smile. Their hands are close, Solène almost feeling the burn of Olympe's hands from several inches away, but she doesn't go farther. It feels wrong to hold Olympe's hand here, even if she could use the comfort. Sacrilegious. Not because she cares so much for Athenais, but because she cares so much for Olympe. Athenais and her cronies don't get to see it, they don't get to see her softer side. There is a quiet awkwardness to them. They have nothing in common, and this isn't the sort of appointment that’s brought up in polite society. Olympe smooths out her skirt, looking between the polished oak floor and the woman and the girl. “It is a very fine day,” she says. “I hadn’t noticed.” The woman turns her nose up, an iron hand on her daughter. “I hope she will see us soon enough. She always insists on taking her time, you’d think she was the Queen herself.” Solène snorts. “Not your first time dealing with Athenais, I see.” “No, nor my last, likely. But, with three other little ones, must needs must.” It’s a common story – One moment, a woman has security, a husband (or something close enough to one), children, steady income, food in her belly, and the next, she is on the street, and the children’s bellies are still growling.Olympe gives a small, pitying smile. “Is there no other way?” “None at all – my eldest ran away to become a soldier, lured away with promises of pay and adventure. That leaves the girls.” “The–” Olympe’s brow knits and, before she can say anything more, a footman opens the door. “Madame will see you now.” They both get up, the woman and the girl, and walk into the room. For a moment, they see the girl, turn back, and her face isn’t the face of a future courtesan, but the face of a child – a frightened child, mouth parted, eyes darting between them, and then her mother’s hand is on her shoulder, the door clicks shut, and they see her no more. Olympe stares at the door afterwards, shaking her head. “Surely, she doesn’t mean–” Solène looks ahead, at the wall with its decorative panels of peaceful woods and fields, at the painted garlands of flowers that drape along them, at the moulding on the walls, every ounce of it built on a foundation of blood. It’s in every room of this place, mixing into the paint, seeping through the floorboards, soaking the beds. Girls who had been like her, who had been vulnerable, scared, young. Girls who had looked for an option, or whose parents had presented them with one, and then could never leave because of the golden chain Athenais fastened around their necks. “There are many things here that we don’t like to think about.” “But…if the police knew…” “The police are already getting their cut, I promise you.” A bit of skin, a bit of information, and the police wouldn’t care if Athenais were conducting virgin sacrifices (she already is, in a sense), so long as she was quiet about it. Banning their trade had done nothing, it just made it so that the police held the power of God over those who they caught and made those with the type of power to work openly invincible. “But..someone must do something. If she is allowed to…”

“And who would stop her? The noblemen who are asking for girls in the first place? Whatever Athenais is, she doesn’t exist alone, none of us do.” Unless the others were right and this oncoming storm swept Athenais away with the rest of them, she would linger, a foul thing that was nonetheless indispensable to the ones who would prefer to not look her in the eye as they paid her. And..even then, she could service a deputy as easily as a nobleman. No, creatures like Athenais had always existed, and they had the bad tendency of surviving even when better people died, in the cracks and the holes, scuttling around until they found something new to latch onto like rats on a sinking ship. Olympe shakes her head, crossing her hands over her shoulders. “What kind of beast…?” “Her own kind.” Solène replies. Then, she softens. “Are you certain about this? Now that you know how dangerous she is…”

Olympe straightens her back, looking at her, hair flowing down her back, and she is fierce, as fierce as Solène ever has seen her, the kind of fierceness that is kept reined beneath a bridle of porcelain, yes, and brave, as brave as that day at Versailles, brave and determined but, more than anything, Solène can see the anger that rolls off of her, cascading down her neck like a bitter perfume. “If I ran now, who would I be?” And Solène smiles at her, awed, fond, proud, and perhaps more than a bit in love. Olympe could stand face to face with the Devil, with the Ankou himself, and hold her own, she is certain of that. The door opens, and the smile disappears, both of their backs straightening as the footman opens the door and the mother and daughter walk out, huddled together. “Madame will see you now.” Olympe doesn’t move at first, eyes continuing to follow the mother and daughter until they are no longer in sight. Then, she looks at Soléne, forcibly nodding at her questioning look. “We are ready.”  “Ah.” Athenais’ back is to the door where she sits on a long couch, facing a marble fireplace. The fire is roaring, unaturaly smothering even in the winter chill, though not enough to raise a sweat, keeping things perpetually at the edge of reason. There is a clink as she lowers a teacup onto a porcelain plate that sits on a side table, and then, imperiously, she raises a hand. “You may proceed.” They step in closer as the doors shut behind them, and Solène hears the sound of a bolt locking into place from the other side of the door. She looks to Olympe, who shares a wary glance to her. “Come.” Athenais says. “Come closer into the light, where I can see you better.” Olympe squeezes Solène’s hand, and Solène wonders why she agreed to this, why she let Olympe volunteer to go into this vulture’s lair, when she knew. She knew what kind of monster Athenais is. And now…The place where Olympe’s hand touched hers burns all the more from the heat of the fireplace, burns as if it had brushed against a brand, sweat forming along the palm.Olympe’s posture gives nothing away as she approaches the couch, not showing an ounce of worry. “Madame.” She curtsies low, eyes averted to the floor. From where Solène stands, she can see the faint, mocking ghost of a smile on Athenais’ face, the smile that the wolf gives when it sees a particularly delicate lamb. “You are exactly as my man told me,” she says, reaching a hand out, and Soléne wants to murder her for touching Olympe. “Young, fresh-” Athenais inspects Olympe as if she’s an apple in the marketplace, turning her face back and forth in her clawed hand, denting Olympe’s cheeks. “Of course, we know that a woman of your station…such a thing would permanently mar my reputation were rumors to get out. However, Christian charity does move my heart.”“Come on, Athenais,” Soléne steps forward. “We all know you don’t have one.”A smile curves onto Athenais’ face. “Ah, Mazurier, grand heroine of the Revolution. I always knew you were bold, but I never expected this level of impudence.”Solène makes an effort of shrugging. “Your mistake.”“Was it Christian charity you showed to that poor girl that was here before us?” The glare that Olympe gives Athenais, a look of pure, righteous fury, as if it to say that, if it wasn’t for the frail chain of etiquette, Olympe would take take her down on the spot, sets Solène’s pulse racing. “But of course,” Athenais isn’t moved, only placing a hand on her heart. “These girls, these poor creatures come to me so bedraggled, dressed in only rags, often having been ruined by some soldier with a pretty tongue, begging me for help, with nowhere to go, nothing to do. I’m moved, so often, to help them in the only way that I can.” She takes her teacup up, painted mouth sipping delicately along the gilded edges of the porcelain. “And help your own purse in the process.” Solène scowls. “But we haven’t come to preach a sermon to you, we’re here for information.”

“Oh?” She places the teacup down again, smiling, too serenely, at Solène. “Whatever could you want from me? Proud Solène Mazurier, who’s always stuck her dirty little nose up at me, who, not several months ago, took what might have been an excellent prospect right from under me–” “And the elderly aristocrat you’d have put on top of her.” Just because Solène thought Ronan was rash, it didn’t mean that she hadn’t inherited some of the Mazurier tongue herself. And perhaps it is worth it, just to see Athenais frown, one of the most notorious bawds in Paris acting like she had any delicate sensibilities left to spare. “Who, even now, in my own establishment, mocks me.” Then, the look in her eyes turns gleaming, predatory, blue eyes shining behind the layers of powder caked onto her face. “It must be very valuable information indeed. Especially with your aristocratic friend here. What is it: a spurned lover, a jealous wife, a bastard daughter looking for vengeance?” “The Secret Police,” Solène replies evenly. “We know they’ve been here, and we know they took information from us that we want back.”Athenais looks at her, a smile breaking out onto her face. “The Secret-the Secret-” She laughs, a galloping, whooping laugh, the laugh of a lowborn slut that had been raised in the gutter instead of the prim and proper courtesan she pretends to be. “Oh, Mazurier, and I thought you had no sense of humor. The Secret Police! Now,” she wipes a stray tear away from her eye. “What do you really want? If you want to want to work for me, I’ll provide you a dress and we can do…something about your…” She waves a hand in the air. “Everything, but that will come out of your pay, along with a small extra fee for all the trouble you’ve caused me. Learn to curb your tongue or there’ll be more.” Solène leans against the gilded mantelpiece to the fireplace, her elbow nudging up against a sculpted cupid’s obnoxiously saccharine face. She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t need to, her silence saying everything that needs to be said. The smile on Athenais’ face flickers, then, slowly, dies a wasting death as she realizes that Solène is perfectly serious. “Are you insane, girl? Do you have any idea what you’re asking?” “I am – Now, are you going to give us the information or not? We need to know whether the little bastards let slip where they’re going next, and you are uniquely capable of telling us.” “And why would I give you that kind of valuable information?” Solène smiles through barred teeth. “From the kindness of your heart, of course, out of Christian charity.”“Madame,” Olympe stands up. And though Solène can see how the last months have worn down on her, how thin she is compared to the girl who watched the sunset with her on that summer day, how pale and pallid she is, she does not show it in her demeanor, as firm and steady as she had been at Versailles, even though this time, she faces the danger with a polite smile. “How clumsy of me, I don’t believe we had the chance to make a proper introduction. Olympe du Puget, former governess to our dear, departed Dauphin, who departed from us this last year, along with the other royal children whenever there is a need.” That startles Athenais out of her smugness. “A royal governess? You mean to tell me the Royal Family has an interest in this?” “I could not say.” “The information you’re asking for…” Athenais leans closer, something sharp and glinting in her eyes. “Is very valuable, certainly, if it has drawn the interest of the Royal Family. And, even though times are hard, I’m sure they would be willing to part with some small trifle to someone who has been as loyal as I over the years.” “As is the information that you are selling young girls, Madame.” “The police have never minded,” Athenais’ smile doesn’t reach her eyes, wrinkles breaking through the powder like cracks in the earth after a long drought. “Shall we see if the Queen will?” “Does anyone know you’re here?’“The Queen, the King.” Olympe straightens her back. “My father, a former officer of the king’s dragoons.” Athenais cackles, throwing her head back. “What kind of father would let his daughter go to a place like this?” Olympe keeps her usual smile, but there is something cold in her stare. “One who trusts his daughter to come home.” There is no pleading, there is no hesitancy, there are no wide eyes or tears. “Should I believe you, I wonder. Strange for the King and Queen to send a governess on something like this. Who’s to say that you aren’t lying to me, and this is all some elaborate trick? And the Secret Police are directly employed by the Comte d’Artois, who has always been one of my best customers…” Olympe opens her purse, pulling out the pistol that she’d wielded at Versailles. “The information, Madame.” And then, as if remembering that it was impolite to just demand things, she adds. “Please.” And, for the first time that Solène has ever seen since she made the mistake of meeting Athenais, the older woman’s countenance crumbles slightly, the cool, self-assured smile growing decidedly nervous. “--Who left behind a number of unpaid bills when he left the country, I must say. They said that they were leaving the country after they collected one small thing, they were going to try to lodge in Normandy for a brief time and attempt to cross the Channel from there, but it’s so hard to secure.” “I’m glad that you understand,” Olympe said, putting the pistol back in her purse, as if it was some small trinket, and then hurries to leave.“Wait-” Athenais clutches onto Olympe’s arm, and Olympe jerks to look at her. “You…won’t tell the King and Queen, will you? After all, I was such a comfort to his dear grandpapa in his old age, I’m practically part of the family myself.” “They will not hear about it from me,” Olympe says, coolly removing her arm from Athenais’ grasp. “But you will face the same justice as all of us in the end. And, after all…” her smile is cold, colder than Solène has ever seen it before, and it shouldn’t be making her pulse race to see her like this, perhaps it is cruel to enjoy the sudden look of despair on Athenais’ face, delicious as it is, but she has never claimed to not have a streak of cruelty, not when it comes to leeches like Athenais, who is finally running up against something stronger than her for the first time in her life. And she can admit that she likes seeing Olympe like this, cruel-kind, an angel of justice in a place where the angels have long since neglected them. “Times are hard.”She doesn’t need pikes, she doesn’t need long knives for cutting fish, she doesn’t even need that pistol that is now safely held in her purse – Olympe is her own weapon, even now, and she knows how to wield her tongue just as capably. “I’m simply an old woman who the world’s forgotten, making an honest living.” Athenais stretches her hands out, and it isn’t missed on Solène that, on each veiny, liver-spotted finger, there is a ring. “Then you have nothing to fear.” Olympe replies, picking up her skirts as she walks out. Solène follows after her, patting Athenais on the shoulder without breaking her stride. “I’ll see you at the tavern at the usual time!” As with many statements made by a Mazurier on their way out a door, it is both a threat and promise, and Solène smirks as she sees Athenais visibly deflate even further, like a hot air balloon that had been caught on a tree. Maybe she should start bringing Olympe to her meetings with the girls. On one hand, it might kill Athenais to see Olympe seated in her usual hunting grounds, especially if she had the gun in her hands. Perhaps she would have both feet perched on the table as well, the seat tilted backwards just enough to show off…On the other hand, Solène thinks, it might kill her first. If not from Olympe, then from the others’ teasing. But Athenais dying…She shakes her head and picks up her pace to keep up with Olympe, who is gliding across the floors as if she’s walked across them a thousand times before. Making their way down the hall, they pass the mother and daughter from earlier. Olympe walks several steps further before stopping in her steps, deliberating something to herself, and then, finally, turning to speak with them. “Hello,” she says. Both mother and daughter turn to look at her silently. “You don’t know me, but I’m a friend. My father is a nobleman, and one of our scullery maids recently got married. We are looking for help – I don’t know if we can pay more than this…” she looks around. “Place, but the pay will be fair and it will be steady, enough that she can send a small amount home, and she will have a place to stay, and food as well.” “We went to ten places – as soon as they heard about her sister, not a one would take us. A mother who never married the man she slept beside for five winters before he died, a sister who ran away with a soldier.” She sniffed. “They said they couldn’t trust her character.” “We all do foolish things for love, Madame.” Olympe touches the woman’s shoulder. “I am not one to judge. You do not have to trust me, but if you go to the du Puget household, at the corner of Saint-Antoine and Tournelles, and you ask for Olympe, you will find a friend.” “Why are you doing this?” The woman’s eyes are suspicious, a look that Solène knows because she has seen it staring back at her from the other side of a mirror or in a puddle of rainwater as much as she’s seen it in the faces of people in the streets. “Because it’s within my ability to help, if you will take it.” “We won’t take charity.” “Then it is a good thing I’m not offering it, but work.” “We’ll see, Mademoiselle du Puget. We’ll see.”“Good.” When they leave the place, they are hit, fully, with the full blast of a strong breeze, different from the smothering warmth of Athenais’ place, and Solène has never been so glad to feel the bite of winter on her shoulder. “You know there will be another one to take that girl’s place in a week if her mother takes your offer.” She tries to keep her tone light. “Creatures like Athenais are good at slipping through the cracks.” “Perhaps so,” Olympe looks at her. “But we can help this girl, here and now. Your brother…Ronan believed in creating a better world through revolution. A revolution that would burn everything in its wake. I believed he was wrong, his images – of fire, of bloodshed in the streets, ashes on the ground – frightened me, worried me. They still do. But perhaps he was right. Perhaps that is the only way of creating a better world. Perhaps everything – the king, the queen, the Comte d’Artois, the Secret Police, Monsieur de Peyrol, myself…perhaps we all have to die before that new world of his could be born.” Looking at her now, when they are out of eyesight of Athenais, when Olympe no longer has to carry herself high, when she can slump, when she can look as haggard as she no doubt feels, Solène is not sure that that day will be long in coming. She had deluded herself, while they were at Athenais’. She had forgotten that Olympe is not well, has not been well for some time, had wanted to believe that she is still as strong as she had been when Solène had first seen her. “But, until that new world comes, we might try to create it ourselves, one step at a time.” “We might.” Solène echoes. They walk in silence, with only the sounds of their heels against the cobblestone for company, before Solène breaks the silence. “What do we do now?” “There is surely no other option left for us,” Olympe replies, “but to go to Normandy.”