Clutching Olympe’s hand, Camille dragged them through the choking smoke towards the stage door. The fire jumped to a swinging rope and raced along the curtains. Within seconds, the whole place was ablaze. Smoke stung her eyes, and she fell to her knees, coughing. Everything in her chest and throat and mouth itched, wheezed, spasmed, burned until she couldn’t suck in a single breath. She slammed a fist on her chest; her diaphragm contracted, and she coughed out the last of her air, then sucked in a thin stream of smoke.

Olympe had disappeared. She must have kept running, but now the smoke was too thick to see any sign of where she’d gone.

Slowly, Camille stood.

And found she wasn’t alone.

Dorval walked across the burning boards towards her, dripping blood from where her pistol had hit him.

She knew she should feel scared, but all she could feel was exhaustion. Her chest ached and her head swam. How many more times could she do this and win?

‘Hand the girl over before I put you and your friends down like the vermin you are.’

Good. He didn’t have her.

‘If you want a girl, I’m given to understand it’s not hard to acquire one in the Palais-Royal pleasure gardens.’

‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you? Sniffing around our business. What did you think you were going to do? Find a way to blackmail us? It’s a shame you’re not quite as clever as you think.’

‘Really? Because I think I did pretty well.’

He closed in on her. A wolf. That’s what he reminded her of. A wolf buttoned into a man-suit.

A tongue of fire licked up, crackling the air. The heat was curling the hair on the back of her neck and sending rivulets of sweat between her breasts.

‘You may have seen a few things, but you have no idea what my master has planned. The girl is only the start. The world must be righted, Camille Laroche. The natural order must be restored. The king on his throne and the treasonous scum of the Revolution put down like dogs.’ A curtain engulfed in flame collapsed behind him, rippling down from the smoke-filled ceiling. ‘If the Revolutionaries want terror, then we’re more than happy to provide it.’

She spat in his stupid, hateful face.

Dorval scraped the glistening globule of spit from his cheek, his expression changing from smug satisfaction to unveiled rage. He twisted his fist in the front of her shirt and hauled her up so his meaty breath filled her nostrils.