For a brief moment, Ada had thought Camille might cross the room and kiss her goodbye. Instead, she’d checked on Guil and Olympe and James one more time, then let herself out with not much more than a curt nod.

Ada didn’t want her father to be right about her relationship with Camille. But she couldn’t see a way back either. Both of them had lied, cutting a deeper wound between them, and now she could feel it festering. Maybe they shouldn’t choose each other. Maybe choosing each other had made them weak.

They’d both been distracted at the theatre by the tension between them and look what had happened.

Al still hadn’t come back by the time Ada had finished reading and Olympe had come to sit on the floor again and pick through the stack of pamphlets that had accumulated among their things. The lamps were lit all down the Rue St Honoré, and a gentle mist of rain washed away any lingering warmth in the day. Ada’s mind kept straying to Camille and the dinner invitation, running through worse and worse possibilities. As seven bells rang out, she put on her cloak.

‘Where are you going?’ asked James. ‘We need to stick together – we’re already down Cam and Al, and Guil isn’t in great shape.’

‘I’m going to see if I can track down Al. You’ll be all right here for a few hours.’

James nodded. ‘Guil’s asleep now, the laudanum did the trick.’

Olympe looked up from the pamphlets. ‘You’ll be back soon?’

‘Yes.’ Ada gave a tight smile. ‘Before you know it.’

She slipped into the street. Paris was out in force. People were decorating buildings for the festival tomorrow, hanging banners and strings of lanterns. Crossing the Place de l’Égalité, taxis rattled past her and people streamed to the theatres and opera or back from the factories and mines. The grounds of the Palais de l’Égalité – formerly the Palais-Royal – glittered with lights and bright young people in their finery. Patrons spilled from cafés, playing cards and drinking and listening to musicians as she made her way around.

Two loops of his regular haunts and still no sign of Al. It was getting late, the bells peeling beyond count. Ada stood, hands tucked into her armpits, weighing her options. She’d left Olympe and James for a long time now. She really should go back. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that wherever Al was, he wasn’t okay. He’d been even more argumentative recently, too aloof, disappearing for longer than usual. And thinking about him stopped her thinking about Camille.

There was one last place to check. The place where she and Camille had met Al to discuss his joining the battalion, halfway into a bottle of gin, surrounded by chaos and colours and lights.