It was too much at once. She couldn’t hold it all in her mind: her mother’s affair, her father’s revenge, Ada’s father’s betrayal. Everything she believed, all the faith she’d put in her parents, every time she’d looked to their memory to work out the right thing to do.

‘Shut up – stop – you’re lying.’

‘No, Camille. For once, I want you to understand the truth.’ Molyneux looked so tired. As if he was trying to hold the world together in his own hands. ‘Our parents are never who we think they are. They can’t be, we see them in such a distorted, impossible light. But we don’t have to be ruled by them for ever. There’s one thing your father said that wasn’t bluff and posturing. He said there was no such thing as fate. No destiny. That we must make our own choices. That much, I think he got right.’

‘So what now? Do you arrest me too? Execute me as a traitor? Hurt Ada like you threatened to?’

‘I am sorry we threatened you. That was a mistake. One of many I have made with you. I should have told you the truth about your parents before now. Stupidly, I thought I was sparing you from the pain. I had hoped with time you would come back to us. That you would remember where you came from.’

‘I would never, ever side with you,’ she spat.

Even in her anger, some affection lingered. Made it hard to hate him. Because it was so like him to have made up some lie to protect her from the gritty realities of life. She was just a little girl to him.

‘Go, Camille. Run now, while you can, and hide yourself away. Comtois will find another way to protect France and her children. And I hope you will be at our side when the fight comes. As it must.’

She lowered the gun, eyes blurring with tears.

‘Let us leave this place as family once more.’

He held out a hand, a fond smile lifting his eyes and the colour in his cheeks. Her grief for her parents sliced through her, keen and pure.

Tentatively, she took his hand. On numb legs, she turned and stumbled down the mountain, letting him support her as they made their way through the paper rocks. The wind died, the screaming with it. She stared at the gun in her hand, still warm from shooting Olympe.

She hadn’t thought she had anything left to lose.

She’d been wrong.

At the foot of the mountain, Camille slid the pistol back into her belt and tried to pull herself together. She needed to find Ada and get out of there.

‘I have to find my friends.’

For a moment, she wanted to hug him like she had as a child.

‘I—’

Dorval appeared behind Molyneux, and the words died on her lips.