Guil hesitated on the threshold, taking in the scene, expression clouding over. But he said nothing, simply limped across the room, holding out a news-sheet.

‘It’s Al.’

She took the paper, scanning it quickly.

Al had been arrested. His trial was tomorrow.

Wordlessly, she pushed the paper into James’s hands. He read it, then looked at them both in horror.

‘You know how to fix this, don’t you? Isn’t rescuing people the battalion’s job?’

‘It is,’ said Guil, ‘but usually we have a full compliment of uninjured people.’

Camille giggled.

‘I don’t understand,’ said James. ‘What’s so funny?’

She waved him away. ‘Nothing. Only, the one thing I’ve tried to do is find a way to keep my friends – my family – alive, and yet all I’ve managed is to get people hurt or killed.’ Her laugh turned into a sob. ‘I supposed we really are going to be the Battalion of the Dead soon.’

James rested a hand on her back in comfort, and she couldn’t even bring herself to shrug him off.

‘Well.’ A voice came from the doorway. Olympe stepped over the threshold, still wearing the dress she’d been shot in, a neat hole burned into its front. ‘I suppose it’s a good thing I’m still alive.’

‘You have to kill me.’

The day before the deadline, Olympe had sat next to Camille on the steps to the crypt, gloved hands folded in her lap as she laid out her idea.

‘What?’

‘At the festival, when you’re supposed to hand me over. Pretend to kill me.’

‘I don’t know if they’ll believe it.’

‘Make them.’

‘It’s too much of a risk.’

‘We have to. It’s the only way to make everyone stop hunting for me.’

‘How would we even do it?’

‘I hadn’t got that far. What about the pistol?’

Camille had looked down at her father’s pistol hanging by her side. ‘I suppose I could load powder but no shot. But then what? They’ll see there’s no bullet wound. We’d have to get you off the mountain…’

She’d turned over the idea in her mind. It was extreme … but that seemed to be the corner they’d painted themselves into.

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘I don’t want any of you to get hurt because of me. If Comtois and the duc think I’m dead, then they’ll leave you alone.’

Camille had sighed. Olympe was right. And if both sides thought she was dead, maybe she would finally be safe.

‘Okay… Let’s do it.’

Together they had sketched out a plan. Camille would load her pistol with powder but no shot. Olympe would spark a small pouch of powder under her dress, blasting a hole that mimicked a gunshot. All they needed to do was get everyone in the right place at the same time.