Eight months ago she had done the same thing. Sat by the window watching life pass her by, while Camille and her father stood trial. She’d been useless then, and she was useless now. No wonder Camille kept secrets from her. Guil was hurt, Al had lost his family, Olympe was still in danger despite their trick on the mountain, and Camille was facing the wrath of the Royalists and Revolutionaries combined, and she was – what? Squabbling with her father? Sulking because she was bored?

Maybe it had only ever been a fluke, her leaving home and being part of the battalion. She didn’t belong to that life, not like the others. Her father had tried to warn her she wasn’t made for it, that her place would always be with him. In the drawing rooms and parlours, not in the thick of the fight. She touched a finger to her bare earlobes. Her mother had tried to teach her how to protect herself, how to survive on her own. Ada had failed even at that. The earrings were back at the Au Petit Suisse, still folded in the silk handkerchief. She had nothing to her name and not even something sharp to pick a lock.

When she had exhausted all the possible interest in staring out of the window, Ada relinquished the last of her pride and sat on the rug with a stack of L’Ami d’Égalité. Her father’s paper. The publication her parents had dreamed of creating together. She flipped through the most recent copy, skimming the pompous essays and bombastic rhetoric. It had been so long since she’d last heard her mother’s voice, but she could hear her scornful laughter as clearly as if she was in the room with her. For the first time in a long time she let herself wish her mother was still alive. It was a dangerous thought, one which could pitch her into a dark cloud of depression. She avoided it as much as possible. But sometimes it was all there was left: missing her. Wondering who she would have become if she’d still had her mother with her. Someone braver, maybe. Someone more confident in their worth.