‘Olympe.’ Camille’s voice sounded strange to herself. Unsure, forced. ‘Are you okay?’

At her words, Olympe turned. Camille’s grip on the gun wavered. The breath had been snatched from her lungs, and she fought the impulse to flee.

The skin of Olympe’s face was a riot of swirling grey. Her black hair stuck to her dirt-crusted cheeks and forehead. Eddies like storm clouds washed across her skin, dark grey like the cobblestones, cobalt blue, eggshell and dove and flint and smoke all in constant motion. It was like watching the roiling waters that rushed through the storm drains outside the Au Petit Suisse. Her eyes, which had been invisible under the mask, were two dark pools, free from iris or pupil. Black from lid to lid but filled with crackling blue sparks like the ones that leaped off her skin. Like stars in the night sky.

A few stray sparks caught between her fingers. Camille followed their dancing path, feeling the low hum in the air between her teeth and in the curling ends of her hair. A spike of fear held her frozen. Some primordial hindbrain told her to run and run far.

The impossibility of it was almost too much to bear. There were so many questions skittering around her mind she couldn’t catch hold of them to pull together the strands of a coherent plan.

Olympe took a step forwards and Camille instinctively stepped back. The girl’s face fell. Despite her appearance, Camille realised she could still read her expressions. The downturn of her mouth and the wideness of her eyes was so painfully human that her own heart ached in response.

Camille forced herself to tuck her pistol back into her belt, fighting a scrabbly, panicked feeling, and crossed to Olympe to inspect the bruises and scabs around her throat and shoulders where her mask had rested.

Olympe rubbed tears from her eyes.

‘Thank you. I think I’m okay.’

Something in the gesture sent a spark of empathy through Camille. Whatever else was going on, it didn’t seem as though Olympe was part of it. She was being used, just like Camille.

‘Here.’ Camille plucked a cloak from the wall and wrapped it around Olympe, pulling the hood to hide her face.

‘Are you taking me to the duc?’ asked Olympe.

Camille hesitated. What was she going to do? The duc had lied to her. If she handed him Olympe, then he would have got away with it. And Olympe… What would happen to her? Who was she, and what did the duc even want with her?

Opening the forge door a crack, she checked the comings and goings in the courtyard. Then she turned back, the kernel of a plan forming.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. What do you want to do, Olympe?’