Soon enough her worry faded behind the wave of anger that had been with her all the way from Paris. The threat of the English gaining a weapon like Olympe was real enough, but what sent her marching forth was the memory of James’s handsome, smug face smirking at her from the other end of her pistol. Whatever unforgivable things her father had done, that was her pistol now. The one she’d used to protect her battalion – her family.

This wasn’t over until she said it was. James didn’t get to win.

Behind her, France disappeared into the haze and the tricolore flags were taken down from the mast.

There was no fate. No destiny.

Before them lay open water, and in the dim distance, a new coast began to unfurl.

James had made his choice.

Now she was making hers.

Acknowledgements

Many people I love are dead.

Which, if anything, is why I write. Because after all the crying is done, they are dead and I am alive so I have to do something with it.

But moving on doesn’t mean forgetting. The people we lose stay with us, in our minds and our memories and the quirks of thought they gifted to us.

To Rosie, who taught me theatrics; Nana, who taught me a steel will; Bumpas, who taught me kindness; Dawn, who taught me generosity. And Mum – I don’t know whether you’ll be with us when these words are printed, but thank you for the good bits. Let’s forget about the bad bits.

Thanks to the family I do have around – Tim, Sas, Coco, Jack, Lottie, Kai, Brian, Rynagh. To my dad – you take music and I’ll take literature and together we can sew up the creative industries, okay?

And to my found family: Kiran, my practically-sister, our friendship is so old it’s a voting, driving adult – we survived, against the odds. Chelsey, my ever-safe space. Kirstin, for picking up the pieces. Harry, for suffering with me. Allison, even though you abandoned me for LA. Jane and Tasha, thank you for letting me mooch off you for over a decade now. Martin, Paul and Yasuko, who’ve been there from the start. And the rest of you lot, Constance, Abigail, Marianna, Jenny, Myra – thank you.

Luckily writing has brought me a whole bunch of new people to love along with the ones who survived this far with me, so I get to make these thanks go on for a few lines more.

First off, a whopping big thank you to my agent, Hellie Ogden, and everyone at Janklow & Nesbit who got behind this book and gave me a chance to inflict it on other people too.