Olympe had backed up so close to her she could feel the girl trembling. As the rain washed the dirt from her face and slicked back her hair, she looked less and less like a caged animal, and more like a frightened teenager. She had that same expectant look the battalion had when they waited for Camille to unveil her next great plan to save the day.

Camille peered over the parapet at the Seine rushing far below. What was her plan?

‘I’m not going to let the docteur take you. I promise.’ Camille held out her hand. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘Trust you? I don’t even know you.’

‘You know I’m helping you get out of here, and they’re trying to lock you back up. Take your pick.’

Olympe twitched at her skirts, watching the soldiers clamber ever closer across the rooftops.

‘And my mother? Will you help me find her?’

The wind whipped a lock of hair across Camille’s face, concealing her eyes. She pushed it back.

‘If I can. But I do promise I’ll get you to safety.’

Olympe bit her lip, unsure.

‘Everything is a choice,’ Camille continued. ‘There is no fate. No destiny. This is your choice, Olympe.’

The soldiers were only metres away, struggling to keep hold of their muskets as well as their footing on the tiles.

Olympe reached and placed her cold, rain-wet hand in Camille’s.

‘Okay. I choose to trust you.’

Camille closed her fingers around Olympe’s, and jumped off the roof, pulling the girl with her.

7

The Arsenal

It was dark and light at once, loud and quiet, hot and cold. Ada scrambled through rubble and icy water, coughing and slipping and clutching at slippery stones as she struggled to stay upright. Water was gushing in through the hole blown in the wall. It was up to her knees already.

‘What the bloody hell is this?’ screeched Al. He’d climbed onto the top of the dividing wall, face flecked with tiny cuts from shrapnel.

Ada tried to swallow her anxiety. Where was the water coming from? It should have been an outside wall, the light wells were all on that side – had they hit the prison’s water supply? Or, oh god, the cesspit? No – there was a heady whiff of sewage, but the force of the water suggested it was coming from something a lot bigger than a cesspit.

Guil was pulling at the door.

‘Ada! Get this unlocked!’

But Ada had frozen. Dread surged through her as violent and obliterating as the water surrounding them. They’d gone south. Towards the edge of the Île de la Cité. Towards the river. She’d blown a hole in the wall holding back the river.

It was the Seine flooding in.

‘Ada!’ Guil had climbed on top of a barrel, holding the musket aloft.