She put water over the fire to boil and used scissors to cut the worst of the tangles out of Olympe’s hair. At first Olympe had baulked at the sight of the scissors, going terribly still until Ada had shown her that all she wanted to do was cut her hair. Then she’d demanded to do it herself, until she couldn’t reach the back of her head safely. It was clearly a struggle to hand the scissors back to Ada. With Olympe slowly more trusting of her, Ada took a cloth to bathe her face, neck, hands, trimmed her nails and washed the blood from her scabs. Smoke-like clouds bloomed across her exposed skin. It was hard to tell what were bruises and what were her odd markings. Ada had a thousand questions but swallowed them down, because Olympe’s eyes had glossed over with tears.

‘Are you crying?’

Olympe hid her face, rubbing her eyes with the sleeve of her shift. ‘No.’ She straightened. ‘I need gloves. I’m not … safe.’

Ada’s eyes flicked to Olympe’s hands, remembering what Camille had told them about their escape. ‘I can lend you a pair.’

After putting on the gloves, Olympe retreated to the side of the room, back against the wall, positioning herself so she could see both the door and the windows at once. Scrubbed and fresh, Ada could begin to see the girl she’d once been. A girl with a mother who might have cared for her like this, brushed her hair and sung her to sleep. Ada couldn’t fight the urge to examine Olympe again, to look for some explanation for the mottling of her skin or the pinpricks of light in her eyes. Even if her rational mind could put together a reason, it was another challenge to believe what she was seeing was possible.

‘I am not a scientific exhibition,’ said Olympe sharply.

Ada blushed. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.’

Olympe opened her mouth to speak, then hesitated. ‘I have … grown unaccustomed to people with good intentions.’

‘You think we have good intentions?’

‘Yes. Though I suppose I do not have much of a choice. As your blond friend said, where could I run to that’s safe? As much as I do not like to think of myself as weak, I am … unequipped for survival on my own in a place such as this.’

‘I don’t think that’s weakness. There are hundreds of situations you could put me in and I would have no idea what to do with myself.’

Olympe’s mouth twitched in the hint of a smile. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You and your friends seem rather capable to me.’

‘We’ve had some practice.’ Ada stoked the fire, hiding her face. Cursing, she kneeled to add more kindling.