‘Are you mad? Air doesn’t weigh anything!’ Al clutched at the ropes, face ashen. ‘I’m going to die because a madwoman thinks she can weigh air. Dead, disowned and not even eighteen.’

Ada rolled her eyes. She yanked at the burner, sending a jet of flame soaring, praying the other members of the battalion were in place, ready to carry out their part of the plan.

‘Just throw the ballast overboard.’

The flame licked the drooping fabric and it started to smoulder. Al watched it curiously.

‘Is that supposed to happen?’

‘No.’ She swallowed. ‘It really isn’t.’

A rush of fire whooshed over the fabric and the balloon began to disintegrate around them. Below, guards clustered on the prison roof, pointing and shouting. She wondered what they must look like to them: one pale face, one dark, hurtling down in a shower of flames like Lucifer falling from the heavens.

Al grabbed her hand, naked panic in his eyes.

The last of the balloon was swallowed up, and then they were free-falling into the most notorious prison in Paris.

Well, they were supposed to create a distraction.

2

A Room on the Quai de la Mégisserie

‘Ten livre.’ Camille lumped the stack of coins on the table.

The soldier scowled. ‘You said twenty.’

‘I also said turn up on time and don’t tell anyone you’re coming. But you failed on both those counts.’

‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

‘You told someone ten minutes after our deal. Or were you too drunk to remember telling Guil, here, that you could make good money selling your uniform to mad bitches in trousers?’

Guillaume smiled pleasantly from where he blocked the exit of the garret they’d rented opposite the Conciergerie.

The soldier cursed.

‘Ten livre.’ She pushed the coins across to him.

He snatched them up and Guil stepped aside to let him slope away.

Guil put on the uniform and took Camille’s pistol from her, tucking it into his belt. The uniform suited him; the blue and white tailored to his strong physique, the colours crisp against his dark skin. Suited the soldier he had once been. He was the oldest of her battalion but his months at the front in Germany made him seem far older, more authoritative. She was relying on it to get them into the prison.

Her disguise for the job was easier to come by: cheap canvas trousers, a worn-through shirt and a tattered jacket. She paused in front of the spotted mirror, scrubbing her hair into a rat’s nest and rumpling her clothes. Her pale face was already smudged with dirt, completing her look.

Frowning, Guil crossed to the window.

‘Camille – you ought to see this.’

She joined him at the window.

Above the prison, the last scrap of balloon disappeared from sight. Her stomach sank.

‘Did you tell Ada to do that?’ asked Guil.

‘Definitely not.’