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Back Dangerous Remedy
Chapters (86)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Contents
  7. Paris, June 1794
  8. PART ONE
  9. 1
  10. 2
  11. 3
  12. 4
  13. 5
  14. 6
  15. 7
  16. PART TWO
  17. 1
  18. 2
  19. 3
  20. 4
  21. 5
  22. 6
  23. 7
  24. 8
  25. 9
  26. 10
  27. 11
  28. 12
  29. PART THREE
  30. 1
  31. 2
  32. 3
  33. 4
  34. 5
  35. 6
  36. 7
  37. 8
  38. 9
  39. 10
  40. 11
  41. 12
  42. 13
  43. 14
  44. 15
  45. 16
  46. 17
  47. PART FOUR
  48. 1
  49. 2
  50. 3
  51. 4
  52. 5
  53. 6
  54. 7
  55. 8
  56. 9
  57. 10
  58. 11
  59. PART FIVE
  60. 1
  61. 2
  62. 3
  63. 4
  64. 5
  65. 6
  66. 7
  67. PART SIX
  68. 1
  69. 2
  70. 3
  71. 4
  72. 5
  73. 6
  74. 7
  75. 8
  76. 9
  77. 10
  78. 11
  79. 12
  80. 13
  81. 14
  82. Postscript
  83. A Ship in Le Havre Port
  84. Acknowledgements
  85. About the Author
  86. About Zephyr

She gave her an encouraging smile, and Olympe let her palms rest lightly against Ada’s bare brown skin. The blue light skimmed over her again, but this time Ada felt it, a vibration that set her teeth on edge. At first it tickled and tingled along the length of her arm, and then the intensity increased and both arms spasmed involuntarily, fingers curling into claws, biceps clenching. Blue sparks crackled over the backs of her hands, sharp and hot and painful. She jerked back, and Olympe dropped her hands immediately. Ada slumped, breathing hard. Her heart was racing, dual spikes of excitement and anxiety shooting through her.

‘I’m okay,’ she panted, and held up her unmarked arms. ‘Look, no damage.’

Olympe leaned forwards to check.

‘I really didn’t hurt you? It looked awful.’

‘It felt … strange. But that’s it. I told you you wouldn’t hurt me. Your abilities aren’t inherently good or bad, they’re simply something you can use as you will. They’re whatever you want them to be.’

‘Sounds like the perfect secret weapon,’ said Al.

Camille’s hands stilled where she was rebraiding her hair. ‘It does. Which would explain why the Royalists and Revolutionaries both want you in their control.’

Shaking, Ada made more notes while the rest of the battalion dressed and fetched breakfast. Any memory of pain disappeared quickly, and Ada was left only with the thrum of excitement. That had been amazing. She’d used her knowledge to create a hypothesis, run an experiment and record meaningful results. This was everything she’d ever wanted to do. For a moment, the sheer frustration of being confined to studying borrowed books in stolen free moments when she was barely five minutes’ walk from one of the finest universities in the country hit her. But her excitement overruled it. There was so much she didn’t understand about Olympe, whether her abilities were really her own or if they’d been created by the experiments she’d told them about. This Docteur Comtois or the duc who had hired them might know. Might even have had a hand in it. Whatever it was, she had to find out.

She scribbled quickly to keep up with her whirring brain.

Discovery was addictive, and she wanted more.

8

The Royalist Drop Point at the Madeleine Church