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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

‘Please can we not do this?’ She pulled Ada closer so Ada could feel the heat of her skin and the catch of her breath through her thin nightdress. ‘I love you. I chose you.’ She pressed a kiss to Ada’s cheek, then her mouth. ‘Do you love me?’

‘Yes. Of course I do.’

‘Then that’s all that matters.’

‘Cam…’

‘Please, Ada. We both nearly died. I want to be near you.’

Ada bit her lip, warring with her own desire. Then nodded.

‘I want you too.’

Camille covered her mouth with her own, hand sliding down to her hip. Ada shivered in pleasure, sinking into the kiss despite herself. Camille nudged a leg between hers and Ada let herself be swept away.

4

The Théâtre Patriotique, Boulevard du Temple

17 Prairial, Year II, three days until the deadline

A boy made of glossy porcelain was wheeled onto the stage and positioned in front of the chattering audience. In front of him, the stagehands fitted a sheet of paper to a writing desk and filled the well with ink. Then they retreated into the wings. A hush spread through the parterre audience and the twelve-sous gallery ticket holders. Ada fiddled with a loose thread in her cuff. After a few tense moments, the boy began to move. His arm shifted and his hand extended from a frilled cuff to dip a quill nib into the ink. Then he moved back and put pen to paper. He repeated this action until black marks marched across the paper, his glassy eyes flicking back and forth. It was uncanny. The way his eyes moved, blank and unseeing but carefully fixed on his work, made the hairs stand up on the back of Ada’s neck.

Ada knew how it worked: her mother had taught her about clockwork through illustrations of cogs and gears. It was an automaton, a strange mechanical creation that moved, danced, played miniature instruments, even acted out whole scenes. A porcelain figure mounted on top of a box containing the clockwork mechanism that drove the movement.

The handler appeared next to his automaton to summon a series of fluttering young women and boisterous young men onstage to examine the machine, verify that it wrote meaningful French. They held up the paper, read it aloud, exclaimed over a tiny portrait of a dog. Remarkable, impossible, ingenious.

Ada shivered. Compared to Olympe and her abilities, the porcelain boy was nothing more than a toy.