Shaking his head, Matteo sat beside her on the bed. “And my jacket?”

“I’ll be concealing two of these knives in your jacket sleeve. But be careful. Robespierre has one also.”

“How could you know . . .” His voice trailed off. A part of him knew he would discover more by plain observation than she would be willing to divulge through conversation.

But she surprised him with a response. “I sewed the pocket for him. When you saw me against the prison courtyard wall, I was dressed as the Seamstress, a . . . person I pretend to be while I am here, and Robespierre needed hidden knife pockets in all his sleeves. But I included something extra, so if he uses his knife against you, it will be his downfall.”

He waited for her to further explain, but she said nothing more, her fingers moving swiftly now as she created a place for him to hide a knife.

“So, you had a cover . . .” He watched in silence as she finished one sleeve, slipped the knife inside, and then began work on the other. “You are really quite brilliant.”

She smiled and kept working, eyes squinting in the dark, leaning to the side to place her stitching in the small patch of light that filtered in through the rectangle opening at the top of the wall. At length, she finished the other sleeve and then held out the jacket for him to put on. “Practice accessing the knives. If you shake your arm down just so”—she demonstrated with a sharp shake of her hand in a downward motion—“the knife should come forward into your hand. If that doesn’t work for you, use the opposite hand to grab it. Figure out what works best, and become accomplished at it.”

He nodded and immediately began shaking his arm, trying to summon the knife into his grip. On the first try with his left hand, he felt the knife handle fall into his palm. Smiling victoriously, he held it up for her to see. Then he carefully returned it to the pocket, the point of the blade entering first.

They needed to talk, about so much. Since she seemed reluctant to do so, he could begin at least with some of the more urgent matters. “About Éléonore—”

“I don’t want to hear about Éléonore. I’ve had enough of that woman and her loathsome ways. Friend of yours or not, I cannot abide—”

“She is no friend of mine, Scarlet. Please, hear me out.” He waited.

Her face pinched, wary, but she nodded.