Freedom is a pair of trousers and a buttoned coat.
A man’s tunic and a tricorne hat. If only she had known.
The darkness claimed he’d given her freedom, but really, there is no such thing for a woman, not in a world where they are bound up inside their clothes, and sealed inside their homes, a world where only men are given leave to roam.
Addie saunters up the street, a stolen basket hooked over the elbow of her coat. Nearby, an old woman stands in a doorway, beating out a rug, and laborers lounge on café steps, and none of them so much as blink, because they do not see a woman, walking alone. They see a young man, barely more than a youth, dawdling in the dying light; they do not think how strange, how scandalous it is to see her strolling. They do not think anything at all.
To think, Addie might have saved her soul, and simply asked for these clothes.
It has been four years now without a visit from the dark.
Four years, and at the dawn of every one, she swears she will not waste the time she has in waiting. But it is a promise she cannot fully keep. For all her effort, Addie is like a clock wound tighter as the day draws near, a coiled spring that cannot loosen until dawn. And even then, it is a grim unwinding, less relief than resignation, the knowledge that it will start again.
Four years.
Four winters, four summers, four visitless nights.
The other ones, at least, are hers, to spend as she likes, but no matter how she tries to pass the time, this one belongs to Luc, even when he is not here.
And yet, she will not declare it forfeit, will not sacrifice the hours as if they are already lost, already his.
Addie passes a group of men and tips her hat in greeting, uses the gesture to pull the tricorne lower on her own brow. Day has not quite given way to night, and in the long summer light she is careful to keep her distance, knowing the illusion will falter under scrutiny. She could have waited an hour longer and been safe within the veil of night, but the truth is, she could not bear the stillness, the creeping seconds of the clock.
Not tonight.
Tonight, she has decided to celebrate her freedom.
To climb the steps of Sacré Coeur, sit at the top of the pale stone stairs, the city at her feet, and have a picnic.
The basket swings from her elbow, brimming with food. Her fingers have gotten light and quick with practice, and she has spent the last several days assembling her feast—a loaf of bread, a side of cured meat, a wedge of cheese, and even a palm-sized jar of honey.
Honey—an indulgence Addie hasn’t had since Villon, where Isabelle’s father kept a row of hives and skimmed the amber syrup out for markets, leaving them to suck on rinds of honeycomb until their fingers were stained with sweetness. Now she holds her bounty to the waning light, lets the setting sun turn the contents gold.
The man comes out of nowhere.
A shoulder knocks into her arm, and the precious jar slips from her hand and shatters on the cobbled street, and for an instant Addie thinks she is being attacked, or robbed, but the stranger is already stammering out his apologies.
“You fool,” she hisses, attention flicking from the golden syrup, now glittering with glass, to the man who caused her loss. He is young, and fair, and lovely, with high cheeks and hair the color of her ruined honey.
And he is not alone.
His companions hang back, whooping and cheering at his mistake—they have the happy air of those who began their evening revels back at midday
—but the errant youth blushes fiercely, clearly embarrassed.
“My apologies, truly,” he begins, but then a transformation sweeps across his face. First surprise, and then amusement, and she realizes, too late, how close they are, how clearly the light has fallen on her face. Realizes, too late, that he has seen through her illusion, that his hand is still there, on her sleeve, and for a moment she is afraid he will expose her.
But when his companions call for him to hurry on, he tells them to go ahead, and now they are alone on the cobbled street, and Addie is ready to pull free, to run, but there is no shadow in the young man’s face, no menace, only a strange delight.
“Let go,” she says, lowering her voice a measure when she speaks, which only seems to please him more, even as he frees her arm with all the speed of someone grazing fire.
“Sorry,” he says again, “I forgot myself.” And then, a mischievous grin. “It seems you have, too.”
“Not at all,” she says, fingers drifting toward the short blade she’s kept inside her basket. “I have misplaced myself on purpose.”
The smile widens then, and he drops his gaze, and sees the ruined honey on the ground, and shakes his head.
“I must make that up to you,” he says. And she is about to tell him not to bother, about to say that it is fine, when he cranes his head down the road, and says, “Aha,” and loops his arm through hers, as if they are already friends.
“Come,” he says, leading her toward the café on the corner. She has never been inside one, never been brave enough to chance it, not alone, not with such a tenuous hold on her disguise. But he draws her on as if it’s nothing, and at the last moment he swings an arm around her shoulders, the weight so sudden and so intimate she is about to pull away before she catches the edge of a smile, and realizes that he has made a game of it, conscripted himself into the service of her secret.
Inside, the café is a place of energy and life, overlapping voices and the scent of something rich and smoky.
“Careful now,” he says, eyes dancing with mischief. “Stay close, and keep your head down, or we will be found out.”
She follows him to the counter, where he orders two shallow cups, the contents thin and black as ink. “Sit over there,” he says, “against the wall, where the light is not too strong.”
They fold themselves into a corner seat, and he sets the cups between them with a flourish, turning the handles just so, as he tells her it is coffee. She has heard of the stuff, of course, the current toast of Paris, but when she lifts the china to her lips and takes a sip, she is rather disappointed.
It is dark, and strong, and bitter, like the chocolate flakes she first tasted years ago, only without the edge of sweetness. But the boy stares at her, as eager as a pup, and so she swallows, and smiles, cradles the cup, and looks out from beneath the brim of her hat, studying the tables of men, some with their heads bowed close, while others laugh, and play at cards, or pass sheaves of paper back and forth. She watches these men and wonders anew at how open the world is to them, how easy the thresholds.
Her attention flicks back to her companion, who’s watching her with the same unbridled fascination.
“What were you thinking?” he asks. “Just now?”
There is no introduction, no formal exchange. He simply dives into the conversation, as if they have known each other for years instead of minutes.
“I was thinking,” she says, “that it must be so easy to be a man.” “Is that why you put on this disguise?”
“That,” she says, “and a hatred of corsets.”
He laughs, the sound so open and easy Addie finds a smile rising to her lips.
“Do you have a name?” he asks, and she doesn’t know if he’s asking for her own, or that of her disguise, but she decides on “Thomas,” watches him turn the word over like a bite of fruit.
“Thomas,” he muses. “A pleasure to meet you. My name is Remy Laurent.”
“Remy,” she echoes, tasting the softness, the upturned vowel. It suits him, more than Adeline ever suited her. It is young and sweet, and it will haunt her, as all names do, bobbing like apples in the stream. No matter how many men she meets, Remy will always conjure him, this bright and cheerful boy—the kind she could have loved, perhaps, if given the chance.
She takes another sip, careful not to hold the cup too gingerly, to lean the weight on her elbow, and sit in the unselfconscious way men have when they do not expect anyone to study them.
“Amazing,” he marvels. “You have studied my sex well.” “Have I?”
“You are a splendid mimic.”
Addie could tell him that she’s had the time to practice, that it has become a kind of game over the years, a way to amuse herself. That she has added a dozen different characters by now, knows the exact differences between a duchess and a marchioness, a docksman and a merchant.
But instead, she only says, “We all need ways to pass the time.”
He laughs again at that, lifts his cup, but then, between one sip and the next, Remy’s attention wanders across the room, and he lands on something that startles him. He chokes on his coffee, color rushing into his cheeks.
“What is it?” she asks. “Are you well?”
Remy coughs, nearly dropping the cup as he gestures to the doorway, where a man has just walked in.
“Do you know him?” she asks, and Remy sputters, “Don’t you? That man there is Monsieur Voltaire.”
She shakes her head a little. The name means nothing.
Remy draws a parcel from his coat. A booklet, thin, with something printed on the cover. She frowns at the cursive title, has only managed half the letters when Remy flips the booklet open to show a wall of words, printed in elegant black ink. It has been too long since her father tried to teach her, and those were simple letters; loose, handwritten script.
Remy sees her studying the page. “Can you read it?”
“I know the letters,” she admits, “but I haven’t the learning to make much sense of them. And by the time I manage a line, I fear I’ve lost its meaning.”
Remy shakes his head. “It is a crime,” he says, “that women are not taught the same as men. Why, a world without reading, I cannot fathom it. A whole long life without poems, or plays, or philosophers. Shakespeare, Socrates, to say nothing of Descartes!”
“Is that all?” she teases.
“And Voltaire,” he goes on. “Of course, Voltaire. And essays, and
novels.”
She does not know the word.
“A single long story,” he explains, “something of pure invention. Filled with romance, or comedy, or adventure.”
She thinks of the fairy tales her father told her, growing up, the stories Estele spun of old gods. But this novel that Remy speaks of sounds like it
encompasses so much more. She runs her fingers over the page of the proffered booklet, but her attention is on Remy, and his, for the moment, is on Voltaire. “Are you going to introduce yourself?”
Remy’s gaze snaps back, horrified. “No, no, not tonight. It is better this way; think of the story.” He sits back in his seat, glowing with joy. “See? This is what I love about Paris.”
“You are not from here, then.”
“Is anyone?” He has come back to her now. “No, I’m from Rennes. A printer’s family. But I am the youngest son, and my father made the grave mistake of sending me away to school, and the more I read, the more I thought, and the more I thought, the more I knew I had to be in Paris.”
“Your family didn’t mind?”
“Of course they did. But I had to come. This is where the thinkers are. This is where the dreamers live. This is the heart of the world, and the head, and it is changing.” His eyes dance with light. “Life is so brief, and every night in Rennes I’d go to bed, and lie awake, and think, there is another day behind me, and who knows how few ahead.”
It is the same fear that forced her into the woods that night, the same need that drove her to her fate.
“So here I am,” he says brightly. “I would not be anywhere else. Isn’t it marvelous?”
Addie thinks of the stained glass and the locked doors, the gardens, and the gates around them.
“It can be,” she says.
“Ah, you think me an idealist.”
Addie lifts the coffee to her lips. “I think it comes more easily to men.” “It does,” he admits, before nodding at her attire. “And yet,” he says
with an impish grin, “you strike me as someone not easily restrained. Aut viam invenium aut faciam, and so on.”
She does not know Latin yet, and he does not offer a translation, but a decade from now, she will look up the words, and learn their meaning.
To find a way, or make your own.
And she will smile, then, a ghost of the smile he has managed to win from her tonight.
He blushes. “I must be boring you.”
“Not at all,” she says. “Tell me, does it pay, to be a thinker?”
Laughter bubbles out of him. “No, not very well. But I am still my father’s son.” He holds out his hands, palms up, and she notices the echo of ink along the lines of his palms, staining the whorls of his fingers, the way charcoal used to stain her own. “It is good work,” he says.
But under his words, a softer sound, the rumble of his stomach.
Addie had almost forgotten the shattered jar, the ruined honey. But the rest of the feast sits waiting at her feet.
“Have you ever climbed the steps of Sacré Coeur?”
