Read Chapter 10: The Cost of Couture

The morning light in Camille’s attic workroom was unforgiving, slanting across the bolts of ivory silk and picking out every flaw in her stitching. She had been at the trousseau sketches since dawn, her fingers stained with ink and chalk, her neck aching from bending over the drafting table. The Comtesse de la Roche-Guyon expected preliminary designs by tomorrow afternoon, and the Queen’s muslin gown sat half-finished on its mannequin in the corner like an accusation.

A knock at the door—three sharp raps, then a pause, then two more. *Étienne’s signal.*

Camille wiped her hands on her apron and crossed the room. She opened the door to find him holding a thick ledger under one arm, his cravat slightly askew in a way she had come to recognize as a sign of a long night’s work.

“You look terrible,” she said, but she stepped aside to let him in.

“I’ve been up since four reconciling the Queen’s household accounts against the treasury’s records,” he said, setting the ledger on her table and scattering a pile of charcoal sketches. He caught one before it hit the floor, turning it over. “Is this the Comtesse’s trousseau?”

Camille nodded, reaching to take it back. “Preliminary designs. She wants something grand, something that announces her son’s bride to all of Paris.”

Étienne studied the sketch, his brow furrowing. A gown of silver brocade, trimmed with pearls at the bodice, a train long enough to fill an entire chapel aisle. Beside it, a second design—a riding habit in deep blue wool with gold frogging, and a third, an evening gown of rose silk with intricate lattice-work at the corset.

“The silver brocade alone will cost twenty louis,” he said quietly. “And you’re charging her forty for the entire set?”

“Twenty-five,” Camille corrected. “I’ve already received the deposit. She’ll pay the remaining fifteen on delivery—which gives me exactly what I owe Bertin, with three days to spare.”

Étienne set the sketch down and turned to face her, his expression uneasy. “Camille, I’m not questioning your skill. But the Comtesse is known for driving hard bargains and delaying payments when it suits her. If she changes one detail—” He gestured at the sketches. “If she requests more fittings, more revisions—you’ll miss your deadline with Bertin, and the Comtesse will hold the Queen’s permission over your head to extract more work.”

Camille’s stomach tightened. She hadn’t allowed herself to think about the failure case. The celestial alignment was in five days. If she didn’t clear her debt by then, Bertin could raise enough of a stink to have Camille removed from her position—or worse, searched.

“I don’t have a choice,” she said, more sharply than she intended. “It’s this commission or nothing.”

Étienne was quiet for a moment, then he reached into his coat and withdrew a folded piece of paper. “I checked the silk merchants’ records yesterday. There’s a supplier in the Saint-Honoré quarter who imports from Lyon at nearly half the price the Comtesse’s usual modiste pays—his quality is nearly identical, but he has no noble patrons, so he can’t command the markups of the court-approved vendors.”

He offered her the paper. “If you buy the silver brocade from him instead of the House of Grainel, you’ll save enough to offset the risk of the Comtesse’s delay. You could even complete the riding habit in the same shipment.”

Camille took the paper and unfolded it. The address was written in Étienne’s precise hand, with a note in the margin: *Ask for Monsieur Ravel. Mention the Château d’If and he will know you were sent by a friend.* She looked up, genuinely surprised.

“Why would you do this for me? You’re the one who told me the Queen’s wardrobe expenses are already a scandal.”

Étienne gave a wry half-smile. “Because the court’s corruption and your need to escape it are two different problems. And because—” He paused, dropping his gaze to the sketches on the table. “Because what you’re doing here,” he said, tapping his finger on the riding habit drawing, “this is unlike anything I’ve seen the court modistes produce. There’s a practicality to it, a sensibility I can’t place. It’s as though you come from somewhere else entirely—where clothing serves the wearer rather than the other way around.”

Camille’s breath caught. He was close—closer than he knew. For a moment, the impulse to tell him the whole truth surged up in her throat. *I’m from two hundred and thirty years in the future. I woke up in this body three weeks ago. I’m not supposed to exist in 1785, and if I don’t reach the chapel spire by August 22, I never will.* She could see it in the diary’s pages, the previous tailor’s warning about the dangers of confession. *The court watches, the court listens, and the court uses what it knows to destroy.*

He would believe her. She almost believed he would.

But the warning curled around her tongue and held, a leash she couldn’t loosen.

“I trained in a different tradition,” she said carefully. “My mother was from the provinces; she taught me that fashion should be honest—functional before decorative. It’s been… difficult to adjust to court tastes.”

Étienne studied her for a long moment. “Your provincial mother taught you to design gowns that make the Queen of France weep with delight?”

Camille forced a laugh. “She had very high standards.”

He laughed too, and the tension between them eased fractionally. He moved toward the table and picked up one of her cost breakdowns, scanning the columns. “All right,” he said, “then let’s be practical. I’ve been meaning to ask you something for a while, and this seems as good an occasion as any.”

“Ask me what?”

“How you’ve managed to run such an efficient workshop with only a single assistant seamstress,” he said. “Your records are cleaner than the treasury’s. Your materials orders arrive on time. You’ve negotiated better rates from dyers than merchants have granted Marie Antoinette’s own wardrobe.” He set the paper down and crossed his arms. “In the banking houses of Paris, men pay fortunes for that kind of management. You do it alone, in a garret, without any apparent training from any known seamstress guild. So I want you to teach me how you do it.”

Camille blinked. “You want me to teach you… business? You’re an auditor for the royal household. You likely forgot more about finance than I’ll ever know.”

“No.” Étienne shook his head. “I know how to spot waste in a nobleman’s household accounts. What you’re doing is different—you’re building a model from nothing, estimating costs before they’re incurred, pricing based on value rather than status. It’s the kind of efficiency I want to bring to the treasury reforms I’ve been proposing.” He offered a self-deprecating smile. “But the ministers don’t listen to a boy from the provinces who audited too closely. They might listen to rigorous numbers, if I can show them such a system is possible.”

Camille’s mind raced. She could teach him the basics of modern bookkeeping, of cost-benefit analysis, of supply-chain management—everything she’d absorbed from running her boutique in the 21st century. It would be valuable to him, genuinely, in this era of looming financial crisis. And it would buy her time: time with him, time away from the court’s watchful eyes, time to work on the Queen’s gown in peace while appearing to conduct lessons.

“You’ll help me source the materials,” she said slowly, testing the negotiation. “And vouch for the quality to the Comtesse if she pushes back on the supplier’s lack of a noble patron.”

He inclined his head in agreement.

“And,” Camille added, her voice quieter now, “you’ll trust me when I tell you I have reasons for what I do that I cannot explain—not yet.”

Something flickered in his eyes—curiosity, perhaps, or recognition of a similar hidden interior. “I’ve been trusting you since the night I found you in the garden, Camille.” He said her name carefully, as if weighing its contours. “I don’t intend to stop now. But I must ask you one thing in return.”

“Name it.”

He hesitated, then stepped closer. “The sealed tailor’s rooms we found. Something in them changed your demeanor—I saw it in your face when you found that journal. You became more guarded, more determined, more secretive. If there’s danger in that room, I need to know what it is.”

Camille’s throat tightened. The diary burned against her chest where she had hidden it in a pocket sewn into her stays. Five days. In five days, she would either be through a portal back to her own time, or she would be trapped here forever, and Étienne—kind, clever, impossibly earnest Étienne—would never know why she left.

Or she would tell him the truth, and he would think her mad, and the only ally she had in this dying court would slip away.

“The room belonged to a tailor who worked for the palace decades ago,” she said carefully. “He left behind records that suggest—that suggest there is a way out of this life for me. A path I can take, if I can reach it in time.” She looked up at him. “It is fantastical. You would not believe it if I told you.”

Étienne regarded her for a long moment. A smile tugged at his mouth—not mocking, but gentle, nearly sad. “You come from somewhere else, work miracles with fabric, keep secrets like a spy, and promise me explanations I doubt I’ll ever hear.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what to believe, Camille. But I believe you.”

He reached out and gently covered her hand where it rested on the sketches. “Whatever path you’re walking, walk it with care. The court is watching. And some watchers are more dangerous than others.”

The words slithered coldly down her spine—an echo of the diary’s unfinished warning. *Beware the watchers in plain clothing. They see what others dismiss and remember what others forget.*

She pulled her hand back slowly, folding the supplier’s address into her palm. “I’ll visit your merchant tomorrow morning,” she said, forcing her voice steady. “Before the Comtesse’s appointment.”

Étienne nodded and made for the door. But at the threshold, he paused and turned back.

“One more thing,” he said. “Whatever you’re planning—whatever that path is—if it requires reaching a specific place at a specific time, you cannot walk it unguarded. There’s a festival planned for the Feast of the Assumption on the 15th; the streets will be thick with pickpockets, informers, and drunk aristocrats.” He held her gaze. “Whatever you have planned, don’t do it alone. I’ll accompany you—wherever and whenever you mean to go.”

He didn’t wait for her answer, closing the door softly behind him.

Camille stood in the quiet workroom, the address crumpled in one hand, the pocket diary pressing warm against her ribs. Five days until the gates of heaven opened over the chapel spire. Four suppliers to visit. Three gowns to deliver. One queen to satisfy, one modiste to pay, one court to slip past undetected.

And Étienne had just volunteered to walk with her into the unknown.

She should have told him no. She should have pushed him away, protected him from whatever consequences awaited anyone who helped her flee. But she hadn’t, because the truth was simpler and more terrifying: she didn’t want to do it alone.