Read Chapter 14: A Bitter Embroidering

The torchlight in the corridor guttered as Camille stumbled past it, her footsteps echoing off marble she no longer saw. The Hall of Mirrors had been empty when she'd fled—the portal gone, the key gone, the room that had held her only way home locked forever behind a grate she couldn't reach. Her hands were raw from scrabbling at the iron bars.

She climbed the servants' stairs to the atelier by memory alone. Bertin would expect her at dawn. The Queen's gown waited. The Comtesse's trousseau waited. Every single thread of her life here still required pulling, and she had nothing left to pull with.

She didn't sleep. She sat on the low stool before her worktable, running her thumb over the calluses that had formed there in the weeks since she'd woken in this body, in this century, in this impossible trap. The candle burned down to nothing and guttered out, and she sat in the dark until the first grey light crept through the high window.

Bertin found her there at six, still in her court gown from the night before, hair half-unpinned.

"Beautiful," Bertin said from the doorway, voice carrying its usual razor edge. "You look like a laundress who's been up all night weeping over a lost lover. Perfect for a woman of your station."

Camille didn't turn around. "The Queen's bodice needs the final pass of embroidery on the left shoulder before the fitting at noon."

"Does it now." Bertin's skirts rustled as she crossed the room. "And the Comtesse's trousseau? That first payment is due in nine days, is it not? Forty louis, if I recall the terms you so rashly accepted."

"Eight of the twelve garments are cut. I'll begin stitching the wedding gown this afternoon."

"You'll begin it now." Bertin's shadow fell across the worktable. "The Queen can wait. Her Majesty is not the one who will have you thrown into the Châtelet if you fail to meet your obligations."

Camille finally looked up. Bertin's face was pinched with pleasure at the sight of her—bloodshot eyes, pale cheeks, hands that trembled slightly with exhaustion. The woman fed on weakness like a spider on flies.

"I haven't slept," Camille said quietly. "I'll sleep tonight and work twice as fast tomorrow."

"You'll sleep when the work is done. As I always do. As I always have." Bertin picked up the Queen's bodice from the table, examining the embroidery with a critical eye. "This stitching is uneven. Look—here, and here. You've lost your focus. Whatever midnight wanderings you've been engaging in, they've cost you your craft."

Camille's jaw tightened. *Midnight wanderings.* If Bertin only knew. But she couldn't tell her, couldn't tell anyone except Étienne—and she'd promised him the truth tonight, in the hidden atelier she could no longer reach because the key was gone, because Drouet had taken everything from her.

"The embroidery is fine," Camille said. "The light was poor."

"The light was poor because you let the candle burn out. You're useless today." Bertin tossed the bodice back onto the table. "I'll tell the Queen her fitting will be rescheduled. The Comtesse can wait another day too. Go to your room. Sleep. I won't have you ruining my reputation with sloppy work because you've been dancing at balls instead of bending over your needle where you belong."

Camille opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. The fight wasn't worth it. She rose from the stool, her legs unsteady, and walked past Bertin without another word.

---

Her room was cold. The fire hadn't been lit—she'd forgotten to call for someone to do it—and the small space still smelled of the cheap rosewater she'd bought from the market stall with the last of her coin. She lay on the narrow bed fully dressed and stared at the ceiling beams.

*The portal is gone.*

She'd known the moment the key slipped through the grate. Known it in the sick drop of her stomach as she'd heard it clatter into darkness below. But knowing and accepting were different things. The diary had promised a return window of five years. She'd been so certain she'd find the right time, the right chamber, the right alignment. And Drouet had been there, waiting, because she'd been stupid enough to trust that the palace's secrets were hers alone.

*Five years.* Could she survive five years of this? Fifty, if the portal never came again? She'd be an old woman here, dead in this world, her modern life nothing but a dream she'd once had in another body.

Tears came then, hot and humiliating. She pressed her face into the rough wool of her sleeve to muffle the sound, but it didn't help. She sobbed until her throat was raw and her nose ran, and then she sobbed some more because there was nothing else to do.

She didn't hear the door open.

"Camille."

She gasped, rolling over, but it was only Étienne, silhouetted against the pale light of the corridor, his face drawn with worry. He closed the door behind him and crossed to the bed in three quick strides.

"I knocked," he said. "Three times. You didn't answer."

"I didn't hear."

He knelt beside the bed, taking in her ruined face, her swollen eyes, the state of her gown. "What happened? I heard—there were whispers this morning. Something about the Hall of Mirrors. Something about a man from the Austrian embassy being found in a state of disarray, claiming a woman tried to murder him with a candlestick."

Camille let out a bitter laugh. "He's claiming I attacked him?"

"His story is incoherent. The court is laughing at him. But they're also asking why you were in the Hall of Mirrors at midnight." Étienne's voice was gentle, but his eyes were sharp. "You promised to tell me everything."

"I did." Camille pushed herself up to sit, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "I promised to tell you everything, and now I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it doesn't matter anymore." Her voice cracked. "The way home is gone. The key is lost. Drouet knows what I was trying to do, and even if he can't prove it, he'll never stop watching me. And you—God, Étienne, you're in danger because of me."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that she could smell the soap on his skin, the faint starch of his collar.

"Then tell me anyway," he said. "Tell me what you were trying to do. Tell me about the diary and the portal and the celestial alignment you mentioned in your letter. Tell me the whole truth, even if you think it no longer matters."

She looked at him. His face was honest in the dim light—no guile, no calculation. He was a financial officer who loved numbers and order, who had offered to accompany her wherever her mysterious path led, who had believed in her when no one else would.

"I'm not from here," she whispered. "I'm from two hundred years in the future. I was a fashion designer in Paris—a real designer, with my own label and a workshop on the Rue Saint-Honoré. And I woke up in this body, in this palace, a month ago. I've been trying to find a way home ever since."

He didn't laugh. He didn't recoil. He just watched her with those steady eyes.

"The diary," he said. "The one Drouet found."

"It belonged to another traveler. A woman who came through a portal in the Hall of Mirrors during a celestial alignment. She wrote down everything she knew about how the portal works—where it appears, when it opens. I found her diary in a hidden room behind the atelier wall, and I'd been trying to get back to that room, to the key she'd left there—"

"But Drouet found it first."

"He found the diary. He found the room. And last night, when the portal was supposed to open, he was waiting for me in the Hall of Mirrors. We struggled. The key fell through a grate." Her voice broke. "It's gone. The portal's gone. I'm trapped here forever."

Étienne reached out and took her hand. His palm was warm, callused from a lifetime of writing—or perhaps riding, or fencing, or whatever a man of his station did with his hands. She didn't pull away.

"You're not trapped," he said. "You're here. In this world. Whatever portal brought you here, whichever alignment opened it—the diary said five years, didn't it? You told me the window of return was five years."

"I don't know if I can survive five years in this world."

"You've survived a month." His thumb traced slow circles on her wrist. "You've survived Bertin, and Drouet, and the Queen herself. You've survived a court that would eat you alive if it knew your secrets. You're the strongest woman I've ever met, Camille. You'll survive five years."

She laughed, but it came out wet and broken. "You believe me. Just like that."

"Just like that." He smiled, a small, tired thing. "I've known you for weeks. I've watched you navigate the impossible with more grace than women twice your age who were born to this life. If you tell me you're from the future, I believe you. And if you tell me there's a way home, I'll help you find it."

"The key is gone."

"Keys can be remade. Grates can be opened. The diary is in Drouet's possession, but it was in the hidden room for years—the knowledge wasn't destroyed when he took it. I know where that room is now. I can find a way in."

Camille stared at him. "You heard Drouet. He's watching you now. Anything you do on my behalf puts you at risk."

"I've been at risk since the moment I met you." He squeezed her hand. "It's the first thing that's made me feel alive in years."

She didn't know what to say. She sat there, on the narrow bed in her cold room, with the future she'd lost and the past she couldn't return to pressing down on her from all sides, and she let herself feel the warmth of his hand around hers.

"I heard rumors," he said quietly. "This morning, before I found you. About the Comtesse's trousseau, and Bertin's demands. About how the Queen has kept you busy with her own gown, leaving you no time to earn the money you owe."

"Bertin has been—"

"I know." He let go of her hand and reached into his coat, pulling out a small leather pouch. "It's not forty louis. But it's enough to cover the first installment, with something to spare."

She shook her head. "I can't take your money."

"You can. You will. Consider it a business loan." His mouth curved into a wry smile. "You're teaching me modern business efficiency, remember? This is what we'd call a venture capital investment. I expect a return."

"Étienne—"

"Don't argue." He pressed the pouch into her palm. "I have connections at the Treasury. The money isn't missed. And you have a talent that could make us both wealthy, if you survive long enough to practice it."

Camille closed her fingers around the pouch. The leather was soft, worn, warm from his body. She looked up at him, at his kind face and steady eyes, and felt something in her chest loosen for the first time since the key had clattered into darkness.

"Thank you," she said. "I don't—I don't know how to repay you."

"Survive," he said simply. "That's all I ask. Now rest. I'll tell Bertin you're unwell and the Queen's fitting will wait until tomorrow."

He stood, and she caught his sleeve before he could leave. "Étienne. Drouet. He threatened you. He said—"

"I heard what he said." His voice was quiet, but his jaw was set. "I've been threatened by worse men in the course of my work. I can handle a spy with a grudge."

"It's not a grudge. He knows who you are to me. He'll use you to get to me."

"Then I'll be careful." He looked down at her, and something soft passed across his face. "And so will you. From now on, we're both careful. But we're not hiding. We have work to do."

He left, closing the door quietly behind him. Camille sat on the bed for a long time, holding the pouch of coins, feeling the weight of them in her palm.

She should sleep. Bertin would be unbearable today. The Queen's gown waited. The Comtesse's trousseau waited. Her entire life here waited, unchanged, unrelenting.

But for the first time since the key had fallen through the grate, she thought she might be able to lift the needle again.