Read Chapter 2: A Palace of Ghosts

The cart rattled through the gates of Versailles at dawn, and Claire—Camille—forgot to breathe.

She had imagined the palace from paintings and postcards, from the glossy pages of history books she’d skimmed in school. None of it prepared her for the sheer, crushing weight of the golden gates, the endless sweep of cobbled courtyard, the way the morning light broke against a thousand windows and turned the whole façade into a wall of fire.

Beside her, a girl named Lisette clutched her arm. “Don’t stare,” she hissed. “Keep your eyes down. They can smell it on you if you’re awed.”

Camille dragged her gaze to the straw at her feet. “Smell what?”

“That you don’t belong.”

The cart lurched to a stop near a service entrance, and a steward with a face like spoiled milk waved them down. “Laundry. With me. Move like you mean it.”

There were six of them—girls and women from the villages around Paris, sent to scrub the linens of the most powerful court in Europe. Camille grabbed her bundle and followed, her worn shoes slapping against the stone. She’d been given a coarse gray dress, an apron, and a cap that pinched her temples. Her hands, still soft from the modern world, were already raw from the journey.

They descended a narrow stairwell into the basement kitchens of the palace, past steaming cauldrons and shouting cooks, down another corridor that smelled of lye and sweat. The laundry room was vast and hot, steam rising in thick clouds from copper vats. Women bent over troughs, scrubbing at fabric with stiff brushes, their faces slick, their arms red to the elbow.

The steward pointed to an empty trough. “You. Start with the queen’s chemises. Don’t tear them. They’ll hang you for less.”

Camille picked up a length of fine white linen and ran it through her fingers. The sewing was impeccable—tiny, even stitches, probably the work of the queen’s personal seamstress. For a moment, her designer’s eye kicked in, appreciating the quality of the weave, the French seams, the delicate lace insertion. Then she plunged her hands into the scalding water and got to work.

Hours passed in a haze of steam and aching shoulders. The other laundresses spoke little, and when they did, it was in low murmurs about the court—who was in favor, who had fallen, how the queen had worn a new gown that morning and the whole of Versailles had shifted like a tide.

Camille’s back screamed. Her fingers wrinkled and split. She had designed clothes for presidents’ wives and film stars, had commanded ateliers with a flick of her wrist, and now she was scrubbing other women’s underthings with a pig-bristle brush.

*Focus,* she told herself. *Find the gown. Find the seam. Find the way home.*

But the gown was somewhere above her, in the labyrinth of gilded rooms, and she was here, a faceless servant in a sea of steam.

At midday, a bell rang and the women broke for bread and thin soup. Camille slumped against the wall, too tired to eat, and slipped her hand into the pocket of her apron.

The key was still there.

It was an old-fashioned thing of brass, heavy and warm, with an ornate bow at the top and a long, delicate shaft. She had found it in the pocket of the historical gown she’d been restoring in her studio—a gown that had once belonged to Versailles. And now here it was, in 1785, still in her pocket, as if it had followed her through time.

She turned it over in her fingers. The metal was smooth from handling, the teeth worn. It was clearly meant for something fine—a cabinet, perhaps, or a small chest. But what did it open?

“What’s that?”

Camille looked up. A young footman had stopped beside her, a tray of untouched pastries in his hands. He was perhaps eighteen, with dark hair and quick, curious eyes.

She closed her fist around the key. “Nothing.”

“Pretty thing, to be nothing.” He set the tray down and crouched beside her, lowering his voice. “I’m Étienne. I serve in the king’s antechamber. I’ve never seen you before.”

“I’m new.”

“I could tell.” He smiled, and there was something open in his face, something that didn’t belong to the stiff, silent palace. “You’re not like the others. You look like you’re thinking.”

Camille almost laughed. She was thinking, all right. She was thinking about quantum physics and warp-speed seams and the impossible physics of being here at all.

“I’m just tired,” she said.

Étienne nodded. “Laundry’s the worst. But if you play your cards right, you can get moved up. Lady’s maid, or something in the workshops. You’ve got clever hands—I saw the way you touched that linen. Like you knew it.”

Camille’s heart gave a small jump. “What workshops?”

“The tailors’ and seamstresses’ rooms, above the east wing. They’re always looking for girls with needle skills.” He lowered his voice further. “The old court tailor died two years back, and his rooms have been sealed ever since. They say his spirit still walks the corridors at night, measuring ghosts.”

A chill ran down Camille’s spine. “Sealed?”

“Doors locked with his own keys. No one’s been in there since.” Étienne tilted his head. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” She glanced down at the key in her fist, then back up at him. The shape of it—large, old, ornate—could easily unlock a heavy door. A tailor’s door. A tailor’s workroom where a historical gown might have hung, where a seam might have opened, where Claire Martin might have been pulled through time.

Her pulse quickened.

“Étienne,” she said slowly, “could you get me into the east wing? Just once? I want to see the seamstresses’ work.”

He frowned. “That’s risky. Servants don’t wander where they’re not assigned.”

“I know. But I have a skill. I can sew. If I could just show someone, prove myself, maybe I could get promoted. Get out of this steam pit.” She let her voice tremble a little, let her eyes go wide. It wasn’t hard—she was terrified.

Étienne studied her for a long moment. Then he sighed. “There’s a ball in three days. The Comtesse de Pons has a gown that needs mending—a torn flounce, a missing rosette. She’s refused to send it to the official workshops because she doesn’t want anyone to know it got damaged at last night’s card game. If you could fix it for her, quietly, she might put in a word for you.”

Camille sat up straighter. “Where’s the gown?”

“In her rooms, on the second floor. I can get you in to see it tonight, when the servants are at supper. But you’ll have to do the work in a hurry, and if you’re caught—” He drew a finger across his throat.

“I won’t be caught,” Camille said.

Étienne rose, picking up his tray. “Meet me at the back stairs under the grand staircase. After the second bell.” He started to turn, then looked back at her. “Word of advice? Don’t let anyone see how much you want to get into the old tailor’s rooms. There are people here who notice things like that.”

He slipped away into the crowd of servants, and Camille was alone again with the steam and the ache and the small, heavy weight of the key in her hand.

She looked up at the ceiling, at the stone above her, imagining the vast gilded world above: chandeliers and silk and painted ceilings, the queen in her apartments, the king in his chambers, and somewhere in the east wing, a locked door with a brass lock that matched the key in her pocket.

*One step closer,* she thought. *One step closer to the seam.*

She slipped the key back into her apron and returned to the trough, plunging her hands into the hot water. The queen’s chemises had to be scrubbed. The rosettes had to be replaced. And somewhere, in a sealed room above her, a thread was still glowing in the dark, waiting to pull her home.