Read Chapter 6: A Stitch in Time

The room they gave her was a wedge of space beneath the eaves, no bigger than a good-sized dressing room in her old life, and it smelled of dust and mice and old wood. A cot, a washstand, a single window that looked out over the slate roofs of the château toward the dark fringe of the park. And a wardrobe, listing slightly on its legs, its doors swollen with damp.

Camille stood in the middle of the floor with her palms flat against her thighs and tried to breathe. She had done it. She was the Queen’s personal seamstress. In the morning, Maître Aubert would bring her to the wardrobe rooms, where she would answer to no laundress, no head girl, no under-steward. She had a position. She had a future.

She had five days to figure out how the hell to get home.

The brass key was cold against her sternum where she had hung it from a bit of twine. She pulled it out now, turning it over in her fingers. It was the same dull bronze-gold, the same odd faceted bow, like a flower pressed flat. It had been in the pocket of the historical gown she’d been restoring when the seam had opened and swallowed her. It had no business in 1785. And yet.

She crossed to the wardrobe and opened it. A few shifts, a patched underskirt, a shawl of coarse wool. Nothing. She knelt and ran her hand along the underside of the cot frame, felt for loose boards, tapped the walls. Old plaster crumbled under her fingernails. She worked her way around the room, methodical, the way you’d sweep a fitting room for stray pins.

Behind the wardrobe, the wall sounded hollow.

She shoved the heavy piece aside, scraping a furrow in the dusty floorboards, and found a panel cut into the wainscoting, barely a seam. It gave under pressure, swinging inward on hidden hinges.

Inside, the space was shallow, no deeper than a hatbox. And wrapped in oilcloth, a bundle.

Her hands shook as she lifted it out. The oilcloth fell away to reveal a portfolio of heavy paper, its edges soft with age. She undid the ribbons and opened it.

The first page stopped her breath.

A sketch of a gown with a dropped waist. A bias-cut skirt. A neckline that curved like the edge of a scallop shell—

She flipped the page. Another design. A sheath dress, simple as a blade, its only ornament a spray of feathers at the shoulder. And another. A column of pale fabric with a slit to the thigh.

Modern. These were modern designs. Cut, line, proportion—the vocabulary of the twentieth century, of magazines and ateliers she had studied in fashion school. Not a single pannier. Not one bit of trim.

She sank onto the cot, the portfolio open in her lap. The sketches were signed. A small, looping monogram in the corner of each page. *C.D.*

Camille Dubois.

She looked up, heart hammering. The peasant girl whose body she wore. The girl who had, apparently, drawn these. Which meant the girl was not a peasant at all—or had not always been. Which meant—

*Someone else came through the seam.*

The thought landed like a stone in a still pool. She flipped faster now, hunting for notes, letters, anything. Near the back, tucked between two pages, she found a scrap of paper, ragged-edged, covered in a cramped, urgent hand.

*The key opens the door of the tailor who served her. He knew. He kept the seam open—no, not open, but he walked it. Ask for the Gown of Three Threads. It is how she came. It is how I tried to go. If you find this, do not trust the one who speaks of the Queen’s comfort first. They will use you. They will burn you. I have seen the fire that waits for those who serve her too well.*

No signature. The ink had faded to a rust-brown.

Camille read it twice, then a third time. *The Gown of Three Threads.* A gown that could open the seam. That was her way home. Not the sealed rooms of the dead court tailor—or not only. He had known something. The key would open his door. And in his rooms, perhaps, she would find the gown, or the pattern for it.

She folded the letter and slipped it into her bodice, next to the key. Then she repacked the portfolio and returned it to its hiding place, pressing the panel until it clicked.

She had just shoved the wardrobe back against the wall, breathing hard, when a knock came at the door.

She wiped her hands on her apron and opened it.

Étienne stood in the corridor, a ledger tucked under his arm and a lantern in his hand, casting a soft circle of light around his polished shoes. He grinned when he saw her. “You look like you’ve been rolling under a bed.”

“Something like that.” She stepped aside to let him in, closing the door behind him. “What are you doing here?”

He set the lantern on the washstand and tapped the ledger. “Inventory of the wardrobe expenses. Someone has to make sure the laundresses aren’t selling the Queen’s linen to the ragman.” He glanced around the bare little room, then back at her. “And I wanted to see how the new favorite was settling in. You’ve made quite a stir, Camille. They’re saying the Queen wore your gown and wept.”

“She didn’t weep.”

“They’re saying she did. By tomorrow they’ll say she named you a duchess.” He said it lightly, but his eyes were serious. “You’ve made an enemy of Bertin. And you’ve drawn the eye of Vaudreuil. That’s not a safe combination.”

“I know.” She sat on the cot, suddenly tired. “He wants to meet me. In the library.”

Étienne’s face changed. “Don’t go.”

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.” He set the ledger down and came closer, dropping his voice. “Vaudreuil collects secrets. He doesn’t trade them. If he wants to see you, it’s because he’s decided you’re either useful or dangerous. And the people he decides are dangerous—” He stopped.

“They disappear,” Camille finished.

Étienne nodded. “You should have stayed in the laundry.”

“I couldn’t.” She looked up at him and, for the first time since she’d woken in this body, told someone something close to the truth. “I’m looking for something. A way out of here. The rooms of the old tailor—the one who died. I think he left something behind. Something that can help me.”

Étienne was quiet a moment. Then he said, “The tailor who served the last Queen. No one’s touched his rooms since the day he was found. They say the door is locked from the inside and the key was never found.”

“I have a key.”

His eyes dropped to her bodice, where the brass shape pressed against the fabric. “Where did you get that?”

“I can’t tell you.” She held his gaze. “But I’m asking you to trust me. You offered me an hour in those rooms, and I’m asking if you meant it.”

Étienne looked at her for a long moment. Then he reached into the ledger and pulled out a folded paper. “I didn’t come just to check on you,” he said. “I found this in the accounts. A request from the King’s household, dated the day the tailor died. It lists the contents of his rooms for the inventory.”

He handed her the paper. She unfolded it and read. Furniture. Fabrics. A cutting table. A locked chest of silks—and, at the bottom, in a different hand, an addendum: *One gown, incomplete, of three threads—white, gold, and black. Retained at the order of the Comte de Vaudreuil. Removed from the rooms and held in the wardrobe of the Comte.*

She looked up, her heart cold.

“It seems,” Étienne said quietly, “the Comte already has what you’re looking for.”