Page 37 of The Tides of Time (Storm Tide #1)
F or three days, Lili studied the ships sailing in and out of Honfleur, heartsick and increasingly hopeless. Armitage was not on any of them. She had been carried back by the Tides of Time, but he had not.
She’d lost him. The waves had pulled their hands apart as they’d both struggled to stay afloat, and the merciless Tides of Time had snatched her away in that single vulnerable moment, dropping her here, now, alone.
During her anguished watch, she’d learned that the year was in fact 1793 and that she had arrived nearly two weeks after the day she had originally left Honfleur. The Tribunal’s grip on France had only grown more intense.
M. and Mme Romilly were still in danger in Paris. She could still save them. And no matter that her own future had been left behind in 1848, she would find the strength to give them theirs. She would make certain that should Armitage read any other books about the Révolution, he would never find his parents’ names listed among the executed.
She would give him that bit of peace, and in it, he might feel a connection to her, the reassurance that she had kept her word and rescued his parents.
The sailors who’d pulled her from the water three days earlier had allowed her to sit beside the fire in the ship’s galley as they’d sailed to France. They’d also allowed her to keep the blanket they’d given her after she’d disembarked at Honfleur, which had given her the means of keeping her cork vest hidden.
Saint Catherine’s Church was still closed up, so she’d sneaked inside, just as she’d done with the Desjardins. She’d climbed the stairs and hidden her cork vest behind dust-covered crates, which were themselves behind piles of cloth-covered chairs. While there was no guarantee that the vest wouldn’t be found or removed, it was the most likely spot for it to be left undisturbed and undiscovered.
When she’d been forced each night to abandon her desperate watch, she’d returned to the silent church for a fitful few hours of sleep. She’d known from the time the sailors had pulled her from la Manche that she wouldn’t find Armitage, yet she’d clung to the hope that she would for days. She’d dreamed every night of him and had awoken with a newly broken heart.
Having resigned herself to her separation from Armitage, Lili undertook a final task in the abandoned church. She crossed to the wooden spiral stairs at the back of the chapel. She reached into the shadows behind and felt along the wall until her fingers brushed the small crack where she’d hidden her money the last time she’d been in Honfleur. The bag was there.
Thank the heavens.
She pulled it out and opened the drawstring top. Her money was still inside. It would be enough to purchase passage to Paris.
Paris. She swallowed down an unbidden lump of apprehension. Paris, where blood flowed in the streets. Where death and fear hung heavy in the air. Paris. Where M. and Mme Romilly were. She’d so often felt grateful that they’d been nearby and in her life. The guilt of that nearly tore her heart to pieces now. They’d had a quiet and peaceful life, surrounded by family before they’d come here. They’d been robbed of all that, and Lili had been grateful. No, she hadn’t understood what they’d lost, but they had. They’d made the best of a horrible situation, choosing to save everyone they could and to be a light in the crushing darkness.
And that selflessness, incredible as it was, would catch up to them soon.
With that stiffening her resolve, Lili arranged for passage on a river barge, aiming for the capital city. She kept to herself on the multiple days’ journey. There were only two other passengers, neither of whom were known to her, nor did they seem interested in anything to do with her. That was for the best.
At night, she kept herself still and calm, forcefully keeping herself from tossing and turning and steadfastly refusing to cry. While traveling in the light, she stood on the deck, wrapped in her borrowed blanket, with her gaze focused ahead. When she set foot in Paris once more, she would be ready for the fight that awaited her there.
By the time she disembarked on the banks of the Seine in the heart of that city, she felt very much the version of herself she had been before Loftstone. No broken heart weighing her down. No thoughts of Armitage distracting her from her purpose. Revolutionary Paris allowed only for survival. That would be her purpose.
With her blanket now draped over her like a large shawl, she wound through the familiar streets, passing buildings she had known all her life. Why, then, did she feel so strongly that she didn’t belong among them? She felt like an outcast in her own time.
She glanced at a newspaper someone was reading.
A headline above the fold declared “The Final Days of the Girondins.” Many of the leaders of that group had, months earlier, been declared traitors, though they had once been a driving force behind the Révolution. They were seen as not supportive enough of those who had since seized power. Their disagreement with those controlling the Comité and the Tribunal had been declared proof that they hated their country. They were traitors in the eyes of those who had continued their work of revolution.
The twenty-two Girondins had been sentenced to death. All of them had been executed by guillotine only a few weeks ago, the entirety of that succession of beheadings taking less than forty minutes.
Death had become efficient in Paris, and no one was safe from it.
The people she passed as she resumed her journey didn’t make eye contact, not with her, not with anyone. Eyes remained downcast. Faces were frozen in neutral expressions, but there was a tense and terrified set to everyone’s mouths.
The friendliness of the people on Loftstone Island and the happiness Lili had known there had driven this reality from her mind. She’d not truly forgotten how it felt to live in a place where identity was based on fear and safety depended on not drawing any notice—such lessons remained with a person—but the sharpness of it had been softened by the love she’d found there.
Lili stopped halfway down a narrow street among the wider ones at a door above which a shingle read Tailleur Romilly.
The Romillys had given her an income when she’d had none. Far greater than that, they had been family to her. And in this shop, she had planned dozens of perilous escapes, aided and encouraged and safeguarded by this couple. By Armitage’s parents.
She stepped inside. No tools of the tailoring trade sat on the empty tables. No indication of a bustling business. The shop looked abandoned. But Lili knew better.
She made her way with a swiftness born of experience to a door at the back and stepped through into the storage room beyond. She knew she would not find the Romillys there either.
Lili continued on to yet another door, but she didn’t open it. Instead, she stopped and knocked in a very particular rhythm. Then waited.
A single knock answered.
“ Embauchez-vous ?” She asked the question that had long been a code in their network.
The door opened. Lili stepped through into the darkness on the other side. Movement rustled. Someone lit a candle, followed by another, until the darkness dissipated.
M. and Mme Romilly were both there, more bedraggled than she remembered and more nervous.
“Lili?” M. Romilly looked more concerned than pleased. “You are meant to be away from France by now. Did something happen?”
She nodded. “Far too much to even begin recounting.”
“The Tribunal révolutionnaire is looking for you,” M. Romilly warned. “I suspect they have interrogated every resident of le Quartier du Louvre, demanding to know your whereabouts. One of their agents left in pursuit of you, but the Tribunal is not convinced you aren’t in Paris.”
“You should not have returned,” Mme Romilly said. “It is dangerous for you here.”
“I made a promise,” Lili said. “I’m here to keep it.”
“A promise?” M. Romilly looked utterly confused. “To whom could you have made a promise that brought you back here?”
She held their gazes while she fought a surge of emotion. She could not afford sorrow or heartache or anything else that made her vulnerable. She took a quick breath and reclaimed her calm. “I promised your son.”
Neither of them seemed to move even the tiniest bit. She wished she could give them time to sort through all she was about to explain, but she did not know how soon the Tribunal would come for them.
“A week ago for me,” she said, “and at least fifteen years ago for you, you made me a promise, one you must have realized these past two years that you made to me. ”
Mme Romilly pressed a hand to her heart. “We knew you would find yourself on the Tides of Time at some point. We even said to each other after you left Paris, that this journey might very well be the one that would bring you to that day.”
“It was not the only journey the tides took me on.” Lili hadn’t the luxury of dwelling on any of that. “I promised Armitage that I would come back here and finish my last two rescues. I need him to have the comfort of knowing that you did not meet your fate at the guillotine.”
Mme Romilly took a shaking breath. “Is he here?”
That question struck pain to Lili’s heart. How she wished he were, and yet she was grateful he wasn’t. How much danger he would be in. She could never have lived with herself if bringing him here had led to his death. “The Tides of Time were not kind.” It was all she could bring herself to say. And she refused to dwell on it. “Gather the most essential things: a change of clothes, what money you have on hand, a bit of food. The sooner we can leave, the safer you will be.”
“We’ve known since the tides dropped us in this time of upheaval that we would never truly be safe,” M. Romilly said. “No one is. Though we were brought here from a future time, we are as unsure of our fate here as anyone else. Safety is not guaranteed.”
“I can bring you a step closer to that guarantee,” she said. “But only if you trust me and come with me. Now.”
They immediately began seeing to the task, with Lili helping where and how she could. These dear people would be able to slip out of Paris and out of the reach of the Tribunal. She would see to it that they had passage, but not to Honfleur. The Tribunal would think to look there.
“I don’t know who among our connections is still in Paris and whose home is still safe,” she said, “but we need somewhere to hide until I can arrange for passage out of the city.”
“Théodore Michaud is still in Paris,” M. Romilly said. “He’ll let us shelter with him.”
Théodore’s name was not on the list of the executed; Lili had looked. His home would be a safe place for them.
Mme Romilly hooked her arm through the handle of a basket. To any onlookers, she would appear to be on her way to market. M. Romilly had a simple bag slung over one shoulder, not an uncommon sight on the streets of Paris. Lili had nothing but the small bag of money she’d hidden in Honfleur, though nearly all of that was now gone.
“If we cross at the Pont Neuf,” Lili said, leading them out the alley-side exit of their home, “we can signal Pierre Tremblay to inform the others that you’re dipping belowground.”
“A good notion.” M. Romilly locked the door behind them. “Word came two days ago that Sabine Germain went belowground. The Tribunal was watching her too closely.”
Sabine was on the list in Armitage’s book. At the moment, she was in hiding, but in the end, she would not escape. Could that be changed? Lili didn’t know.
They assumed unconcerned demeanors and began walking away from the shop. The Romillys were leaving their home of three years. Lili couldn’t imagine they were truly indifferent. And they were leaving because they were in danger, which would add to the emotions that must have been churning beneath the surface.
Lili needed to keep her head.
As they passed a man with a newspaper tucked under his arm, she carefully slipped it out from behind. Without a word, she stuck it in M. Romilly’s hand. “If we have to stop and anyone is studying you too closely,” she explained.
He nodded his understanding. Mme Romilly adjusted her mobcap so it shadowed her face a little more. This was a dance Lili had taught many people to undertake: hiding without appearing to hide. Her blanket worn as a shawl was unusual, though far less so than the 1870s dress she wore beneath it. Were she to wear a low cap or tuck herself behind a newspaper, the combination of all those bits of oddity would draw notice.
She gave M. and Mme Romilly a quick study as they continued on. There was still something not entirely as expected in their appearance. Their clothing was correct. Their mannerisms did not leap out in any way. Two people going about their day, doing their shopping.
Shopping.
Lili dug a coin out of her well-hidden but accessible coin bag. The moment she spotted a regrattier , she stopped.
“A leek and a bundle of parsley, please.” Both were tall and light.
She slipped her purchase into Mme Romilly’s basket, with the leafy ends extending outward. “You’re meant to be shopping,” she explained.
They both nodded.
“What about you?” Mme Romilly asked. “You are carrying nothing.”
“I blend better this way.” Except, in that moment, she spied someone watching her rather too closely for comfort. A man at a distance too great for seeing him in detail but near enough that she knew herself to be the focus of his studying gaze. “We need to keep going.”
“I cannot believe how often you have done this,” Mme Romilly said, her voice quiet but her expression inconspicuous.
“Seventy-eight,” Lili whispered. Her number would be seventy-eight.
They wound a roundabout path toward le Pont Neuf. Lili intentionally chose a path that completely hid their eventual destination. It wasn’t a precaution against the possibility of being followed; she was decidedly being followed.
The same man who’d been watching her near the regrattier was keeping close on her path. She managed, in the reflection of a window, to get a better look at him. He wore a liberty cap and a tricolor cockade.
And he was watching her. Following her.
“Wind your way to le Pont Neuf,” she said quietly, instructing the Romillys. “I need to misdirect someone. But I will meet you at Théodore’s home as soon as I am able.”
“We are being followed?” M. Romilly asked.
“ I am being followed. I do not think you have been recognized. But be very careful, and keep watch.”
Mme Romilly met Lili’s eye. “What if you are captured?”
Lili flashed her a quick smile. “I haven’t been yet.”
Before they could argue further, Lili ducked down an alleyway and moved swiftly in the opposite direction that the Romillys needed to go. The man in the tricolor followed her.
Behind buildings, down streets, through alleys she went, moving swiftly enough to evade capture but slowly enough to be followed. It was disconcertingly familiar. She had done similar things in Paris and in Honfleur. Being a decoy was part of rescuing people.
After what must have been a quarter hour, time and plenty for the Romillys to get far out of reach, Lili sped up her pace. The man who’d been following her could be safely shaken from her trail without sending him in their direction.
Lili slipped behind a locked gate and across a wide garden. At the other end, she slipped through another gate and stepped out onto a busy street. It was easier to hide in a crowd. She joined the flow of people.
She’d not gone more than a few meters when her arm was grabbed and she was pulled onto an expanse of grass.
“Elisabeth Minet.” She swung about at the familiar voice. It wasn’t the man who’d been following her.
It was Géraud. But an older Géraud, at least fifteen years older than she’d last seen him. And fifteen years angrier. “You are accused of treason against the Republic and will appear before the Comité de Salut public.”
Treason was always the word used, but it represented any number of offenses: sending and receiving letters, not showing enough outward allegiance to the Republic, not displaying with enough gusto the emblems of the nation, not speaking highly enough of those in power. And what constituted “enough” changed all the time. But helping people leave Paris or France had always and would always be on that list.
Seventy-eight people. That number was known.
Géraud motioned to someone, who grabbed hold of her other arm. Another someone stepped in front of her, the man who’d been chasing her.
“There will be no escaping this time,” Géraud said. “You have exacted a cost on this country and those loyal to her, and payment is due.”