The order arrived sealed in red wax.
Camille de Montreval broke it open beneath the pale light of early morning, the paper stiff with authority. The words were precise, careful—crafted to sound inevitable.
Increase patrols.
Identify agitators.
Detain without spectacle.
There was no signature. There did not need to be.
Camille folded the paper slowly and slipped it into her coat. Outside, Versailles was already awake, its rituals indifferent to the quiet tightening of its grip.
She knew what this meant.
Paris would not be met with presence now, but with pressure.
By noon, the city felt different.
The air itself seemed watchful. Doors closed more quickly. Conversations lowered at the sight of uniforms. Camille moved through the streets with her escort, her gaze sharper, her steps heavier.
She did not want to see him.
She saw him anyway.
Lucien Moreau stood at the edge of a narrow square, speaking quietly to a small cluster of men and women. No papers in hand. No raised voice. Just words exchanged like currency too valuable to be wasted.
Camille halted.
Her men followed suit, confused but obedient.
Lucien noticed the stillness first. He turned—and met her eyes.
This time, there was no crowd large enough to hide behind. No polite distance to preserve illusion.
"Captain," he said calmly.
"Lucien," Camille replied.
His name tasted dangerous on her tongue.
A murmur rippled through the square.
Camille stepped forward alone.
"You should leave," she said quietly. "Now."
Lucien's brow furrowed. "Is this a warning or an arrest?"
Camille held his gaze. "It is mercy."
Someone behind him whispered, "They're coming for us."
Lucien shook his head once. "If I leave, they'll come for someone else."
Camille's jaw tightened. "And if you stay, they'll come for you."
"Then let them."
For a moment—one impossible moment—Camille imagined drawing her sword not in command, but in defiance. Imagined turning her back on Versailles entirely.
The vision shattered.
"Go," she said again, softer now.
Lucien searched her face, something raw and unguarded flickering there.
"You listen," he said. "That's why this hurts."
He stepped back.
Then further.
And then he was gone—slipping into the maze of streets, swallowed by the city.
Camille exhaled only when she could no longer see him.
"Captain?" one of her guards asked uncertainly.
"Move on," she said.
But the square remembered.
That night, arrests were made elsewhere.
Camille read the reports with a sick, hollow calm. Names she did not recognize. Faces she had not seen. Violence applied efficiently, impersonally.
Versailles approved.
Two days later, Lucien was taken.
Not in the open. Not with witnesses. At dawn, as he crossed a bridge slick with mist, hands closed around his arms and dragged him into shadow.
By the time Camille learned of it, he was already behind stone walls.
She stood alone in her chamber, the report trembling slightly in her hand.
Detained for dissemination of seditious material.
No trial date.
No assurances.
Camille felt something tear—not loudly, not cleanly—but enough to change the shape of everything that followed.
She went to the Queen.
Éléonore de Roseraie listened in silence as Camille spoke, her voice steady despite the fury beneath it.
"They have taken a man who has not yet committed violence," Camille said. "If we begin here, there will be no end."
Éléonore's hands tightened around the arms of her chair. "I do not command the prisons," she said. "You know this."
"But you influence them."
The Queen looked at her sharply. "Careful."
Camille bowed her head—but did not retreat. "Your Majesty once asked me if I would stop the people at the gates. I ask you now—will you stop this?"
Silence.
At last, Éléonore spoke. "What is his name?"
Camille hesitated. "Lucien Moreau."
The Queen repeated it softly, committing it to memory. "I will see what can be done."
It was not a promise.
But it was something.
That night, Camille walked the palace corridors unable to rest.
She had broken no oath.
And yet she felt disloyal for the first time in her life.
Loyalty, she realised, was not a single line—but a tearing seam.
And she stood directly upon it.