by Kester Grant
He is a grown man, a member of the Guild of Letters, a spy, a hardened criminal, so I try my utmost not to show him how amusing I find the fact that he is being utterly undone by a mere slip of a girl.
“What are you doing here, Black Cat?” he asks.
“I would not have come, le Maire, except—”
Ettie pushes away from me. “Le Maire?” she says, and then she looks at the man who has kept her imprisoned. “Le Maire?!”
He looks at me, his eyes heavy with reproach.
“Le Maire?” Ettie is saying again, her voice pitched high in disbelief. “One of the three living Wonders of the Miracle Court? Le Maire, who convinced an entire town that he was their mayor for three years? Le Maire, who infiltrated the Austrian Court and escaped from the Bastille?”
I look between the two of them.
“And you said you had no stories to tell?”
I hastily interrupt this one-sided exchange to address le Maire. “I need your expertise, and there is no one else I can ask, no one who can do what I need done.”
“The debt was to hide her.” He frowns and motions at Ettie as if she is no more than an envelope he has had to secrete away. “There was no talk of further aid.”
I smile at him. “If you do this favor for me, le Maire, then you will not need to hide her from the Tiger anymore—your debt will be considered fully repaid.”
It takes the space of a heartbeat for him to reply. “What do you need me to do?”
“And what about me?” Ettie says, her voice as sharp as the blade of the ax. “What am I to do while you and le Maire are off having adventures? You cannot leave me here or hide me somewhere else. I’ll not stand for it, Nina!”
I fix her with a cold gaze. “I am going to enter the Flesh Guild and I am going to kill the Tiger,” I say.
The gravity of my task should frighten her enough to calm down all her talk of adventures.
But to my surprise, she smiles, a glint in her eyes.
“Good,” she says. “It’s about time we did that.”
Outside in the rue Plumet, night has fallen. The oil lamps are feeble halos of light punctuated by long pockets of darkness, giving ample opportunity for any Wretched looking to carry out a quick mugging. Or to steal someone away.
“You know what to do?” I ask Ettie when le Maire has finally gone.
“Yes,” she says grimly.
I give a low whistle, the call of the Ghosts.
Behind me, Gavroche emerges out of the night. He has taken to following me around; I am not sure if it’s on Orso’s orders or because he is so fond of Ettie and thinks that if he follows me he might find her.
This is his lucky day.
Ettie gives a small cry and takes him in her arms. His smile is so wide it threatens to split his face in two.
“Gray Brother, will you bring Ettie to where she needs to go?”
He looks lovingly at Ettie and nods.
“Are you afraid?” I ask Ettie.
“Everyone is afraid,” she says, echoing Azelma’s words to me.
“You know we can’t survive this, Ettie,” I say softly.
“Then we die together,” she replies, shaking her curls defiantly. “I’d rather live one glorious night hunting by your side, Nina Thénardier, than a hundred lifetimes without you.” She raises her palm and I see the scar where we made our oath in the palace all those nights ago. I raise my own hand and we intertwine our fingers.
“Nous sommes d’un sang,” she says. And she and the little Ghost disappear into the night.
* * *
My next task awaits me. I slip over an unattended section of the palace walls, which I found years ago on one of my night wanderings, and creep stealthily to an entrance I know to be frequented by servants. In a back closet, I open my satchel and pull out a dress, the first of several items I “acquired” from the Duchesse de Callicèbe one night when she was away. I layer my skin with powder to erase the darkness, pinch my cheeks to add color, and dab scent on my stolen wig. I also helped myself to a weighty pair of diamond drop earrings, which I fasten to my earlobes.
Thus disguised, I slip from the closet and into one of the corridors, where I bump into several large footmen hurrying to and fro with great trays of food. I grab one of the men, seemingly accidentally, and I laugh too loud, pretending to sway.
“Oh my, I don’t have the faintest idea where I am!” I giggle.
The footman looks annoyed at being stopped in his tracks, but he pastes a smile onto his face and with great decorum disentangles himself from me. “Let me lead you back upstairs, madame.”
He escorts me through the Pavillon de Flore and up the back stairs to the palace. Then he opens a door and everything is light and color.
The ball is a seething tangle of bodies, spread out over two floors off the central Pavillon de l’Horloge. I pause for a minute to appreciate the giant chandelier, which sends sparkling light over everybody. It’s said to be the greatest chandelier in all of Paris, even all the world. Perhaps one day I’ll steal it and it will hang above Tomasis’s head in the Shining Court of the Thieves Guild. But tonight, I have a mission; the last piece of my plan must be set in place.
Everybody who’s anybody in society is present tonight: nobility, royalty, foreign dignitaries and ambassadors.
A footman walks past with a tray. I reach out and grab a glass of pink champagne and take a sip. It’s delicious, light, bubbly, and sharp. I survey the ballroom through the bottom of my glass and count the number of servants circulating with trays of champagne, detailing which entrances and exits they use. Twenty guards in blue livery stand, two at each door. I frown. From the corner of my eye I spot a uniform of blue with shining brass buttons. A member of the Sûreté. I count four Sûreté agents in all. They look conspicuous and ill at ease.
I choose the youngest one, a black-haired boy too thin for his uniform but with the right fresh-faced foolishness to tell me what I need to know. I plunge straight into the crowd, letting them bump into me and turn to apologize. My hands are quick, my smile is enchanting, my manners are irreproachable. I make my way to the other side of the hall, pull out the fan that I just acquired, and, fanning myself, approach the young officer.
“Bonsoir, Officier,” I say in a coy undertone.
The boy looks alarmed that I’m speaking to him and goes slightly pink.
“I’m looking for the lovely red-haired inspector. She told me to meet with her ten minutes ago, and I can’t find her anywhere.”
I flutter my eyelashes and gaze at him hopefully.
“Inspector Javert will probably be occupied for some time more, mademoiselle,” he answers in a low voice. “She’s in a meeting in the Salon de la Reine.”
I make a face. “I’ll wait. I’m not in a rush,” I lie, though it is, in fact, most inconvenient that the inspector is here at the Tuileries when I need her to be ready to play her part in my schemes.
I thank the officer prettily, then turn and almost walk right into…St. Juste?
For a moment we stare at each other. He’s dressed in dark wine velvet with a white-and-gold cravat.
His mouth is slightly open as his eyes travel from my head to my feet. “Well, you look entirely different.”
“What on earth are you doing here?” I hiss, tucking my hand into his arm.
St. Juste hates balls, and rich people, and fun, so his being here is deeply out of character and practically shouts that he’s up to something. But he’s also standing here in a velvet coat looking devastatingly handsome.
St. Juste lowers his lips to my ear in a manner that might seem seductive to anyone around us. “We are planning an act of treason against every person in this room, so I thought, what better opportunity to survey the palace than the occasion of a ball? Why are you here?”
“I’m a Thief,
St. Juste. Breaking into places where rich people get drunk and leave their jewelry lying around is what I do,” I say quickly.
There’s a distracted look on his face, and a muscle twitches in his cheek.
“How did you even get in?” I ask him.
“My grandfather on my mother’s side was a tutor to several of the dukes. He’s often invited to these sorts of soirées and was only too delighted to let me come in his place. He thinks I’m growing disillusioned with my heretical beliefs.”
I lead St. Juste by the arm through the ballroom and toward a magnificent staircase teeming with people going up to the second floor. He clings to me in a way that I tell myself is because of the heaving crowds around us.
“Why did you ask that Sûreté officer where the inspector is?” he murmurs in my ear, his voice as low and intimate as a lover’s whisper.
“There is something here that I need to obtain,” I say vaguely, giving him a mischievous smile. I don’t think St. Juste will like my plans for Inspector Javert.
“Oh? And what might that be?”
I rap him with my fan. “Do you tell me all your secrets, St. Juste?” I ask teasingly.
“Yes,” he answers with brutal honesty.
“Well, then you’re a fool,” I say, leaning into him as if we’re two young lovers flirting with impossible desire. Which obviously isn’t the case. Because no matter what everyone says, I’m definitely not the slightest bit attracted to St. Juste. Or so I constantly remind myself.
I wait for a chance and drag us both down a corridor in the shadows. I know the layout of this palace intimately, thanks to my previous visit. The northern wing is barely used, so we take the long way around, down deserted corridors and past empty rooms. In the darkness, St. Juste holds my hand, more to keep from bumping into things than out of romantic inclination, but the feeling of his fingers wrapped around mine as I pull him along leaves me slightly breathless.
We go through the servants’ stairwell to the corridor of the Salon de la Reine. There are two liveried guards stationed at the door beside a giant clock wrought of ivory and gold. It’s a good thing that before I snuck into the ballroom, I set up a few loud traps timed to—
A crash rings out. The guards hurry toward the noise. I dash past them and stop before a tall door outlined in gilt.
I tell St. Juste to stand guard in the shadows behind the clock while I slip through a door onto an open balcony. The fireplace in the room below stands cold and empty, but the room itself is ablaze with other lights, making it hard for me to hide. I slowly lower myself into a corner and take in the room. In the center is a large table with a gigantic map of the city spread out on it that would drive St. Juste wild with envy. There are objects set on the map in perfect rows. My heart pounds as I recognize what they are.
Toy soldiers.
There are four people in the room. Inspector Javert is one of them, recognizable by the long red hair tied into a tight tail at her neck and her uniform of bright blue. Good. I’ll just wait for her meeting to be finished; then I’ll slip down and waylay her with information that I know will bring her to the right place at the right time….
There’s also a dark-haired noble turned away from me. And a woman in a shimmering dress of silver. I catch my breath. Son Altesse Royale la Reine.
The queen peels off one of her long gloves, and I frown: there’s something strange about her hand. The flesh is a mess of shining skin blotched with angry red stains. It no longer looks like a hand.
From this day forth, whoever even thinks of putting death in the waters of this city will cast their own hand into the flames until it is ruined.
I shiver, remembering the words of Corday’s curse.
Ysengrim take you.
Oblivious to my silent curses, the queen picks up a toy soldier from the map.
I look again at the map and recognize twenty red marks at strategic locations. And around each mark is a ring of perfectly arranged soldiers.
“Are you sure you’re ready?” the queen asks the dark-haired nobleman.
“Do I not look ready?” he answers smoothly. “We know the exact location of each splinter cell. We outman them ten to one. We’ll wipe them from the city’s memory.”
My heart surges—they’re talking about St. Juste and the Société!
“Any survivors will be arrested,” the queen adds. “They will be publicly tried, and will be found guilty. They, their families, their friends, and anyone who even recognizes their names will be fed to Madame Guillotine.”
“You have their names?” asks the nobleman.
The queen smiles and is about to answer, when, on the balcony beside me, the door opens and St. Juste tumbles in, mouthing “Guards.”
I lunge desperately for the door he releases behind him, but I’m too late—the weight of it swings shut with a noticeable click.
Every head in the room turns toward us.
“Who’s there?” Javert demands.
In a rustle of heavy silk and satin, the queen is at the door of her Salon, commanding her guards to drag us down.
Every lesson Gentleman George taught me whirls through my head as I calculate our options.
If you are ever caught among the nobles, simply pretend you’re doing something indiscreet.
There’s only one thing for it: I fling myself at St. Juste, throwing my arms around his neck. Shocked, he stumbles backward, and we land in a heap on the floor.
“Listen to me, St. Juste—we are betrayed,” I hiss in his ear in the few seconds I have.
His eyes widen at my words; then I kiss him and hope desperately that he doesn’t push me away or ask what I’m doing. His arms snake around me, pulling me closer as he kisses me back fiercely. He tastes like coffee and red wine. And I’m pretty sure I hear him growl my name when the balcony doors are flung open and we’re torn apart and dragged to our feet. The spectators below can now see us both, so I use all my strength when I send a sharp slap across St. Juste’s face.
“How dare you, sir!” I say loudly. “Don’t think a few kisses meant I was ready for that.”
St. Juste is dazed. Wincing and confused. The guards drag us out into the corridor while I demand, “Unhand me,” and order, “Take this gentleman back to the ball, where he can try his luck with easier maidens.”
I keep up my flow of dialogue until we’re standing before the queen. My skin crawls with fear. What if she recognizes me? When I look up at Her Majesty, I feign shock and drop to my knees. Behind me, St. Juste follows suit quickly.
“What is this?” she asks.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty. I made the mistake of trusting this gentleman.” My voice is high with histrionics. “I didn’t object to a few friendly kisses, but then he dared to put his hand on my—”
The queen gives me a dismissive wave and I fall silent. Her face is blank, and she barely looks at me. She doesn’t recognize me. I’m painted and dressed in finery as I was two years ago, but she didn’t look at me then, either. All she saw was Ettie. I might as well have been invisible, except to—
The dauphin steps into the corridor. The past two years have been kind to him; he’s still incredibly handsome. Dark hair, artfully disheveled, his muscular frame clothed in a magnificent coat of chocolate velvet and trimmed with bright gold. He looks straight at me, taking in the scene, and turns to his mother.
“You’ll be missed from the assembly,” he says.
The queen lifts a gloved hand to him. “I trust you can deal with this.”
The prince nods. “Oui, my queen.”
The queen turns on her heel and glides down the corridor, back to the ball.
I swallow hard, unsteady thoughts racing through my mind. I keep my head low. Surely the dauphin won’t look closely enough to recognize me. I’m just a random female among the hundreds at the ball.
/> The prince reaches out his hand.
“Hello, Nina,” he says.
I pale beneath my white powder.
The dauphin looks at St. Juste. “Who’s this?”
“No one,” I say in a dismissive voice.
I hear a faint splutter from St. Juste.
“Escort him back to the ball,” the prince orders the guards.
They take St. Juste firmly by the elbow and lead him away. St. Juste doesn’t protest and I don’t watch him go. If I want to protect him, I must pretend he’s nothing and no one to me. Not that I’ve much of a choice; the prince has me by the arm and is dragging me into the Salon de la Reine before I can say another word.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“I came to find the inspector,” I say.
The prince’s face falls, but Javert looks at me, frowning darkly.
“Who are you?” she demands.
“My name is Nina Thénardier, Inspector.”
“You break into the Tuileries during the biggest ball of the season so you can see the inspector?” the dauphin says incredulously. “I waited and hoped for years to get word of you.” He stares at me with an intensity I’m not sure I like. “You and Ettie are the only friends I’ve ever had. The only people who aren’t afraid of me. I think of you every day, every night.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Every night?”
He reddens, but only slightly. “Yes, every night,” he says boldly. “I’ve even wished you’d make good on your threat and sneak in one night to slit my throat. Anything so I could see you again.”
I don’t really have time for these reminiscences, and shift my feet as a familiar feeling of annoyance rises in me. “The night I left you, Ettie was kidnapped, and it’s taken me two years to locate her.”
The prince stares at me. “Kidnapped?” He steps toward me with arms outstretched. “Nina, I’m so sorry. Do you know who took her?”
I cross my arms. “An ex-convict named Jean Valjean. Rumor has it the inspector has been tracking him for years. And I’ve found his hideout.”