by Kester Grant
“Hello, little kitten.” The Tiger’s voice is warm as I walk toward them, ever alert.
Ettie’s hands are bound. She has the start of a black eye, and a line of blood drips down her face from her nose.
I give a small, disrespectful bow of my head to the Tiger and completely ignore Thénardier.
“There’s a shocking lack of familial affection here. Are you not going to greet your father?” the Tiger asks.
“Father.” I bow my head at Tomasis. His frowning eyes meet mine.
The Tiger laughs heartily. “A wild little spitfire to the last,” he says. “I was talking about Thénardier.”
I look over at Thénardier. He’s leaning against the wall, watching with amusement.
“He tried to shoot me.”
“I always back the winning side,” Thénardier says.
“You back the side that’ll pay you something.”
He laughs without malice. His pursuit of gold is highly impersonal.
I scan the room. There are no visible weapons here save the pistol in Thénardier’s hand. There are only tall lamps, candlesticks, and the odd chair.
“You shouldn’t have found her,” Tomasis says. “I knew where it would lead you.”
“Tomasis has had you followed, little Cat,” says the Tiger. “He’s had your own Guild watching you and reporting back.”
I pretend the information doesn’t sting.
“I’ve come here to put an end to this,” Tomasis says, pointing at Ettie. “Her existence brings the Guilds to the brink of war.” His words are careful and slow, as if it pains him to say them.
“She’s a Ghost.” I look pleadingly at Tomasis. “You swore an oath when I paid the bread price that you would not harm her.”
The Tiger laughs.
Tomasis avoids my eyes. “We’ve come to an agreement. The girl is the root of all the trouble. If she dies, the struggle between the Ghosts, the Thieves, and the Flesh Guild comes to an end.”
“My Lord, the Law.” I approach Tomasis. “You cannot do this!”
Tomasis strikes me across the face, and I stumble. “I am your Lord. You do not question me,” he says. His voice is raised, but he’s trembling. “You obey your Lord, trusting that he has the interests of your Guild at heart.”
I right myself and he reaches out to steady me. Gripping my arm, he twists my neck to force me to look him in the eye. He speaks in a low voice.
“The first duty of every Lord is to protect his children. You know this. Because you are my daughter, I have done what I can to shelter you from Kaplan’s wrath. But I see now that I’ve indulged you too much, given you too much freedom.
“She is only one Ghost,” he continues. “And I will not allow her to endanger you or my other children any longer.” His fingers are bruising my skin, but his tone is pleading. “Don’t you see, little one? She leads down a path to war, and I cannot allow it.”
There are tears in my eyes. I hear his words. He is my Father; I know what he says is true. And yet I cannot accept it.
“Are we not the Wretched?” I say in a broken voice. “We, the children of the Miracle Court. Are we not bound by the Law?”
He turns away from me as if he can hide from my questions.
“You don’t understand. You’re too young to remember the last Guild war.”
The Tiger watches us, eyes alive with raw delight, and he puts his fingers in Ettie’s curls and tightens his fist. She yelps as he drags her toward him.
He tilts her face to his. “Hear that, little Ghost? You’re going to die tonight.”
I look desperately to Tomasis, but he still won’t meet my eyes. He likes none of this, but he won’t do anything about it. And it’s then that I know I’ve lost him.
“Leave her alone.” I step toward the Tiger, but Tomasis is faster than I am. He grabs me and swings me around, pinning me against him. I struggle, but his grip tightens. I relax my arm, lower the dagger into my hand, and raise the blade in an upward swoop, slicing Tomasis’s arm. He swears and, grabbing my arm, slams it hard against his knee. I cry out, sure he’s broken it. Yet still I struggle.
“That’s enough!” Tomasis orders me.
I don’t stop fighting to get free of him, fighting to get to Ettie, who is rigid with fear. I try kicking myself loose. He can pin my hands, but he can’t keep my legs still.
Seeing this, Tomasis looks over at Thénardier. “Shoot her in the leg!”
The bullet rips through me. A searing instant of flesh tearing. Then the pain breaks over me in a wave as Tomasis holds me up. I try desperately to focus on breathing and staying conscious, and on watching Thénardier’s face as he struggles to reload his pistol with one hand.
“You are my Father. You swore to protect me,” I say to Tomasis through gritted teeth. “You took an oath.”
“I am protecting you.” Tomasis’s voice in my ear is as sure and comforting as it has always been. His words have always been right and true. If I trust him, then I can be safe.
But Ettie will be gone. Azelma will sleep forever. And the Tiger will live.
“Let me kill him, Tomasis. Please.”
He freezes. “Are you mad, child? If you listen and stay silent, you might make it out of this alive.”
“Do you think I want to live in a world where he exists? Where we all hide and cower in fear of him? He takes what he wants from us. He tears sisters and wives and children from us. He deals in the slavery of flesh. He is a stain upon the Court.”
“You don’t understand what Guild war is like,” repeats Tomasis.
“I’ve taken an oath to you. I’ve loved you, my Lord.” My words are heavy with tears, because I have loved him, because he is my Father. But whom do I love more? Tomasis or my sisters?
And what of the others, the women huddled in the cellar? The Sisters shut away in filthy beds all over the city?
Something snaps inside me. Perhaps this is what it feels like to have your heart break.
Sometimes we must pay a terrible price to protect the things we love.
I maintain my focus on Thénardier, who’s still holding his gun and watching me with mild interest. I make a choice. I meet his eye.
“If you shoot him now,” I say, my words tearing out of my throat, “you’ll be Lord of the Thieves Guild.”
The Tiger laughs. Tomasis turns, eyes wide with horror. He lets go of me and raises his hand, saying Thénardier’s name. But Thénardier has already raised his gun, and his good hand is steady.
The smell of gunpowder burns my throat. And as Tomasis falls, someone cries out like a wounded animal, screaming and screaming. It sounds like me.
I drop to my knees beside Tomasis. He’s pale, and his fingers frantically clutch his chest. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I hear myself sobbing as I take him in my arms.
“Forgive me, forgive me,” I say over and over, as if it will undo what I have done.
He grasps his neck, fingers closing around the Talisman of Charlemagne. He raises it toward me. I take it and he reaches a hand to my face, his fingertips grazing my cheek as the convulsions start. He shivers violently, blood spilling from his mouth as he opens it to choke out his last words.
“Protect them,” he murmurs.
I tell Tomasis I’m sorry. I tell him I’ll do as he bids. I hold him tight as he spasms and trembles. I keep my eyes fixed on his as he fades, as his limbs slacken, as the glimmer of laughter always in his eye drains away, leaving only an empty shell.
The Tiger rises, forgetting Ettie. He comes to me, his words slicing through my pain.
“Get up.” He grabs my shoulder, dragging me to my feet, tearing me from Tomasis. His voice is sharp in my ear. “I know you loved him. I know you trusted him. I know your heart is breaking. But he betrayed you.” He shakes me. “Don’t cry for him, little Cat,�
� he says, holding my face between his hands. “He was supposed to protect you, and he didn’t. Don’t waste tears on him. Don’t be so weak.”
“That’s her biggest problem,” says Thénardier behind me. “She gets too attached.”
Although I am drowning in grief, I can’t help but think like a Cat. I scan the room and weigh my chances.
Tomasis is dead.
And now there are only two of them.
“I know what you’re thinking,” the Tiger says, still gripping my shoulders. “I know the pain in every part of you. It’s eating its way through you, tearing out your heart.”
Thénardier walks over and prods Tomasis with his foot to make sure he’s dead.
“You think it’s the end,” the Tiger says in my ear. “But you’re wrong. It’s the beginning. I’ve been thinking about you, little Cat.” He frowns. “Don’t look so alarmed. It doesn’t become you.”
He lets go of me and raises his hands to show me he’s not about to attack.
“I’ve been remembering it all from the beginning. I played it over and over in my head,” he says. “I said to myself that this one hadn’t been with you very long when I offered for her.” He looks over his shoulder at Ettie. “Strange that you would be so attached to her. So reluctant to give her up. You even took the stripes for her. But it wasn’t her you were trying to save, was it?”
He smiles at me.
“Thénardier told me I took something else from you. A sister…What was her name?” He throws the question at Thénardier, who opens his mouth to answer.
“Don’t you dare speak her name,” I hiss.
Thénardier eyes me and decides it’s in his best interest to obey me. “They were close” is all he offers.
“A mother to you, was she? Brought you up? Loved you? Then it all makes perfect sense. I took your sister from you, and there was nothing you could do about it. My taking her made you run to Tomasis. Made you beg him for protection. Everything about you, from your rage to the stripes on your back to the dagger in your hand is because of me. I made you, like my father made me the moment he sold me to the slavers’ whips.”
He reaches out and runs a finger from my forehead down my cheek, drawing a mirror of the stripes on his own face.
“You already bear my scars on your back. I carved my name into your skin. You belong to me.”
I flinch. “I belong to the Thieves Guild. You are without honor, without Law—”
He gives a short bark of laughter. “Law? Where was the Law when I was taken, broken by my father so he could live? He made me what I am. I am the failure of the Law. I am the nightmare it birthed. I am its vengeance.”
He takes me by my shoulders and drags me toward him.
“The Miracle Court fears me. They bow, scrape, and hide. They’re so afraid that you can smell the fear on them. They’re weak.”
He cocks his head at me.
“But you…you’re not like them, are you? You’re the little kitten that took the lash. The Cat that attacked a Guild Lord. The only one who dared defy the Tiger,” he says.
He leans closer, his lips inches from my ear. I try desperately not to tremble.
“Do you know what you’re like?”
His voice is rich and warm.
“You’re like me.”
He leans back and sees the disbelief on my face. He smiles.
“Who else but you and I would have spent every day of the last two years thinking about Ettie? Who else has spent every waking hour planning how to get her back? We’re the same.
“I’m going to break her,” he continues. “Not because I want to, not anymore. She’s a pretty thing, like other pretty things. But I will break her for you, because I want to see you become a terrible, lawless, honorless thing. I want to see you shatter and twist. I want to see you become like me.”
He lifts my chin so that I’m staring into his eyes.
“Today you will be reborn. Born in blood, in pain, in rage.” His breath is warm on my cheek as he murmurs, “After all, you killed your own Guild Father. You’re halfway there. You’re just a little monster who hasn’t grown into her claws yet.”
There’s the slightest hint of movement behind the Tiger. He’s forgotten about Ettie because she is just a weak, pretty thing to him.
Foolish.
I taught her to escape bonds years ago, and now she’s on her feet behind him and Thénardier, walking with a sure, silent step. In her hand is the dagger I gave to her. She has kept it sharp all this time.
The Tiger’s face is alight with smiles as he continues. “I told you, little kitten, we’re the same. You’re just like me.”
“She is nothing like you.” Ettie’s voice is heavy with hatred.
The Tiger turns, but it’s too late; with every ounce of her strength, Ettie drives the wicked blade right through his smiling cheek.
His screams are horrifying. He falls backward, flailing, blood spattering everywhere. Ettie tries to get to me, but Thénardier, eyes wide with shock, has his gun trained on her now. I jump at Thénardier’s back, but my leg is damaged, and he’s a man of great instincts. He throws me across the room, and I land facedown.
Deafened by the Tiger’s screams, I try to raise myself up on my good arm, but I’m slow and dizzy from the pain.
It’s amazing, the strange details you notice when danger is upon you. My eyes take in the wood grain of the floor that shows between the Ottoman rugs. I see the bootlaces of the Sister hiding in the shadows in front of me, the worn blue silk of her dress, how it’s faded in patches and stitched unevenly along the hem. I frown, focusing on the lines of that thread.
I know those stitches, I think with a shock.
I look at her face and my heart seizes.
Azelma.
My sister.
Of course she’s here. Of course the Tiger brought her to mock me.
Her hair is plastered to her face, and she clutches a syringe in her hands. But her eyes…She’s looking at me. Focusing on my face.
She sees me.
She knows who I am. Her mouth opens as she silently says my name. She sees my arm hanging limp and useless at my side. She sees my ruined leg covered in dark blood. Then she gazes up at the screaming Tiger. And a strange look comes over her.
She drops the syringe and rolls it across the floor toward me. I grab it with my good hand and tuck it under my body as I slowly raise myself. She watches me with a hungry expression. I manage to stand and look down at the syringe. It’s full.
The Tiger is yelling unintelligible things to Thénardier. He’s clamped his hand across his cheek, but then, it’s hard to talk clearly when there’s a gaping hole in your face. His blood is everywhere, and his words are incoherent. Thénardier is watching him, gun in hand, cocking his head to one side like a dog considering his options.
“Shoot her!” the Tiger mouths, blood streaming from his lips. That instruction, at least, is clear. Ettie is in a corner, clutching a tall wooden candelabra like a weapon. It looks heavy in her arms, and she’s carrying it all wrong.
“I always back the winning side,” Thénardier says calmly to the Tiger. “And right now, you might not be winning.” And to the Tiger’s great horror, Thénardier puts his gun back into his belt and looks to me.
“No hard feelings,” he says cheerily. “If you survive the night, I’ll make you my Master of Thieves.” Then, with a last grin, he leaves the room.
Ettie advances on the Tiger, dragging the lamp with her. The Tiger is crouched low, like a wrestler. His eyes are mad with a rage that burns stronger than his pain. Even injured, he’s terrifying.
Ettie’s eyes are wide, wary. He lunges at her, and she swings the lamp. But the weight of it makes her slow. He lands on top of her, driving her into the wall with a loud thud, and tries to wrest the lamp from her. She’s shrieking
and yelling like a hellcat, so he doesn’t notice me drag myself across the room behind him. All he feels is the stab of the needle deep in his neck, the drug coursing into his blood, filling him with his own drugs.
He rises and bats me away. One blow and I’m thrown to the floor. He grabs the syringe and yanks it out of his neck. But the drug is strong, and already it is taking effect. He stumbles like a maddened animal, barely able to stand. His movements become slow, stupid, less frightening.
Ettie is on her feet, the lamp in her hand again. She raises it, but he can hardly see her, blinded by pain and dizziness. She swings it at his head, and this time it hits him full force. He crumples to the floor, his limbs trembling, and tries to speak, but all we hear is an animal’s growl. Ettie advances on him, and raises the lamp again. She brings it down on his back. He cries out, and tries to crawl away from her. But she follows him like an avenging angel, raising the lamp above her once more; her eyes fill with rage and tears as she brings it down on him a third time.
“Ettie…” She can’t hear me, so lost is she in her terrible task. I drag myself toward her. “ETTIE!” I grab for her arm.
She wakes as if from a stupor, looks at me. She’s shaking and covered in blood.
“It’s enough.”
Her face says she doesn’t agree. She looks down at him.
He lies on the floor, gurgling, twitching, and bleeding everywhere.
From the corner of my eye I see movement. The Sisters. Terrible disjointed shadows, they come from the corners of the room. Expressions hard, hands raised, they creep toward us menacingly.
Ettie grips the lamp firmly, but I put an arm up to stop her.
Azelma is leading them.
“Wait,” I say to Ettie, my voice small and piteous. “It’s Azelma, my sister.”
Ettie holds the lamp out before us to ward the Sisters away. But they pay us no heed.
I close my eyes, and when I open them again, they have passed us by, forming a tight circle around the Tiger. They stand, looking down at him. He is weak from blood loss, from the bludgeoning Ettie gave him, from the poppy coursing through his veins.