THE COURT OF MIRACLES
Kester Grant

Copyright

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Copyright © Guild of Letter Limited 2020

Map art copyright © Maxime Plasse

Cover illustrations © Shutterstock.com

Cover design by Andrew Davis © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

Kester Grant asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008254773

Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008254797

Version: 2020-05-12

Dedication

To Mum, who filled my world with stories, and Babu, who gave me the words to tell them

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map

The Law of The Miracle Court

PART ONE: How Fear Came

The Founding of the Miracle Court

1. Le Début de l’Histoire

2. The Keepers of the Gates

3. The Lord of Thieves

4. She Who Sleeps

5. The Claws of the Hawk

PART TWO: The Dead Wolf

The Fox Rennart’s Revenge

6. The Tiger

7. The Black Cat’s Choice

8. The Dealers of Death

9. The Dead

10. La Vallée de Misère

11. The Dead Lord

12. Les Oubliettes

13. The Miracle Court

14. The Master’s Hand

PART THREE: The Bread Price

The Tale of the Six Little Mice

15. The Fountain

16. The Dead Trial

17. The Pont Neuf

18. Of Drownings

19. The Dauphin of France

20. Ettie’s Tale

21. The Sisters

22. The Mesmerist

23. Les Diamants de la Couronne

24. The Bread Price

25. The Stripes of the Cat

PART FOUR: The Black Cat’s Hunting

How the Tiger Got His Stripes

26. The Société des Droits de l’Homme

27. Gray Brother

28. Master of Knives

29. Of Paper and Rats

30. What the Lords Said

31. The Dead Lord’s Word

32. She Who Was Lost

33. The Ruined Flesh

34. The Truth

35. Inspector Javert

36. A Little Fall of Rain

37. The Courier

38. The Tiger’s Lair

39. The Black Cat’s Father

40. The Death Song

41. The End of the Tale

Les milles remerciements—en ordre chronologique

About the Publisher

Map

THE LAW OF THE MIRACLE COURT

Now these are the laws of the Miracle Court,

as old and as true as the sky;

the Wretched that keep them may prosper,

but the Wretched that break them must die.

All the Wretched are equal before the Miracle Court; neither blood nor race, religion, rank, or name is recognized.

All the Wretched are free; slavery is forbidden in the Miracle Court.

The Lord or Lady of a Guild is its Father/Mother.

Their word is law to the Guild.

Keep to your Guild for protection and strength.

Let Guild leaders parley before risking the welfare of their Guild or the Miracle Court.

Physical attack on a member of another Guild is considered an act of war.

If your activities put the livelihood of the Miracle Court at risk, your Guild Lord will deal with you appropriately for the protection of the Court.

Children of the Miracle Court are protected by their Guild Lords first, and the Court second.

Daytime is the time of the Court’s enemies: Those Who Walk by Day, police, and nobility. Children of the Miracle Court work best at night.

You must have permission to enter other Guild Houses.

Commit crime for survival and prosperity and the benefit of the Guilds, but never for pleasure.

Each person may divide their spoils only after first sharing with their Guild Lord.

Don’t forget the weakest among you. The Guild must provide for all its children.

Keep the laws, or punishment will be swift and certain.

PART ONE
How Fear Came
1823

He heard a cry that had never been heard since the bad days … A hideous kind of shriek … A mixture of hate, triumph, fear, and despair … that rose and sank and wavered and quavered far away.

—The Jungle Book

THE FOUNDING OF THE MIRACLE COURT
FROM L’HISTOIRE DE PARIS, BY THE DEAD LORD

In 1160, Ysengrim the Boar was appointed grand prévôt. His commission was to keep order in the streets of Paris, which was a dark and lawless place. He led violent assaults on the city’s poorest spaces and its hives of beggars, thieves, and outcasts, killing or imprisoning all in his path. Those who survived the purges knew of no one who could be trusted, as Ysengrim’s men had a legion of spies alongside their corrupt officers.

To protect themselves, the city’s Wretched formed nine guilds: Thieves, Beggars, Assassins, Gamblers, Mercenaries, Smugglers, Prostitutes, Opium Eaters, and Men of Letters. The Lords of each guild sat together to form the Miracle Court, bound as brethren by laws that they had written.

Among the outcasts of the city were Lombards, Corsicans, Moors, Africans, Maghrebi, Mughal, Romani, Qing, Jews, Ottomans, Edo, alongside the leprous, the maimed, the sick, the elderly, and those accused of witchcraft. They were despised and rejected by prévôt, king, and country. But all were welcomed into the shelter of the Miracle Court, beneath whose roof all are equal and free.

1
Le Début de l’Histoire

It is a time of famine, a time of hungering want that threatens to eat you from the inside out, leaving you good only to wait for the coming of death. And Death the Endless always comes.

It is before dawn, dark and silent. The corpses of the starved have been laid out on the cobblestones overnight, waiting for the carts to bear them away. The dead are wide-eyed, unhearing, uncaring, unafraid. They remind me of my sister, Azelma.

Azelma, who never cries, cried for two whole days. She wouldn’t eat or sleep. I tried everything, even saying that Father was coming with two bottles of whiskey in his belly and rage in his eyes. But she didn’t move, unhearing, uncaring, unafraid.

She’s finally stopped crying. For the last few hours she’s been lying on her bed, staring into the distance. She won’t answer me, won’t even look at me. I think I prefer the crying.

Azelma used to wake me with a murmur of “Viens, ma petite chatonne,” and I’d lean into her warmth while she brushed my hair and helped me draw on my clothes.

Now I slip from the bed without her and change in the cold, putting on a dress that’s getting too short. Giving my hair a few tugs with a hairbrush and teasing it into a lopsided braid. I splash my face with icy water poured from a heavy porcelain jug and sneak a look back at her. She’s on her side, eyes open but seeing nothing.

The inn is quiet at this hour. I hesitate a moment longer, but she doesn’t move, so I go downstairs and grab a pail, take a faded scarf from a peg by the door. The scarf is Azelma’s and is too big for me, but the well is many streets away from the inn and the walk will be cold. I hate making the trip alone, in the darkness, but I must.

Outside, the freezing air burns my throat. I hasten to the well, trying not to look at the bodies I pass on the street. At the well I lower the pail and heave it back, full, my numb fingers straining with the weight of it.

The road back is treacherous, and with every cautious step my breath rises in clouds. With every breath I think of my sister, and the fear eats at my insides.

When I reach the inn, my shaking arms are relieved to put the bucket down. I pour some of the water into a pan and set it to boil, then look around. The floor needs mopping, even though that never keeps out the smell of spilled wine, and in the dim light, the main hall is a disarray of plates, empty tankards, and jugs; all need scrubbing.

I have dried hundreds of plates while Azelma flicked soapy bubbles at me. I duck and complain. She wrinkles her nose and tells me, “Kittens hate water.”

I sigh and decide to start on the floor. The mop is heavy, and it makes my tired arms ache dreadfully, but I push it back and forth with vigor. Maybe if I can scrub away the stains, I can also scrub away the sick feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.

My sister, my sister.

Last night Father said nothing when Azelma didn’t emerge from her room for the third night in a row. It was as if he’d forgotten she existed. He hummed, drumming his fingers on the table cheerily. He even threw me a hunk of warm brioche, which was so unlike him that I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. There’s barely flour in the city for bread, let alone for brioche, so I don’t know where he got it. My father is a thief; he’s stolen many a shinier jewel or weightier gold purse than this scrap of dough. But what use are jewels or gold in a time of famine?

My stomach growled low and heavy at the scent of the pastry. But fear was gnawing at my bones worse than hunger, so I brought the bread to Azelma, and now it sits, growing stale on a chipped plate beside her bed.

My hands are red with cleaning, and there’s a sheen of sweat on my brow, but still I shiver. If Azelma doesn’t eat, she’ll soon be lying with the corpses outside in the cold, waiting for the carter to pick her up. But she’s not feverish, I checked; there’s something else wrong with her, something dreadful. What’s worse, I can’t do anything to heal it. I feel like the kitten Azelma likens me to—tiny, fragile, batting my paws against the wind.

There’s a sound at the top of the stair, and when I turn, Azelma is there: clothed, hair plaited, looking straight at me. I should be relieved, but her expression is unnerving.

“I’ll finish up here,” she says in a flat voice. “You need to find Femi.”

I should be happy to drop the cleaning, but my fingers tighten around the mop handle, and I frown. Why should I get Femi Vano, the one they call the Messenger? He comes and goes as he pleases, whispering things in my father’s ear. He speaks to Azelma in murmurs and makes her laugh. But it’s not even dawn and the inn stands empty; Father is snoring in his bed. Why must I get Femi now? Can we not clean as we always do, side by side?

Azelma comes down the stairs and takes the mop from me. My sister has a way with words; her voice is soothing, like honey, and the customers like her for that, and because she’s pretty, soft. But now, even hushed, her voice is dagger-sharp.

“Bring him around to the back, and tell no one. Do you hear me?”

I nod, reluctantly heading for the door.

Azelma always asks me if I have a scarf or reminds me I need a coat. She tells me to be careful and not to dawdle. But now she turns away, saying nothing. I don’t know this hard girl. She’s not my sister. She’s something else, a hollow thing wearing my sister’s face.

I call Femi by whistling the way he taught me, and suddenly he appears, swooping down from nowhere.

“Kitten,” he says with a low bow, but I’ve no time for his gallantries and drag him by the arm to the inn. Azelma looks at us dead-eyed and tells me to scrape the wax from the tables into the pot so we can melt it down for new candles. When she slips out the back door to speak to Femi, I tiptoe to the kitchen and climb onto the tall red stool I sit on to wash the dishes. I can just make out the tops of their heads through the window. They’re standing pressed against the wall.

“He is coming for you,” I hear Femi say.

A long silence follows. When Azelma speaks, her tone is bitter. “Father will bargain. He always does. While they are occupied, you must take her. They will not notice that she is gone.”

“We can run.” Femi’s voice rises in desperation. “We can hide.”

“Who has ever escaped him? How far do you think we’d get before he found us? Even if by some miracle we could escape now, we’d damn her if we brought her, for he will surely find us. And if we leave her behind, then who do you think will taste my father’s rage? Have you thought who he might throw at Kaplan to appease him? Or to punish me?”

Azelma shakes her head, then turns to the window, as if she senses me watching. I duck so she won’t see me.

“Whispers and sweet stories you have given me, Femi Vano,” she says, and I lift my head in time to see her gently touch his cheek. “But words will fade where I am going. If I am lucky, I will not remember anything. Give me your oath in bone and iron that you will find a protector for her.”

Femi raises his hand, and with a single gleaming movement of his knife, his opposite palm is marked by a long, dark line as drops of blood begin to bead like black diamonds.

“My word, my blood,” he says. “I give you my promise in bone and iron.”

She rests her head on his chest, and her voice softens.

“Do you care for me?”

“You know that I do.”

“Then do not cry for me,” she says. “I am already dead.”

“No, not dead. The dead, at least, are free …”

When Azelma comes back inside, her face is a mask. Femi trails behind her. Like his Maghrebi ancestors, who hailed from northern Africa, he wears his thick hair in coiled braids. No matter the weather, he is always swathed in a heavy brown cloak streaked with rain marks and frayed at the edges, giving him the impression of having large folded wings. His dark skin is like burnished copper, his nose is slightly hooked, and his eyes burn fierce and golden—and right now, they are rimmed in red.

Azelma beckons to me. I take her hand; mine is small and hers is cold as she leads me back up the stairs to our room.

There are some old clothes laid out on the bed: boys’ things, oversized and fifteenth-hand.

Her eyes travel over my thin frame unforgivingly. They pause at my face, studying me, as if looking for something. “Dieu soit loué, at least you’re not pretty.” Her voice catches.

She’s right. Where Azelma is softness and curves, I’m bones and angles. The only thing we have in common is our olive skin, the legacy of the pied-noir woman who birthed us. When I was small and winter winds rattled the panes like vengeful spirits trying to get in, Azelma would put her soft arms around me and tell me stories. “What do you want to hear, little cat?” she would ask.

“Tell me about our mother.”

Father says she was nothing but a rat for leaving us with him.

“The woman who birthed us is not our true mother,” Azelma would say. “Our mother is the City.”

But even I knew it was not the City that had gifted us our olive skin and raven hair.

Now Azelma’s gaze falls to the thick braid that I struggle to plait by myself. She reaches out and I go to her. She unties the braid with deft, gentle fingers and begins to brush.

“Our mother the City is not a merciful mother,” she says as she gathers my hair in one hand. “To be a girl in this city is to be weak. It is to call evil things down upon you. And the City is not kind to weak things. She sends Death the Endless to winnow the frail from the strong. You know this.”

I hear the sound before I realize what is happening: a sharp, shearing scrape. Then I feel a sudden lightness at the back of my neck. My eyes widen, but before I can say a word, a tail of dark hair lands softly at my feet. Azelma takes the shears to the rest of my hair, cropping it close to my scalp.

“Keep it short,” she says, and when she is done: “Take off that dress.”

I wonderingly obey, my hands trembling to undo the buttons she sewed on. She used to force me to stand like a statue, arms outstretched, while she fit one of her old dresses to my frame, her mouth full of bent, rusted pins. I always squeezed my eyes shut, afraid she would draw blood. She would laugh at me through pinched lips. “I’ve not pricked you yet, little kitten.”

I peel off the dress and hand it to her. I stand before her in a much-patched linen shift.

“That too.”

Fear and cold prick my skin.

“Hear my words, for they are all I have left to give. Wrap them around your flesh like armor. You may forget my face and my voice, but never forget the things I am telling you.”

“I won’t,” I say, trying not to tremble.

“Eat only enough to stay alive. You must get used to hunger so that it won’t break you. Stay small so you will fit into tight spaces and they will always have need of you.”

I want to ask her who “they” are and why they might need me, but her tone is solemn and my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“No dresses anymore. Do not let men look at you with desire.” She wraps a length of gauzy cloth around my chest, binding it tightly.

I can barely breathe.

“Wind bandages around any parts of you that are soft.”

She hands me an oversized pair of trousers so faded that no particular color could be ascribed to them. I pull them on quickly, and follow them with a large shirt.

“Wear clothes like a mask so no one will see you, do you understand? Wear them to hide your true face. You are not Nina the kitten, you are the Black Cat. Show your teeth and claws at every opportunity so they remember that you’re dangerous. Only then will you have won a small portion of safety. One shut eye’s worth of sleep.”

I tie up a pair of thick boots that have seen several owners and don a large cap that engulfs my small head.

“Father might have given me his silver tongue, but he gave you his sharp brain. You’re clever, Nina. That is a weapon. You’re small and you’re quick, and those, too, are weapons.”

She grips my wrists and peers into my face.

“Be useful, be smart, and stay one step ahead of everyone. Be brave even when you’re afraid. Remember that everyone is afraid.”

I’m afraid now, of her. Of the two days of awful crying and the blank stares and the fire that burns in her usually gentle eyes. What has happened to my sister?

“When you think the darkness is coming for you, when you are small and frail and fear that our mother the City is trying to destroy you, you must not let her. Do you hear me? You must survive.”

“I w-will, I swear it,” I say, my voice trembling.

We go downstairs to where Femi Vano waits in a shadow.

“You’re to go with Femi and you’ll do what he tells you,” Azelma instructs me.

My heart races with fresh panic. “B-but I want to stay with you!”

This carved-out form of my sister bends and looks me in the eye. Her voice is hollow.

“Sometimes we must pay a terrible price to protect the things we love.”

I don’t understand what she means. There are a hundred questions I want to ask her, but I can’t find the words; they choke my throat as tears roll down my face. She ignores them.

“You must look after yourself now.”

She glances at Femi, her eyes like chips of ice.

“Take her, then.”

There’s no goodbye, no hug, no proclamation of her love for me. Instead, she pushes me away as if she doesn’t want me anymore.

“Zelle?”

She begins moving through the tables, cleaning.

“Zelle—” I start toward her, but Femi holds me back.

“Hush.” Worry laces his voice. He’s scared, and I don’t know why.

Then I hear it. Over the drumming of my own heart, I hear the crunch of boots on gravel, voices outside.

“Go now!” Azelma hisses.

Femi picks me up, pressing me to him, and I feel the fear thrumming through his bones and into mine.

He drags me to the kitchen, away from Azelma, who for the barest second throws an anguished look at us over her shoulder. Then she turns away and straightens her spine. Her head is held high; her hands make fists at her sides.

I start to call her name, but Femi’s hand clamps hard across my mouth.

“Thénardier!” A roar from the front of the inn splits the silence, a growling, penetrating command.

Femi freezes. I hear clumping and thumping overhead; the shout seems to have to stirred Father from his slumber. I marvel that whoever has come has been able to wake him from the stupor of a drunken sleep with one word.

Femi dares a glance out the window, his eyes darting back and forth as he checks the yard for anyone standing there.

The front door opens.

I hear the honeyed but unsteady tones of my very hung-over father from the top of the stairs, the uncertainty in his voice. “Lord Kaplan?”

The visitor has entered, while in the darkness of the kitchen, Femi inches us toward the back door as quietly as possible.

“Forgive me,” my father continues. “I did not think you would see to this trifling matter yourself.”

“A trifling matter, Master of Beasts?” the voice growls back, seeming to rattle the very roof of the inn. “Do you forget who I am? Do you forget how I came to be? I wanted to see if you would actually do it—if even a man like you would truly sell his own kin.”

Sell his own kin? Understanding strikes me like a fist, leaving me winded.

Azelma … Father is going to sell Azelma?

“I’ve twelve gold coins here, Thénardier.”

“Twelve …,” Father echoes, but his voice is considering, wheedling. A rage wells in me because I know that tone: he’s doing what he always does. He’s actually bargaining, this time for a better price for his own daughter.

I bite down on Femi’s hand, but he doesn’t loosen his grip, and with a last fumble at the door, he drags me out into the night.

2
The Keepers of the Gates

I can’t remember how long it took Femi to tear me away, only that I scratched at him like a wild thing, howling till I lost my voice, hoarsely begging him to bring me back to Azelma, but he never once loosened his grip.

His voice was unsteady as he murmured to me, “I am taking you to a place that you must get into. In the west wing you will find a room. Inside that room is a boy, and around his neck is something you must take or all will be lost.”

These were his instructions as emotion churned within me. Perhaps if I did as he said, I could go home.

I look up at giant iron gates, where six heads have been impaled on spikes. They are the Keepers of the Gates, ever staring. The heads have been preserved in oil so they will not rot, but the wind and rain have nevertheless turned them sour and hideous. It is a gruesome warning to all the land of what happens to those who cross the nobility.

This is the place I must get into.

A gold-wrought cage, the Palace of the Tuileries.

I feel a knot of fear in my chest.

Remember that everyone is afraid.

I close my eyes and think of Azelma’s words, the stories she wove around me.

Il était une fois … there were six mice that lived in a city of cats. They dwelt in a time of great suffering and terror. One day the mice started to speak and ask questions that no mice before them had ever dared whisper.

I open my eyes and count the heads on the spikes again, mouthing the names as I go.

And these were the names given to the mice: Robespierre the Incorruptible, Marat the Hideous, Danton of the Golden Tongue, Mirabeau the Wise, Desmoulins the Brave, and St. Juste the Beautiful, the Angel of Death.

Father has been taking me out on his burglaries for over a year, so I know well how to silently clamber and slip into small spaces. After all, I am a mere whisper of a girl, more shadow than flesh.

I am afraid to break into the palace. But I am more afraid of what will happen if I don’t. All I know is that I must get back to my sister, so the quicker I do what I’m told, the quicker I can return. Which is why I throw myself between the wheels of a moving carriage and grab the underside, letting it carry me into the grounds, past the guards. I hang there until feet in jeweled slippers step from the carriage onto bone-white gravel and the servants in leather slippers and hard boots close the doors with a resounding thud. The carriage starts to move toward the hulking building, and at last I release my grip.

I somehow manage to slip past blurs of noise—for even at this hour, there’s the clamoring of guards, carriages, and servants—and scale the wall that will lead me to the west wing.

My fingers are bleeding by the time I get to the right balcony and drag my body over the rail, collapsing in a heap.

It takes me a few minutes to look around. There’s a large shuttered door. But Father showed me how to pick a lock before I could even walk. I reach into my trouser pockets and find the pins that Azelma placed there for me. Thanking her silently, I pull them out and get to work. Father taught me well. The door opens in seconds, gliding outward, leaving me staring into a massive room cloaked in darkness. Roaring fear pulses at my throat, driving me ever forward. I take a step and let my eyes adjust.

Inside that room is a boy …

He is at the far end of the room, asleep in a mountain of a bed.

I ignore all the ornaments, the fine furniture, the baubles shining eerily in the moonlight that gently filters into the room. The curtains around the bed are not drawn. I wonder why a boy like this would want to look out into the darkness at all.

Breath catching in my throat, I pad toward him, movements fluid, forcing the panic down. I wonder who he is. Surely he’s a noble of importance, his room being the size of Father’s whole inn.

Around his neck is something you must take …

A collared nightshirt betrays an inch of pale skin. But I see nothing around his neck.

Although Father sends me up walls and down chimneys to grab whatever he instructs, I have never stolen anything from someone who was actually present for the theft. The rule is always to hide until they are gone. But that is not the rule tonight.

I rub my hands together to warm them and lean over the boy. He has long eyelashes and dark wavy hair. He looks peaceful, and by the sliver of moonlight I imagine that he is quite handsome, like a boy from one of Azelma’s stories.

I lower gentle fingers to his shirt—it’s best to move neither too slowly nor too quickly. I keep to the shirt fabric, trying to avoid his skin. There it is! A chain, long and heavy, which is why it wasn’t high about his neck. The length and weight also mean it’s loose, easy to tease out. The end of the necklace slips from under the covers, and I pause for a mere second as it glimmers in the moonlight. It’s the largest stone I’ve ever seen, a sapphire set in a gold casing thick with smaller pearls and jewels. It sits heavily against his chest. He will surely wake if I lift it, or if not then, when I try to get it over his head.

You’re small and you’re quick, and those, too, are weapons.

I count to three and then I move. As smooth as water, the necklace is whipped off, and there’s only a whisper of a second when the metal chain brushes his skin. When he opens his eyes, he’s looking right into mine.

You’re clever, Nina, and that is a weapon.

If he shouts for help, he will rob me of important seconds I need to escape. I might make it to the balcony, but not beyond.

This is the art of thieving … Femi’s words echo in my ears. Deaf are the distracted, and blind are the surprised. Those mesmerized by a face do not notice where the hands may creep.

I need to distract him, keep him surprised—or at least, more surprised than he currently is. His mouth opens, so I do the first thing that comes into my head: I kiss him, pressing my lips to his in a style that I’ve seen played out too many times in dark corners of Father’s inn. He tastes like chocolate. And that’s the last thought in my mind as I push away from him and start to run, leaping for the balcony.

I’m over the edge, into the freezing night, my lips still burning. I hear a strangled sound as I drop and roll onto the balcony, then start to scale the wall down to the ground.

“Wait! Please!”

I should not look up, but I do, fingers raw and wind at my back. He’s staring down at me from two floors above. He’s going to call the guards; he’s going to demand I give the necklace back; he’s going to have me arrested, and I will have failed Femi and Azelma.

“Who are you?” he asks.

I pause for only a second before I smile at him. “The Black Cat,” I say. Then I let go and drop like a shadow into the night.

Femi and I travel over rooftops in the dark, high above the noise of heaving, sleepless streets, far from the city center, over warrenous rookeries and pitch-black alleys. Femi nearly flies, moving with fearlessness and grace. Every now and again he whistles, each time a different sound, as clear as the bells of Notre-Dame. I think I hear the echo of an answer on the wind, but I can’t be sure it’s not my tumultuous mind playing tricks on me.

“Keep up, little cat!” Femi calls, his voice soft, eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Don’t think, don’t hesitate, just leap when I leap.”

Every step I take is filled with terror: I never know if my foot will land solidly or if I’ll fall behind. Father taught me how to scale buildings but never how to soar, leaping like a bird from rooftop to rooftop. With every leap, I think of my sister and my stomach turns inside out.

When we pause so I can catch my breath, Femi whispers to me in urgent tones the reason for our mission, words I am to repeat, gestures I am to make. The jumble of things I must remember is terrifying. Panic rises, choking me, but I think of Azelma and bite my lip, forcing myself to concentrate. Then we are off again. And in the darkness, I repeat Femi’s words to myself over and over till I know them by heart. I will do whatever I must to get back to Azelma.

Finally, he stops, and I nearly whimper in relief, overcome by the journey, my ears ringing with the instructions he has given me. In the silvery dawn, I see that we are on the outskirts of an abandoned neighborhood, its buildings ravaged by time. We scramble down the side of a crumbling edifice, push past a half-open gate, dwarfed by the shadow of a ruined church. A pair of heavy doors awaits, our arrival upsetting a murder of crows nesting in the roof. Inside, what hasn’t decayed has long since been scavenged: the benches, altars, and stained-glass windows are dark open wounds along the crumbling walls.

“L’église de l’évêque Myriel,” Femi says, his low voice echoing into the ruin. “They say it’s haunted by the ghost of its founder, a man violently converted from a life of nefarious crime.” He reaches out to me, drawing me into the darkness after him.

“And there are others who say that l’évêque Myriel never gave up his criminal ways. Becoming a ‘man of God’ was the perfect cover for his illustrious career.”

Femi gently pulls me toward a small side door that must once have led to a vestry. We enter and step through another decomposing room and down a dark staircase. He slows a little for me, pointing out which stones are likely to shift beneath our feet. At the bottom of the staircase in the meager half-light is a monster of a door, darker even than the darkness of this lightless place. Femi places a hand on it, and I follow. It is cold beneath my touch. Iron, which does not rot, or burn, or fade …

The giant door swings open before us. A blaze of light blinds me.

“Welcome to the Guild of Thieves,” Femi murmurs.

3
The Lord of Thieves

“Fret not, little one. Thénardier is not here tonight.”

I shiver at the sound of my father’s name, but Femi nudges me gently on the shoulder.

“Look up.”

He points overhead, and I crane my neck to see. The vaulted ceiling glimmers like a net of pure shimmering light.

“The true beauty of the Thieves Guild lies there,” Femi says. “Once a year, during the feast of l’évêque Myriel, patron saint of Thieves, each member of the Guild offers a stone, a crystal, or a shining gold coin. Each Cat of the Guild is given a share, and they race up the walls and climb ropes thrown from high windows. The Cat that reaches the top first has the honor of embedding the gift in the ceiling.”

Our mother the City is draped in a coat of fog and smoke so thick that I have never seen the stars in the night sky—but I imagine that this is what they look like. Something inside my chest thrills to the beauty of it. But there’s not much time to admire before Femi is steering me away. I blink and take in the noisy chaos of the hall.

It’s like a palace, if a palace had no organization and great treasures were left all over the place. It’s a chaos of graceful statues of white marble and ancient blackened gargoyles that must have come from Notre-Dame herself. The floors are covered with overlapping carpets of thick colored silks no doubt taken from the best houses in the city. Every inch of wall is hung with gilt-framed paintings large and small, depicting battles, ships at sea, landscapes, romantic images of myths, religious icons, and portraits.

The hall shimmers and buzzes with wine, heat, and ribald conversation. Beneath it all, a strange current of danger pulses. The place is alive—teeming with people of all ages, shapes, and sizes, of all skin colors and dress. I see sharp-eyed faces, old women swathed in layers, and merchant-class men in stiff cloaks, as well as the odd priest.

“There are no family names in the Miracle Court. There is no race or religion,” Femi says to me. “Faith, caste, blood—these are not bonds that tie the Wretched together, for that is how the world sees us, as wretched. And thus, Wretched is the name given to all children of the Miracle Court. What binds us is our Guild. It is a bond stronger than family, thicker than blood. All you see here are brothers and sisters of the Thieves Guild.”

Femi indicates a horde of ragged, barefoot boys and girls only a few years older than me.

“Those are the Dogs: Thieves who conduct their business at street level. There are also Horses—highwaymen—though there are only two left in the entire Guild, since the Gentleman no longer rides.”

For any of the Wretched who appear to be everyday persons from the city streets, there are ten others wearing impossibly bright clothing, jewels that glimmer and shine. Men and women with diamonds and rubies dripping from their necks, noses, wrists, ears, fingers, and toes, every knuckle coated in shining stones.

“Those are the Cats,” Femi mutters, indicating the brightly clad figures. “Burglars that prefer to sneak along rooftops and slip through windows and chimneys.”

His eyes narrow at a particularly rotund gentleman garbed in purple, gold, and pink. Every part of him is shining with jewels so weighty it must be impossible for him to lift his hands.

“Cats are always showing off.”

Along one side of the hall is a long, crooked line of people. Femi gestures toward them.

“All Thieves hand their take to the People of the Pen—clerks, on rent from the Guild of Letters. They serve as accountants, lawyers, and auditors to all nine Guilds of the Miracle Court.”

I squint at the row of pale, expressionless men and women seated behind a long table, wearing robes of indistinct color. Their heads are bent; they are all taking copious notes, barely saying a word.

“The People of the Pen are obsessive with information,” Femi whispers. “Their devotion to order and detail is stronger than their will to be corrupted. They’re both feared and respected by all the Wretched, for there’s nothing about us they don’t know. The location of each Guild House is a strictly kept secret, except to myself, as Messenger to all the Guilds, and to the Guild of Letters. When the People of the Pen come knocking at the door for an audit, even the most fearsome of Guild Lords lets them enter.”

Once the takes are noted and signed for, they are handed to clerks with magnifying glasses and monocles that give them the strange appearance of owls. They inspect each item, testing silver and gold, setting things alight, striking them with hammers, even biting them before announcing their findings, which are sometimes met with laughter at the Thieves’ expense, or murmurs of jealousy at some of their better takes.

In the center of the room is an intricately carved black chair. Hanging from its high, pointed back are piles of sparkling necklaces, a glittering diadem or two, and several fine embroidered tapestries. Sitting in the thronelike chair is a man a little older than my father. He has the same copper-brown skin and cunning golden eyes as Femi.

They must be kin, I think.

He is dressed more modestly than many of the Thieves around him, in a well-cut coat and shirt of unexceptional color. In fact, nothing about him is exceptional except for two chains of varying lengths that encircle his neck: one a shimmering rope of pure diamonds, another a collar of rubies gleaming in the light of a hundred burning candelabras.

“Tomasis, the Lord of Thieves,” Femi says, nodding toward the man.

Standing beside the Lord’s chair is an older gentleman. His face is a map of heavily powdered wrinkles, his hair is hidden under a wig, and he is shod in the worn, gilt-edged finery of a noble gone to seed.

Femi inclines his head toward the powdered man. “There are only three Merveilles—Wonders—still living in the Court. They are criminals of such fame and notoriety they’ve become living legends. The most any child of the Court can hope for after their death is that their songs will be sung, their stories told over and over again. But the Merveilles—their exploits are recounted to every child of the Court while they still draw breath. The three remaining Merveilles are le Maire, the Fisherman, and the Gentleman. Le Maire is a member of the Guild of Letters, and he’s been missing for more than a decade. The Fisherman is Nihuang, the Lady of the Smugglers Guild. The last Merveille is the man standing beside the Lord of Thieves. ‘Gentleman’ George, infamous highwayman. And if you earn his favor, there is much that he can teach you.”

The Gentleman spots us and inclines his head to whisper something in the ear of Tomasis, the Lord of Thieves, who turns to glance lazily in our direction. Femi squeezes my arm.

“It is time, Nina. Remember all I have told you. There is no going back.”

Femi marches me toward the men. People move away to let us pass, looking at me with a hungry interest that I can’t quite like.

We reach the throne and Femi drops to one knee, pulling me with him. “Monseigneur. Vano, Lord of the stolen, Father of thievery and plunder …”

“I’m listening, mon frère,” Tomasis says.

I find myself pulled back to my feet as Femi rises.

Tomasis glances at the powdered gentleman, who nods at Femi.

“Messenger,” the man says in a honeyed voice.

“Gentleman,” Femi replies with a slight incline of his head; then he turns back to Tomasis.

“I have a new child for you, Monseigneur.”

I immediately lower my eyes to the intricate silken rugs that cover the floor. Femi has told me that I must be prepared to watch much of the proceedings from beneath lowered lashes, but I risk a glance up.

Tomasis smiles a leathery smile, taking a sip of wine from a jewel-studded goblet.

“A child?” he asks, placing the goblet on a delicate mother-of-pearl table beside him before pinioning me with his eyes.

Had I thought his eyes lazy before? They positively eat me whole now. Beside him, the Gentleman tilts his head at me like a bird, considering my potential.

“She is a Cat, Monseigneur,” Femi says.

Tomasis considers Femi, and I can’t help but see the clear resemblance between them: they must be brothers.

“Isn’t recruiting kittens the role of the Master of Beasts? Last I checked, you were still Aves, the Elanion—Messenger to the Miracle Court. Strange, then, that one who carries messages should suddenly take on this new responsibility, especially when you have never shown particular interest in the Cats of this Guild.”

Tomasis is famously suspicious, Femi told me as we crept along the rooftops. You have to be suspicious to become a Guild Lord, and you have to continue to be suspicious if you want to remain one.

Tomasis focuses on me, and when he speaks, his words are deceptively gentle.

“And who are you, little one, that the Messenger of the Miracle Court himself pleads for you?”

I swallow, my throat suddenly dry. Despite the swarming buzz of conversation around me, I feel the burning of hundreds of eyes on my back.

“My name is Eponine Thénardier,” I say.

Around us, surprise makes the volume of conversation raise.

Tomasis narrows his eyes at this, taking in the lines of my face, reading me as if to see a resemblance.

“Thénardier is the Master of Beasts of this Guild. He rules beneath me and manages all my children, Dogs, Cats, and Horses. He knows all my business and holds tremendous power within the Shining Hall.”

Power he won after several other Masters died in frequent and mysterious succession, Femi told me. Thénardier has never been shy of slitting a throat or two when needs must.

“Explain what reason I might have to take his own kin from him behind his back?” Tomasis turns to Femi, his gaze burning bright.

Femi doesn’t flinch. “Thénardier has been using his own flesh and blood to perform his best takes—perhaps all of his takes—for the last two years now. The offerings he presented to you were not his to give.”

“A thief, then? Is that what you accuse him of? Thievery is quite a common practice between these walls.”

The hall comes alive with laughter at that. Tomasis smiles pleasantly, but there’s no denying the hardness to his eye and the grim line of his lips.

“And if the offerings he gives me are ample tithe,” Tomasis continues, “what is it to me how he came by them?”

“She is not of the Wretched. She is no child of the Miracle Court, bound by no Guild, bearing no mark—”

“You avoid the question. Why would I insult the Master of Beasts before the whole Guild by taking a Cat, his own flesh and blood, behind his back?”

“Ask her what she has for you.” Femi’s voice is barely a whisper, yet it resounds in the hall.

I reach into my coat and pull out the chain with trembling fingers; the heavy stone follows.

“Rennart’s balls! Is that the Talisman of Charlemagne?” The Gentleman steps forward and lifts the stone delicately from my palm. He fishes a monocle from his waistcoat pocket and inspects it, turning it over before setting it once again in my hand.

“This stone is one of the crown jewels,” he says.

“Yes,” I say, even though I had no idea.

“They are kept at the Palace of the Tuileries.”

I nod.

“Where was the stone?”

“Around the neck of a boy.” I try hard not to let my voice waver.

The Gentleman starts at that. “A boy? The Talisman is currently worn by the dauphin of France.”

So that’s who the boy was: prince of the realm. Future king, heir to the throne of France. I let out my breath heavily. I kissed the future king, and he tasted of chocolate …

Tomasis laughs, a tremendous sound bursting with warmth and humor that fills the hall and bounces off the walls and ceiling. “The Talisman of Charlemagne, stolen from the neck of the dauphin. It is worth a sight more to me than Thénardier’s pride,” he says, wiping his glittering eyes.

Femi raises his eyebrows subtly at me.

“This is the offering I bring before you,” I say quickly, reciting the words he taught me on the rooftops. “A gift from the”—I pause to recall the name—“caliph to the king of Those Who Walk by Day, containing the hair of one of their most holy saints.” I drop to one knee, head bowed. “Take this gift, Lord of Thieves. May it please you and grant me favor. And take me with it, as daughter to you. Let me dwell in your presence as one of the Wretched, a true child of the Miracle Court, and I will serve you for all my days.”

The Gentleman glances to Tomasis, who nods. The powdered man steps forward, clearing his throat.

“What is your name?” he intones.

“I have none until my Father has spoken it.”

“Who is your mother?”

“I have no mother but the City.”

“And who is your Father?”

“I have no Father but the Lord of Thieves.”

The Gentleman lifts his head and looks out at the Thieves in the hall before continuing. “Today you shed your earthen skin and are reborn in the darkness to your Guild and the Wretched—your brothers and sisters.

“Hereafter you will be called by your true name …”

He pauses, glancing at Femi, who, tilting his chin up, says, “Black Cat of the Thieves Guild, daughter of Tomasis, child of the Miracle Court. May they sing your songs forever.”

May they sing your songs forever. The words ring in my ears as a hundred voices repeat them around me.

Tomasis gestures for me to approach. I rise and bring the necklace to him. He leans forward, lowering his head, and I put the heavy chain around his neck. The stone nestles against his chest, glimmering defiantly against the rubies and diamonds beneath it.

“From this day forth I will be your Father,” Tomasis says. “You are bound to me by bone and iron. I lay my mark upon your skin, and you will recognize none but me above you.”

“Thank you, Father,” I say. From the corner of my eye, I see a thin woman dressed in silks approaching, a bottle of dark liquid and a metal quill in her hands.

“From this day forth I will protect you from all things, and you will serve me in all things and abide by the laws of the Miracle Court.”

“I will, my Lord,” I say, trying not to stiffen as the woman reaches me. She tilts my head to the side, exposing my neck, and with a swiftness that is astounding, and a biting, burning pain, she tattoos a shape into the soft skin behind my ear.

“From this day forth, the Guild of Thieves will be your family, and you will serve them, and never shall you betray them.”

I feel blood beading under the sting of the woman’s quill; smell its metallic tang as she finishes. My neck is aflame with the pain of it.

I know the mark is a diamond, because I have seen Thénardier’s mark when he was passed out on the floor after a drunken rage.

“It is not often, little Cat, that I am honored with so worthy an offering.” Tomasis holds the Talisman in his palm and tilts it so it catches the light. “I will give you a gift, if you desire it. Ask anything of me and it shall be yours.”

Beside me, Femi twitches. I sense his warning and ignore him.

“I wish for you to save my sister,” I say hurriedly. “For you to give her your protection as you have done for me.”

I hold my breath and try not to hope.

“Save her?” Tomasis asks. “From what does she need saving?”

“She has been taken, sold …,” I say, the words heavy in my mouth.

“Sold? That is indeed lamentable. And Thénardier allowed this to happen?”

I bite my lip. My father is Master of Beasts of this Guild; I dare not speak ill of him, not here.

“I see,” Tomasis says, frowning, my silence clearly explaining it all. “Thénardier always has been unnaturally fond of the coin.” He touches his necklace, considering. “Buying her back can be done. But consider this, little Cat: What if the one who bought her does not wish to sell?”

I raise my eyes fiercely to his.

“Then there is someone I wish to see dead,” I say.

Tomasis laughs, and the hall laughs with him. Only Femi shakes his head frantically, trying to get my attention.

“How very bloodthirsty of you.”

The laughter scratches at my skin. I have said the wrong thing, and it amuses them.

“You do not kill people?”

Tomasis smiles widely at me. “Not usually,” he says. “But I know others who are quite good at dealing in death. So tell me: Who is it that has taken her? Say his name and it shall be done.”

Femi makes a strangled noise.

“I heard him called Kaplan.”

The hall itself immediately goes silent. Beside me, Femi is frozen.

Tomasis rises with the dangerous grace of a jungle beast and in two strides is standing before me. The blow comes out of nowhere, sends me crashing to the ground. I try to ignore the sting of my cheek, the cold stone beneath my fingers as I struggle to my knees.

“Please!” Femi is saying, his voice urgent and shrill. “She does not know what Kaplan is.”

The whole hall stays silent.

“You would bring the Tiger’s enemies to my house?” Tomasis asks Femi, his eyes glittering darkly. “You would trick me into taking them as my own?”

“Forgive me, my Lord. She does not know what she is asking!” Femi says again sharply, his words like a blade parrying Tomasis’s rage, holding it back.

“Then why do you bring her to me?” Tomasis roars. “Why would she ask me to kill him?”

The question echoes off the walls. Everyone is listening.

I will myself not to tremble, sucking in the air around me to steady myself.

“Fath—Thénardier sold my sister to him,” I say, looking at his feet, trying to keep the fear from my voice.

Tomasis sighs and bends, putting a hand beneath my chin. When I look up, his eyes are boring into mine. “Violence is rare here in the Shining Hall. Unlike the other Guilds, we rely on our speed and our wits. It is said we Thieves are good at stealing even the outrage from a brother’s heart.” He steps back, sitting heavily on his chair. “I’ll forgive you your impudence because you’re among the youngest of my children. None would bring me what you have. And none would dare ask of me what you have just asked.”

He nods to Femi, who grabs me by the arm and yanks me to my feet.

“Lord Kaplan, the Tiger, rules the Guild of Flesh,” says Tomasis. “He sits at the high table with the eight other Lords of the Miracle Court.” He shuts his eyes and rubs a hand over his temple as if weary. “We have … agreements with the Guild of Flesh. They don’t interfere with us, and we let them be. I would not defy Lord Kaplan even for one of my own. For to attack a Lord would plunge the Court into war. It is forbidden; thus sayeth the Law.”

“Thus sayeth the Law.” The murmurs echo around me.

“We the Wretched, children of the Miracle Court, are bound by the Law,” Tomasis continues. “It binds us, it keeps us, protects us, constrains us. It is engraved on the scales of our eyes, it is written in ash on the blackened tablets of our hearts.”

“But my sister!” I cry.

“I will give you a hundred new sisters,” Tomasis says with mournful eyes. “But I cannot return to you that which has been taken. Grieve for her, but know that she is gone.”

I fight down the bitter disappointment that rises in me. I thought this man who rules so powerfully over the Guild of Thieves could help me save Azelma.

A trembling starts within me. I try to control it, making fists and holding my limbs taut, but it takes over, my body no longer able to contain everything it feels. Tomasis catches me by the arm and pulls me toward him. His voice softens and lowers so that only Femi and I can catch his words.

“Do not be afraid, little one. You are a child of this Guild; Kaplan will not touch you. And you will be safe here from Thénardier’s wrath—I know his violence when the bottle has him. Look at me now: you are no longer his kin, you are my daughter. If he raises a hand to you, it will be as if he has struck me—and even he has never been drunk enough to try such a thing.”

“I am not afraid for myself,” I say, biting off each word with chattering teeth. I look Tomasis in the eye and see pity swimming in the depths.

If I can find out what the Tiger has planned, or where he has taken my sister, then surely I will be able to do something …

“You said you will give me a gift, so I ask you for the truth,” I say, my voice small. “Is he going to kill her?”

Tomasis shakes his head slowly and looks away. “I will not gift you this truth, for it is one known to all. Death would be a mercy to her,” he says quietly. He smiles at me, a smile wreathed in sadness, and for a moment he looks just like Femi. “But the gift I have promised you will keep. Know that one day you may ask it of me and I will bestow it on you.” A stern look comes over him. “Do not go looking for her, for you will not find her. Do not try to help her, for there is nothing that can break the Tiger’s hold once his claws are in. Do not make Kaplan your enemy; you will not sing the hunting song in his name. Swear to me that it will be so.”

Azelma sacrificed her one chance at escape to send me here, to give me the small bit of safety that even now stings behind my ear. Femi risked the wrath of his brother to save me, and now the Lord of Thieves has pledged to protect me from the Tiger, and from Thénardier. I must heed their words; I must respect their sacrifice. I must forget my sister. I would be a fool to do otherwise.

I nod.

“I swear it, my Lord,” I say.

And the lie tastes bitter on my tongue.

4
She Who Sleeps

Breaking into a place under cover of night is usually a simple matter of finding an entry point. A loose window, a door with a lock begging to be picked. Sometimes you have to toss up a rope or scale a wall to get to a building’s weak spots. Other times you might creep across rooftops and let yourself down a cold chimney. But the same techniques are much more difficult by day, when you’re likely to be spotted by any number of people: the merchants and workers; the laundrywomen hauling their linens to the boats floating on the Seine; the musicians, the beggars, the tradesmen, all the common people of the city, who aren’t children of the Miracle Court. By day the city seethes with life: it is a nest of mice scurrying to and fro, everyone hurriedly going about their business.

I shift impatiently under the lowering sun as the city hums its frenzied song. It is not yet time for me to be about; every inch of me longs to retreat until the daylight is truly gone. Dogs of the Thieves Guild work by day, and we Cats despise them because of it. Cats glide across the rooftops in the moonlight like dancers, while Dogs roam the arrondissements and slip silky hands into rich men’s pockets. Cats would never lower themselves to such petty work.

But today I’m not even a Cat. Today I’m a flower girl. I stole a dress, an apron, and neat slippers from a girl down at the floating baths. She likely walked home half-naked, poor thing. I took the basket of flowers from a distracted woman who was eating breakfast. Breakfast is a luxury for most of the Wretched, one I am rarely afforded.

A building looms before me, all yellowed stone and tiny windows. I’ve watched it since sunup, and it’s been silent all day.

My heart is skittering in my chest; the hair at the back of my neck stands on end. I know the danger of what I am about to do, and I am afraid.

Everyone is afraid.

Azelma’s words float toward me on the cold breeze. And I do what I always do when the fear threatens: I remember her whispering to me by candlelight. I wear her words like a shield as I set forth.

It’s been three months since Femi first brought me to the Thieves Guild. Three months of delivering takes to Lord Tomasis while secretly scrambling up the walls of every Flesh House I can find in the city. Three months of watching and waiting and learning that the houses of flesh come alive only after the sun has set. Three months of cramped limbs from perching on window ledges in the rain, counting the heads of a hundred girls, searching for one that looks like her. I climbed a hundred walls, slipped into a hundred windows before I found her.

I take a deep breath and approach the building from the side, avoiding the front, with its door of flaking blue paint, and the outrageously fat man sitting on a barrel. Weeks of spying on this house have shown me that when he’s sober, he’s as strong as an ox and as violent as a caged bear. But right now, he’s still in the depths of a daylong hangover. Last night was a wild night. He indulged in too much wine—good wine. I would know. I stole it from the cellars of the Marquis de Loris, an avid collector, and dosed it with poppy purchased from the Guild of Dreamers to ensure he would sleep deeply. Although the guard is snoring, I won’t risk the front door and instead slip to the side entrance, where kitchen deliveries are made. I push open the door, and as I knew they would be, the kitchens are empty at this hour.

I ease into a corridor. At its end is a door to the chamber of the madam who runs this establishment. Her door is ajar, and from inside comes the sound of snoring. Good. Her wine, too, was laced with poppy, and I paid a sailor on his way in to make sure he delivered it to her. He was delighted to do so. A grateful madam would earn him more time with the girls.

I should leave. I always leave at this point. It’s too dangerous to stay. But today will be different. Today I am going to rescue her.

I look up the stairs.

Do not go looking for her, Tomasis said.

I should obey him, but I can’t.

As if mesmerized, I’m drawn up the stairs, creeping quietly, hand on the banister. The gaudy peeling wallpaper shows exotic scenes of the Qing lands.

The top of the landing is lined with doors half-open in invitation. But only one room calls to me: the last one on the left. I walk to it with purpose and push against the door, and my breath catches in my chest.

She’s lying on the bed, her body curled into a ball as if to protect itself. The room is seedy: an open cupboard with a few fading costumes, a small dressing table with a cracked mirror, a clutter of colored bottles of watered-down perfume, cheap powders and rouge, a brittle calling card from a customer, two syringes lying used and empty.

My heart contracts as I look at her. Her makeup is smeared across her face. Her hair has been curled into unnatural ringlets. In the last few months, she’s grown thin and hollow-cheeked. The dress she’s wearing is torn in several places, with uneven stitches along the hem. She who once sewed so quick and neat can make only uneven stitches now, her hand unsteady from the drugs, or from a beating. The syringe has tattooed her arm with black pinpricks, each one flowering into a yellow-blue bruise. Her skin is bumpy with gooseflesh, but she was too tired to pull the threadbare sheet over herself.

I reach out and gently trace the mark of her Guild. The Tiger doesn’t tattoo his children with ink. He has other ways of marking them. Her mark runs across her eye like a stripe from her cheek to forehead, a scar of raised flesh against smooth skin.

At my touch her lashes flutter groggily, her gaze heavy and unfocused with the poppy they’ve shot into her veins. Her eyelids close again. I know that she does not recognize me. Perhaps she thinks I’m a dream, a memory of another time when she was another girl. While in other beds throughout this building, and in hundreds of houses around the city, her sisters dream uneasily as well.

It wasn’t always this way. When Lady Kamelia led the Guild of Sisters, there were five thousand women of the night. But hers was a reign of seduction and luxury, and all of her daughters flourished under the protection of the Law. Since the Tiger wrested control of the Guild, it is said that twenty thousand Sisters sleep under his thrall.

“Zelle, Zelle!” I hiss softly in her ear, but she doesn’t stir. I shake her, and when that fails I grab a jug at her bedside and spill icy water over her face.

She splutters awake, gasping. One eye is dark brown, the other filmy and blinded by the cat-o’-nine-tails that cut into her, marking her as a child of the Guild of Flesh.

She tries to sit up but is too weak, so I try help her. Trembling, she edges away from me, her hands raised to protect herself—she’s afraid I’m here to give her a beating.

“Zelle, it’s me. It’s Nina …”

Between her fingers her good eye finally focuses on my face and she gives a sharp intake of breath.

“No, no, no …”

She’s shaking violently now, wet and cold, as I try to drag her to her feet.

“Zelle, please, we have to go before they wake. Come quickly.”

“No!” She twists out of my grasp and tears herself away from me, backing into the wall. “I won’t go, I won’t, I won’t. They broke his hands. They broke him …” She stops, and something in her gaze hardens.

“Zelle,” I say calmly. I approach her slowly, like a person trying to tame a frightened beast.

I hear the creak of a door opening downstairs, and a raised voice berating someone. I curse under my breath. The Fleshers have arrived, and they must have realized that something is wrong. Voices grow louder. I don’t have much time.

“Zelle, it’s me, Nina,” I say.

“Nina? Nina, no … not Nina. Not Nina …” Her words are slurred, her voice ragged. “You must leave, before they come … They broke him. They broke—”

“Shhh,” I say, even as footsteps pound up the stairs. It’s only moments now until they begin to check on the girls, until they find me here with her.

Azelma’s eyes focus on my face, and for the first time since I have stood here before her, I think she truly sees me.

Boots thunder down the hallway. Doors slam. Voices call out that the girls are asleep. Azelma’s eyes dart to her window, terror raw on her face.

“You must go,” she says urgently.

“Not without you.” I reach for her. “Come with me.” She looks at my hand, and she takes it. We dash to the window, which I throw open, and I clamber onto the ledge, then turn to her.

I see it then, the clarity amid her confusion, the resolve beneath her fear. My sister stares into my eyes; she is so close I feel her breath against my cheek.

“Run,” she says, and she pushes me as behind her the door flies open. I watch my sister’s face as I fall in slow motion, and then abruptly she is gone and a man is leaning out, yelling and pointing.

I hit the ground with a shuddering impact. Pain laces my side. The wind has been knocked out of me, and I gasp for breath, willing my limbs to move, finding that they obey far more slowly than I can afford. I barely manage to rise to my feet as several men burst out of the building. They’re giants, like all of the Tiger’s sons, chosen for their brawn, their complete absence of morals, and their unspeakable propensity for inflicting pain. They circle me like sharks. They ask no questions; they don’t want to know who I am or why I am there. My being there is enough for them.

The sun is setting fast. I have time to call out only once, so I whistle loud and sharp, the call of the Thieves, knowing that even if anyone hears, it will probably be too late.

5
The Claws of the Hawk

A voice rings out, and the words are so ridiculous that even in the depths of my fear, I almost laugh.

“Six grown men against a child seems incredibly cowardly to me.” The voice is amused, young. Its owner clearly has no idea that he is addressing some of the most dangerous men in the whole city.

“If we could return home without getting into any trouble for once, I would be most grateful,” says another, wearier voice.

“They’ve got a child there, St. Juste. Take a look.”

“Dear heavens, you’re right.” Which is followed by a barked order. “Unhand that child immediately or you will have cause to regret it!”

The voice—St. Juste’s, it seems—is well modulated, educated; the voice of someone who is used to being listened to.

The Fleshers, however, listen to no one but the Tiger, so they ignore St. Juste and lunge at me. Two of them grab me from behind, and I’m thrown to the ground. They begin to kick me, and I scratch and yowl, striking out with a dagger that’s been tucked into my boot.

Then someone fires a gun and the Fleshers freeze: men unaccustomed to being crossed rarely carry weapons.

“I will shoot you if you do not unhand that poor child. And what’s more, Grantaire will shoot you as well, and he is far less likely to kill you.”

“I object to that!” says the other man now. “I can shoot perfectly well in my cups, I can! Watch …”

Another shot rings out, and one of the Fleshers yelps and raises a hand to his ear.

“See, I meant to clip that one.”

The Fleshers look at one another. As a Guild, they are not known for their brains. The Tiger adopts only the most violent children, the ones who will obey without question; figuring out a complex problem like this is beyond them.

He takes a second shot, and another Flesher swears and grabs his leg, nearly crumpling to the ground. I can hear the Fleshers scuttling heavily away, but surely only to get weapons and return. I take a second to appreciate the fact that I am still alive.

“I say, Grantaire, that was good! Did you mean to get him right above the knee?”

Someone turns me over, and I am greeted by the sight of two faces staring down at me. One has a mess of black hair, a green waistcoat, and a roguish smile.

“Oh, good, it’s alive!” he says.

The other face scowls at me as if disappointed that I have survived. Even from this perspective I can make out the grim features of a young god, his face carved of marble and determination and framed with a halo of ice-blond hair tied at the nape of his neck. He is beautiful and terrible at the same time in his tailcoat of deep red, with a cravat artfully undone at his throat. In his hand is a fine pistol of gold filigree, which he tucks into his waistband so he can scoop me up and put me on my feet.

“Can you stand?” the dark one asks with concern. Then he wobbles and topples over, making the blond one roll his eyes and go to his aid. The dark one is drunk. They probably both are.

“I’m fine,” I say shortly, biting down at the stinging in my side.

“You seem to have fallen into extremely bad company,” the dark one says from the ground, where he sits batting away the blond one’s attempts to bring him to his feet. “If you want to paw at me, St. Juste, you’ll have to ask for my hand first.”

“No one will ever want to paw you until you are less of a drunk, Grantaire.”

“You are to blame for the depth of my drunkenness, St. Juste. Your meetings positively bore me to tears and drive me to the bottle.”

The blond one gives up and turns to look at me, and it is not a look that I will ever forget. He seems to see right through me, scanning me swiftly and taking in the lines of my clothing, the blood on my cheek, on my hands and my feet.

“We should introduce ourselves to our new friend,” the dark one says. “I do believe this urchin owes us his life.”

I wince at that. The idea of a child of Miracle Court owing a debt to one of Those Who Walk by Day is unthinkable.

“I am in your debt, sirs,” I say, the admission sticking in my throat.

“What is your name, little boy?” the dark one asks.

The blond one’s eyes narrow. “Girl,” he says.

I try not to let my surprise show. Almost nobody can tell I’m a girl.

“Girl? Where?” Grantaire looks around comically, and seeing no one else, he blinks at me and points unnecessarily at my face. “That is a girl?”

I raise my chin defiantly. “They call me the Black Cat,” I offer in response.

“Oh, that is good,” says the dark one. “I want an animal name—can I have an animal name too? What about the Drunken Ferret? And you, St. Juste. You can be … the Oppressive Eagle of Judgment.”

“You can call me Nina,” I say, trying to suppress a smile.

“Well, m’lady Nina, I am Grantaire,” the drunkard continues with a swift return of grace and manners. “And this pinnacle of humanity is Enjolras St. Juste.”

Now it’s my turn to stare. St. Juste, the beautiful. St. Juste, the Angel of Death, whose head is one of the six impaled atop the gates of the Tuileries. One of the six little mice—revolutionaries who set the city aflame and nearly toppled the king and queen only a generation ago. And for their pains the nobility fed them to the guillotine and hunted down all of their known relations, hanging them from the gibbet of Montfaucon.

“You call yourself by that name openly?” I ask.

“Oh, here we go. Don’t get him started about his ancestry,” Grantaire says, and takes a swig from a flask that has appeared in his hand.

“I am not ashamed of my kin,” St. Juste says. “I was in the womb when my uncle tried to change the world. I was brought up under my mother’s name, and so I lived, but what kind of living is it when gangs of brutes set upon children? When little girls are so scared they must hide what they are under layers of shapeless cloth?”

I stare at him. “You’re mad,” I say.

“Perhaps, for only the mad would see the endless darkness, the great evil that reigns around us, and stand against it.”

“They’re going to kill you.”

“Probably,” St. Juste says with a grim smile. “But by all hells, I’ll set this city on fire and take as many of them down with me as I can.” His eyes gleam with a passion I’ve never seen before. It’s both frightening and mesmerizing. Here is a boy who is marching toward his death, and he is delighting in it.

“They’ll hang him from Montfaucon for sure, and us alongside him,” Grantaire says so mournfully that I am released from the spell St. Juste’s words have cast over me. “But we are all his lackeys, for there is a truth in what he says. This city is a broken thing, and the world itself is wrong, and we cannot sit by and do nothing about it.”

“Falling over in taverns is not doing something about it,” St. Juste retorts sharply.

Grantaire smiles at that. “I drink to you, Son of Rebellion, Oppressive Eagle of Judgment.” He raises his flask and salutes his friend before downing its contents.

As he swallows with a heavy hiccup, a sharp cry rends the night. It is the call of Aves, the Elanion; Femi.

“What on earth is that?” Grantaire asks.

“It sounds like some sort of hawk,” offers St. Juste.

“What kind of devil bird preys at this hour?”

Suddenly there is a tinkle of breaking glass, and the solitary streetlamp goes out. I cannot help but grin in the darkness. “Sirs, I will take my leave of you, and am mindful of the debt I owe you. It would be wise to leave before the Fleshers return. They will no doubt be armed this time.”

In the sudden darkness they are half-blind, so they barely see me slide past them and clamber up the wall of a nearby building.

“Wait!” Grantaire shouts, but I ignore them. I’m not afraid they’ll shoot me, because, unlike me, they are not accustomed to darkness. Well, that and I’ve stolen their pistols.

“Well, that was fairly rude. We did save her life,” comes Grantaire’s voice as I climb higher and higher, ignoring the pain in my side. “Then again,” he continues, “I can’t blame her for fleeing. You probably drove her away with your weary justice speech.”

“I am going to let you find your own way home if you don’t shut up, Grantaire,” St. Juste’s voice says clearly.

“Hold on a minute … Where’s my gun?”

My laughter carries on the wind, curling around them, caressing their skin like a kiss, before I am completely gone.

The Messenger is waiting for me, perched on the edge of an old gabled roof, so still he might be one of the city’s weathered gargoyles.

“Femi—”

“What did you think you were doing?” His voice is a snarl.

His barely controlled anger hits me like a wave, and I take a step back. “You took your sweet time,” I retort sharply.

“Aye, and if those two fools had not intervened, I’d have arrived only to sing a death song over your corpse.”

Femi turns, and it strikes me that there is something odd in the way he is standing.

“You took an oath that you would not seek her out, that you would not attempt to rescue her. Beating you to death was the most merciful thing the Fleshers might have done if they had discovered you were a girl. But the Tiger is afraid of nothing and no one. Law or no Law, he’d probably take you, just to see what the other Lords would do. He’d feed you the poppy, and turn you into …”

I blanche at his words.

“You swore you would not do this, Nina,” Femi says again. “You cannot help her. Not this way.”

Though I know his words are true, a storm of rage rises within me. “How can you speak of oaths while she is in there—you who swore you cared for her!”

It is as if I have slapped him across the face. He stops, trembling and towering over me in anger, his face turning hard and cold.

“It is because I care for her that I promised to protect you. It was the last thing she asked of me, Nina—the only thing she asked of me. If she’d asked me to flee with her, I’d have gone. If she had asked me for Death the Endless, I’d have given her a blade.” He swallows and looks down, cradling his hands. “And even though she did not ask it of me, did you really think I wouldn’t try to find her? I who hear all and see all that happens in the Guilds. Did you think I wouldn’t have called in every debt, paid every coin and jewel in my possession, to try to save her? Did you think I would not come for her myself?”

They broke his hands. Azelma’s terrified voice lances my brain.

I look in fear to his hands. He stills as I reach out and push back the long sleeves of his cloak to find a tangle of misshapen fingers, little more than gnarled claws, bruised, twisted, and broken.

“I am Aves, the Elanion, Messenger to the nine Guilds of the Miracle Court,” Femi says in a trembling voice. “But seeking to steal from a Guild Lord could not go unpunished. It is the Law. And only because I am trusted, only because I am Tomasis’s blood-born brother and he pleaded for me—for this alone I was spared.”

Horror seeps into every pore of my being. Horror, and fear and sickness at the sight of what they have done to him.

“I swore to protect you,” Femi says, his voice still quiet. “I promised her. What will I have left if I fail her in this as well?”

I turn from him, light-headed. I close my eyes and try clear my thoughts. “I cannot just forget her, Femi.”

“And you cannot rescue her. It cannot be done, not this way.”

I turn his words over in my mind, until I finally see the meaning behind them. My eyes snap open. “You believe there is another way?”

Femi straightens, tucking his ruined hands back under his cloak. I wonder how he managed to climb with his fingers so broken.

“She cannot be stolen, but perhaps she can be bought,” he says. His words are careful, deliberate.

Hope swells in my breast. “For how much? More than twelve coins of gold?” I can raise an impossible sum if needed. Stealing precious things is what I am good at.

Femi shakes his head. “The Tiger is rich beyond measure,” he says. “Gold means little to him. But he is a man who is never thwarted in any of his wishes. What you must find is something that he wants but cannot have. Make him desperate for it until he is ready to pay any price to attain it. If you are lucky, you might have power to dictate a price: the freedom of your sister.”

His words are genius. But I frown as a new thought blossoms.

“What is it that the Tiger wants?” I look up and find Femi staring at me, his face a grimace.

“What does he always want?” he asks.

The question hangs between us, unanswered. But even now I am aware; I have seen my sister, and the truth of what she has become is so terrible I dare not speak it aloud.

Sometimes we must pay a terrible price to protect the things we love.

Is there any price I will not pay to save my sister?

No. There is not.

PART TWO
The Dead Wolf
1829

When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.

—The Jungle Book

THE FOX RENNART’S REVENGE
FROM STORIES OF THE MIRACLE COURT, BY THE DEAD LORD

Il était une fois … Rennart the Fox came to the house of Ysengrim the Boar, stealing into his lair in the darkness. The Fox’s blade was sharp, and his teeth hungered for the taste of blood. He stood before the crib where the daughter of Ysengrim lay sleeping, and he gazed upon her beautiful face.

It was for revenge that the Fox had come. Ysengrim and Rennart had once been like brothers. And yet Ysengrim had given to Rennart the gift of the seven hells. First he had betrayed his friendship. Then he had taken the Fox’s house and his name. He had killed the Fox’s loyal men. He had murdered his wife and his daughter. Lastly, he had cast the Fox into the darkest dungeon, les Oubliettes du Châtelet, the place of forgetting. And in the last of these seven hells, Rennart sat in the darkness and waited.

With time and patience, the Fox escaped. And under the cloak of darkness he came to stand before the crib of Ysengrim’s daughter.

“Slay her, I must slay her,” Rennart cried to himself. “Does the blood of my men, my wife, my child not cry out for vengeance? All has been taken from me. I have earned the right to do this midnight deed.”

And though Ysengrim had wounded him beyond healing, despite all that he had lost and suffered, Rennart knew that if he slew the child he would be no better than his enemy. He knew that he could not kill her.

And so instead the Fox took her. He stole her from her crib, and carried her away to his den, and in doing so inflicted a thousand hurts on Ysengrim, worse than burying a wife and child, worse than seeing men fall, worse than losing all that you have built. The Fox gave Ysengrim the Boar a terrible gift: the gift of never knowing what had become of his daughter, the guilt of wondering endlessly whether she had lived or died.

6
The Tiger

I watch Ettie from the corner of my eye. I have to; Thénardier will beat her if she doesn’t learn fast. And I cannot afford for her perfect face to be marred. Not today of all days.

The inn is crowded early this evening, voices merging into a dull roar. They’ll get louder as the night goes on and people get drunker. The air is thick with the scent of beer and wine long soaked into the floor and the sweet smoke of poppy from the pipes of the Dreamers in one corner. It’s roasting in here, too many bodies in too small a space. Carrying drinks to any table means walking through a maze of wandering hands and lecherous grins. I avoid the men with tattoos behind their ears: those are the ones you don’t want to trip over.

I glance back at Ettie, who’s struggling beneath the weight of a jug. Her skinny arms aren’t used to lifting such things.

I take a deep breath.

I can do this. I’ve rehearsed it in my head a thousand times.

I weave through the customers and bump my hip into a table just hard enough that the man at the far end is jostled into Ettie.

She is fighting to keep her hold on the jug when a large hand darts out and grips her shoulder, steadying her.

“Not used to waiting on tables, are we, little one?”

The voice is a rough, warm growl. My heart sinks into my boots, when it should be soaring.

The world seems to slow. I drop whatever I was carrying onto the nearest table, ignore the protests of the customers, and push through the crowded floor to her.

The man has stood to help her with the jug, and, relieved, she lets him take it.

Don’t look at him, Ettie, I think, despite myself.

But she does, a single golden curl escaping from her white cap as she tilts her head up to see who has saved her from a fall. She’s small and he’s a giant of a man, exuding strength and warmth. He has yellow eyes, a face tanned dark from years spent at sea, hair bleached orange-blond by the sun. The long, corded scars that cross from his forehead to his cheek don’t take away from his magnetic charm. He smiles at Ettie, a smile that is all teeth, and God forgive her, she smiles back.

“What is your name?” the smiling Lord asks.

“Ettie,” I blurt out before she can answer.

She turns to me, her eyebrows raised in question.

“I’m sorry she disturbed you, Monseigneur,” I say, not looking at his face. Definitely not looking at the scars. “Come with me, Ettie. You’re needed in the kitchen.”

I reach out to her, but his hand clamps down tight on her shoulder again.

“Lord Kaplan! Are my daughters bothering you?”

I’ve never been so delighted to hear Thénardier’s voice. The customers watch with interest as he moves through the crowd toward us. It’s a promising spectacle so early in the evening. After all, someone might be about to die—and that someone isn’t them.

Kaplan, the Tiger, is a Guild Lord, and he dresses his huge frame in rough sailor’s garb: loose shirt, trousers, boots, and an old naval jacket he legendarily took from the back of an admiral at sea. He carries no weapons; he doesn’t have to.

Thénardier, in contrast, is only a Guild Master. He is a small man, thin and wiry. He can be recognized from afar by the purple-and-yellow-striped waistcoat he favors. He’s a distraction, like a peacock fanning its brilliant tail. Like many members of the Thieves Guild, he’s given to wearing fine jewelry. His right hand is heavy with rings of gold. I’ve felt the mark of them on my skin too many times to count.

“Eponine, take little Cosette outside.” Thénardier rubs his hands together, as he’s wont to do when bargaining, for he sees Kaplan’s interest; he knows there’s something to be gained here.

My stomach churns. I remember the night the Tiger came for Azelma.

Stay calm. It’s all going according to plan.

I step forward and take Ettie’s hand. Everyone is staring at her and she doesn’t know why.

She tries to pull away from Lord Kaplan. But he doesn’t let go.

“Your daughter too?” Kaplan’s yellow eyes flick to my face.

“Nina is my little Cat,” Thénardier says.

Like everyone we know, he says one thing and means another. He says I’m a Cat, but he means I’m a full member of the Thieves Guild, so touching me is making argument with the Thief Lord. Thénardier is saying back off in such a way it comes out dripping in sweetness. He smiles, his mouth full of gold teeth. He cut them from the gums of soldiers dying on the battlefield and paid a butcher to put them in for him when his own rotted away.

“Your Cat has claws.”

Kaplan releases his hold on Ettie. She sways into my arms.

I grab her and begin moving us toward the door, hoping the Tiger’s eyes will follow us. Hating that they do.

“And the blond one?”

“My ward.”

“I didn’t know you were in the habit of dispensing charity, Thénardier.”

“Her mother pays me for her keep.”

We’re almost at the door, and Ettie is protesting because I’m pulling her arm too hard, but I must, to get her out. Out of the room, out of sight, out of his presence.

I yank the rough door open. The wind comes racing in, biting at my cheeks. Ettie is saying something about the cold, but I ignore her. I drag her out and tug the heavy door closed behind us. The last thing I hear is Lord Kaplan’s voice, as clear as the bells of Matins: “How much can I pay you to take her off your hands?”

I suck in deep breaths of the cold air. My mind is racing. I’ve just heard the words I needed to hear. He’s taken the bait.

So why, then, do I feel so miserable? I look Ettie over. She’s a little thing. Twelve years old and unable to fend for herself. At her age, I had been a member of the Thieves Guild for three whole years. She hasn’t the cunning to survive the Miracle Court. And yet I find myself trying to hide her, winding baggy boys’ clothes around her like armor to protect her from hungry eyes. I tuck her rebellious golden curls into an old cap so she’ll look like me.

You hide her like Azelma hid you. The thought comes unbidden.

An act, I tell myself, so as not to be too obvious until the time is right.

“Is Thénardier sending me away with that man?” she asks curiously, digging the toe of one oversized boot into the watery muck on the ground, as if perhaps it mightn’t be so bad if Kaplan took her. She thinks anything would be better than living with Thénardier and his drunken rages.

She has no idea.

“That man is the Tiger,” I say.

Ettie takes a step back. Young though she is, she recognizes the common name whispered for the Lord of the Guild of Flesh.

I shake my head roughly; I can’t afford to think about it now.

“Will he harm me?” Ettie’s little body shakes. “Nina …?”

It’s the same reaction I had only a few years ago, when I stood shaking before the truth of what the Tiger was.

Ettie always looks to me for answers. I’m the one who tells her how to keep out of trouble. I shouldn’t have bothered to disguise her; it was a silly, disjointed attempt to protect the lamb I was planning to offer up. To keep people from seeing what she is. For Ettie is beautiful, the kind of beautiful that would draw attention even clothed in rags. The kind you spend years hoping to find, the kind you convince Thénardier he must take in, the kind you know the Tiger will want.

“Will he kill me?”

Ettie’s words shake me from my reverie. I need to get her away now, to hide her so that neither Thénardier nor the Tiger can find her; thwart them, make them mad with the wanting of her. Only then can I demand my price.

I catch my breath.

“Yes, he’ll kill you,” I lie. He won’t kill her. What he’ll do is much worse. She will look for death and it will not come.

Ettie’s face crumples. She breaks into little sobs.

The first night I brought her back to the inn, she looked around and promptly burst into tears until Thénardier’s reprimand left her cheek a mass of blue-black bruises. When the last customer was gone and dawn was peeping through the wooden shutters, I crawled up to my bed and found her curled in a ball, shivering under the bedsheets. She was half frozen with fear and sorrow. I should have given in to my exhaustion, ignored her, and fallen asleep. But she stared at me entreatingly with those enormous blue eyes. So I lay down beside her, put my arm around her for warmth, and told her a story.

“Stop crying,” I say shortly, and grab Ettie’s hand. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” She sniffles.

I smile. A smile that she should never trust.

“Somewhere he will not be able to find you,” I say, which is only partly a lie.

We rush down a tangle of back streets, keeping to the shadows.

She’s breathless and struggling along behind me, but at least she’s stopped crying.

She thinks I’m going to save her. When I’m sending her to a fate far worse than the seven hells.

But sometimes we must pay a terrible price to protect the things we love.

7
The Black Cat’s Choice

After the revolution failed, the city was carved into two parts. Half of Paris is rigid, boxtree-lined avenues haunted by the aristocracy. The other half is a murky jungle of crime and misery.

I wear this city like skin wrapped around my bones. I know each street by the feel of the stone beneath my feet. It speaks to me; it shows me where to go. It would have been safer to go the long way, cutting through the manicured streets of the sheltered nobles, but we don’t have time. And it would have been faster to go over rooftops, but Ettie doesn’t know a Cat’s way of racing along tiles and leaping sure-footed from one house to the next.

So instead, we run down the villainous-smelling streets, weaving between wagons and Those Who Walk by Day. Dodging an old lady sitting on a crate with a sign that says she’ll mend clothes for a few sous; darting down an alley, throwing out a prayer that we’ll find it empty. We skitter along the alley’s length before ducking into another one.

Ettie’s boots are too big, and she can’t run fast. But I bring her along at breakneck speed. We have to keep moving. The city assumes that anyone hesitating too long in one place is issuing a challenge.

Ettie pulls on my arm to slow me down.

“Nina, if we could find a carriage, I could go to my maman.”

I shake my head. Her maman stopped sending letters months ago; we both know what that probably means.

So we hurry along till we get to a ramshackle factory in the Gobelins, shut down by the banks for debt.

“Where are we?” Ettie asks.

I ignore the question.

It takes a ridiculous amount of time to clamber through a window and hoist Ettie up, since she’s awful at climbing. She’s awful at a lot of things …

Ettie wrinkles her nose at the stench; a toxic smell from the arsenic used to dye the wall coverings, hats, and dresses of the nobility hangs in the air.

“How long will we stay here?”

I’m in no mood for Ettie’s questions. “I’m not sure—a day or two, maybe.”

She looks around, not liking what she sees. “Will you tell me a story?”

“This is hardly the time for a story!” I snap, making my voice as hard and ugly as I can, for it is an ugly thing that I am doing.

She shrinks from me, eyes wide.

I try to calm myself, but my thoughts aren’t so easily cowed; they whir and screech in my head, accusing and shouting, clawing at me with a thousand knives of guilt. What kind of person sells another?

The kind of person who would do anything to get her sister back, I remind myself grimly.

I’ve no choice; it’s the only way. Azelma safe. Isn’t that worth the cost?

And yet I know I’m not just condemning Ettie to the Guild of Flesh. Whispers speak of Sisters smuggled in boxes, of living cargo traded to the Tiger’s allies overseas.

The horror rises and threatens to overwhelm me. What he does, what he is, is an abomination, forbidden by the Law. The Law that is meant to protect us, to keep us safe.

And yet I cannot help the Sisters hidden in the shadows. I cannot save all the women in the Fleshers’ houses. But I might free one of them. I can make Azelma safe.

For a terrible price.

I eye Ettie shivering in the corner.

“I’m sorry,” I say, for snapping at her. And for what is about to happen, and for my part in it. I am so filled with regret that it threatens to burst out of me.

As if she can sense the turmoil I’m in, she gives me a small, forgiving smile, which is so typical of Ettie. It is not enough that she is beautiful; she is also kind. She rises and comes nearer to me and sits down on the floor.

“Tell me what happened to Ysengrim’s daughter when Rennart found her.”

I swallow. Ettie is obsessed with stories. And yet … what harm is there in finishing the tale? In giving her one last good thing before the end? And so I begin.

“Rennart the Fox went to the house of Ysengrim the Boar,” I say. “He stole into his lair in the darkness. There he found the daughter of Ysengrim, and he gazed upon her beautiful face as she lay sleeping.”

Ettie inches toward me and leans into me, like she did on the nights when she couldn’t sleep; like I did when Azelma relayed stories to me.

“It was for revenge that the Fox had come,” I continue, relaying the betrayal of Rennart by Ysengrim, the murder of his wife, the casting out of the Fox to a dark hell until he could escape and have justice.

But my voice grows unsteady. I try not to remember Azelma wrapping her arms about me like this, the warmth of her. Azelma, who protected me, who would never have done to me what I am contemplating doing to Ettie.

When a warm tear rolls down my cheek, she reaches up to wipe it from my chin.

“Don’t cry, Nina,” she says in her small voice.

And I know then that even for Azelma, my sister, even for her, I cannot go through with this. And the knowledge defeats me. For if I can’t exchange Ettie for Azelma, then I cannot save my sister at all. I’ve lost her again, lost her forever.

The pain of it slices at me, but I cannot let it drown me, not now. I did a terrible thing setting this plan in motion. Ettie’s life hangs in the great and terrible balance, and if I fall apart now, there will be no one else to help her. I must concentrate on the only thing I have any chance of changing now … I must think of Ettie.

I glance sideways at her. She is so vulnerable, in her oversized shirt and boots. Like the beast he is, the Tiger has gotten the scent of her. I made sure of that. He’ll come for her, and it will be my fault.

What am I going to do?

When we don’t return, they’ll look for me; they’ll know I had a hand in it. She can’t hide in this building forever. Nor can I.

Be useful, Azelma said the day she was taken, be smart, and stay one step ahead of everyone.

And then it comes to me. Breathtaking in its simplicity, really: the only way to protect someone is to give them to the protection of another Guild.

I remember Tomasis’s reaction when I was given to him, and I frown. No Guild will want the Tiger’s prey, for all the Lords fear the Tiger.

Except, perhaps, the Dead Lord.

I sit upright so suddenly that Ettie looks at me, blinking.

“What is it, Nina?”

My mind is racing as I begin to make a new plan, and I am faced with an inconvenient fact: no one has seen the Dead Lord or his Ghosts in weeks. His absence is strange enough to be whispered about in the Court. There is only one person who might know what has become of him.

The thought is so insane it is laughable.

What choice do I have?

“Where are we going?” Ettie asks.

“To find Lady Corday.”

“Who is Lady Corday?”

You don’t want to know.

“The Lady of the Assassins Guild.”

Ettie catches her breath. “Where will we find her?”

Somewhere no one goes—at least, not if they want to walk out alive.

8
The Dealers of Death

In times past, terrible wars threatened to tear the Miracle Court apart, which is why the Law was created to govern all the Guilds. But even with the Law, the Guilds can’t quite give up the moldering suspicions that make them so distrustful of one another. The location of almost every Guild House is a closely guarded secret, known only to Femi and the People of the Pen. One of the exceptions is this house.

The building is impressive: tall, ancient, built of white marble. Its architecture is spare compared with the extravagant Gothic style of its decaying neighbors.

My mouth goes dry looking at it. They say it used to house the finest undertakers in all of France; some say it still does. We walk up a manicured path of smooth white stone leading to a large terrace. The front door is tall and black; its knocker is a heavy brass skull.

The Assassins don’t need to hide their Guild, because members of the Miracle Court usually aren’t foolish enough to seek them out.

I take a deep breath, wrap my fingers around the cold brass, and rap on the door. The noise thunders through the house, and an eerie, unnatural silence answers us. I pray that no one opens the door.

No one does.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Ettie whispers.

It’s the right place.

No one may enter a Guild if they are not a child of that Guild. It is a Law of the Miracle Court. The punishment for entering a Guild House uninvited varies by Guild. Thieves like to hang people from the Pont Neuf by their nether regions, which could be why no one ever tries to visit them. There are stories that say entering the front door of the Assassins Guild without an invitation leads to instant decapitation via hidden guillotine. Invitations are scarce. We’ll have to do without one today.

Every nerve in my body is alive with dread as I push the heavy door open. That it’s not locked frightens me more than I can say. I pause for a moment. No guillotine falls.

We stare down a long corridor lit by dim sconces; the floor is a chessboard of black and white marble. There’s a small fountain gurgling delicately at its far end.

Beside me, Ettie is rigid and quiet. My fear is contagious.

“Good hunting,” I call as loudly as I dare, making Ettie jump. My greeting goes unanswered.

“Maybe they’re not home,” Ettie offers. I shake my head.

The Bats are always home.

We walk down the corridor; my heart beats a wild staccato.

This Guild House, like its children, is stark, elegant, and devoid of feeling.

Ettie approaches the fountain. I grab her by the collar to stop her.

“Half the members of this Guild have devoted their lives to concocting deadly poisons. Don’t drink anything.” She nods, and we proceed with small, cautious steps. Ettie runs her fingertips along white markings on the dark walls as we go. I glance at them and my blood runs cold. The marks are carved into the wall. Each group of four is crossed with a fifth line. It’s a running tally.

Ettie is wide-eyed as she inspects the paintings hung on the walls. On the left is a smudged mural of a skeleton dancing with a beautiful young woman: the oldest existing depiction of the danse macabre. On the right is a cluster of portraits: gentlemen and women of varying ethnicities, all dressed in fine black velvet, each holding a goblet filled with what looks like red wine but is actually blood. Rumor has it the portraits are painted in blood too. Each figure either holds a dagger or has a snake wound around their free arm to show which of the two houses of the Guild they belong to: Poisons or Knives.

“Who are they?” Ettie whispers.

“The Lords of this Guild.”

The last portrait depicts a slight woman holding a dagger to show she’s of the House of Knives.

There’s a breeze.

The hair on the back of my neck rises, and every nerve in me screams danger.

“Can I help you?” asks a voice like a dagger point.

Ettie leaps in surprise. Out of nowhere a tall, thin young man has appeared beside us. His hair is black and barely curls. His skin is tanned, showing his Maghreb heritage. He’s dressed from head to toe in varying shades of almost-black. He looks at us with dark, expressionless eyes.

He is Montparnasse of the House of Knives, Master of the Assassins Guild. Children of the Miracle Court are respected for the threat their Guild poses. Montparnasse is one of the highest-ranked Masters of the most dangerous Guild of all.

“Bonjour,” Ettie says politely.

Horrifyingly, slowly, I become aware that the space around us is full of people. An ebony-skinned young man and a Corsican with an eye patch stand on either side of us, watching.

“Master of Knives.” I try to keep the tremor out of my voice. “Nous sommes d’un sang.” We are of one blood. I give the slightest of bows while keeping my eyes firmly on him.

He tilts his head and looks me over, and in a blur, he is inches from me. He raises a hand and I incline my head, a sign of submission, offering my neck for slitting if he sees fit.

Something cold and sharp touches my skin like a whisper, brushing my hair behind my ear, to reveal my diamond tattoo, the mark of my Guild.

Montparnasse is so close I am sure he can taste my fear. I try hard not to shake as he looks at me, close as a lover. I try very hard not to think about the fact that he smells of steel, salt, bone, and blood.

“Thieves Guild,” he whispers, like a caress on my skin.

Do I imagine the tiniest glimmer of surprise in his voice?

Then we’re grabbed from behind, dark sacks thrown over our heads. Ettie cries out through the rough cloth. This is bad. I was mad to have come. No one walks into the Assassins Guild and leaves alive.

I make a noise for Ettie to keep quiet as I feel the point of a blade at my back.

We’re marched through countless corridors, twisting and turning. I won’t remember how to get out of here. There are sounds—doors opening and closing, footsteps echoing on marble. Splinters of light dance through the weave of the sack.

A fire roars somewhere; its crackle and warmth sneak through the cloth. There’s a murmuring of voices.

“Madame,” Montparnasse says.

“Master of Knives,” a woman’s voice answers.

“I’ve brought you a gift.”

“I’m no gift, not even to the Dealers of Death.” My voice is muffled through the sack and doesn’t sound as dangerous as I would like.

I’m pushed to my knees, the hood is removed from my head, and I stare blinking into the sudden candlelight. Ettie is next to me, looking terrified and perplexed.

Seated in front of us is a petite woman in a dark velvet dress. Her thick brown hair is pinned back tight, and she gives an impression of meticulous neatness. My heart drops at the sight of her so close. Charlotte Corday, Lady of the Assassins Guild. The only Assassin ever to come to her office by murdering the previous Lord in a crowded room, without going anywhere near him. Stories are whispered about her: that she came into the world dead, a corpse with skin like marble and cold, hard eyes; that those who have seen her smile rarely live long enough to talk about it; that she has sworn an alliance to the Dead Lord.

At her right stands a pale bald man wearing small spectacles and a waistcoat of dark gray satin. His white shirt collar is starched so stiff at the neck, it looks like it’s trying to stab him. He’s still except for his hands, which are wrapped in kid gloves; I have heard the acid-stained fingers constantly wring themselves together. He is Col-Blanche, Master of Poisons. At Corday’s left stands Montparnasse, who is playing with a long, thin dagger and watching us.

“People don’t usually come to us seeking their own deaths,” Corday says, her voice like ice. “However, I’m sure we can make an exception if you’ve brought appropriate payment. Alternatively, the fee could be waived if you volunteer yourselves to the House of Poisons. Our newest recruits are always in need of fresh subjects on whom to test their concoctions.” She pauses significantly. “Although that option is usually quite painful.”

I blink several times before I realize what she’s saying. “What? No, we’re not here for that … We’re here for your help.” I stumble over my words.

Lady Corday tilts her head. “You wish our aid in matters unrelated to death?”

“Yes.”

Corday’s eyes widen the tiniest fraction and her hands rise from her lap, fingers pressing together as she stares at me with an intensity that makes me feel like she’s looking through me.

“You must forgive my presumption. I assumed you wanted help dispatching yourself from this life, since that is our trade. But then, we Death Dealers are not used to uninvited guests.” And there it is, the threat lacing her measured words. She leans back in her chair, making herself comfortable. “In what way may we be of … help to you?”

We’re probably dead already, so it makes no difference if I tell her the truth.

“My Lady, I’m the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild.”

She watches me.

“I’m looking for a Guild to take Ettie.” Nervousness makes me ineloquent.

“Who is Ettie?” Corday asks.

“I am!” Ettie lifts her head and shakes her golden curls out of her face.

Corday transfers her gaze to Ettie and pauses.

“Very beautiful.”

Ettie colors beside me. “Thank you.”

Corday raises an eyebrow before returning her attention to me.

“The Thief Lord won’t give her his mark,” I say.

“And I thought Tomasis was always eager for new pets.” Corday runs her fingertips over one another as if she’s testing them for sharpness.

I shake my head. “He won’t, because the Tiger wants her.”

Silence fills the room. The Death Dealers are good at silence. They wield it like a weapon.

“The Thieves won’t take her, but you think I will?” Corday says in a tone of mild amazement.

“N-no,” I stutter. “I would never … That is to say, I am looking for the Dead Lord. He is the only one who might take her despite the Tiger’s interest. But I have heard that his seat at the high table has been empty, and the Ghosts have not been seen in the shadows.” Even I know how stupid that sounds, but I’ve started and I must finish before I am condemned. “I know that you and the Dead Lord are allies of old. I have heard the stories.”

“What stories?”

“That the Dead Lord saved you as a child and brought you to the Dealers of Death.”

“Come here, child.”

Montparnasse is at my side in a second, his fingers burning into my arm as he guides me to my feet. I walk toward Corday, leaving Ettie behind me.

“You would ask the Dead Lord, a Lord of the Miracle Court, to defy the Tiger by giving this child a mark?” she asks.

“Do you know what happened to the last Guild Lord who defied the Tiger?” a voice interjects.

I turn to a fireplace tucked into the farthest corner of the room, before which is seated a plump little brown-skinned woman draped in colorless robes, a sturdy scarf wound around her head, her thick graying hair tied back.

Hers is a face I know well, for she is usually seated at the Lords’ high table when the Miracle Court meets. She peers at me now like an owl through large spectacles that dwarf her face. In the flesh she is not particularly intimidating, but appearances are deceiving, for this is Gayatri Komayd, Lady of the Guild of Letters, Mother of Ink, Keeper of Secrets, Head Auditor of the Miracle Court.

I do my best not to frown, confused by her presence here at the Assassins Guild. I’m so distracted, I almost miss Corday nodding to Montparnasse.

I swing around in horror to find that he has Ettie on her feet, his blade at her cheek. Ettie’s eyes are wide with terror, the razor-sharp dagger pressed into her skin.

“Please!” I cry.

“You’re daring, Black Cat of the Thieves Guild.” Corday’s face is a picture of calm. “And for that I’ll give you some free counsel.” Her eyes flicker back to Ettie. “Slice up her pretty face, and perhaps the Tiger won’t want her anymore.”

“Please. Don’t!” I plead.

“I doubt Kaplan would be put off by a disfigurement at this stage. You know what he’s like when he wants something,” says Col-Blanche.

“It’s true he doesn’t like being defied,” Corday agrees.

She glances again at Montparnasse, and at the merest blink of her eyes he lets go of Ettie and puts his blade away. Ettie breathes out in a long, loud sound.

I dare not even go to her. I try to still my trembling hands and keep my eyes on Corday, who seems to be measuring me up for something. I hope it’s not a coffin.

“You’re very small.”

I nod.

“And you’re a Cat.”

“Yes, my Lady.”

“You must be very good at getting into hard-to-reach places.” Her eyes flicker toward the fireplace at Komayd.

“Nina can break into anywhere,” Ettie pipes up from behind me. “She once broke into the Tuileries!”

I could kick myself for having told her about my burglaries, but Ettie so loves stories.

Corday looks at Ettie in amusement. “Did she? Well, that’s very good, because everyone else has failed.”

I frown. Failed at what?

Corday’s and Komayd’s eyes meet; they’re having some sort of silent conversation.

“The Cat speaks truth: there’s only one Lord mad enough to openly defy the Tiger,” Komayd responds. “Only Orso.”

The Dead Lord.

Corday agrees with a tilt of her head. “So you are right, little Cat, to seek an audience with him.”

She motions to Montparnasse, and the bonds at our wrists are sliced with the whistle of a sharp blade.

“You must find the Ghosts,” Corday says. “They are incomprehensible at the best of times, and I hear the absence of their Father makes them … even worse. I wish you both the best of luck. Shall we drink to your endeavor?”

I’m left with the feeling I’ve missed a fundamental part of the conversation. Did we just walk into the Assassins Guild looking for clues about the Dead Lord, only to be sent to find the Ghosts? Nobody has seen them in weeks. Was this some sort of test?

Col-Blanche moves to a small side table and pours sparkling white wine into two cut-crystal glasses. He carries them over on a tray and offers them to us.

I hesitate. The Master of Poisons is offering me a drink. A drink no one else in the room is drinking. This is definitely a test.

“I thank you, sir, but I’m afraid we can’t accept your generosity,” I say.

Corday smiles, showing her even white teeth. The sight fills me with dread.

“Wise, little kitten.” She pulls a gold pocket watch out of a fold in her dress. It’s a small, intricate thing hanging on a long chain, with a brass serpent twisted around its face.

“Now, if you could both look closely at this.” Corday’s tone indicates we have little choice.

I squint at the tiny gilt thing; it has Roman numerals of black, and hands like knives behind its glass face.

As the watch moves back and forth, the numbers blur together. I try to focus on them, but my thoughts seem to slow and the room grows wider, stranger; the crackling of the fire is loud in my ears.

Behind me, Ettie gives an odd sigh.

I try to turn to her, but my feet won’t obey. My fingers scrabble uselessly at my coat, trying to grab for my dagger, but I can’t seem to lift them. A wave of dizziness overcomes me. Have the Death Dealers given me some drug after all?

With a thud, Ettie crumples to the floor.

“You’re a fighter, aren’t you?” Corday says to me, her voice seeming to come from far away. “That’s good.”

“We came for your help.” My words catch on my tongue and trip at my teeth.

I slump to my knees.

“It doesn’t work on everyone. Some can fight it. Few are immune. The trick, little Cat, is not to look.”

The last thing I see are Corday’s eyes, wide and bright, drowning me inside them.

I hear a sound like someone clapping their hands together.

“Nous sommes d’un sang, little Cat. I hope we meet again soon.”

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