“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 hungover 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.
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.