“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.
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.