St. Juste is saying something, but I hardly hear him. Instead, I enjoy the first sip of my steaming hot coffee and read expressions of simultaneous excitement and fear on the boys’ faces as they listen to their leader. I think of the many nights I’ve sat here with them, the only girl allowed in their midst. It’s hard not to become fond of these boys with their irreverence, mischief, and honorable intensity.

“Does everybody know what they’re doing?” St. Juste asks.

Grantaire says no. Everyone laughs.

Through the sound of the boys’ laughter comes a squeak: the sound of a rodent. The boys don’t hear it, but their ears haven’t been trained from childhood to know the calls of the Wretched.

27

Gray Brother

I slip into the kitchen, grab a pain au chocolat that I hid earlier, and steal out the door into the night, where a pale gray boy waits, watching for me with earnest dark eyes.

“Bonne chasse, Gavroche.”

He’s not tall enough for his age. The great famine that almost took him has long since passed, but there still hasn’t been enough food to go around, and so Gavroche remains small, a shadow of a boy. At least he survived.

During the famine, thousands of the city’s inhabitants, mostly its old and its weak, were laid out on the streets for Death the Endless to take. He also took the firstborn of many of the great houses, thanks to retaliation of the Assassins Guild. I watched the coffins of the nobility traverse the city as they were borne to their resting place, and on those days, there was no sorrow to be found in my heart.

Gavroche inclines his head respectfully at my greeting, but his eyes are fixed on the pain au chocolat in my hand. I give it to him. He takes it and sniffs before glancing up at me slyly.

“No poison here, little Ghost.”

He considers me for a minute and then takes a small bite.

As I watch him eat, I think of all things I must do to set my plans in motion.

I see the map on St. Juste’s desk. I picture all the pieces in their place, like dominoes ready to fall. There is still one piece I need to make sure is ready for the game to begin.

“Do you know where the inspector is? The policewoman with the red hair?” I ask Gavroche. There is a Ghost on every street corner of the city; they know where everyone is.

“Not at the gendarmerie tonight,” he replies in his singsong whisper of a voice.

I furrow my brow. “Where is she?”

“At the Tuileries,” Gavroche replies as if it’s obvious.

“The palace?” I say.

“There is a ball tomorrow night,” he says, as if somehow I should have known that.

She is probably there as security.

“Father says to tell the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild that the Ghosts will not be attending the uprising,” he says, between mouthfuls of pastry. “He says she would do best to do the same.”