“I knew it! I knew you’d rescue me!” She swings around to le Maire, victory etched across her face. “I told you she’d find me. I told you she’d come for me.”

“Where did you get my ax?”

“I know how to pick a lock,” she says, rushing toward me, ax still in hand, before stopping abruptly to face le Maire.

“Now you have to let me go,” she tells him.

Le Maire sighs and sits down heavily on a petite velvet chair, which creaks under his bulk.

“Go with her if you want,” he says, his voice dull and tired. “If she no longer needs me to keep you hidden, then my debt is paid and you are no longer my responsibility.”

Ettie turns slowly and stares at me.

“Keep me hidden? Nina?”

“Ettie, why don’t you put down the ax?”

“I am not putting anything down until someone tells me what is going on,” she retorts, eyes shining and crazed. “Why does he say that you needed to keep me hidden?” She’s glaring at me suspiciously now, as if she’s never seen me before. “You didn’t do this, did you, Nina? You didn’t—”

“I had no choice, Ettie. The Tiger was going to keep coming for you, and eventually he’d have gotten you. I had to send you away, somewhere you would be safe.”

Ettie holds the ax before her and points it at me. “Explain,” she commands.

“He owed me a debt for breaking him out of the Châtelet,” I say, pointing to le Maire. “He’s a spy, a son of the Guild of Letters. If anyone knows how to disappear from the face of the earth, it’s him. So I called in the debt he owed. He went to Thénardier with a price he couldn’t refuse. The diamond tiara we took from the Tuileries, do you remember? Valuable enough to tempt Thénardier to cross even the Tiger and secretly sell you to a stranger.”

Ettie is staring at me, but she starts to lower the ax, so I press on.

“The only way I could guarantee you’d be safe from the Tiger was if he believed that someone had taken you from both of us, and that I had no idea where you were. I attacked him in the presence of the entire Court. I swore terrible things. There is no one in any of the nine Guilds who, after witnessing my punishment, would believe I had brought it intentionally upon myself.”

Blind are the distracted.

The ax clatters to the ground, and Ettie stands before me, shaking.

“I’ve dreamt of this moment for two years, Nina. I’ve hoped and prayed and waited and prepared. I thought you’d come and save me from him,” she says, looking at le Maire. “I never suspected. I can’t believe that it was you who did this to me.” Tears fill her eyes, and she buries her face in her hands. My heart twists. Ettie, who has been left by everybody she loved. I was the one she trusted, the one who swore to look after her.