The gendarme nearest me backhands me across the face. “None of that!” he says, snarling.

The blow is mild, but I taste blood in my mouth. I think he’s split my lip. He glowers at me, authority and dominance pouring off him.

“You’ll regret that,” I tell him.

They slam the window shut.

He raises his hand to strike me again just as the leering gendarme pokes him in the side.

“What’s that?”

“What?” his companion asks, but then he notices it.

I sit there, my mouth closed, in perfect silence. And yet it’s the strangest thing: my whistle hangs in the air. It sounds again and again, like an echo. First in faint, short snatches, then growing in volume until there is a chorus ahead of us, behind us. The horses shy, the carriage rocks, I hear the driver curse. And the whistles spin webs around us, drawing near. The horses neigh and shriek, and still the whistles grow louder, wilder.

Then they stop. And the silence they leave is more terrifying than anything else.

One gendarme hits the roof of the carriage with the butt of his gun.

There’s a voice—the driver, I assume—cursing. A sound like something heavy being dragged off the roof. Then the frightened tones of a man begging for his life. Praying that God will forgive him.

The gendarmes are staring at each other, pale as death. They cock their pistols.

“We’re armed!” they shout at the carriage door.

The door flies opens and they both fire at it, completely unaware that the other door is opening silently under the thunder of their shots. The rush of cold air behind them makes them turn a second too late, and the leering gendarme is ripped out of the carriage backward. His colleague grabs me and puts his gun to my cheek. I can almost taste the metal pressing into my face.

“I’ll kill her! I’ll shoot her head clean off!” he yells.

I laugh under his hold. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

There’s no response from outside. Only a dead silence. The gendarme, unnerved, forces me to my feet and, keeping the gun firmly planted at my cheek, pushes me out of the carriage.

A hundred Ghosts encircle us in a silent vigil. There’s no sign of the driver or of the gendarme’s colleague.

At the head of the Ghosts is Gavroche. He takes in the gun pressed to my cheek before his eyes travel to the gendarme’s face. He shakes his head in mild warning.

The gendarme blinks suddenly, and I see the whites of his eyes as the tip of a knife is pressed into the back of his neck.

Montparnasse is hanging over the roof of the carriage.

The gendarme drops his gun and raises his hands. One of the Ghosts collects the gun, and it disappears into a gray cloak. They’ll sell it to the Smugglers Guild for a week’s worth of food for the pot. I grin widely.