“That boy of yours is giving them trouble,” he says.

“He’s not my boy,” I protest, smiling as I imagine St. Juste taking on the Tiger’s Guild.

Le Maire half carries me down an empty corridor and toward a flight of stairs. The Tiger’s rooms are above, and le Maire is by my side.

“The weapons?” I ask.

Le Maire grins widely at me. “I did a full audit—guns, knives, everything. Removed all the ammunition. Emptied all the gunpowder down a privy.”

“They just handed them over?”

“No one questions the People of the Pen.”

He’s right. The Guild of Letters is respected and feared by all.

Perhaps we can do this.

“But we’ve little time. They’ll have discovered the treachery by now.”

And if we fail today, his actions will be considered an act of war between the Guild of Letters and the Tiger’s Guild. We both know it.

What have I started?

The sounds of a brawl begin below us: men in a rage.

Then there are thundering footsteps on the stairs from the lower floors. A glance down the stairwell shows three burly Fleshers racing toward us. Le Maire looks at me.

“You can’t take them,” he says.

He’s right. They’re huge and murderous, and even without my weak ankle, I’m a Thief, not a Hyène.

But le Maire is a veritable bull of a man, with the strength of four men. He can take them.

“Go,” he says forcefully, and pushes me.

I half fall, gripping the banister as the Fleshers reach the landing.

They hesitate when they see le Maire, because he is, after all, a member of the Guild of Letters.

I don’t look back.

Not when they swear at him. Not when he answers them. Not when I hear the crunch of club against bone. I climb, dragging my bad leg behind me as I race to the top floor.

There’s only one door on this floor, and I know he’s waiting for me behind it.

I am the Black Cat; this is my hunting.

I am the Black Cat; this is my hunting.

The handle of the door is a roaring brass tiger. It’s cold beneath my touch. I turn it and push.

The door creaks open before me.

Every hair on my head stands on end. The scars that lace my back sing.

They always hurt when he is near.

The Tiger’s room looks like a bordello, richly decorated with silk pillows, exotic rugs, and low-hanging lamps. I count eight figures in corners of the room: Sisters with painted faces, their eyes blank with the drugs the Tiger has fed them. They lounge in a deep stupor or drunkenness, draped over chairs or curled up on floor cushions. Two appear to be naked; the others are half dressed. One is injecting herself with a wicked-looking needle.

At the far end of the room, the Tiger himself is sitting on a low bed of cushions. Beside him, shrinking stiffly back as far from him as she can, is Ettie.