“Ettie …” She can’t hear me, so lost is she in her terrible task. I drag myself toward her. “ETTIE!” I grab for her arm.

She wakes as if from a stupor, looks at me. She’s shaking and covered in blood.

“It’s enough.”

Her face says she doesn’t agree. She looks down at him.

He lies on the floor, gurgling, twitching, and bleeding everywhere.

From the corner of my eye I see movement. The Sisters. Terrible disjointed shadows, they come from the corners of the room. Expressions hard, hands raised, they creep toward us menacingly.

Ettie grips the lamp firmly, but I put an arm up to stop her.

Azelma is leading them.

“Wait,” I say to Ettie, my voice small and piteous. “It’s Azelma, my sister.”

Ettie holds the lamp out before us to ward the Sisters away. But they pay us no heed.

I close my eyes, and when I open them again, they have passed us by, forming a tight circle around the Tiger. They stand, looking down at him. He is weak from blood loss, from the bludgeoning Ettie gave him, from the poppy coursing through his veins.

He raises a hand to one of them, begging for help.

And I know with sickening clarity what’s about to happen.

“Ettie, let’s go.”

She won’t move, hypnotized by the spectacle.

“Ettie, please.”

Azelma considers the Tiger’s hand, and then she drops to one knee in front of him and gently puts a finger into the wound in his cheek.

He starts to scream.

“Ettie!” I call, but she won’t leave; she won’t move.

I turn my head away. I don’t want to see or hear this.

As long as I live I’ll never forget his screams. I wish I could cut off my ears to hide from the sound of them. But I stay for Ettie. Ettie, who stands trembling with eyes wide open. Beautiful Ettie, who was always afraid.

She’s not afraid anymore.

Somewhere in the distance, the City whispers. She wraps her clawed fingers around the man who was a monster, and she takes him. It was a good story, a sad one: the boy beneath the lash. But our Mother, the City, demanded a sacrifice, and he was the darkest one I could give to her.

41

The End of the Tale

Ettie helps me go slowly to the stairs; we take them one at a time. She has tied my scarf around my leg to stop the bleeding. Its faded flowers are dark with my blood.

The sight of what awaits us would be humorous if it weren’t so serious.

The Guild is overflowing with people, and it’s a cacophony of raised voices and pointed challenges. Everyone here is waving a gun at someone.

As we stumble down the stairs, we are greeted by a dozen guns trained on our heads. I raise my good hand and Ettie calls out, “We’re unarmed!”

In the center of the room, the women from the basement are huddled together. Making a circle around them are the revolutionaries and le Maire. St. Juste’s face is bleeding; Grantaire has a black eye; Feuilly has lost his glasses. They look furious and are aiming their weapons at the Fleshers, who form yet another ring around them. The brawny Fleshers look murderous and confused at the same time, and I quickly see why: at every window, and spilling in from every door, are soldiers, their muskets trained on everybody they see. I spot Javert among them, her red hair shining like a beacon.