I yank the rough door open. The wind comes racing in, biting at my cheeks. Ettie is saying something about the cold, but I ignore her. I drag her out and tug the heavy door closed behind us. The last thing I hear is Lord Kaplan’s voice, as clear as the bells of Matins: “How much can I pay you to take her off your hands?”

I suck in deep breaths of the cold air. My mind is racing. I’ve just heard the words I needed to hear. He’s taken the bait.

So why, then, do I feel so miserable? I look Ettie over. She’s a little thing. Twelve years old and unable to fend for herself. At her age, I had been a member of the Thieves Guild for three whole years. She hasn’t the cunning to survive the Miracle Court. And yet I find myself trying to hide her, winding baggy boys’ clothes around her like armor to protect her from hungry eyes. I tuck her rebellious golden curls into an old cap so she’ll look like me.

You hide her like Azelma hid you. The thought comes unbidden.

An act, I tell myself, so as not to be too obvious until the time is right.

“Is Thénardier sending me away with that man?” she asks curiously, digging the toe of one oversized boot into the watery muck on the ground, as if perhaps it mightn’t be so bad if Kaplan took her. She thinks anything would be better than living with Thénardier and his drunken rages.

She has no idea.

“That man is the Tiger,” I say.

Ettie takes a step back. Young though she is, she recognizes the common name whispered for the Lord of the Guild of Flesh.

I shake my head roughly; I can’t afford to think about it now.

“Will he harm me?” Ettie’s little body shakes. “Nina …?”

It’s the same reaction I had only a few years ago, when I stood shaking before the truth of what the Tiger was.

Ettie always looks to me for answers. I’m the one who tells her how to keep out of trouble. I shouldn’t have bothered to disguise her; it was a silly, disjointed attempt to protect the lamb I was planning to offer up. To keep people from seeing what she is. For Ettie is beautiful, the kind of beautiful that would draw attention even clothed in rags. The kind you spend years hoping to find, the kind you convince Thénardier he must take in, the kind you know the Tiger will want.

“Will he kill me?”

Ettie’s words shake me from my reverie. I need to get her away now, to hide her so that neither Thénardier nor the Tiger can find her; thwart them, make them mad with the wanting of her. Only then can I demand my price.

I catch my breath.

“Yes, he’ll kill you,” I lie. He won’t kill her. What he’ll do is much worse. She will look for death and it will not come.