My own words come back to mock me.

I’m the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild. There’s nowhere I can’t enter.

Stupid.

“Where are we?” Ettie asks at my shoulder.

“Le Grand Châtelet.”

She tenses, looking up at me with incredulous eyes.

This is what the Ghosts meant.

They knew. They all knew. Corday, Lady Komayd. Even Loup, though he tried to warn me.

You must be very good at getting into hard-to-reach places, Corday said.

They don’t care about Ettie.

They want to free the Dead Lord from the Châtelet, the most feared prison in city.

No one has ever broken in to the Châtelet. No one has ever broken out.

I glance around to get my bearings. A street sign reads la Vallée de Misère. The Valley of Misery. An apt street name. In the darkness, I hear the clear chimes of la Samaritaine, the giant clock tower, which sings out every hour.

Think, Nina.

There are two guards at the entrance to the Châtelet, and two more on the top of its tower. Their rotations will be timed so there’s always someone on watch. There’s no way of getting in. In fact, you can’t get anywhere near the tower, because it backs onto the gendarmerie, and there will be police patrolling the streets at regular intervals. How do you get into an impenetrable prison? How do you slip past so many guards unseen? And for that matter, once you’re in, how do you get out with a whole other person? It is impossible.

“How often do the guards on street level make rounds?” I ask the Ghosts.

“They dance continuously through darkness and daylight.”

I shake my head at the typical Ghost answer. One has to know how to talk to the Ghosts.

“How many dances between the chimes?”

“Four sets,” they reply.

“Every fifteen minutes,” I translate for Ettie.

Not enough time to slip past them from the street. Or to scale the Châtelet tower without being spotted.

I close my eyes and listen to the voice of the city. I hear its pulse; years of death, war, and suffering. The worst of all humanity lies here. These are streets washed in blood, filth, and pain.

I raise my head and sniff the air again: rot, death, and waste. I grin.

“I think I have a plan.”

I signal to the Ghosts, and keeping to the shadows, we move together, avoiding the glow cast by the streetlamps.

“One stays here to watch,” I order when we come to a stop.

Gavroche looks surprised. He points at the dark tower insistently. I know Orso is in there, but we’re not marching straight into a lit courtyard full of patrolling police. We’re going the long way around.

First I order the Ghosts to leave St. Juste in a dark alley and rebind his feet. He growls at me through his gag, and I reward him with a quick smile.

“It’s only for a little while. I’ll be back, I promise,” I call over my shoulder as we shamelessly abandon him. He will only get in the way, and we can’t afford to have him slowing us down.