I shake my head.

Her face falls. “The pot has been empty for days. Gavroche doesn’t get up anymore. He barely takes any water.” Typical Ettie. She’s dying of hunger and all she can think about is Gavroche.

I glance at Loup. He nods solemnly; the little ones are always the first to go.

“How many have you lost?” I ask him quietly.

“Ten so far.”

Ten Ghosts dead of hunger. Perhaps I’ll sing the death song after all.

“It will pass.” It will pass. But whether we survive it or not is another story.

“Does it hurt?” Ettie asks. “To die of hunger?”

“If it is merely hunger,” Loup says, rifling through the pockets of a dead man, “then why do the plague doctors come?”

The plague pits have been reopened, and carts trundle through the streets, pushed by men wearing masks with beaks like birds, calling as they go for people to bring out their dead. There are so many ill that even the plague doctors, those birds of death, are overwhelmed.

“I tell you, it’s hunger and sickness,” Loup says. His hands come up empty and he pushes the corpse over, rolling it away so he can get to the next one.

Ettie shivers, though there’s no breeze.

“Let’s go get water,” I tell her. “The fountain isn’t far.” I slip my arm through hers and bear the weight of her.

She leans into me and smiles at Loup. “I’ll bring you water, my Loup.”

He nods, unhooks a water pouch from his cloak, and throws it at her. I catch it, since she doesn’t even lift her arms.

My heart wrenches. She’s too weak; she won’t survive. And there’s nothing I can do.

The Fontaine du Diable is a disorder of town criers, brandy vendors, shoeblacks, and barefoot match sellers with hollow eyes. A bony-limbed boy dances for pennies while his blue-capped monkey plays a tiny hand organ beside him. Ettie claps in delight and begs to watch. She can hardly see the dancer since the crowd is so thick. But I let her have a minute or two of fun as I scan the area.

I’m not a Dog, used to daylight activity. The throng unnerves me; the sunlight blinds my eyes. Perhaps it’s the mere idea of the shadow that Loup spoke about, but I’m jumpy, twitchy with nerves.

When he comes, he appears out of nowhere. First he was not there and suddenly he’s beside her: a black gentleman, excessively broad of shoulder, wearing a brown velvet top hat. He watches her stretch on tiptoe trying to see past the crowds, an indulgent smile on his face. I see a million details in one second: the smile lines at the corner of his eyes, his shiny boots, his country coat of olive green, and the end of a silver-and-ruby rosary peeking out of his pocket. How he fidgets with his sleeve, an unconscious nervous tic.

Could this be the shadow? There’s an intensity to his dark eyes I dislike, as if he’s planning something. Every muscle in my body tenses, my dagger ready in my hand. The gentleman moves suddenly, strong arms whisking Ettie up as if she were a leaf of paper. He lifts her higher just as I stick the sharp edge of my dagger against his gut, and he freezes.