He draws me to him until my face is inches from his. He licks his lips, which I find quite distracting, and I do my very best to focus on his words. Behind me, I sense Ettie positively squealing with delight.

“I thought that we could use someone like you in the Société des Droits de l’Homme.”

I blink at him.

“You have all the necessary links to, er, people who can provide us with arms, and information. And you have experience in evading the inquiries of the law. You and your Guild are our natural allies—you hate the nobility as much as we do. You can recruit those who will be willing to fight alongside us. We need people of skill and cunning if we are to succeed. What do you say? Will you join in our crusade? The cause needs you.”

“The cause needs me?”

“I need you,” he says, as tender as a lover. Then he smiles, a ferocious, terrifying smile. “Don’t you see, Black Cat? Together, we’re going to change the world.”

A thousand thoughts race through my mind, one of which is wondering why my heart is racing. Another is that I owe this young man a great deal. I would be dead had he not rescued me from the Tiger’s men. My answer is almost a foregone conclusion.

As if he can read my mind, he releases me.

“If you join us, Black Cat, my incarceration in the Châtelet will be forgiven.”

The idea of being in any way affiliated with one of Those Who Walk by Day is deeply unsettling. But by joining his cause, I will pay back my ever-deepening well of debt. I do not really have much choice.

I sigh. “All right, I’ll join you, St. Juste, but you must do something for me. I know you speak to Orso. You must tell him about the death in the water. Already ten of his children have died. He will be able to protect the rest, and can warn the others.”

St. Juste studies me intently. “It shall be done. But why are you not able to carry this message to him yourself?”

Because in a world of untrustworthy criminals, I don’t know whom to trust with this message, and because you are just so damned noble that I know I can trust you … But I’m not about to tell him that.

“Because we need to get into the Tuileries, my friend and I.” I wave vaguely toward Ettie, who waves back enthusiastically.

“The Tuileries? Why?”

I sigh again and try to rearrange the truth in the manner most likely to please him.

“I’m going to steal something from the king,” I say.

If St. Juste is shocked, he doesn’t show it. His eyes bore into me. “Treasure? Jewels?” he asks, something like judgment in his eyes.

“Bread,” I say.

It was the right thing to do, sharing this truth with him.

He stops, his eyebrows knotted in a frown of deep thought. “I heard what you said that day in the Halls of the Dead, Black Cat. We are not so very different, you and I. We are both fighting monsters a hundred times more powerful than ourselves. We are both tiny and insignificant, and we both know that the odds say we cannot win.”