Then I hear it. Over the drumming of my own heart, I hear the crunch of boots on gravel, voices outside.

“Go now!” Azelma hisses.

Femi picks me up, pressing me to him, and I feel the fear thrumming through his bones and into mine.

He drags me to the kitchen, away from Azelma, who for the barest second throws an anguished look at us over her shoulder. Then she turns away and straightens her spine. Her head is held high; her hands make fists at her sides.

I start to call her name, but Femi’s hand clamps hard across my mouth.

“Thénardier!” A roar from the front of the inn splits the silence, a growling, penetrating command.

Femi freezes. I hear clumping and thumping overhead; the shout seems to have to stirred Father from his slumber. I marvel that whoever has come has been able to wake him from the stupor of a drunken sleep with one word.

Femi dares a glance out the window, his eyes darting back and forth as he checks the yard for anyone standing there.

The front door opens.

I hear the honeyed but unsteady tones of my very hung-over father from the top of the stairs, the uncertainty in his voice. “Lord Kaplan?”

The visitor has entered, while in the darkness of the kitchen, Femi inches us toward the back door as quietly as possible.

“Forgive me,” my father continues. “I did not think you would see to this trifling matter yourself.”

“A trifling matter, Master of Beasts?” the voice growls back, seeming to rattle the very roof of the inn. “Do you forget who I am? Do you forget how I came to be? I wanted to see if you would actually do it—if even a man like you would truly sell his own kin.”

Sell his own kin? Understanding strikes me like a fist, leaving me winded.

Azelma … Father is going to sell Azelma?

“I’ve twelve gold coins here, Thénardier.”

“Twelve …,” Father echoes, but his voice is considering, wheedling. A rage wells in me because I know that tone: he’s doing what he always does. He’s actually bargaining, this time for a better price for his own daughter.

I bite down on Femi’s hand, but he doesn’t loosen his grip, and with a last fumble at the door, he drags me out into the night.

2

The Keepers of the Gates

I can’t remember how long it took Femi to tear me away, only that I scratched at him like a wild thing, howling till I lost my voice, hoarsely begging him to bring me back to Azelma, but he never once loosened his grip.

His voice was unsteady as he murmured to me, “I am taking you to a place that you must get into. In the west wing you will find a room. Inside that room is a boy, and around his neck is something you must take or all will be lost.”

These were his instructions as emotion churned within me. Perhaps if I did as he said, I could go home.