Virginie Archambault was used to waking in unfamiliar places. It was part of the life of a wanderer: every night she would make her bed somewhere new, and every morning she would move on. If the weather looked bad, she might spend a bit of time exploring the place where she had slept, but she was always on her way by noon, even in the middle of a blizzard or a thunderstorm. She had slept in cathedrals and crypts, in tunnels deep underground and on the highest roofs she could find, and even in a rabbit warren. The cathedrals were her favorite; sometimes the priests who worked in them would give her a free breakfast if she stayed long enough to hear a sermon.
She had been a wanderer for as long as she could remember. Her mother – or a woman who claimed to be her mother – had traveled all over Paris with little Virginie in tow. She had taught the little girl everything she knew about living life on the move, and when she judged her ready to live on her own, she vanished. Virginie hadn't cried. She and her mother had never been very close, and she was happy to be able to travel where she wanted. She could decide where to go next and whether to linger in a city or pass through it quickly. She had done well for herself, too. Many wanderers died young from starvation or disease, but she knew how to look for food even in the countryside and knew how to take care of herself so she wouldn't fall ill. Even though she had been caught in Paris when the plague hit, she hadn't gotten sick, but that hadn't stopped the police from dragging her into quarantine.
Virginie was used to waking in strange places, but when she woke in the same place two mornings in a row, she began to get anxious. It meant she wasn't moving, and if she wasn't moving, that meant she was static. Life wasn't meant to be static. Her mother had taught her that. That was why the wanderers loved Sparks so much: they were agents of change.
It wasn't just the sameness of the quarantine that bothered her, though that would have been enough. She could have been in paradise and still want to move on to a new place every morning. It was the sickness the building held and how it caught into every corner. Even the healthiest of people couldn't enter and not be infected. Virginie did her best to keep to herself and avoid everyone, even those who looked healthy, but she knew it wouldn't work forever.
She had gotten careless. Paris had been emptying, and she had felt like she had the city to herself. She was free to sleep anywhere, and she had taken to breaking into people's homes and feasting on the food they had left behind. It was a life fit for a queen. She even got a chance to bathe regularly in hot water, which was a rare treat. She stopped acting like a skulking mouse and started acting like a person, and from there it was easy to start acting like she was royalty. She had abandoned caution, and when she saw someone hunched over and hacking up blood, she had simply crossed to the other side of the street, paying no attention to the police officers walking quickly toward her and the coughing person.
They hadn't arrested her then, but one of them must have caught a glimpse of her face. She had gone a few days before he found her again, and that was only because he had suspected she was one of a group of vagrants who would loot abandoned houses and shops. While it was true, she was still offended at having been arrested simply for living her life.
"There is no more room in the prison," the inspector she was brought before said, looking her over coldly.
"I saw her near one of the infected," the officer said quickly, looking at her fearfully. "Perhaps we ought to put her in quarantine."
"Hey!" Virginie snapped, trying to wrench her arm free. "I'm as healthy as anyone in this room."
"It doesn't matter," the inspector said, filling his pen with ink. "You're a vagrant, and we don't need you alive. Lock her away wherever you see fit; I've got enough work trying to keep this city in order without dealing with wanderers like her."
So, despite her protestations, she had been locked in the quarantine. She did her best to keep herself healthy, but it was proving to be nearly impossible. No matter where she slept, there would always be someone else there who was ill, and she suspected the food and water were infected. She couldn't go without eating, or she'd put herself in even more danger, so she ate and drank as little as she dared. She tried to find different places to hide away, and through a combination of luck and skill managed to go several days without falling ill.
The one thing she knew she absolutely had to avoid was helping carry out the dead. If there was one thing she had learned, it was that dead bodies were good only for searching, and even then it was best to be wary. The infected had nothing worth taking, and even if they had, she wouldn't be able to do anything with what she found, so whenever she found a body she gave it a wide berth. Those who did volunteer to carry out the dead often died themselves a few days later, and she knew she had been wise to keep from that task.
Still, she couldn't keep herself safe forever. One morning, she woke with a slight tickle in her throat and heat in her forehead. By the end of the day, her hands felt as though they were burning, and she knew she wouldn't last much longer.
Marius wasn't used to waking up alone anymore. He had gotten used to the soft sounds of Éponine on the floor across the room, how she would roll about in the blanket he had given her and push the pillow from side to side. She insisted the floor was enough, and she always acted well-rested in the morning, but he secretly hoped that while he was out she would take a nap on the bed. There was something comforting about the idea that she had been lying on his mattress and fallen slowly asleep.
Nothing was comforting about waking up to an empty room, and he wondered how he had done it before. He hadn't been able to fall asleep properly the night after she left, and he had woken in the middle of the night and simply lain on his side, staring at the blanket and pillow abandoned on the floor. He had thought about getting both of them for himself – the mattress was uncomfortable normally and even worse without them – but then he remembered that Éponine might come back and made himself lie still.
When he had to get out of bed, he was still tired. He had slept poorly, and in the morning light he stumbled around the room, dressing himself and working a broken comb through his tangled curls. He spotted the food lying on the table and felt a pang of guilt. Éponine hadn't come back, or if she had, she hadn't eaten anything. He decided to leave the food where it was, despite his hunger. She would likely be even hungrier when she came back, and sometimes he wondered where she found the energy to run about as she did, since she was so thin and bony.
He couldn't focus. His clanks didn't interest him, and German and English couldn't hold his attention. Everything reminded him of Éponine. She should have been here to look over his shoulder as he built a clank and ask questions about what he was doing and how it would work. She should have been here to read his translations after he finished and correct them.
She should have been here.
After an hour of trying to work, Marius slammed his book shut and grabbed his coat. Éponine had been gone too long, and he was determined to find her, even if he had to search all over Paris. Even more than being a helper, she was his friend, and he couldn't stand the hollow ache below his heart that he was sure she could fill.
The streets of Paris were strangely empty, and he wondered where everyone had gone. There should have been people bustling about, laughing and talking and shouting. Instead, it was as though everyone had simply walked away. Perhaps they could have died, and a chill struck him with the thought that he would find Éponine's body stretched in a gutter somewhere. For a moment, he froze, thinking that he would find that just around the next corner, and he didn't know what he would do then. If he couldn't focus on his clanks just from her being missing, he certainly wouldn't be able to focus if she died. Mlle. Lanoire fed his Spark, but Éponine grounded him.
Then he remembered the plague.
She had been out since the night before. She couldn't have escaped infection. For all he knew, she was contagious, and when he found her he would catch the disease and die.
For all he knew, he had caught it already.
The thought of dying wasn't nearly as troubling as the thought of never finding Éponine, and he broke into a run, sprinting through the streets, calling her name. There was no answer aside from echoes when his voice caught in certain hollows of walls and returned to him, desperate and ghostly. There wasn't even anyone he could ask for help from, since everyone had either retreated inside or left the city if they hadn't been infected. He should have left, he realized. He should have listened to when Éponine first tried to tell him there was a plague and taken her out of the city.
He should have kept her safe.
The only sounds he heard were his footsteps against the paving stones and his own breathing as he ran. His coat flapped around his knees, and he realized that he probably didn't need it, but it was too late to turn back, and he wasn't about to toss it aside. He would need it when winter came.
"Éponine!" he called, rounding a corner and stumbling with his own momentum. "Éponine!" No one answered, not even to tell him to stop shouting. It was as though he was surrounded by ghosts, and for a terrifying moment he thought he might be alone in Paris. Mlle. Lanoire, the other Thernardiers who Éponine kept insisting he not worry about, Félix Lesgle, and Éponine herself either dead or gone. He didn't know if he could live like that. He had always been quiet, but there were always people near him, even if they were only his grandfather's servants. He didn't think he had ever been truly alone, not like he was now.
Marius hadn't paid attention to where he was going, and he barely noticed that he had gotten himself lost. It only caught his attention when he turned to a dead end, and even then he didn't think about it but turned around and kept running. Éponine would be able to bring him home. She knew all sorts of things, and he was sure she had Paris nearly memorized.
Somehow, he managed to find himself again without her, or nearly so. He still didn't know exactly where he was or how to get home from there, but when he came to a stop, panting and hot, he knew he had found the Seine. The river flowed along before him and, grateful for a recognizable landmark, he followed it, sometimes departing to look down a street or shout for Éponine but mostly just keeping pace with the water. He decided he would follow it as far as he could before crossing and searching the rest of Paris. His legs were starting to ache and he felt light-headed, but he couldn't give up now, not while Éponine was still missing.
But perhaps she had gone home. She might have returned while he was out and decided to get some sleep. He ought to check at the Gorbeau House again, just in case.
Before he could turn and try to find his way home, he caught sight of a tall, lean figure on a bridge, bent forward and looking down at the water. The figure was a woman, and her brown hair tumbled forward past her face. Still he was sure the woman was Éponine, and as he ran to meet her, she turned, and he saw her face. Joy leapt up within him, and he forgot the plague, forgot that he had been running since he left home, forgot even that he had barely slept. All he cared about was that he had found Éponine again.
"I didn't find her," she said, looking away from him and out at the river.
"What are you talking about?" he asked between gasps. A moment later, he remembered that he had asked her to find Mlle. Lanoire. "It's all right," he said. "I'm just glad I found you. I was worried."
"Really?" Éponine smiled, but the expression vanished almost at once. "I didn't know you cared about me enough to worry."
"Of course I do," he said. "You're my friend." She was so much more than just a friend, but he didn't know how to explain how he felt for her. She was the first person he saw in the morning and the last he saw at night. She helped him with things he hadn't known he needed help with. She was like the ground he stood on, and he wasn't sure what he would have done if he hadn't found her. "Were you really looking for her all night?"
"Not quite," she admitted. "Around midnight, I just started wandering."
"Did you get any sleep?" From looking at her pale face and shadowed eyes, he was sure she hadn't. If it had been cold, he would have slipped off his coat and given it to her, but he doubted she would be comfortable with the extra layer of clothing.
"I wasn't very tired. I didn't notice until just now." Her hand rested on the rail of the bridge, and he wondered if she was leaning against it for support.
"Come on," he said, holding out his hand. "Let's go home. I left our dinner out, so you can get some breakfast. You're probably hungry." As he spoke, he realized that he hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day. It was no wonder he had felt lightheaded; he needed breakfast more than she did.
"You're not angry that I didn't find your Spark?" she asked.
"Of course not." As she set her hand in his, he smiled at her, and she smiled back. "What were you doing out here on the bridge?"
"Do you promise you won't worry about me?" Before he could answer, she said, "I was thinking about jumping off. I thought about it back in winter, too, but I decided it would be too cold. If I have to die, I want to die when it's warm. I've had enough of being cold."
He very nearly gave her his coat then, but instead he just stepped a bit closer to her. He didn't know what to say but could only think of sparks being extinguished by the rushing waters of the Seine. What would become of his clanks and his translations if he lost Éponine? What would become of him? She had spoken so plainly, as though these were thoughts she had, just as normally as thinking about the weather, and it made him ache inside to consider what it must be like to live inside her mind, where death was expected, even awaited.