Hector Herbert had been a political prisoner for nearly ten years and been on the run for seven years before that. There were days when he was surprised he was still alive, but most of the time he concluded that it was because everyone else had forgotten about him. It was infuriating; he had wanted to be forgotten about while he was still free, so he wouldn't have to deal with the difficulty of being arrested. It was why he had gone through so many different pseudonyms. Perhaps the trouble was that he had made each one too distinctive. Aubin Eustis had been an arsonist. Sébastien Perrault had organized protests against the king. Anatole Bureau had been a union sympathizer. If he had found a simple name that no one would bother remembering and kept his actions small, he could have been a revolutionary without getting in trouble at all.

Ironically, it was being Hector Herbert that had gotten him in trouble. One of the policemen had recognized him from an argument the two of them had gotten into over the taxes he hadn't been paying, and since he hadn't been paying taxes for Hector Herbert – or any of his other identities – for seven years, it was fairly easy for him to be arrested. After that, the king found out about what he had been doing, and it was remarkably easy to stay in prison.

There had been a few times when he had tried to escape. Once he had nearly managed it, with a tunneling machine that would transform into a pedal-powered glider once he broke past the prison walls. He had made it nearly to the surface when dirt had clogged the tunneling engine, and he couldn't climb out and clear out the last few feet because of the screen he had set up to keep dirt from falling onto his face. He'd had to go out the back way, and by then the guards had found the tunnel and nearly filled it in. They made him fill it in, and for all he knew, the tunneling machine was still there. Another time, he had tried simply flying out, but there wasn't a large enough space for his flying machine to get enough of a lift to carry him over the walls. He had rammed his stomach into the stone and dropped to the ground, twisting his ankle. The guards hadn't even tried to help him back to his cell that time, and more than one had laughed as he limped past.

The prison simply wasn't built to accommodate escaping Sparks.

At least it was easy for him to get materials. Once he got an idea in his head, he would ask around for any materials his fellow prisoners might have. Most had heard of at least one of his identities, and they were willing to help out. Some even had contacts on the outside who could get him things he couldn't get inside the walls, like yards of muslin and pieces of glass. It helped that he genuinely was a Spark and not just one of those minions who would pretend to be Sparks either to help their masters or to get some attention. Granted, he wasn't the strongest Spark out there, but he was strong enough to make his own things and to even get a few minions from among the weaker-willed prisoners.

It also helped that he had chosen a new identity.

The main reason he had started switching identities was because he hated his name. After all, no one would follow a man named Hector Herbert, no matter how influential he might become in the rebellion. Aubin Eustis wasn't the best name he could have chosen, but it was so much better that he was thrilled with it. However, arson soon got him into trouble, and in less than a year he was ready to give it up and pick a new name. By then, he was ready to be Sébastien Perrault, and looking back, that was probably the best name he had ever had. Setting up protests proved to be loads of fun, and he found that people were willing to follow him. It likely helped that he was rather handsome. People often preferred to follow a handsome man, and while he wasn't any Adonis, he had wavy hair and wide eyes. While his eyebrows were a bit too thick and his feet a bit too large, no one really noticed those once he started speaking. He didn't know whether it was because of his Spark or simply because he had charisma, but people liked to follow him and listen to his words. He had liked being Sébastien Perrault, and if it hadn't ended quickly, he likely would still be organizing protests. Unfortunately, one of the protests had ended with a little girl being killed when the mob got violent, and he had been forced to change his name again. Anatole Bureau had been a last minute choice, and he had thrown his lot in with a newly forming labor union. It hadn't paid very well, but it kept him out of trouble, and he was glad to be safe from politics. They had brought him nothing but trouble. He would do his best to help, of course, but he also wanted to be safe.

Then he had been recognized and arrested. As he was locked away, he had sworn they would see, that he would show them all, and the guards had laughed him off. After all, every Spark said that.

But he was different. He was the Doctor, and he would show Paris a new Reign of Terror that would make 1793 look bloodless and peaceful by comparison. He would rule with a fist made from reinforced steel. He would bring death to any who attempted to stop him and to any who had wronged him in the past.

Just as soon as he could escape.

Jean Valjean slowly recovered his health, though whenever he walked through the house, he constantly felt Cosette's absence. She had vanished from his life in the middle of the night, and though Toussaint assured him that she would be all right, he couldn't bring himself to believe her. He was sure that something terrible must have happened. He had broken his promise to Fantine, the promise he had made to a dying woman, and he knew that he could not be forgiven for that.

The melancholy wore on him even after he was able to be on his feet and walking about the house, and he didn't bother trying to keep a cheerful or even remotely pleasant expression on his face around Toussaint. It wasn't any wonder that she noticed something was wrong.

"What's the matter, Monsieur?" she asked one evening as she served his dinner of potato soup and bread. Cosette had loved Toussaint's potato soup, but that had been filled with all sorts of herbs. This was plainer fare, though Jean Valjean didn't mind. He had always eaten plain food, leaving the richer, more flavorful meals for Cosette. More than once she had insisted he eat the same food as she did, but even then he had managed to make sure she got the best of everything. After all the hardships she had been through, she deserved some kindness, especially since she had managed to keep a good heart.

"It's nothing," he said. "I'm merely worried about Cosette."

"It can't be just that," Toussaint said. "I know how to recognize different types of sadness, Monsieur, and this isn't just sadness for a missing daughter. There's something else weighing on your mind."

He supposed Toussaint ought to know the truth, or at least as much of the truth as he could safely tell. "I was hiding something more from you than that Cosette was a Spark. I had been afraid you would guess it, and you did hit near the truth, though you found a different truth to discover. Cosette is a Spark, and a very strong one, just as her mother was."

Toussaint very calmly drank a spoonful of soup. "I had been sure Mademoiselle Cosette's mother was dead from the way the two of you spoke about her. That she is a Spark only makes sense; from what I understand, it tends to run in families. The young lady's mother must have been rather like her daughter's style, as well. If it doesn't bother you, Monsieur, would you tell me what sorts of things her mother used to make?"

It had been so long since Jean Valjean had thought about what Fantine had created that he had to pause and consider the past. He had gotten used to thinking of her as nothing more than a young woman cruelly mistreated by the world because she was unfortunate enough to be both an unmarried mother and a Spark, and he had nearly forgotten that she would have built things. Javert had shown him some of the clanks he had confiscated, and they had been exactly what Toussaint said Cosette's drawings were like: more beautiful than useful. Some of them could have been art for all the use they would give to anyone, and he hadn't been able to help wondering why Fantine hadn't been able to build something that would help her or someone else. That had been one of the things he had meant to do when she and Cosette were both under his protection. He would have taught her how to use her Spark to be useful, and perhaps he should have taught Cosette as well. He realized that he should have encouraged her gift rather than allowing her to keep it a secret, and if she came back, he would turn the house into her workshop.

"They were beautiful, useless things," he said eventually. "There were human figurines that would move into different poses, and flowers that would light up and change color."

"Mademoiselle Cosette takes very much after her mother, then," Toussaint said with a smile. "Does she look like her mother did?"

"Very nearly. She has the same eyes, but her hair is different. Fantine was blonde." He supposed Cosette's darker hair must have come from her father, whoever that man had been. He had never tried looking for Cosette's father; Fantine had left no clues behind her, and no one had even known anything about her child until they discovered the letters she had been writing to the Thernardiers.

Toussaint looked at Jean Valjean curiously. "Did your hair look like hers when you were younger?"

"No."

Toussaint's look grew even more curious. "So you are not her father."

"I was the mayor of the city where her mother lived for a time and was there when she died. She told me that she had left Cosette in the care of an innkeeper and his wife, and since the girl had no other family, I decided to do what I could to help her. I offered to take Cosette in and care for her as my own daughter." He left out his desire to care for Fantine as well, which had been abandoned because of his race to Arras to help Champmathieu. Some nights he still wasn't sure if he had done the right thing in abandoning Fantine, even to save an innocent man from being put on the chain gang. "Since her mother was a Spark, I was sure she would be in danger from those who might suspect her of being one as well."

"Did you ever suspect her of being a Spark?"

He had barely thought about it when he brought her to Paris. He had been more concerned with keeping both of them hidden from Javert, who would surely still be looking for him. "She didn't show any sort of inclination to science, so I didn't think about it much," he said. If he had introduced her to even the basics of science before they had gone to the convent, she might have broken through while he could watch. He wondered whether he would have been frightened or if he would have supported her as best he could. He liked to think it would have been the latter, but now he was no longer so sure. "When I sent her to study in a convent, I didn't even consider the possibility that she might be a Spark." He had been too glad to find a safe place for Cosette to stay, and among the sisters he would have been unable to voice such a concern. They would have sent Cosette away at once, calling her an abomination, and he was sure she would have been unable to stand that. He wondered when she had first known that she was a Spark, and whether she had feared there was something wrong with her for what she could do. "She must have broken through when I didn't notice."

Toussaint smiled. "That would have been a remarkably quiet break-through. Monsieur, do you know much about Sparks?"

"Not a great deal," he admitted.

"My nephew was a Spark," Toussaint said, "and not a very strong one, but he had a breakthrough that terrified the street his family lived on. If Mademoiselle Cosette has any strength to her Spark, you would have noticed her breakthrough. Not only that, but you would remember it as well as you would have remembered her birth had you truly been her father."

It must have been in the convent, then. She would have been alone when she realized it and surrounded by people who would have believed her a monster. He didn't know how she had come out of the convent still able to smile, and he realized her shyness in those first few months must have come from some other cause than being nervous about the larger world. All that time spent in her room must have been when she created the sketches that Toussaint had found. If he had gone through that same ordeal, it might well have taken Monseigneur Bienvenu again to save him. Cosette truly was an angel.

"So your worry was that you had broken the promise to her mother?" Toussaint asked, and for a moment Jean Valjean wasn't sure what she was talking about. Then he remembered how their conversation had started and nodded.

"I swore that I would protect her, and now I've lost her." Had it not been for her Spark, she might have been safer in the convent, and he was no longer sure that his choice to take her out had been for the best.

"How long did Mademoiselle Cosette live with you, Monsieur?"

"Several years," he said. "Seven or eight, perhaps."

"That would be about half her life," Toussaint said. "She loves you, Monsieur, and you gave her seven or eight happy years. I don't think I've ever seen a child who loved her father more, even those who lived with their true fathers. I should think the young lady's father would be happy with what you have done. There are many people who would take her in only so they could use her for their own gain."

"I could never do that," Jean Valjean said, "but I couldn't possibly hurt her that way."

"I know," Toussaint said. "And I know that's why you're so worried about her. You cared about her mother, didn't you?"

He nodded. "I should have been able to protect Cosette."

"We can't protect our children forever," Toussaint said. "There's always a time when they leave us, whether because we die or because they marry and move out of our lives. However, some children take matters into their own hands, and they leave us on their own."

"So is this the time Cosette would leave me?"

"It seems so." Toussaint smiled gently, and Jean Valjean was reminded of his sister if she hadn't had such a difficult time feeding him and all her children. If his sister had been given the same chances as Toussaint, she might have been happy and kind.

He wished Cosette the best life she could possibly have.