Owain and his men had left in the morning. Standing in the doorway to the tavern, he had looked into my eyes, and though said nothing aloud, his spoke of a sadness, trying to tell me that he intended to keep his promise. He had kissed me, deeply, holding both of my shoulders in his strong grasp. As the men left, he had turned back to look at me one last time, and I tried to keep his face and the feeling of his lips in my mind as he rode away. Gila and Osane stood on either side of me, waving, but I stood still in my place and watched the wisps of his hair licking in front of his dark blue eyes, looking back at me as he left. It had put a sadness in me that I had grown tired of feeling. I was unsure if the lost Prince of Gwynedd would return, and if he did, if I were intended to go with him, but watching as his back faded into view on the Paris street that morning, it felt like I watched a door closing in front of me. Once again, I felt left in the dark. Osane turned to me as they had all but vanished, giving me a gentle glance that reminded me of her own sad loss of love.

I tried to pick things back up the way they had been, but everything had come to feel disrupted and unsettled, unlike it had been before. I spent my days brewing beer just as I had done, meticulously trying to get each tankard the best that I could make it. Richeut had been pleased with my involvement in this part of her business, and seemed to mind less that I had begun stealing more infrequently, happy that she could spend long nights off her feet. I tried to make myself at her service the most, wanting to stay at the tavern. Having spent half the year in Montereau, and having felt fear that had gripped me when I suddenly had to leave, I didn't want to find myself back on the streets once again, growing more desperate each time I had to move myself to a new situation. I had grown tired. I felt like I had been broken down over and over, and each time putting myself together, trying to remain hopeful grew increasingly difficult.

All that was left of my journey that began that one day in the market, to the Palace of Justice, and into the Court of Miracles were my crippled fingers, and what had become a dark pink scar near my ankle. Though my hand worked well enough to get me through the days, I had kept the bandage over top of it. Seeing it- the twisted, bent state of my left hand, only brought me sadness. It was as though I looked into the past, and could see the hateful eyes of Frollo as he had slammed the iron gate of the dungeon cell onto it. By looking at my own hand, I remembered far too much, and I had made peace with the end of that story time long ago, when I had seen Danoir in the market. I realized he had told me what I had needed to hear that day. It was what Jaelle had told me on my final night in the Court- that my time with the Romany people left me forgotten, that he had left and would never return.

One evening began the same it always had, late that winter. The cold winds once again brought promises of spring, and the faint and distant smell of warm earth and new leaves. I had spent the afternoon pouring new batches of beer into the large casks, leaving them to sit and exchanging them in the tavern with older tankards. That night, there were many in the tavern as a group of merchants had arrived in Paris. The fresh blood had aroused excitement in the many city vagrants who drank with us every evening- someone to tell the same drunken story to, or a new story to hear, so that they could then tell us that one until a new batch arrived. The mood had been jovial in the small city tavern, laughter erupted from every table. Osane led a young man by the hand upstairs, a seductive smile across her face. Richeut had taken a seat with her neighbors, her face turned pink from laughter and a few steins of her her own ale.

It was then that a feeling seemed to pull the air from the entire room. I glanced around, something was not right. I felt eyes burning through me and turned to the door. A figure stood to my left, in front of the tavern entrance. Dark brown eyes blazed through a purple mask, hidden in the darkness of a large black hood. I felt myself turn white. No... it couldn't have been. For a moment, I had no heart beat, I think I ceased to live entirely. Someone crossed in front of the figure, and as they passed, it had vanished. It left me standing, staring at the entrance way, terrified. Gilia came up beside me, leaning over to the cask to refill steins with ale.

"Is everything alright?" I had heard her voice say to me. I nodded a response, still unable to find words and Gilia cocked an eye to me, but left with her hands filled with overflowing beer steins. Had this been an apparition? But why? Managing to look away from the door at last, my eyes crossed the tavern, scanning over the faces of the people who I believed truly had been there. That was when I saw him.

Gilia set a stein on a table and moved away to sit down on a bench. Behind her sat a man, slightly hunched over from a night of drinking. Unlike much of the clientele that evening, he was well kept, a clean mustache sat on his upper lip. Casually, his eyes crossed my face, but then returned sharply. Once again, I felt myself turn white, as Jacques Desmarias, the bailiff that I had worked for, stared back at me. I turned quickly, but felt it had been too late. He had seen me, had he recognized me? I was afraid to look back at him. Desmarias had been a confidant to Frollo, he had reported me to the judge himself, and this had been how Frollo had known I was not the servant sent from the monastery at Notre Dame. It had been so long since I had seen him, I wasn't sure if he recognized me. Perhaps he had forgotten. But the publicity that surrounded our escape, and how Frollo's search for Clopin and I had caused harm to Romany in Paris, ran through my mind and suddenly I feared for my life.

My hands began to tremble severely, and I couldn't get a thought straight of what to do. Instinctively I walked to the back door, to get away from his eyes, I pushed the door out to the court yard and moved quickly to the shack where I slept with Osane and Gilia. Hastily I ripped my cloak from where it lay and pulled it over my shoulders. I quickly slid my cowl back over my head and tucked all stray hair up into it, tightening it in place. Then, I reached up in between the pile of hay of the loft and pulled down the dagger and sheath, sadly. I held them in my hand, feeling the weight of the weapon before strapping it to my leg. Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to steady my hands and calmly walk into the tavern, though I had no plan for escaping the bailiff.

As I carefully opened the back door to the tavern, I saw that his seat was suddenly empty. Trying not to rouse more suspicion, I searched the room for him, delicately. I feared maybe he had left to bring a guard to the tavern. Looking to Richeut, my heart twisted thinking of something happening to her, or Osane and Gilia. My heart twisted further thinking of Frollo standing in the doorway and the havoc he could wreck. Calm down... calm down... he may have left to relieve himself... I told myself, the steady, deep beating of my heart came like a funeral drum. I approached Richeut, seated with her neighbors. Move faster, there isn't much time. I tried to silence the many contradictions of my own voice in my head.
"Richeut, you have to look after the keep for awhile I..." Richeut stopped herself in the midsts of a laugh, happy tears poking at her rosy cheeks. She looked at me, puzzled.
"Where do you have to be? At this hour?"I hesitated, unsure of what to say, but looked at her, seriously.
"I will explain later..." was all I could say. Richeut looked at me, before turning away, silently. She likely did not want to know, and was concerned that there would be trouble. She would have been right.

I stepped out onto the dark and empty streets. The moon hid behind heavy clouds, making it hard to see anything in the cold Paris night. A sound of horse hooves caused me to turn and look down the vacant street. I started walking quickly in the other direction, eyes fixated behind me where the sound had come from. I wasn't paying attention as I turned a corner and stepped into the towering, long face of a dark steed. Gasping, I turned around and my eyes darted to the man who stood holding its reins. Jacques Desmarias stared at me from foggy, drunken eyes.
"I thought that was you... the little English servant." His familiar voice oozed from his lips. Shivering involuntarily, I stepped back from him. "The little thief..." he stumbled forward. "I know about you and those vermin people... the gypsies. Frollo will have your neck tonight." He slurred a smile and stepped towards me. I turned sharply and ran, hearing the man's cry after me, followed by the sound of him mounting, then kicking his horse. The sounds of fast hooves approached rapidly as cobblestone smacked on the bottom of my feet.

All thoughts had left me now. My breathing was heavy, a wheeze erupting as I deeply inhaled the cold night air, each step sending pain through my ankles, up my legs and into my knees. The stones were wet from the melting snow, and ice clung to them ferociously. I ran without knowing which direction I was going in or where, nothing but the sounds of the rapidly approaching iron of the horses hooves hitting the stones below, and the sharp pain of my lungs sucking in the winter. Tears streamed down my face, making it even more difficult to see, but I still ran as fast as I could.

After running for a few of the sleeping city blocks, I remember thinking that I must have slipped. I felt the world fall out from beneath my feet, I felt myself being lifted and everything had become much darker, but there had been no impact. The world was just dark and warm, it felt like it was holding me in place. In a blink, I opened my eyes to the dark, but there was no Paris street in front of me, just a dark wall barely a hand's width away from my nose. My chest heaved with heavy breaths, but I realized that a leather clad hand forcefully covered my mouth. Another arm was snaked around my stomach holding me in place against the far wall. The grip was so familiar, I felt as my heart slowed down beneath its grasp. Had Desmarias caught me? Where was I? My senses returning to me, I realized I was in between two buildings, just off of the street where we I had been running. I heard the rapidly approaching hooves of Desmarias' horse. I squirmed in the grasp and raised my arms to pry the hand away from my mouth, when the side of a face pressed itself to my cheek, lips grazing my ear.
"Don't... make... a sound..." the voice said, in a whisper so low, I was unsure if it had come from my own mind. My eyes widened in the darkness, recognizing the voice, the smell of their skin, even the feeling of their lips as they barely touched to my ear.

The arm that held me in place reached down between my legs and pulled my dagger from its sheath on my calf. Tears rolled over Clopin's hand, as it covered my mouth in its strong grip. I wanted to wimper, to plead. No, not by his hands, please... my own voice came back to my mind, but as he withdrew the dagger he held it low in his free hand, keeping my mouth covered as I shuddered with silenced sobs.

Desmarias' horse had quieted, and all was still in the tiny alley between buildings where Clopin held me. Jacques stumbled slightly into view through the opening onto the street, and before I knew what was happening, I fell to the ground, hitting my shoulder on the way down. I gasped as I fell and looked up as my elbow found the hard cobblestone street. I lay on my side at Clopin's feet, my hand held up in a defensive pose. Clopin now held the bailiff in the same pose where he had held me, one hand gripping the man tightly, over his mouth. Both men stared at me in the darkness, with distinct but somehow similar expressions reflected in their eyes. Before I could take another breath, Clopin brought my dagger up to Jacques' neck. I shielded my eyes and heard a small sound, like a sigh one would make in their sleep, coming from Jacques. Blood splattered across me, a warm drop hitting my cheek. The man fell first to his knees, and then forward, onto my leg.

Speechlessly, I stared up at Clopin. His eyes turned like smoke from a fire and he swiftly lifted my dagger up and wiped it clean with a cloth that he dropped back onto the man. I noted an embroidered "JM" on the corner of it as it fell delicately onto Jacques' corpse. Clopin first flipped the dagger so the hilt was facing me then and offered it back to me, but I remained on my side, unmoving. Even as the weight from Jacques' head had begun to sink in, and I felt as blood pooled onto my leg from his mouth, I stayed, staring up at his face.

I felt as though I was looking at a ghost... or that I had been mistaken. There was no way it was him... He had been long gone, why should he have come back? And if it were him... How had he known where to find me? My breath was shallow and steady, feeling as though I was gasping for air. Slowly my eyes focused on the handle of the dagger and I reached for it, grasping its wood and steel end and bringing it towards myself. I looked from the dagger to Jacques' body, still unable to say anything.

Clopin reached forward and lifted me up by my under arms, standing me up against the wall. I watched his face carefully, the heaviness that had formed in his eyes. He wouldn't stay on my face, but I couldn't look anywhere else but onto his, still covered by the dark purple mask. He took the dagger back from my weak grip and slid it into its sheath on my calf.

"We have to go." his voice was low, and hushed, and had a darkness to it. I nodded slightly, glancing at the man's corpse in the alley.
"Where?" I muttered, quietly.
"Follow me." Clopin said. He pulled both of our hoods up over our faces and darted out into the city streets. Moving swiftly, I let exhaustion and disbelief take over, not even knowing how I was still moving. Clopin lead me by the arm, keeping me close to him, as we weaved through the city. As we approached a tall, familiar building, the sounds of guards on their horses filled the streets in the distance. Clopin brought me to the building where I had waited after coming up from the Court of Miracles. My legs went heavy as I realized that was where he now lead me, and I almost wanted to pull away from him, to run in a different direction. Not back there... I thought. But I couldn't even try to pull my grasp from his. I was in a trance, my entire body allowing him to take me where he wanted. He went around the back of the building and we climbed through a lower window frame in the decrepit former home.

Once we were both through, Clopin moved a pile of wooden boards to fill in the hole we had come in through. I stepped back and looked up into the space, feeling transported back to when I had been there last. Had I come all this way, just to return to the Court? Clopin climbed up a wooden beam in the building's structure and reached for my hand. Once he held it, he pulled me up with him to a second storey in the building. He carefully crossed the floor to a large window in the frame, covered by a piece of cloth. Clopin leaned his slender shoulder against the wall and looked out through a slit in the fabric.

I stood staring at him, trying to get ahold of all that had happened. Clopin had killed Jacques Desmarias. He was dead... the guards had been called, looking for us, or, looking for me anyway. Clopin glanced at me from the side of his eye.
"You're welcome..." he said, his voice low. I blinked at him in the dark of the building.
"What?" Words had become distant sounds, without meaning. I tried to focus on what he had said.
"For saving your life... again..." Clopin continued to stare out onto the city. Sadness and a bit of anger dropped inside of me. I was not sure he had saved my life at any point, having also been the most constant danger in it. But he had killed Desmarias, and I was not sure what would have happened if he hadn't been there.

Why had he been in Paris? How did he know where to find me?
"...Danoir..." I said quietly, feeling his eyes turn to me once again.
"Do not give my nephew so much credit... I have known, long before you saw him, that you were at the sign of the sun. He did not want me to find out... but I knew." his voice carried across the dark, empty room.
"But...how?" I took a step closer to him, yet he sat still in the window frame, avoiding my eyes. He was quiet for a moment.
"There was a story, about the outlaw Red hand and the servant thief who had bested him, in the forest."
As he spoke, I had begun to feel more present. That he was real, that we were standing only a few feet from each other. I glanced to his arm, and saw that the place where my dagger had cut him, the last time I had seen him, had been sewn shut. The cut had made a small scar on the sleeve of his tunic. "And then I saw you for myself."

At the mention of Owain, my heart stirred, but was pulled away by his words. He had seen me himself? Had he been watching me, this whole time? A memory of the apparition of him in the tavern earlier in the night came to my mind.
"Danoir said you had left-"
His sigh interrupted me.
"Yes. Danoir was lying. I will be the last one to leave... any day now..." I was unsure if he had even been looking at anything through the space in the burlap cloth and the window, or if he had been doing so that he would have somewhere to look that was not at my face. His voice sounded short, impatient. Like he didn't want to be there with me at all. And yet, he stayed by the window. I thought to Jaelle, had she been punished for helping me? Had Vadoma-
"And Jaelle?" I asked, afraid to see his response. He was silent. "Did she-"
"The old woman is fine." He said, frustration biting at his tongue. "She survived the journey, and has made it to Spain." Relief washed over my heart thinking about Jaelle being happy, somewhere warm, somewhere new. I wanted to ask about the other Romany, had they all survived? Had anything bad happened to them on their journey out of Paris? But horse hooves and the sound of guard's voices filled the streets below, and he glanced down. My heart beat nervously, and visions of the tavern being raided took over in fearful premonitions.
"I have to return to the-" It was only then that Clopin turned sharply to me, eyes burning at my face.
"If you return, you, and all who remain, will be hung." His words slipped over my head and snapped tightly around my throat. The floor felt as though it fell out from beneath me and I slowly rocked in front of him, my voice choking in my chest.
"I can't..." Tears fell out my eyes once again. Clopin had seen the change in my demeanor, his expression switched from partial surprise, then taken into sadness as he looked away. Anger grew within me and I moved towards him.
"Why? Why did you come?! To save me from the life that I finally wanted?" I cried. He shot to his feet.
"No- to save you from being tortured and hung in the city square!"
"I told you to stay away from me!" I responded, my damaged hand twitched and formed a decrepit fist the best that it could.
"You don't think I tried?!" He shouted, stepping towards me.
"What is the point of living if I have nothing to live for and nobody to live with?"My voice grew low, almost in a growl, anger spilling out from my lips which were twisted down on my face, tears dripping off of them.

We were standing face to face now, so close together. Like it had been possessed, my wounded hand lifted to strike him but he grabbed my wrist, holding it above my head. I strained to push through his grip, and he strained to hold me there. I had grown stronger since I had been in the Court where I had been sick, starved, weakened by my time chained to a wall, and I felt that his reaction was unprepared. My shoulders shook with sobs as he held me. Frowning at me, he watched as I cried quietly in his grasp for a moment. His face was now almost pressed to mine, and his eyes were focused intently on my face.
"You left me." He whispered, his voice harsh. I frowned at his words and opened my eyes, meeting his now. "You... ran away. You were mine...You had me..." He continued. His eyes pulled me into their dark pools, their expression reminding me of as they had been in the market that cold day- angry and hurt.
"I had nothing." I cried back to him. "You would have risked your life, the lives of your people, for me?" I asked him. Clopin frowned, the grip tightening on my wrist.

"And If I had stayed? To be your pet? Your slave?" I stared into his eyes as he spoke, watching them cross my face, trying to understand each word. "You should know more than anyone that that is not a life!"
I raised my voice and ripped my hand back from his. We stood, almost touching and now breathing heavily, silently in the darkness.

My eyes were closed tightly for what felt like a lifetime. The faces of so many people fell through my mind like sand through an hour glass, like river water over stones. Owain's crooked teeth falling into a smile, Jalle's sad eyes as tears fell from them. She disappeared into darkness, and Frollo's cold grey eyes rose like a phantom from ash, his lip snarled and his mouth opened to speak, but before it could, I saw Sabastien, the villein from Montereau, kissing his new wife's lips. As they drew closer together, Richeut's face replaced them, the happy tears sparkling above her pink cheeks, then Rhoda, reaching for Danoir's dagger, her eyes falling on me sharply, then the eyes of Jacques Desmarias, as blood spilled from out of his throat, glass coating them as they stared emptily above him before falling down. Finally, Clopin, standing behind him, the darkness swallowing me whole.

I opened my eyes and looked to him, his face had grown long and serious, and he quickly averted his eyes when I did so. The change in his face had come to show a look of sadness, of understanding, but of frustration. Upset swelled inside of me and I slowly fell to my knees, tears flowing freely as I thought of them all. Every one of the people who had lead me here. Your life is... Jaelle's words began in my mind but I stopped them abruptly, my hands falling to the ground before me, I arched my fingers and pressed my nails into the dirty wood.

"Please.. don't... leave me..." I managed to sob, quietly.
"I'm..." Clopin's voice had softened, and he walked towards me, taking my face in his hands. The leather was warm against my cheeks. Tears held my eyes closed, but I felt his gaze as it searched for words across my face. "I'm sorry..." he kissed my brow, which stopped my sob as my eyes opened. "I'm sorry..." he repeated, kissing the corner of my mouth, pressing a tear into a small puddle. Sorrow filled his face, as we stayed like that, my face cupped in his hands. I was holding onto the front of his legs, I felt like a child all of a sudden, small and helpless and pleading with him.
"I'm sorry." He said one more time, and I moved my lips to his. This kiss was unlike any other we had shared, and as it deepened, our mouths opening, one final stab hit my heart and it felt as though it had been the one to finally break it open, falling gently into pieces that lined my stomach.

I pulled on his sleeve, and he lowered himself, climbing on top of me, our mouths staying connected. My legs opened, making a space for him, pulling him closer to me and moving my hands to his face. I sighed a light breath as his hands ran up my thighs and grasped at my hips. Deep within me, I longed for him to be even closer, to be apart of me once again. His mouth found its way to my neck, he brushed aside my hair and kissed down my collar bone, pulling down the shoulder of my dress, then crossed the top of my chest . The leather of his fingers pulled at my bodice, letting it fall open and then stopped. Using his teeth, he pulled off the gloves from his hands and threw them aside. His warm hand slid into the front of my dress and ran down the side of my breast, while his other hand groped at my thigh under my skirt. I lay the back of my head against the floor of the empty home, allowing the heavy, pleasurable throbs to run through me with his every touch. Tears fell from my jaw, landing on my chest and sliding down towards his head. He did not look up, but continued to feast upon my skin with hot, wet, breaths.

Nothing seemed to matter now. His hands, his breath, and his lips were the only thing that reminded me I was still alive, laying on the floor in the musty darkness. I had thought he had been long gone, that he had forgotten. Seeing him again, even if it was truly for the last time, made me wish these could be the moments I had on earth. I didn't think of what was to happen after, about the impossible uncertainty that had become my future, I didn't think at all. Only let the warmth of him wash over me in waves. He sat up, and adjusted his breeches. In an instant he was inside of me, a pleasurable moan escaping my lips. This time, he did not silence me, but used his hand instead to pull me further onto him, a gasp erupting from deep within me. All of Paris seemed to stand completely still now, fading around us. The very building itself could have been burning down around us, and I wouldn't have moved.

The warmth from between us grew stronger as I wrapped my arms around his neck, and his hands fell to the side of my ribs. As our breaths grew heavier and heavier, tension between us built. Then, as Clopin loudly gasped one final time, the largest bell of Notre dame rang out the first hour of morning, blanketing our breaths and the loud beating of our hearts with its heavy, warm tone.

I awoke to the sound of doves, humming in the early morning. Light reached its soft fingers through the many holes and cracks in the walls of the building. Clopin had slept behind me, on a pile of our cloaks, his arms wrapped around me. Now the space shifted and turned cool. The man, the chosen King of the Romany people, who hours ago filled me with his lean, strong body placed his hand flat on the ground in front of me, supporting his long arm. I felt his breath as he lowered his lips to my ear.
"Your life... is your life..." he whispered gently, sweetness mixed with sadness as he repeated the words that Jaelle had told me the night I had left the Court. I frowned, my eyes focused on the far corner of the room. My sight became blurry as tears covered my eyes, but I remained staring straight ahead. I listened to the sound of Clopin, carefully pulling himself to his feet and crossing the room towards the hole in the floor where we had climbed up from the street level of the building, echoed coldly throughout the building.

Once his footsteps had left, I turned to my side, staring at the now empty space where he had slept.