The night is clear, and cool for early summer. The soft breeze blowing along the Rue des Grès seems to clear his head a bit, and he shakes off my steadying arm. "I'm fine, damn it. Quit carrying on like a doting aunt."
"All right, you're fine."
"Don't bloody humor me, Courfeyrac."
I hold up my hands. "Wouldn't dream of it."
Grantaire snorts, and turns away, not waiting to see if I follow him or not. And perhaps I've misjudged him today, for though he moves with the aggressive gait of the borderline drunk, there is no trace of a stumble as we walk to the corner.
Perhaps -- the thought occurs to me, in another unexpected flash -- perhaps he's never so far gone as I assume him to be. Perhaps I don't know him nearly as well as I think I do.
In the next moment everything happens at once. There's a sudden, ominous scuffling from an alleyway; a dark shape bolts across the street, inches in front of us; somewhere close by, a woman shrieks and is abruptly silenced, and I waste precious seconds in looking around for her.
It's only a dog, a damned stray, at least as startled as we are. It skulks beside a doorstep, yapping sharply as though to tell us to watch where we're going, and then lopes off into the shadows.
Grantaire is leaning against the wall of the nearest building, looking resolutely amused, if a little green. "Hell," he says.
And then I know.