Combeferre nodded silently and followed Enjolras back to the Musain. The weight of those disapproving dark eyes against his back angered Enjolras, but he kept his peace. Despite his setting a smart pace, they were the last to return to the café.

He didn't meet any of the expectant eyes. Behind him, he heard Combeferre murmur, "We did not find him either, but—"

"But," Enjolras interrupted and turned to face his friends at last. "We have a report. He may have been arrested at a disturbance at Pere Bayon's. He was drunk." Then Enjolras sat down with his face in his hands and let the storm break over his head.

Through the sea of voices, only one person asked the significance of Pere Bayon's. Bossuet. Enjolras let Combeferre explain. He imagined a physical flurry to accompany the words he heard, thus he was slightly surprised to look up to see still, tense faces all turned to him.

He stood wearily. Without looking at his watch, he guessed it must be near midnight. "Since no one has seen him elsewhere, we must assume he was arrested." His eyes dared anyone to interrupt him. "Someone needs to find out."

"Not tonight," Combeferre said implacably. He'd set his face into the same firm pattern that Enjolras had seen far too much of that evening.

"And not you," two others said at once -- Joly and Feuilly, he thought without looking.

"I'll go," Courfeyrac said. "I can pretend to be looking for a client in the lockup." Enjolras met the same stubbornness in his gaze as Combeferre's. "It should not be you, for many reasons."

"It must be me," he said softly. "I sent him into this."

"No, Enjolras," Bahorel said and stubbornly crossed his arms. Normally at the heart of any fracas, he'd been oddly silent until now. "You know too much about what we're doing and planning."

"I'm no different than the rest of you." Enjolras found himself, without realizing how, nose to nose with Bahorel.

"Do you honestly think any duty-minded policeman is going to let you walk out of a jail you'd entered willingly?"

"Why not? They've done it before. It's not like I have never been arrested before."

"But not this close to the culmination of our plans," Combeferre said quietly.

"You have the most contacts," Courfeyrac added.

"You have your previous record," Prouvaire offered.

Enjolras sat back down, his teeth clenched tight shut.

"You can't go alone," Combeferre said to Courfeyrac.

Enjolras listened for several minutes before it became clear that Combeferre would be unbelievable as a lawyer. He let them plunge fully into a plan to enter the jail as two lawyers, which they quickly modified to a lawyer and his secretary. When Courfeyrac realized that Combeferre would be equally hopeless as the secretary, Enjolras interrupted. Most of the others had long since gone to their beds, thus his voice rang clear across the quiet, nearly empty room. "I'll play the secretary."

Neither objected this time, but Combeferre still insisted that they not go alone.

"That's not required," Enjolras said. To their stunned faces, he said, "Two lawyers would be more convincing, and—" He shook his head to silence their unborn protests. "And if I portray the perfect secretary and Courfeyrac, the perfect lawyer, the flaws in Combeferre's performance won't be noticed."

Courfeyrac looked sour, but nodded. They arranged to meet early the next morning at Combeferre's to work out the details.

Thus three young men, two wet-behind-the-ears lawyers looking for clients and their even younger, harried secretary, planned to enter the jail the next day. The first order of business at Combeferre's was to dress the medical student in proper legal fashion. The second, so Enjolras believed, was to discuss their script and tactics if anything should go wrong.

"Don't you even own a black coat?" Enjolras asked with exasperation as he and Courfeyrac looked through the array of colorful coats stuffed into Combeferre's armoire.

"No," Combeferre said with a grin. "One of my instructors advised me that patients find black morbid and unreassuring, so I chucked them all."

Enjolras groaned, but before he could say anything, Courfeyrac intervened. "That's not impossible. Do you have a brown suit?"

"Of course," Combeferre sniffed, "with a fawn waistcoat even." He shouldered between his would-be dressers and reached for a hanger at the extreme left.

Enjolras added a freshly laundered shirt and Combeferre was transformed. He looked serious and sober, but still very sympathetic to the drunks they were supposedly going to visit.

Next, Enjolras found himself under even closer scrutiny. They circled him as he stood in place.

"That won't do at all," Combeferre said. "He's better dressed than I."

"It's not my fault you don't have a black suit."

"You're right," Courfeyrac said, ignoring Enjolras altogether, "he looks too much like a lawyer."

"Or a funeral director."

"Wait a minute," Enjolras protested, but they ignored him.

They continued to circle him, commenting freely as if he had no ears to hear them. "You get that horrid funeral coat off of him, and I'll heat the iron."

"My coat doesn't need pressing."

"Don't worry, old man," Courfeyrac said cheerfully as he skillfully deprived Enjolras of his coat. "Combeferre is quite adept with a curling iron. I've even let him curl my hair a time or two before."

Enjolras hadn't even known Combeferre owned a curling iron.

Thus he submitted with ill grace to the eager ministrations of his dressers. His hair was released from its neat queue and curled into fat ringlets, then brushed loose until it looked like natural curls falling nearly to his shoulders. His black coat and trousers were confiscated and hung in Combeferre's armoire. Loose fawn trousers, a paisley vest and a coat the blue of sunlit sapphire were substituted for the clothes he'd lost. He protested at the unfashionable length of the coat, but was ignored. He was allowed to keep his shirt, but his black tie was replaced with a white cravat, expertly knotted in an elaborate style more suited to evenings than secretarial work in Enjolras's opinion. Where did Courfeyrac learn to knot a tie like that?

All the clothes were a bit loose on him, and the trousers an inch or so too short. The effect was quite unlike himself, and perhaps rather more like a vain, young secretary than he'd been. He accepted the use of Combeferre's glasses, warily perching them on the end of his nose to keep from ruining his own perfect eyesight. He feared that if he refused them, they would put makeup on him next.

When Courfeyrac and Combeferre at last approved of Enjolras's appearance they went to the jail. Along the way, they did discuss contingency plans. Enjolras was warned to keep his mouth shut no matter what happened. They would do nothing to call attention to themselves and would leave as quickly as they were able once they determined whether or not Grantaire was in the building.

All their preparations were in vain. Grantaire had not been arrested at Pere Bayon's. They retreated to a nearby coffee shop to regroup. Enjolras loosened his cravat while they waited for their coffee. "What else could have happened to him?" he mused out loud.

A plan had half-formed itself when Courfeyrac, his coffee consumed, stood. "Well, I have a class," he said in a firm tone. "So do you, Enjolras."

Enjolras didn't look up. "May I borrow your notes later?" he asked.

"Of course." Courfeyrac exchanged a look with Combeferre and left.

"What are you planning?" Combeferre loosened his own tie and reclaimed his glasses.

"What makes you think I have a plan?"

Combeferre pointed to Enjolras's untouched nearly cold coffee.

Enjolras smiled thinly. "We need to start looking for him near Pere Bayon's."

"But we know he's not there. It's been two days."

"And if we don't find him today I can't go to Aix on time."

"Go to Aix, then," Combeferre urged. "We'll find him."

"No. He's my responsibility. I sent him."

"So you keep saying." Combeferre sighed and finished his coffee. Then he paid for them both and stood, offering a hand to Enjolras."What do you want to do?"

Waving aside the hand, Enjolras stood. "Start out at Pere Bayon's and spiral outward. He must have hidden from the police, but he will not hide from us. I hope."

"He could be hurt," Combeferre mused, sensing now the direction of Enjolras's urgency.

A waiter at Pere Bayon's confirmed that someone looking like Grantaire had been there on the night of the brawl. He could not confirm if Grantaire had been arrested, but he sincerely hoped he had been. Enjolras contained his own temper as the waiter continued in that fashion, proceeding to sneering at the sobriety of Combeferre's dress and Enjolras own ill-fitting borrowed outfit.

As soon as they could escape Pere Bayon's, they began methodically searching doorways, stairwells and alleys. They split up as the circle widened to be sure of covering the area more quickly. Enjolras found a small park, a scrap of spring green amid the gray streets.

A large tree dominated the center of the square. As he approached the tree, he spied a hat similar to the one he'd last seen perched on Grantaire's shaggy head as he departed the Musain the other night. He picked up the hat and peered around the small quadrangle. Ornamental shrubbery lined it on all four sides with a few larger clumps near the gates. Under one of these a single hand protruded, palm up and limp.

"Combeferre!" he yelled.

He was already on his hands and knees digging through the bushes when Combeferre ran into the park. "I think I found him," he said.

Without a word, Combeferre joined him. They followed the hand and then the arm to the shoulder. Grantaire's familiar mismatched features came into view, their arrangement oddly peaceful on the unconcious man's face.

With a relieved sigh, Enjolras sat back and let Combeferre examine Grantaire. He trusted that the medical student's sensitve fingers would be able to separate the serious wounds from the minor cuts and bruises liberally covering Grantaire. Eventually, Combeferre announced that Grantaire had either a broken or sprained ankle and a serious bruised lump under the hair of his head.

"This getup," Combeferre said with some exasperation as he stood and brushed leaves, twigs and dirt from his trousers, "did not include my medical bag. I need to go get it."

Enjolras stood also. "I'll get it."

Combeferre stopped him before he turned to leave. "No. I need to add a few things to it for Grantaire. You stay here with him. He shouldn't be alone when he wakes."

"I—stay with him?" He looked at the pale, prone figure still entangled in the bush. "I wouldn't know what to do."

"You don't have to do anything," Combeferre said. "Just stay here with him." Without a backward glance, he ran out of the park and down the street.