Leaving the glorious countryside in exchange for the city nightlife was not too much of an adjustment, but like I said before, I would have liked to stay at the gypsy camp for a little while longer, at least for the night. Though I had to admit, it was sort of pretty outside right now; the full moon which was out and about just a few hours before, was hiding behind the clouds again. The only light we could see, were the ones coming out of the small shops and the street lamps that lined the sidewalks. Watson was sitting beside Jane, and I was squashed in between Simza and Holmes. If the carriage was just a bit bigger, it wouldn't be so claustrophobic, but neither of us were complaining.

We arrived at our destination, Les Sept Grenouilles and jumped out of a carriage as the driver led us into the building. We knew that using the front entrance would immediately get us spotted, so we went around the back entrance and tried to remain as inconspicuous as we could. When the driver escorted us up some stone steps, and through the long halls and I could smell the food cooking, though I couldn't tell exactly what it was. I could smell a blend of meat, cheese, bread and wine, and it made my mouth water and my stomach growl impatiently. The orange I had earlier wasn't as filling as I thought it would be, and I didn't eat breakfast this morning because of my seasickness. I would have to see if I could secretly steal a bit of whatever smelled so good.

My stomach made a loud growl and I groaned.

"I bet you're wishing you had the hedgehog goulash after all like I suggested, eh?" Jane asked in an I-told-you-so voice. "Instead of being so picky, then you wouldn't be so hungry now."

"Well-" I was about to make a snarky response, probably saying that I would rather starve to death than eat anything with hedgehog in it, which would have unintentionally been insulting, when our guide came up to us and patted us down from head to toe. I put my hands up, internally wanting to protest, but as soon as I opened my mouth and sucked in a breath to keep myself from laughing. It was standard procedure, but that didn't make it any less embarrassing or unpleasant. Immediately, my mind flashed back to when I was three and was caught snatching cookies out of the cookie jar, though my father didn't have to search me, since of course I hid the cookies behind my back like an amateur.

I cleared my throat awkwardly as I heard the boys chuckling beside me. Obviously, they were both used to this sort of thing as it was part of their job and for some reason, they seemed to find my reaction amusing. I glanced at Jane and Simza who didn't appear to have a problem with it, either.

"Oi! My eyes are up here, lad!" I said a little too harshly and the man backed away, putting his hands up in surrender. I looked over at the plate of little dinner rolls that were in my reach and smiled as I took it, but they were still piping hot so I sort of regretted it.

"You don't mind, do you?" The chefs looked up at me and shrugged. They didn't seem to mind, since they already had plenty to spare, so without thinking, I took a few bites. It burnt my taste buds, but I was so hungry that I didn't care.

After making absolutely certain none of us were carrying weapons, they gestured for us to go down to the wine cellar and we walked down a steep staircase. I couldn't see where I was going because it wasn't very well-lit. The only source of light was at the end of the staircase where we saw a man sitting at a table with his back to us. It was scary, especially since there could be large beetles, cobwebs, disease-ridden rats and all kinds of things that I didn't want to run into. I focused on watching my step. I had to keep my head low so I wouldn't bump it on the low ceiling.

I twitched when I felt something brush my shoulder, I scoffed when I realized it was just Jane's hand and tried to swat it away as she laughed.

"Are you alright, Charlotte?" Watson asked in a low voice behind me. I looked back at him and his eyes were filled with concern.

I nodded. "I'm alright, I just don't like going into cellars very much," I whispered back with a soft smile.

"She's always been a bit of a scaredy cat," Jane said with a shrug of her shoulders. "She doesn't like bugs, or spiders, or snakes, or lizards, or clowns, or heights, or-" As she went on, I huffed. I would gladly admit that I had flaws, I didn't know a single person who didn't, but when it came to my insecurities, I didn't like it when people would bring them up, especially around people I had only just met. I turned to her and gave her a look, that made her stop immediately.

"You'll be fine," Simza said with a reassuring smile as he took my hand gently, giving it a gentle squeeze, then released it again, putting on a stone cold face. "Still hiding in basements?" She asked Ravache once we got to the bottom of the staircase. Her voice was harsher than I was used to hearing it, but I knew she was just worried about Rene and the only way to get real answers was by putting your fears aside and replace them with a brave front.

"It's hard for me to get out these days," he said, in French, as he took a bite of his food, I felt bad for the poor man having to eat such stuff. "I am happy to see you."

"I'm not here to see you," Simza replied bitterly as the five of us walked closer to the man. Jane and I and the boys split and looked around the cellar while Ravache gestured towards the chairs.

"I would rather share this moment with your English friends," he finished in English.

"1789. Vintage," Holmes said, pointing at the glass of wine Ravache was drinking.

"The year of our glorious revolution," Ravache answered, proudly.

"Is he here?" Simza asked Ravache but he ignored her.

"When freedom has triumphed over tyranny."

"Is my brother here?" Simza asked again, a little louder this time and with more authority in her voice.

Ravache looked up at her, his brown eyes soft, but guarded. "I haven't seen him for a long time."

"You're lying," Simza stated. Her hands were clenched into fists and her eyes kept darting left to right as if searching for her brother. I stepped closer to her, ready to calm her down if things got out of hand.

The expression on his face magnified. "Sim, please." He gestured towards a chair then he leaned forwards and continued his meal while Holmes and I walked over to the table and sat next to each other and Jane and Watson stood off to the side. "A letter was received from Rene, using this same paper." He held up a piece of paper to show us.

"Of course. He took with him wherever he went," Holmes replied then he looked over at Ravache then over to Simza and said, "He's telling the truth, Rene isn't here." Her face fell and I looked to her, worried.

If he's not here, then where could he be, and what kind of trouble has he gotten himself into?

"He was given another assignment," said Ravache, answering my question.

"By an anonymous benefactor," Holmes interjected and Ravache stared at Holmes for a moment.

"Another Englishman with money, power...who supported our cause. And now...he dictates our every move."

Moriarty. Who else could it be?

He grabbed his glass and took a sip of wine and then wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. "Demanding I take responsibility for his acts of terror. I made a deal with the devil but after tonight it will be over. My job is almost done," he said and everyone went silent for a moment.

"He's had you plant another bomb, hasn't he?" Watson said to the man. He didn't say anything, but that was all we needed for our suspicions to be confirmed.

"Claude, please, listen," Simza said, her voice was softer now, more imploring. "These men and these ladies can help you."

"I wish they could." Ravache shook his head, then looked at us with pleading eyes. "You see, gentlemen and ladies...he has my wife and children."

I closed my eyes for a moment. It was normal for criminals to use a victim's family as leverage to make them do their dirty work, this man was in as much danger as Rene and we were, perhaps more so. I could imagine his wife, and probably very young children, were probably being held somewhere and scared to death. I only assumed they were young because they would be easy to frighten and harm. I could almost picture a younger version of himself crying into his mother's arms, his sister on her opposite side, huddled together and praying for their papa to come and rescue them.

I felt a hard lump in my throat that was hard to swallow, but I needed to push it back, I needed to be focused. Besides, weeping would not help keep them safe, or avenge them if they weren't already dead, which was sadly a possibility.

"If you tell us were the bomb is, we'll find a way to help your family," said Holmes calmly. He seemed to sense what was going to happen and was trying to sway the man in the right direction.

"That's already taken care of. We have a deal," Ravache said and he took another sip of wine then he continued. "He and I. No loose ends. There is only one thing I can do to keep my family safe." I shook my head, knowing exactly what he meant. "You have less than ten minutes." He picked up a gun and aimed it to his head.

"Don't!" Holmes and I shouted but too late the man pulled the trigger, killing himself.

Neither of us moved for several moments until Holmes stood up, staring at the fresh dead body. He turned to Watson, urgently. No doubt the men upstairs in the kitchens would have heard the commotion and would soon be on their way down here. "He has no further need of that pistol, why don't you take it and you and Jane cover the stairs."

Watson ran over to Ravache's body and took the pistol, then he and Jane made their way over to the doorway, where the stairs were, and stood by while Holmes looked around the cellar for an escape plan. I shook it off as best I could and joined him. There was no time to mourn or to think, I only hoped that he wouldn't die in vain, that his family would be released from whatever hole they found themselves in. Shortly, I could hear men running down the stairs and Jane and Watson took aim and began to fire.

"There's only one way out of this place," I said, fully focused again.

"Right you are," Holmes replied as he stared at the fireplace. He walked over to the space next to the fireplace, reached up and flipped a switch which opened a secret door. "Ah! Ingenious!" Holmes said, impressed. "That's the one, quickly as we can." He said while Watson and Jane fired bullets at more men coming down the stairs. Simza and I walked over to the secret door with Jane and Watson right behind us.

"You know what to do with that sandbag, Watson," Holmes said to him as the five of us walked in. Watson pulled his secret sword out of his cane and, once all of us were inside, he cut the rope that had a tied up sandbag, causing the door to close behind us. "Doctor, could you secure that lever?" He ordered as he picked up an unlit torch and lit it on a nearby fire pit.

"He could have told me," Simza said, distraught. "Ravache was strong. He lived for Liberty. He would never take his own life."

"Calm yourself," Watson said to her sternly, but not unkindly, keeping on his guard just in case someone planned to sneak up behind us.

"My brother he...he's weak," she said, almost tearfully, her breathing started becoming erratic. I thought she was going to break down completely and we couldn't have that, so I walked up to her and set my hands gently on her shoulder and said, calmly, "Simza, we need you to take a deep breath and follow us. It's going to be fine, we'll find your brother and help him, but you have to stay with us, alright?" She nodded as she tried to slow down her breathing, I took her hand and led her away.

"To the opera!" Holmes shouted and he led me and the others through a corridor and up the stairs and the five of us ran across the busy streets and made your way to the opera house.

Once inside the building, we ran to the backstage area. I could hear that the opera play, Don Giovanni, was being performed out on stage while Jane and I, Simza and the boys made our way through the backstage area. The music was loud, it reverberated in my skull and drowned out the sounds of our voices.

People tried to stop us, but Holmes was a man on a mission as he shoved people out of his way and walked up to the stairs, pushed another worker out of his way and walked up to a lift that was risen up, revealing a statue, or what looked like a statue but was a man dressed up like a statue, to the audience watching the opera. I wished that I was among them, watching the performance. I had never been to an opera before, at least none that I could actually remember, but my parents went every Christmas. When Father used to tell us about them as we gathered around the fireplace, it sounded positively boring, sitting in a room for four hours at the most, listening to people speaking in a language I didn't understand so I wouldn't have a clue what was going on. Perhaps I would get the opportunity sometime.

The rest of us walked over to the side and watched as Holmes was under the stand the opera singer was on. He looked around to find no bomb. He pulled back a piece of fabric which revealed a see-through sign that said, Imperator. There in the O was a queen chess piece. I stood back quietly observing. He moved the chess piece out of the way only to see Professor Moriarty sitting in the stands, watching him with his glasses. We shared a look and it was at that moment, we both realized what was really going on; the bomb wasn't for the opera house, it was for L'Hotel du Triomphe, where a political meeting was happening.

"Of course the opera was just a decoy, a distraction to throw us off our game," I said as he kicked out the back of the stand.

"We don't have much time," he said and we walked over to the side stage towards the others.

"I was mistaken."

"What?!" Jane and Watson said, shocked.

Holmes held up the queen chess piece. "I made a mistake." He threw the chess piece to the side and headed out. Watson and I gave each other concerned looks then followed him into the streets again. Holmes ran at full speed, Jane, Watson, Simza and I not far behind. We were almost at the hotel and I picked up my pace even faster, but before we could make it, there was an explosion.

We stopped in our tracks and saw the fire spill out of the windows and seeing the glass shattering, it was horrific. People around us gasped and started screaming as they ran from the scene. We didn't see anyone running out of the building and a sense of dread took over me. There was no way anyone could have survived the explosion. Holmes ran towards the building once he recovered from the shock. Then the rest of us followed him and walked inside, up the stairs and walked into the room and saw, not only soot and smoke, but the dead bodies of the politicians. I kept Jane close to me and told her to watch her step. Goodness knows what we would possibly step in, the possibility of coming into contact with someone's exploded innards made me shudder more than being in a musty old wine cellar. Jane could have mentioned that I was afraid of dead bodies, but then that would have made me a terrible sidekick.

Okay, maybe I wouldn't go as far as that, I was more of an apprentice. Or maybe I was neither, maybe I was one of those 'I-have-to-find-some-way-to-keep-an-eye-on-you' cases, though that made me sound completely immature, that I was incapable of looking after myself, but I was. I could do it just fine on my own if I absolutely needed to. Actually, what I needed to do was stop stalling, stop seeing every worst case scenario because it was just wasting precious time. I gave myself a good shake and told myself to keep it together.

We went around the room, just to check and see if by some miracle someone had survived, while Holmes saw a bullet hole in the wall and saw a bullet hole in one of the windows. He took out his small telescope, to see were the bullet might have been shot from. Across from the building, he saw another building with a giant statue at the top.

After getting out of the hotel, Holmes led us over to the building to inspect where the shooter might have been positioned. I just happened to be deathly afraid of heights, so I did my best not to look down, while Watson walked up a spot and pretended that his cane was a gun and took aim at the hotel. "He took the shot from here," He exclaimed as Holmes squared down and looked at the spot.

"Using a tripod and a shooting stick and realized...there was a better position. The faint scrape where he dragged the tripod and set it up...here." said Holmes. "Not to mention a seven or eight mile an hour wind."

"Six hundred and fifty yards," I remarked. Jane looked over at me, surprised at how I even knew that. Math was one of my strongest subjects back in the day, and though my skills were weak compared to that of the professor's, I could still calculate distance with one look.

"He would have needed a wind gauge," Watson replied as he looks down and points at a spot on the edge. "Which he placed here."

I looked to the side of the spot and noticed some cigarette ashes. I pointed at it. "And put a cigarette down here."

"Can anyone shoot that far?" Jane asked Watson as Holmes knelt down and picked it up.

"Not more than half a dozen men in all of Europe," Watson replied to her.

"And how many of those men served in Afghanistan?" Holmes asked as he got back up on his feet.

"Why?" Watson asked as Holmes held out the cigarette butt to him.

"Prosperum with a touch of tekrum. Must've fallen out when he was rolling up. Wasn't that the blend you all smoked?" He asked, folding his arms across his chest. Watson sniffed the cigarette and sighed. "You didn't tell me about a Colonel..."

"Sebastian Moran. Best marksmen in the British Army. Dishonorable discharge," Watson said. That must have been the man that Moriarty was with the day we attended the lecture. I knew that he was suspicious.

"He's likely now a gun for hire. This is the second victim of his that we've encountered."

"What better way to conceal a killing? No one would look for a bullet hole in a bomb blast," I said, drawing my coat closer to me and releasing a sharp breath, seeing the warm air from my mouth evaporate into the chilly winter night.

"What time is it?" Jane asked me, I took out my trusty watch and looked at the time. I squinted my eyes so that I could see the small Roman numerals.

"It's half past ten," I replied, shutting it again and yawned. As much as any of us hated to admit it, the day was starting to take its toll on us. We were all exhausted. "We should find somewhere to stay the night, then start fresh tomorrow once we have a chance to clear our heads."

"I agree with Charlotte," said Watson, putting a hand on my shoulder. "We could all do well with a good night's sleep."

"There's a hotel not too far from here," said Simza, "It should only be a five minute walk." She started exiting the roof and the rest of us mechanically followed her.

I sure hoped that it would only be a short walk because my legs were starting to feel like jelly. I wasn't used to all of this exercise.