It seemed that we waited for at least two hours for Christophe to come back. We had to guess at the time, though, because there were no clocks in the hotel room. I passed the time by chewing on my fingernails, worried thoughts spiraling through my head. Erik passed the time by leaning his head against the wall and napping.

But when we heard footsteps, he stood, flexed his arms and hands, and stretched. I rubbed the back of my neck, winced at the soreness of my back – these couches were awful – and closed my eyes. I didn't fancy seeing Christophe's face when he got the door open.

The door rattled when Christophe tried to turn the handle.

There was a thump as he put something down on the ground. The door rattled again, harder this time. I kept my eyes shut.

Bang. Rattle. Bang. Bang. Bang bang bang bang.

"I think the lock is broken," I heard him say, his voice quiet from behind the door. He seemed to be talking to someone. "Yes, it's jammed. Do you have a crowbar?"

"A crowbar?" inquired a quieter voice. The owner sounded bewildered. "What for?"

"Never mind," Christophe said. He stopped rattling the door. "I'd step over there if I were you. Send for the police. Tell them two prisoners of the Paris police department have escaped, and that Christophe Janvier needs immediate assistance."

Rapid footsteps, and then a sound like an explosion. I jerked to my feet, my whole body trembling from the shock, and Erik, who had leaped quickly away from the door before the bang, came to stand beside me.

"I forgot about the gun," he said, but I couldn't hear him at all. The room had fallen unnaturally silent; I could hear nothing. I blinked confusedly at him. What was he saying?

Erik shook his head in despair, pulled me towards the window, and shoved it open. Then he helped me onto the sill – I reached upward for the ledge above – and crawled through after me.

He had barely squeezed through when the dresser against the door shuddered, warning us of Christophe's imminent arrival. Erik kicked the window shut with his foot, clambered onto the ledge above us, and lifted me over. I wasn't tall enough to reach the ledge on my own.

We continued in this fashion for a few minutes longer, Erik pulling me up over ledges, me scrambling to my feet, before Christophe joined us on the side of the building. He was three or four stories down, but he looked down at the alleyway, and Erik and I had just enough time to climb over the side of the roof and vanish before the detective looked up.

I slipped immediately – the roof was slanted, and the black shingles that covered the top were as slick as if coated with oil. Erik snatched for my arm and missed.

His fingers brushed along the side of my forearm, and I toppled backwards.

Luckily for me, Erik's reflexes were superb from years of running along thin metal walkways – he reached again, so quickly he was really only a large black smudge on the edge of my vision, and caught hold of my wrist. His grip was strong: my wrist ached as he yanked me back onto my feet.

"Don't do that anymore," he gasped, tugging me with him to the top of the roof. I said nothing, only tried to remember how to use my lungs, clutching hard on his arm for support. My chest felt tight and useless.

"He's right behind us."

"We're faster," Erik snarled, dropping into a crouch and pulling me down with him. "We're going to slide down the roof and onto that one."

He was pointing at the building across from us: its roof lay just under the hotel's, providing us with a perfect landing. I looked at the shingle-covered slope we had to slip down to get to safe ground, and my stomach lurched.

"No, don't panic," he said, catching my wide-eyed gaze. "Here, I'll just pull you with me. Close your eyes."

"That – would – be worse," I gasped. "Just go. I'll be right behind you."

"You first," Erik said. "I think I can hear him coming."

I let go of his arm, took a quick breath, and stood. My feet instantly refused to obey me. One instant I was upright – the next, I was down on my bottom, sliding awkwardly over the rooftop, my skirts swirling up around me. Everything ached as I bounced away.

Then I slid completely off the roof, and dropped painfully onto the flat roof below. But I had landed on my feet.

Erik followed within seconds, more gracefully than I had done. I scrambled to the edge of this new rooftop and looked down at the street, gripping the stone wall for support.

"Busier down here," I said, raising my voice over the noise of the wind. Below the building ran a long street, packed with carts, carriages, and people. There were peddlers lined up and down along the boulevard, shouting their wares and prices as loudly as they could. Families passed, children skipping alongside their parents, holding hands. "We should try and vanish into the crowds."

"Easier said than done," Erik said, but he joined me at the edge of the roof. "You're right; it's our best plan. Look – a ladder."

He indicated the metal struts that ran down the side of the building. I hoisted myself onto the wall, turned around, gripping Erik's shoulder for support, and stepped onto the first rung. I had begun to step down to the second rung when there was a crack, and Erik threw himself to the ground.

He'd reached up and grabbed my shoulders as he fell – I fell on top of him, smacking my head against the stone wall.

Everything wavered into gray, then cleared. I sat up, struggling to get to my shaking, useless feet, and found that Christophe was standing on the opposite rooftop. He was pointing his gun at the man beneath me.

I reacted without forethought, turning and crouching over Erik to protect him, my hands fluttering over his body as though to keep him safe, to keep him still.

Erik was still, though, quite still, and nothing moved except for the silent rise and fall of his chest – and the blood blooming like a scarlet flower through his shirt.

For a long moment I didn't know what had happened.

Then I pressed my hands to the wound, praying that the pressure would somehow stop the blood. Christophe had shot him.

"Erik. Erik, can you hear me? Wake up, Erik. Talk to me."

I thought I saw him blink, but I wasn't sure. I pressed harder, leaning all my weight on his shoulder.

There was a rattle of shingles as Christophe slid down the roof behind me. "I'll summon a doctor for him, Mademoiselle. Kindly offer me your hands first."

I didn't listen to him. My hands were already dappling with blood. Erik's wound was severe.

"Find me a towel," I demanded. "Some kind of thick cloth. Now."

"I did tell you not to try to escape," Christophe said, his tone remonstrative. He crouched down next to me, produced a pair of handcuffs from his jacket, and snapped one of them around my right wrist. I ignored this.

"Give me your jacket."

"What?"

"Give it to me," I repeated. "Give it to me, or I promise I'll do everything in my power to ruin your investigation. Give it to me now."

"It's only a flesh wound," Christophe said, but he slid an arm out of his jacket and began to fumble with the other sleeve. "He won't die of it."

"I'll determine whether or not it's serious after I stop the bleeding. Thank you."

I took the jacket, folded it twice, and held it against the wound. Christophe sighed as the blood sank into the fine leather.

Erik's eyes fluttered open. "Irene?"

"I'm quite all right," I said, before he could ask. "How bad do you feel?"

"As if some incompetent detective shot me," Erik said. His eyes slid past me to Christophe. "I don't suppose you would have shot her too, if you'd missed me."

"I don't shoot women," Christophe said. "I'll take over now."

"No," I said. "I don't trust you. Go send for a doctor."

"I am clearly not going to leave you two alone up here," the undercover detective said, exasperated. "And there's nothing to handcuff you to." He produced a syringe from his pocket – my syringe – and held it under my nose. "Move aside."

"You may as well inject him with it," I said, indicating Erik with a nod, my hands still pressed against his shoulder, "because if you stick me with that needle, you'll have two bodies to move back into the hotel and everything will be twice as difficult. If you won't call a doctor, I will."

Christophe pulled the syringe away from me and put it back in his pocket before he spoke. "You promise not to run away?"

"I won't," I said, even as Erik's eyes found mine. I knew what he wanted me to do. "You have my fiancé. I'll be back as soon as I find a doctor."

Christophe sighed. "Then go. If you don't return within the hour, I'll drop him off the roof."

I blanched at this calm pronouncement. "What?"

"You heard me," the detective said. "Or I'll inject him with a lethal dose of sedatives. You have an hour. Go."

Erik's green eyes glared at me. Make a run for it, they said. Do it. Don't worry about me.

I glared back at him. I'm not leaving you.

"Go," Christophe said, unsnapping the handcuff from my wrist. "The doctor's in room 203."

I lurched to my feet, turned away from Erik's white, pleading, furious face, and ran for the hotel roof.

Five minutes later, a highly confused, half-awake doctor stumbled down the rooftop after me, his tousled white hair falling into his eyes.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," he was saying, as I slid down after him, my hands shaking. "I'm afraid I don't really know what you are trying to say. Where is the man? Who is he?"

"My fiancé," I babbled. "He's on the roof over there. He's bleeding from a gunshot wound in his shoulder. You have to help him."

"I'd love to," the doctor said, his voice high-pitched and warbling, "but I don't quite understand…"

His voice wavered away as he landed. Then he said faintly, "Oh. I see."

I slid down next to him, teetered for a moment, and managed to stay on my feet. The doctor strode away across the rooftop, crouched down next to Christophe (the undercover detective stood up and marched towards me) and set his black bag down on the rooftop. Erik turned his head toward me, and I looked down at my feet, unwilling to meet his gaze.

"You're coming with me," Christophe said, catching my arm in an iron grip and turning me around. "Walk."

I resisted, but I was no match for his strength. His muscles seemed to be carved from stone.

"Let me stay," I snapped, trying to pull away from him, but his fingers continued to cut into my arm. "I have to make sure he'll be all right."

"I've had enough of you ordering me around for one day," Christophe said, his tone sharp. "Hurry up."

He pushed me up onto the rooftop, shoving at my legs, and I crawled up the side of the roof, grimacing as the edges of the shingles cut through my skirts.

When I got to the top, I turned and looked down at the detective. He was still climbing up the side of the roof, turning slightly away from me as he glanced back at Erik and the doctor. There was a gap of two feet between this roof and Erik's, and the ground below was five stories away. All I had to do was push him, and we'd be free.

Just one small motion…

I only had to take one step, and lift my arm, and gently propel him forward.

My heart thudded painfully against my ribs, once, twice.

I bit my tongue.

And then I turned away, my whole body trembling at the thought of what I'd considered doing.

Christophe followed in a second's time, unaware that his life had been so close to flickering out completely, his hand resting casually on his gun.

He gestured for me to climb down first – I swallowed hard, put one foot down on the window ledge below, and began the long descent down the side of the hotel.

Christophe, with practiced skill, handcuffed me to the pipe under the sink in the bathroom, the pipe that was steel, and that was welded into the wall. I sat on the dirty wooden floor, my skirts already dampening with years of accumulated muck, my back against the porcelain toilet. Sweat lay wetly across my forehead. Christophe had opened the tiny, hand-size window above me, but the wind blowing through was the temperature of hot soup.

"There," he said, as he straightened up. "And hand over the lockpick, unless you'd rather have me search you."

"Erik has it," I said.

Christophe looked at me. His eyes were cool, calculating, exacting.

He nodded. "Good."

He blew out the candle next to the tiny mirror on the shelf, and the bathroom fell into murky darkness, unbroken except for the single patch of sunlight that lay across my bare, grimy toes. Christophe had taken my shoes as a deterrent in case I tried to escape again.

I closed my eyes, trying to remember if I still had my knife, or if I had let Erik borrow that too.

But then I heard the detective step away. "I'll come check on you in a few hours. Good afternoon, Mademoiselle."

My stomach growled plaintively as the door clicked shut. Neither Erik nor I had eaten since dinner last night. It was probably close to noon by now.

I wiggled my feet up under my skirts to protect them from sunburn and tucked an arm around my waist. The side of my head ached where I had hit it against the wall, and I was marginally sure my wrist was going to be ringed with bruises by nightfall. And Erik… his wound had been bleeding profusely.

For a long time, I sat there, staring blankly up at the ceiling, random terrified thoughts bubbling around in my head like some sort of awful witches' cauldron. The room grew hotter, and hotter, and hotter. Sweat dripped down my face and collected in the hollows of my shoulders; drenched my back and gathered in my skirts.

I leaned the side of my head against the stinking, burning wall next to the toilet, and let a few hot tears slip down my cheeks. We weren't getting out of this one, it seemed. Erik was wounded, and we were both exhausted, and the whole of Paris knew we were criminals. Christophe was a large barrier – we weren't getting away from him any time soon, and by then we'd be in Venice and completely lost. Neither Erik nor I had been there before in our whole lives; how could we escape from an undercover detective who didn't mind shooting people to keep them where he wanted them?

I closed my eyes against the depressing thoughts, swallowed away the tears, and concentrated on forming a plan.