A/N: Here we are again. Thanks again goes to Valiya, who betaed this chapter again and said she liked it :-D.

Equal thanks to judybear236 for her corrections!

Thanks also to frustratedstudent, who did not mind my borrowing a plotline of hers, that is opening up in the middle part of this chapter.

Last but not least thanks to all who reviewed, followed, liked, or whatever. It's truly nice to have your support and feedback on this journey.

In other news, I have put up a list of OCs for City of glass on my profile, if you lose track on all the foreign names, you're welcome to check there. I figured it is probably time for this, because the list of names and OCs is growing, and I only keep track by using a big table - which of course you don't have. So, I hope that helps. I'll try to keep it up-to-date.

Finally, I now got a tumblr account (spirit-of-dawn . tumblr . com), so if anyone wants, feel free to follow me there.

And now, have fun with the update!

Again: Comments are appreciated and will be responded to!

Chapter 18: The innkeeper's children

"The willow is deceptively strong. It bends, but it does not break. Its roots are deep and can withstand the worst storm. It promises rest, and shade, and cool breezes to those who would find rest beneath it."

Éponine entered her home as if entering a battle.

And it was quite possible that that was not too far from the truth.

The Gourbeau tenement swallowed her whole, with its smells and sounds, the odors of the cooking of today, yesterday and the days before. The quarreling of the various families that lived here mingled with less favourable stenches, but Éponine was long used to it and strolled towards the tiny apartment of her family without hesitation.

But that resolve was born rather of a stubbornness that was intrinsic to her. It refused to slow down in the face of something that should not be frightening or confusing to her at all.

Reality however, was different.

How much, she wondered, can one change in a day?

Returning home – for all the home that the Gorbeau tenement had ever been to her – brought into sharp relief that she was subtly not the same person that had set out yesterday in the morning to visit a market together with Marius Pontmercy.

Maybe it was the life threat she had since experienced which had brought this about.

However, if she was to be completely honest with herself, she would have thought that it had less to do with the hectic day she had. On the other hand, it had everything to do with a room full of friends, a strange, eternal friendship, and an elusive moment of belonging had crept upon her unawares.

And maybe, just maybe, with a wry smile and rueful gaze beneath those golden curls that did seem wondrous to her, a companionship that she would not trust yet, but was tempted to. It was easy to appreciate, but still foreign, if she was to be honest with herself.

All the same, this pensive mood was not productive when dealing with her mother.

She squared her shoulders as she entered their flat.

It was of course, a long shot from the beautiful house of the de Cambouts that she had been in, or from the comfortable, though not quite as luxurious lodgings of Enjolras and Courfeyrac.

Even Marius' hovel in the top floor of the tenement seemed more agreeable to her. But that might of course have been because it belonged to him.

And yet, the coldness that seemed to linger in the walls had never been quite as striking as this day.

But there was no time to ponder this. Her mother whirled around at her entrance.

She was larger than Éponine by almost a head, and even in the state of decay that they found themselves in carried probably twice the weight of her. Her hair had fallen into disarray, standing around her face in wild, unruly strands, only partially tamed by a bonnet that, a decade ago, probably had been white.

And she was not in a good mood.

"Where have you been?!"

Éponine did her best to shrug nonchalantly. Her mother obviously was on the lookout to take whatever anger she was harboring out on someone. There was nothing to do but ride it out – and give as much cover as possible.

She stayed where she was - two steps away from her - and eyed her warily.

One wrong step and she would be out the door in a blast.

"In hiding," she said. "The job went bad."

This did not do much to appease her mother, however.

"What happened?" she asked sharply.

"There was a woman in the house who heard them, and she screamed. Then the Cognes turned up and I ran."

"Stupid girl!" Her mother took one step towards her – Éponine took the same step back. "Weren't you there to watch out for them?"

"There were at least a dozen of them," Éponine gave back, not without bite. Actually, she was not sure how many there had been, but given the noise and the fact that they had taken down the whole of Patron-Minette and her father that was at least the number she had estimated. "What should I have done? Taken them down single-handedly?" She glared at her mother and hoped that she would not see that she was in fact, trembling.

One would have thought that the years would have made her used to it. But the tiny, stubborn reflex of the girl that had been a cherished daughter once that had been lavished with attention by her mother would not fully die down.

She could never get used to that frown on her face, the ever present scowl of fury that had come with the turn of the tide.

A meal missed she could take. But her mother missed was a different story.

Yet, it would not do to mourn over spilled milk.

"You could have done something," her mother hissed spitefully, but she did not come closer, and Éponine considered that a small grace.

"Right," she gave back, crossing her arms before her chest. "So I'm doing something now."

Her mother eyed her suspiciously.

"What d'ya mean?" she asked.

"I mean," Éponine answered, and let some of her anger creep into her voice. It was a bit of attitude that probably would not go amiss if she wanted to keep the situation in check. "...That I'll get them out one way or the other. I've been to la Force this morning to check out where they are. Now I'll get them out of there."

"You," her mother gave back distrustfully. And then, after a moment's consideration, "you've been to la Force? How did ya manage that?"

Éponine could not help for a small smile to creep on her face.

"I know my way around."

If she was successful, her father would tell her mother anyway. No need now bringing Enjolras into this complicated conversation. No need, in fact, to attract any more attention to him. The dealings of Patron-Minette were no idle game for the likes of him.

She decided to rather wait until the worst of the steam had blown off. The return of her husband would probably soothe her mother enough to drop the subject of how she came to get the help of the rebel leader.

Especially since she had no satisfactory explanation herself.

If worst came to worst, she could always claim several methods that might have secured her his help.

Most of them were ridiculous, knowing Enjolras, but Éponine did not think that her parents knew this. So, it probably would be enough.

"Ah." Her mother took half a step back and Éponine released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. Her posture was slightly less hostile. "So what will ya do?"

"Plan's still in the making." That at least was honest. "But I know how to get in, now. And that's half the job. Believe me. I'll find a way."

After another moment's hesitation – her mother trying to find reassurance or fault in the strength of her gaze, Éponine looking for the remnants of the loving mother in the creature before her – Madame Thénardier shrugged once more, and turned away.

"Fair enough," she commented and shuffled towards the window to look out. "There's some stew left. Take if ye want. 'Twas made for you all."

Her first reflex was to deny. Her mother's stews – while she knew how to cook – were usually fairly gruesome given the fact that she often had trouble assembling ingredients of even mediocre quality, and she still felt a remnant of the taste of the apple tartelette of this morning. It had been good – better than anything she had had in quite a while – and Éponine's pleasures were so far and in-between that she preferred to take them fully.

But it probably would have seemed odd to her mother, if she denied food.

And for a moment, Éponine thought that there was a dejected note in her mother's voice. Unbidden, an image came to mind of her mother as she cooked the meal with what she had been able to assemble, knowing that her husband and daughter would be hungry and tired. She would be hoping that they would bring home some booty to carry them during the next days.

Come to think of it, that stew was probably all they had had left; they had counted on an income from the Rue d'Olivel coup.

Sad – and angry at herself for being so – Éponine resigned herself to the concept of lunch.

It was not as bad as she had expected. It was still no comparison to the apple tartelette of course. However, she took the meal wondering wryly that it may have well been in Montfermeil when she had last been given so much food in so little time.

Well, she would count her blessings.

"Where's Azelma?" she asked when she had half finished her bowl.

"Out," her mother responded forbiddingly.

"Out where?" Éponine inquired.

Slowly, her mother turned again, and when their gazes met, the spite was back. Any pity, any feeling that Éponine had harbored, comfortably slid back under a façade of stone.

"Earning money, 'Ponine," she replied nastily. "As you should've done."

"Monsieur, a sou for a starving family."

It was a reflex like walking or breathing. Her body reacted mechanically, almost without her knowledge, without her control. She had done it so often before; all of it came naturally to her, the words, the tone, the hunched posture, the hands reaching up to the passers-by in a pitiful gesture.

In the beginning, it had made her feel terrible. She had not dared to talk to strangers in the road, had felt herself mocked and laughed at, had loathed the pity in their eyes.

She had feared to fall between the cracks, to be seized by an unforgiving soul who took her for the easy prey she was. She feared what begging might come to make of her, and what she would turn into.

But at the end of all this, it turned out that she feared the heavy hand of her father even more.

And so Azelma Thénardier – now Azelma Jondrette – had learned the rules of the trade. She had watched those around her and listened to the instructions of her father. She had found out that Éponine's way of begging was not for her, that the coy and clever words would not come as they would for her sister.

But she had gotten used to cowering on cold floors, back bent, head bowed – so conveniently she never had to look any of them in the face – arms raised to whatever benefactor came along her way.

And she had learned the words of her trade and repeated them until their meaning was lost to her and they were just another movement to fulfill.

"Please, a sou for a starving family."

Once she had started, her mind could drift. She was experienced enough so that her body went through the motions on its own while her mind was occupied elsewhere. She would – carefully, out of the corner of her eye – watch those around her, and dream. She would dream of another life, another world, of a paradise lost in the inn, dream of a place where she would be at peace.

It made begging bearable, somehow.

Barely so.

The entry of the Picpus cemetery was a good place to beg. The charity of people; this Azelma knew, increased in the presence of holy ground, but the downside was that this was a fact known by many.

The places around the cemetery entry were highly squabbled over, and it was not often that she managed to actually sit this close to the entry, at a good spot that she had secured herself because she was early. And because, after all this time, she was a known face.

She would not stand a chance if any of the beggars chose to really drive her away, but the one protection that Azelma could still count on was the word of Patron-Minette, and so she was left mostly in peace.

Little did they know.

"Please, a sou for a starving family…"

Some coins clattered on the floor, and as one of them came to lie close to Azelma – a centime as she quickly remarked - she quickly snatched and pocketed it before carefully peering through brown strands to see who the benefactor had been.

It was the monk again. Given that he presumably belonged to the cloister, he was on errands often. Azelma had seen him come and go lots of times, and he was generous. He was old already, but had a friendly face and had spoken to her a few times.

He seemed in a hurry.

But Azelma was not one to nose about in other peoples' business, and so she set about her trade again, her eyes trailing to the floor as she occupied herself with other things.

Her father and Éponine had not come home after this night's excursion, and this made her worried. This could only mean that something had gone awry.

Either they were hiding somewhere, or things were worse.

"Please, a sou for a starving family."

Azelma had no illusions about her worth to the family income. It had always been Éponine who was the brave one, the feisty one. She had a courage and daring that Azelma lacked. Of course, she had had her share of dealings with her father, but she knew that it was her sister who was cut out for this sort of duty, and her father knew it as well.

So she often stayed home – with her mother mostly – and helped her as much as she could. If not, she was left with the works that required neither daring nor skill – running errands and sitting here, begging for the crumbs off the tables of the rich.

She almost preferred it. As long as she was not home, things were not so tremendously bad.

Lost in her thoughts, the movement – the touch, surprised her completely and fully.

Something cold was being pressed into her hands – a coin. And there was a hand, carefully wrapping her fingers around the booty in a movement that shook her out of her dreams.

In a reflex she recoiled, her fingers closing firmly around the coin. Hastily, she brought some distance between her and her benefactor.

To be touched was never a promising thing. This was – and that was a golden rule that Éponine had hammered into her at every given opportunity – something that had to be avoided at all cost.

She stumbled back a bit and the connection was lost. Only then, beneath the tangled strands of her hair, she dared to take a quick look at whoever had approached her so.

It was a young man who was crouched before the place she had been sitting before. He was bourgeois clearly, in waistcoat and jacket, with dark, slightly unruly hair that fell to his neck in windswept waves.

He had kind eyes.

And currently wore a very stunned expression on his face.

For a moment, neither of them moved, and Azelma wondered if he could see that she was watching him. But after the first surprise had faded, he raised both his hands in a careful gesture of peace.

"I'm… sorry?"

He made it sound like a question and there was a stutter in his voice that she thought unusual for a bourgeois. Slowly, she turned back to face him fully, the movement chasing some of the errand strands from her face. She felt exposed, but she managed a small shake of her head.

"Why?" she asked the first thing that came to her mind, and she looked down at her hand to see what he had given her.

Five francs. A whole fortune.

Her eyes widened.

"Perhaps that is why."

She stared up at him, and he had lowered his hands again, now resting his elbows on his knees to obtain a better position when crouching.

She noticed there were inkstains on his fingers.

Nonetheless, his words made no sense. Belatedly, she frowned, and he averted his gaze, looked down to his hands in a gesture that she almost took for embarrassment.

"I was wondering how you would look smiling," he said. "Now I know."

Azelma squinted her eyes. Something about the way he said this made her uneasy. When begging turned into money for a smile, this usually did not bode well.

"Five francs for a smile?" she asked suspiciously, and he ruefully shook his head.

"No." He slowly raised his gaze from the pavement again to look at her slightly from below, not fully facing her. "Five francs to have you feel like smiling," he said. "That is different."

Azelma did not even pretend to understand, and he averted his eyes again, his cheeks speckled slightly red.

"I hoped it is enough for you to leave today and go home."

Azelma stared again at the five francs in her finger. It was. If she came home with this piece, her mother would at least be civil, and there would be time for rest, shelter, and dreams.

But only for today.

"But I will have to come back tomorrow, still."

She was not sure why she had said that. It sounded greedy. Her father probably would have been proud of her.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and the smile he gave her was slightly uncertain.

"I know," he admitted, and to her surprise, there was some kind of pain in his voice. "But today you are smiling."

"Why this kindness, Monsieur?"

He brought his hands together, rubbing them uncertainly, and as he opened his eyes again, Azelma was not sure what to make of the expression there. His gaze wandered over the assembly of beggars, over the cemetery walls, and then back to her. And for a moment, Azelma could have sworn that he was afraid.

"Because this is a city of glass, Mademoiselle," he replied enigmatically, as if he were confiding in her. "And sometimes it does well to remind us that we all share the same blood, the same breath. It reminds me of why…" and then he broke up, actually biting his lip as if to keep in words he would not have spoken. Azelma had grown out of this habit years ago. "…of who you are and could be," he finished finally. Azelma was certain that this was not what he had initially wanted to say. But his gaze had trailed away from her and he was getting up, giving her only a last quick glance.

"Thank you," he said before turning to join another man standing a few steps back. Azelma watched him go open mouthed, aghast at the fact that someone had just given her five francs and then would – of all things - thank her for it.

After having fulfilled his errand – Madame Alevesse had requested for him to bring a piece of paper with an order for the upcoming weekend to a butcher's shop – and getting away with not a sou, but instead a piece of sausage for his trouble, Gavroche set out to find his comrades.

It was much too late to be looking for them in the elephant – the sun told him that it must be around noon already, and they would be long up and about town. This of course, made it more difficult for Gavroche to locate them.

And yet, while all of them had turned princes of the streets in the course of their days together, Gavroche still was their king, and the quarter of Saint Michel was rightfully his. He was not fooled that easily.

Hitching a ride on the back of a carriage that was rolling northwards from Saint Michel, he started to check on the usual dwelling places of his friends.

At the Boulangerie Vescis, he found not his comrades from the elephant, but Navet, who was munching cheerfully on a piece of dark bread.

That was why they liked the vicinity of the Boulangerie and often lingered there – Madame Vescis had a soft spot for the children of the streets, and more often than not she handed out the stale bread she could not sell any more to them. They, in turn refrained from nicking her more high-quality pastries because they appreciated her kindness.

Better to steal from the hard-hearted; there were enough of them.

Gavroche hopped off the fiacre to greet his friend and exchange some gossip of the streets. Navet was in a gloomy mood despite the piece of bread. He had lately been sleeping in an abandoned apartment in a tenement in Saint Antoine, but now the room had been rented out again, and he was hence out of a lodging for the night.

Gavroche offered the elephant and Navet predictably refused. While Jean, Sylvain and Pucet who shared the dwelling with him were princes of the street, Navet was a king in his own right. He was equal and alike to Gavroche, and he would not give up this notion for the sake of a safe haven.

Gavroche understood this well and did not fault his friend for it. In any case, it was summer and the nights outside were warm enough. June was at the doorstep and Navet would find his own way.

"How are things, anyhow?" Gavroche asked and his comrade smirked joyfully.

"So caught up in your stuff that you didn't have time to listen up?" he taunted, but Gavroche was not to be baited so easily.

"Got places to be, things to do, you know."

"A lot of dead bodies, yesterday," Navet said. "Word is there was nasty knifework done."

"I'd know about that," Gavroche answered and shrugged. "I heard quite a lot of it. Not who it was, though."

Navet wolfed down the rest of his bread and sat down on a barrel that had not yet been moved inside the bakery.

"That's what everyone else has heard," he answered. "The big mystery all around. But peep your ears up and you'll hear all sorts of things. Folk tell tales."

"They always do that," Gavroche answered. "Any good?"

Navet grinned.

"Lots of good. We're young. We're supposed to like fairytales."

Gavroche grinned. It was amazing how sometimes grown-ups would behave like children.

"I see. Nothing new then."

Navet shrugged.

"I'm not sure. Disease is still spreading everywhere. Folks are getting pretty scared."

If he was honest, the disease was one of the things that scared Gavroche too. When it came to the normal dangers of the city – cutthroats, policemen, scoundrels, even the assassins that his friends currently dealt with, they did not scare him. Gavroche knew the city and its rules, and was not cowered by danger or malice. He was quick and agile, young and courageous, and thus well-equipped to survive the predator that was Paris these days. But the cholera – that was an enemy he neither could fight nor evade.

He saw its results every day, heard the whispers, felt the fear that was slowly gripping the quarters of the poor. It struck without warning and without explanation.

When it came to these high and mighty things, Gavroche knew he did not understand much. What he had learned the streets had taught him, and none of what his friends in the Musain were learning had anything to do with it.

Perhaps except for the fact that two weeks ago, Courfeyrac had actually shown him how to clean, load and fire a weapon. Finally. He had had to insist for about a month.

But that was beside the point.

Anyhow, he had listened to more than one discussion between Joly and Combeferre about the cholera, and while he did not understand half the words they were using, or half the arguments they were giving, one thing was as clear to him as a spring morning: they had no clue whatsoever.

Given the fact that they were two of the cleverest people he knew, and the only doctors he ever talked to, that had led to his firm belief that no one knew what to do about it.

Which was what scared him.

But he would not tell that to Navet.

"I guess they are," he answered lightly. "Why wouldn't they?" He clapped his hand on the other boy's shoulder in a gesture he had seen Courfeyrac use on some of Les Amis. "But I gotta run. Gotta check on the boys. I was out yesterday."

"Had things to do," Navet said, understanding. "Take care, eh?"

Gavroche nodded, and in the manner of seasoned warriors, they parted, knowing they would meet again in time.

He found them on the Quai de la Greve, jumping stones into the murky water of the Seine.

They were merry as morning larks, laughing and taunting one another, skipping and hopping on the currently deserted street. Gavroche, even though he would have violently denied it, felt a deep surge of relief.

They were as they always were.

Which was good.

It was Jean who spied him first and ran towards him, alerting the others to his presence.

The greeting was raucous. In the manner of pups greeting the eldest of their pack, or of children meeting their older brother, puffs and punches were exchanged until all of them were out of breath, laughing and thoroughly reacquainted with each other.

Gavroche had found the three – independently of one another – in various depths of trouble, and he had tried to help them out of it best he could. As a result, they had stuck to him, finding shelter in his elephant and becoming a sort of family, twisted and weird as it was. They were his little birds also, hustling through the city with eyes and ears open, and ever since there were four of them, there was so much more that Gavroche knew, and so much more that he could do.

Sylvain and Jean were both slightly younger than him; much less experienced when it came to the more sordid corners of Paris, while Pucet was little more than a baby, brave and funny. He was loved and cared for by them all, but still very much too small to fend for his own.

"How's the city?" Gavroche asked when they were finally sitting together, having taken up the previous occupation of filling the Seine with pebbles.

There was nothing new to be known from the boys apart from the fact, that they had obviously survived the night on their own unscathed. Jean, being the oldest, was actually boasting of having taken care of the younger ones 'just as you would have done' (which basically meant that he asked if they had eaten and what news there was to be had), but what was odd about the setup was not that he said this, but that Sylvain did not contradict him.

Of the three, Sylvain had always been the quietest one, being more thoughtful than courageous. Jean was rash, while Pucet, who was still little, still just a child, was still trying to find out how to live on the streets of Paris.

In spite of his quietness, there was a constant squabble between Jean and Sylvain for dominion in being second to Gavroche in their small group, and it was fairly unusual that the latter let this opportunity pass without so much as a blink.

Gavroche had learned to pay attention to the oddities of life and was thus instantly alarmed.

But it was not until two hours later, when he had sent Jean and Pucet away to the home of General Lamarque to find out if there was any news to be had (so that he could perhaps deliver this information to his friends tonight) that the opportunity presented itself to ask.

"Don't know what you mean," Sylvain said in the manner of a boy who knew exactly what the question given to him meant. Of course, Gavroche did not believe it.

"Come on," he therefore said. "Don't tell me nonsense. What's up? You're in trouble?"

"I can look out for myself!" Sylvain contradicted, showing a flare of spirit that spoke worlds of how Jean had recently often gotten the upper hand during their squabbles.

"No one said nothing against that," Gavroche soothed, throwing another pebble into the river. "Still. What's up? Come on. We're brothers; I won't tell Jean."

Sylvain stayed silent for a long moment before he threw another pebble into the Seine ferociously.

"I don't know," he said. "You promise you're not gonna be angry?"

Gavroche rolled his eyes.

"Sure."

"I may have done summat stupid. Especially with you being friends with the students and all."

That got Gavroche's attention immediately.

"Ever since that thing in Rue Saint Honoré…" by this he was referring to a particular incident. Gavroche had only narrowly bailed him out from a rally that was on the verge of taking in homeless children. It had cost him nearly all his savings to deflect the attention of the policemen – everyone knew about orphanages, and how they were horrible, "well, ever since then I've been looking for a way to repay you. Then turns up this guy. Says he has a thing to do for me."

That in itself was nothing unusual. All of them ran errands for small money. It was less dangerous than thieving.

"So I did. Told me to follow a few people. Tell him what they do. That sort of thing."

He fiddled with a hole in his trousers around the knee, and Gavroche had a dawning suspicion on where his young comrade was going. The errand in itself was not so unusual either – he had done that sort of thing himself numerous times, even for his friends from the Café Musain. But the expression on Sylvain's face told the whole story in just a few words.

"One of them turned up dead yesterday, right?" he concluded, and Sylvain nodded dejectedly.

"Yeah," he said. "Marcel Devereux. He's dead."

"I know," Gavroche answered, thinking it was ironic that this was the very sentence that had brought him into this whole, sordid story. "Yeah. I know."