XLIII

Bernadette had warned everyone about the deal Antoinette had managed to make with Prince Luka, which is why now everyone was waiting impatiently for him at the usual inn. Coline included.

The hours passed but there was no sign of Comrade ChatNoir.

By now it had become dark.

Adrien had been wandering the streets of Paris for hours now, at first crowded and then, as it got darker, less and less crowded. Now he was practically alone.

His hand was wrapped, in a couple of laps, in his yellow ribbon and he had been holding it tightly all day. He wanted to imprint it under his skin, that smooth fabric that he felt burning on him.

He had missed his city, even though he had only been locked in his cell for a few days. The aches in his bones and the still-burning wounds constantly reminded him of what he'd been through and that, if he could, he should be resting now to nurse and maybe even lick his heart wounds.

He kicked a rock in the street and it rolled him down the channel of the Seine, a twinge in his side took his breath away for a second.

Bad idea to make such reckless movements.

He resumed walking between the street lamps that barely illuminated the street. Someone was flickering.

The city was asleep, the streets were silent, broken only by the occasional cat or mouse rummaging through the dirt.

Every now and then a woman would come out of an alley and offer herself to him, sometimes a drunk man would stagger past.

But for him, the city slept.

Inside him, the pain of his violent abandonment made him perceive nothing but a sleeping city, which did not care about his steps, nor did he care about what was around him. Still, waiting in the dark night for a grace that would never come.

Lightning. Lightning was supposed to strike him.

He closed his eyes so he could see her. Only he had seen her smile for real. Could this possibly be his only victory?

She wouldn't have gone back on her feet anyway, she had already decided and explained her reasons to him.

And they were not just temporary decisions that could change, they were the ones that wrote the stories, they decreed the end. Walls that barred the way of a life and forced you to change direction.

He wished he had held on to her a little longer while they waited for the end, but instead she left and he panicked and ran after her, shouted at her not to leave. He had been pulled away by the guards while shouting at her that he loved her, that he would never stop thinking about her, even if she spent her nights with another man.

She hadn't even turned around; they had prevented him from doing so by forcibly taking her away.

And now he didn't even have the strength to change what was left of his life, it was only that love that gave him hope that he could fight.

She had run away from him that night in that clearing and now she had said a final goodbye.

She had made decisions for him about his damn life and now he didn't even have time to feel bad, he had to move on.

Life had given him few things, but of those few, none were like her, so what did he expect to find away from there? Of all the women he had had, maybe who had really loved him, he had only loved her.

Life might have told him stories, it might have told him others, he would only believe Antoinette.

The most wonderful story of all.

It was late but he didn't know where to go, he wanted to be alone and, above all, he didn't want to be locked inside four walls.

He kept walking but the fatigue and the pains all over his body were becoming more and more intrusive.

He wanted to continue to have the moonlight on him and the chorus of stars that kept him company, those nights locked in the cell had been torture, after all, he smiled when he thought about it, but he was still a black cat.

He found a bench overlooking the river and took the opportunity to rest his muscles. Could there be anything that could rest his soul?

How could he rest his soul and let them know it was over?

He looked at his hand with the ribbon.

No, it was crazy to accept those conditions. He would never leave for Provence, he just wanted to keep her quiet and not have to force her to lie again. She didn't have to know the truth either.

On the other hand, by accepting that pact he had given his friends the go-ahead, they would no longer look for them and they could lead a normal life.

But could he undo the deaths of two of her dear companions?

He was giving up.

What would Gerard do?

What was Edgar going to tell him?

He hadn't even had a chance to talk to their families, to apologize on their graves and beg for forgiveness that would only give him the illusion of having fixed something.

Dead for someone else's love, for someone else's dream.

He wanted to punch himself in the face, or have someone do it for him.

He got up from the bench and started walking again. There was only one place, in all of Paris, that was swarming with riffraff at that late hour, only one place, in all of the city, where a man could feel free to challenge the devil himself and have the presumption to win.

Montmartre.

That was where he would go. He'd get drunk, smoke some opium, find some woman he could confuse with her, and if it was his lucky night, he'd even find someone in a fighting mood.

Of course, walking up the mountain was an enterprise in his condition, but he would have done it anyway.

He would have loved that big-headed Baron with him. Who knows how he was doing. Sure enough, Bruno had retrieved him from the clearing and was now taking care of him.

Bruno...he wanted to tell him what an idiot he had been.

It took him a good hour but he finally reached the famous neighborhood of perdition.

In the distance he could also see the inimitable windmill.

They said that in a few years they would open a completely revolutionary bar there, but Adrien knew how things worked in his city, they would have let centuries go by, between permits and taxes and without the consent of the puritanical do-gooders who ruled the country. The king would never have allowed such an outrage in his capital, in the city where the sovereign lived with his entire family...and the delicate yet pure princess.

Pure... yeah.

Already having such a neighborhood was vile to the ruler and failing to demolish it was truly frustrating. A black spot in the Parisian nobility.

The cursed neighborhood.

He entered his favorite bar and found a place at the counter, between a drunk and a prostitute looking for dirty but easy money.

At that moment he remembered he didn't even have a franc in his pocket.

<< What will you have, sir? >>

Sir? To him? Reduced like that?

The guy at the counter was far too kind and patient, for the kind of clientele he had in front of him.

<< Give us two full glasses of dark, smooth rum, that's good, we'll finish it.>>

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned in the direction of the voice that had made those arrangements.

To his surprise, even if from the persuasive voice he had to expect it, he found Agnés at his side.

<< What are you doing here? >> The boy asked, happy to see a friendly face again, but without the voice or the facial expression giving it away.

<< Work matters. You? I heard from Bruno that you'd been put in.>> He positioned himself next to him, leaning his side against the counter.

<< I have a good guardian angel, it seems.>> He ironized, taking the glass cup from the shelf.

<> She imitated his gesture and with her head pointed out the bruises and scars on his arms, under the base of his neck and on his face.

<< Spoils of war? >> He asked, drinking the sweetish liquid in one go.

<> She said, sipping the rum.

<< Many would think of a draw, but yes, I feel like after a burning and painful defeat.>> He looked at her trying to understand if she could actually understand him.

<< Shall we take the bottle to our>> The woman asked, hinting at a mischievous smile.

No, maybe she didn't understand, but she still had the solution.

<< Lead the way.>>