Marcus was slack-jawed, a lost expression on his shattered face.

In the end, Ash had no choice but to ask where the Firehorse lived. One glance at his office confirmed his aide had mountains of records. Somewhere in the pile was a log with Didier’s address, but he didn’t have time to look for it.

He had never been one for the little details. He left the minutia to others, and so was beholden to them.

Ash cleared his throat, reminding Marcus he was waiting for an answer. If he didn’t get moving, a fire could break out or a meteor could crash into his city.

Marcus blinked a few times, his voice distant. “Um, I think Didier still lives with his mother on Rue de la Santé.”

“In Klein’s district?”

Marcus nodded, looking down at his hands. “Do you really think it’s him?”

“It makes sense,” Ash muttered. “You praised him to me just the other day.”

His aide looked up a wrinkle between his pale brows. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll explain later,” he promised. “I need to find Didier now.”

Marcus jumped to his feet, touching his arm. “You’ll make sure first, won’t you? I mean, it could be someone else.”

Startled, Ash patted his aide’s hand. Contact—skin to skin—was considered a base indulgence to his kind. Marcus was scrupulously respectful, so he avoided it at all costs. Until today.

Ash nodded, his pity stirred. “I’ll make certain first,” he vowed.

It wasn’t a difficult promise to make. The curse rarely left them guessing.

* * *

Didier’s house in District Thirteen was a small but well-built thatch cottage. His mother was a widow with no other children. To make matters worse, she was mostly blind with severe cataracts.

“I haven’t seen my son today,” the woman lied.

Despite her infirmity, she looked hale and healthy, unlike so many others in this neighborhood. Her son had taken good care of her. Ash didn’t want to think about how she would fare without him.

“I need to speak with him.”

The woman felt around the kitchen table until her hand landed on the back of a rickety wire-frame chair. She sat down. “Is this about his work? Marcus was by the other night for the noon meal, and he was full of praise for Didier’s efforts.”

“I understand he’s doing well,” Ash confirmed. “But I think you know that is not the reason I’m here.”

The woman blinked her sightless eyes. Her face crumpled. “He’s a good boy. A son a mother could be proud of.”

The impulse to spare her feelings was strong, but he couldn’t lie. She had to prepare herself. “I’ve come to realize the curse only takes our best,” he said.

His words of comfort only made her sob louder. “Is there anyone else you can stay with?” he asked. “Someone no one here knows?”

Shaken, the woman wrung her hands. “Why?”

Because if the people learned Didier was a Firehorse, her neighbors would probably turn on her. Guilt by association. Ash could no longer trust in man’s better nature anymore…maybe he never could.

“If you don’t know of anyone who can take you in, go to Marcus. Do you know where he lives?”

“His quarters are in Belleville…with you.”

“Yes.” That was close enough. He lived in the top-floor apartment of a three-story building, while Marcus kept rooms on the bottom. None one lived in between. Didier’s mother could have one of those apartments.

“I don’t want to go,” she whispered, running her hands over the scarred table.

“It’s temporary,” Ash said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. “Take what you need for a few days. Maybe you will be able to return here soon.”

He couldn’t promise more. It was time for him to leave. He’d given Didier enough of a head start.

With a murmur of thanks, he departed, blotting out the woman’s suffering as soon as he exited the building.

Ash felt the chill autumn air rush around him. He embraced the cold, letting the icy touch freeze him inside and out. War is easier than this.

A sneaky little voice asked him why was he bothering anymore. For every Marcus and Didier, there were a dozen or so members of the mob or worse—a Titouan or Mazarin.

Forcing his feet to move, he breathed deeply of the tainted air. It tasted like grease, and not the good kind. He closed his eyes, aching for the fresh tang of clean mountain air and blue skies.

He frowned, looking back at the cottage as a thought struck him. The woman inside hadn’t been surprised to see him. Sure, she’d been upset, but not shocked. Almost as if someone had warned her he’d be coming.

Which meant Didier was aware he’d been cursed, and, somehow, he’d accepted it.

Most Firehorses were in denial even as entire buildings fell around them. And so far, only one disaster could be attributed to Didier. His sudden departure—his mother lying for him—was too strange.

Flexing his hamstrings and glutes, Ash crouched before launching himself into the air. He began to scan the neighborhood from above.

His eyes followed each male of Didier’s age and height, the few who were out at this hour. There was no sign of anything unusual until he flew higher.

There. A fast-moving pair was making its way up Boulevard Saint-Jacques. He recognized Didier’s sandy-blond head. The other figure was smaller and hooded. They rounded a pile of stones and dry brown shrubbery, disappearing from sight.

Mystified, he streaked down, landing a few paces from the stones. There was nothing behind them. It wasn’t until he pushed the dry branches aside that he saw the hole.

Ash curled up his wings, folding them so they tucked in and melded with his body. No longer encumbered by the huge appendages, he squeezed through the narrow opening, dropping lightly onto the ground below.

He made his way down the tunnel until it opened into a wider passage. He was in the catacombs, he realized with a start. The subtle glow of bleached bones was unmistakable to his superior night vision.

The network of tunnels and passages had run underneath most of pre-Collision Paris. When the cemeteries overflowed in the late-eighteenth century, people filled the spaces with the bones of their dead.

People had taken tours and snapped pictures, he remembered. Death was always fascinating when it wasn’t a part of everyday life.

But given the instability of the terrain in the last decade or so, this subterranean network was unofficially a no-man’s land now. No one in their right mind came here for fear of being buried in a cave-in. In fact, Ash would have bet most of the entrances to the underground network had been obliterated in this part of the city. A small quake near the Paris observatory a few years ago had done a lot of damage.

Except you never bothered to check.

A winking in and out of retreating torchlight ahead stopped his self-recrimination. The part of Ash that was created for battle rose to the surface, his every instinct sharpening for the hunt.

His feet pounded the dirt floor of the narrow passage. A blur of winking skulls laughed at him as he streaked past.

The noise of his pursuit alerted the people he was chasing. Ahead of him, footfalls sped up, but they were no match for his preternatural speed. He gained ground and was almost on them when they turned, banking left. Ash was forced to slow down as the tunnel narrowed unexpectedly.

Even without his wings, he could barely manage. His shoulders brushed the wall, their breadth dislodging femurs and rib bones in the skeleton-lined passage. Ash turned to his head, continuing to push forward in a crab-like crawl until he couldn’t anymore.

He was caught at a bottleneck, a space where the tunnel almost closed before opening wide into a small pocket cavern. At the opposite end, an arch was partially blocked by debris. The opening gap appeared too small for people. Nevertheless, his quarry was managing just fine.

“Go!” The hissed whisper rang in his ears with a strikingly high melodic tone.

The hooded one was female.

Ash squeezed past the constriction trapping him. He jumped, spreading his wings for a few heartbeats. His body sailed over the open space of the cavern. He landed on the opposite side with a thump.

Ash was too big to fit through the narrow arch, even turned on his side, but he’d managed to get one arm through. He was holding the cloth of a hoodie in his hand.

Someone screamed—Didier was shouting, but the hood Ash had grabbed hold of wasn’t the man’s. Ash had caught the female.

She twisted to face him, trying to wrench away from his grasp. It was the girl from Place Vendôme, the beauty who’d stopped his heart.

The wide brown eyes of his mystery woman were flecked with green and gold. They flared as the sound of her pounding pulse reverberated through his ears. For an instant, his heart and hers pulsed in unison until she wrenched away. He was left holding the discarded black sweatshirt. She’d sacrificed the garment to get away.

His last glimpse of her was of her wide eyes staring at him, fear shifting to confusion before she pivoted and fled, melting into the darkness.