Èponine shook her head, trying to eliminate the sinking feeling that she'd seen the young woman Marius had become enamored with a few moments before. It hit her like a bolt of lightning not a second later. "Cosette," she murmured. "Now I remember. Cosette—how could it be? We were children together. Look what's become of me."

Not a second too soon, Marius darted over, his chest heaving and his eyes full of love. She got the sudden urge to hide, to pretend she didn't see how he bumped into Cosette and how a fire lit in their souls, but he didn't even look at her. "Èponine, who was that girl?" he asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. It took everything in her to step away, a sad smile on her face. He would never be hers. If she wasn't certain of that before, she was now.

"Some bourgeois two-a-penny thing," she said, the words coming out with more scorn than she anticipated. She scolded herself. Cosette hadn't done anything to her but exist, and here she was insulting her. Ashamed, she quickened her pace, wondering what Marius would do if he knew what she was thinking.

Unfortunately, he didn't catch on, and darted after her like nothing was wrong. "Èponine, find her for me!" he pleaded, meeting her eyes. As hard as she tried, she couldn't tear her gaze away from him.

So, she resorted to teasing instead. With a little tilt of her head and a sly grin, she asked, "What will you give me?"

He hardly even smiled back as he said, "Anything!"

With a shrug, she said, "Got you all excited now, but God knows what you see in her. Ain't you all delighted now—" Marius cut her off by offering her a handful of silver coins. Èponine's face fell. "No, I don't want your money, sir." The added formality just served to distance herself from him as she tore away, wanting nothing more than to be out of Marius's company and alone with her thoughts for a few minutes.

He bounded along in her wake, catching hold of her arm right before she escaped his reach. She froze in her tracks, her eyes flashing from his hand to his face and back again, relishing in his closeness for a moment, pretending she didn't know that his thoughts were in a faraway house with a blonde angel rather than a brunette gamine. "Èponine," he begged, and she forced herself to look at him as if nothing was wrong. "Do this for me." Though it was less of a command and more of a request, she'd never been able to refuse him anything. "Discover where she lives. Be careful how you go. Don't let your father know. 'Ponine, I'm lost until she's found!"

Marius set off toward the Musain, and it was Èponine's turn to trail after him. She may have tried to leave several times during their conversation, but she wanted their time together to end on her terms, not his. After all, he was the one insisting that she find a mystery girl who, for all he knew, could be dangerous. "You see, I told you so. There's lots of things I know." Marius walked away, shaking his head and hiding a laugh. Though she knew he was no longer paying attention to her, she couldn't resist calling after him. "'Ponine, she knows her way around."

With that, Èponine headed back to the Gorbeau House, ignoring the sinking feeling in her chest as she grimaced at the dilapidated old building, wondering what fresh horrors awaited her when she returned to her room. The idea of Montparnasse leering at her sent an involuntary shudder through her body. Though she'd never been too religious, she sent up a silent prayer that her father and his "friends" had chosen somewhere else to plot their next crime, or at least that they wouldn't see her.

She cursed under her breath as she stepped into the apartment. At the small table in the center of the room sat her father, Montparnasse, Brujon, Babet, and Claquesous—a collection of her least favorite people. Her younger sister Azelma was huddled on her bed in the corner Èponine turned to go, deciding she could go without anything she needed, when a chair screamed across the old wooden floor, and her father stumbled over to her. "Well, look who's decided to come home," he slurred. Èponine staggered backward, cringing at the stink of alcohol on his breath. The men of the Patron-Minette laughed, and she set her jaw, a determined look in her eyes.

"Not now, Thenardier," she spat, pushing past him to where her sister sat. Azelma lit up at the sight of her. "Zel? Can you come with me?" she whispered, jerking her head toward the door. Anxious to be included in one of her sister's schemes, Azelma jumped to her feet and tore out into the hallway. Èponine (and an onslaught of comments by her father and his friends) followed, closing the door gently behind her. "Marius leaves a key to his room under the loose board right in front of his door—says I can use it whenever I need a bit of privacy, and he shouldn't be back for ages." She stepped on one end of one of the floorboards, and the other end sprung up with a creak. Sure enough, a tiny silver key glittered on the foundation beneath it. "Grab that for me, will you?" Azelma snatched it and handed it to Èponine, who promptly unlocked the door.

Marius's flat was nowhere near as dirty as the Thenardiers' even though they paid the same sum in rent each month, likely just because he cared more for his belongings than they did. Azelma flopped onto his bed, sighing at the feeling of a real mattress beneath her body rather than a pile of blankets, while Èponine sank into a threadbare armchair. "Were you with him today, 'Ponine?" Azelma asked, sitting up. "Is that why you didn't bring anything home?"

Èponine's face flushed. She wished she'd accepted the money he'd offered her as a cover story. "No!" she said quickly. Azelma's brow quirked up. "I wasn't, Z. I was at the demonstration outside Lamarque's house—thought I'd see what all the fuss was about."

"You mean the demonstration put on by the group of students your boy is part of?" Èponine bit her lip, scuffing her feet against the floor. "Gotcha. Father's going to be angry you didn't steal anything from him, you know. You've gotta get out of here."

Èponine nodded. "I've got an escape route planned. You, on the other hand, need to find one. If he finds out you were here and didn't bring anything back, he'll hurt you instead. Head to the Musain. Marius's friends are meeting there tonight, and I'm sure they'd let you sit in on a meeting just this once—"

"And where will you be?" Azelma demanded.

Èponine shrugged. "Not here, that's for sure. Rue Plumet maybe, there's some rich folks over there who could stand to part with a Louis or two."

"Running an errand for Marius?" His name came out in a teasing tone.

Another shrug. "Perhaps." But she couldn't disguise the little smile in her tone, and Azelma let out a little squeal.

"I knew it!" she shouted, jumping to her feet. Èponine shushed her, looking wildly from her sister to the room next door, where her father hopefully couldn't hear her through the painfully thin walls. "You love him!" Azelma took her sister's silence as a confirmation, and a devilish grin spread across her face. "And what's to stop me from telling him tonight?"

"The fact you know I could beat you in a fight with my eyes closed."

"That happened once, and I was twelve. I'm a lot scrappier now."

"Not much taller," Èponine said with a crooked grin.

"Shouldn't you be doing something right now?"

"Shouldn't you be going to the Musain right now?" Èponine parroted.

Azelma rolled her eyes, but got to her feet. "We'll still be here when your boy gets back if we carry on like this. Tell me everything tonight." With a quick kiss to her sister's cheek, Azelma flounced away in the direction of the Café Musain.

As much as she hated to admit it, her sister was right—she really did need to start trying to find Cosette's house. She slipped out of Marius's apartment, locking the door and stashing the key back under the floorboard. Then, she tiptoed down the stairs and out onto the street, only to find that while she was tormenting her sister, it had gotten dark.

Thankfully, she knew the way to Rue Plumet by heart after years of stealing. She tried not to think too much about how many people she'd robbed in her lifetime, but the memories flooded back to her as she walked. On her left, the place where she'd first met Montparnasse—but she preferred to forget that day altogether. On her right, the garden where she'd stolen a few wilting vegetables for Azelma's dinner, only to have most of them taken away by her parents. Memories she thought long lost to the sands of time flooded back to her, and she didn't know how to stop them. Èponine hated how much of her life had been spent sneaking through gates, but without that time, would she have her life at all? Her father had never hesitated to beat her when she didn't bring a pretty trinket or some money home for him, and she shuddered to think what would have happened to her if she refused to steal at all.

She was so lost in the flood of memories that she would have missed the large house with the sculpted iron gate had it not cast a shadow that blocked the moon, her only source of light. That had to be it. She didn't know of anyone wealthy enough to afford a home like that other than the man who took Cosette away. She crept toward it, cursing herself for being so head over heels for Marius that she was willing to trespass on the property of someone who definitely held at least a mild grudge against her for him.

A young girl stepped out of the house, blonde haired with shining blue eyes that were focused on nothing but the moon, singing quietly to herself. Èponine positioned herself behind a column, noting the house number on it. 55. Good. She finally had something to tell Marius.

She mustered the courage to peer around the column again. Was that Cosette? It had to be. Nobody else could go through what she did and come out singing. She sighed, taking in the way her perfect curls fell in a curtain down her back as she picked an assortment of pristine flowers, gathering them all in her hand.

"Alright, I've done my job. Best tell Marius I've found his beloved," she told herself, brushing her hands on her skirt. She bounded from shadow to shadow, careful not to let the light hit her.

But she must've been a bit careless, because right as she landed beneath a great tree, a voice, tremulous and sweet, called, "Hello? Who's there?"