"And food, too," she says, airily -- even if that food was off sometimes these days -- "so you see? I'm just complaining about nothing. Poor little Eponine, with a spooky bedroom. This place is spoiling me, I swear."

He's so gentle about his reassurance, though, and his regret so genuine and hesitating about what to her is simply a fact of life for years now. It's almost hard to listen to, tugging at something in her chest that she keeps locked away. In Paris no one looked twice at a couple of half-grown wraiths haunting the underside of a bridge, or if they did it was with distaste; their father would have just exclaimed at their chapped hands and frozen hair as fortuitously pitiful and sent them off to beg charity.

"You're a good man, monsieur Marcus," she says quietly, and leans up to kiss him on the cheek.