Author's Note:Hey Guys. Got one more of my backlog chapters to post tomorrow then one chapter every week there after on Mondays. As always, thanks for reading.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Frollo's POV

  The Pace of Justice stood over Paris like a shadow. Bck and immense, its windows stared unblinking at the city, and the iron-studded doors never once admitted a sound from within. Tonight, in the hour after the debauchery of the Festival, the only thing that moved inside those walls was Cude Frollo.

  He walked the length of his study, the hem of his robe trailing behind in perfect, unbroken lines. Frollo kept his chambers hotter than the rest of the pace; he needed to, with the way the cold seemed to go after his bones in these te years. The firepce, fed with the best wood in Paris, cast a red glow across the stone and painted his silhouette on the ceiling. His shadow moved with him as he paced, always at his heels, taller and sharper with every circuit. His hands, white as a nun's thigh, worked the folds of his robe and then fttened against the small of his back as he walked.

  He had not slept. He could not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the bitch was there. The Romani woman with the eyes like poisoned gss and the body that burned through his eyelids. She had danced for the mob, yes, but she had danced for him. She had shown her tits and her thighs and the rolling hillocks of her ass to the whole city, and he had watched, and he had wanted. The sickness that had begun in his chest had moved lower, rooting in his belly and groin. He hated her for it. He hated himself more.

  Frollo stopped in front of the fire, gripping the mantle until the stone bit into his skin. The fmes blurred and doubled before him, shifting and twisting until they became the sway of her hips, the arch of her back as she bent low to gather coins from the stage. In the fire, she was always naked, always defiant, always turning to look over her shoulder and smirk at him as if she knew the exact effect she had on the Minister of Justice. He forced himself to stare into the hottest part of the bze, the blue-white at its heart, and see it for what it was: the heat of damnation. The proof that even a man as disciplined as himself could be reduced to a simpering, rutting beast by a single woman's body.

  He turned from the fire and crossed to his desk. The papers waiting there were neatly arranged—reports of the festival, names of those arrested or injured, a roster of the guards who had been on duty. He ignored them. Instead, he unlocked the drawer beneath the desk, his hands steady only by effort. The key was cold and heavy; he wore it on a chain next to the cross at his throat. Inside the drawer, beneath the folded linen and the Latin psalter, was the tool he needed.

  A leather strap, studded with iron. The iron was bck with old blood and years of use. He had made it himself, in the first year of his ministry, to be the instrument of his own salvation. He stripped the robe from his shoulders, let it fall heavy at his hips, and bared his back to the fire. The flesh there was a patchwork of lines: old scars, some white and thin, some puckered and thick, and fresh marks barely healed from the st time.

  He took the strap in both hands, raised it overhead, and brought it down.

  The first blow was a shock. The skin broke open again, the iron points finding the same pces as always. The pain was nothing compared to the shame that boiled inside him, but it was something. It was a start. He swung again, harder. The flesh parted and bled, and he grunted, the sound small and swallowed by the fire. He remembered her, the way her skirt had fallen away from her body, the way her nipples had been dark under the white of her blouse, the way the muscle of her leg had jumped when she twirled. He swung the strap. He swung it until the vision blurred and his breath became ragged and he could not tell if the wetness running down his back was sweat or blood.

  With each blow, he prayed. "Deliver me from temptation," he said, voice raw. "Purge this corruption from my soul." He swung, and the fire fred. "Make me clean. Make me pure. Make me—"

  She was there again, behind his eyelids, licking her lips and smiling as if she had never known fear in her life.

  He dropped the strap. It hit the desk with a wet sp. He braced himself against the chair, breathing hard, willing the image to go away, but it didn't. The pain was supposed to drive out the desire, but it never worked, not really. Not when the thing he wanted was still out there in the city, sleeping off her wine and her victory, her cunt as hot and alive as the fire in his own hearth.

  He leaned into the chair and let his head drop, sweat dripping from his nose. Beneath the pain, there was only heat, only hunger. He hated it. Hated how every fiber in his body wanted to rut and fuck and eat her alive, when he knew—knew with every inch of his mind—that she was filth. Her people were filth. They had stolen from the city since before he was born, spreading their lies and their disease and their godless pleasures wherever they went. He had sworn, years ago, to cleanse Paris of their taint. But now the taint was inside him, a fever that would not burn itself out.

  A knock came at the door.

  He drew the robe back over his shoulders, ignoring the sticky warmth of the blood as it soaked the fine bck wool. He smoothed the front of the garment, retied the sash, and only then allowed himself to answer.

  Laurent waited in the corridor. The lieutenant's left arm was in a sling, the sleeve of his uniform cut away to make room for the bandages. His face was as impassive as ever, the pale eyes giving away nothing.

  "Minister," Laurent said, bowing his head by exactly the right fraction.

  "Speak," Frollo commanded.

  "The dancer," Laurent said, and the words struck like a bell. "She cimed sanctuary in the cathedral just before midnight. We pursued her, but she crossed the threshold. She cannot be touched without viotion of canon w."

  Frollo's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. It took two tries before he could answer.

  "Notre Dame?" He almost spat the words.

  "Yes, Minister."

  He wanted to scream. Wanted to run the length of the hall and hurl himself from the tower. Instead, he fixed Laurent with a gre and said, "And the guard? What of the captain?"

  Laurent hesitated. "There were… scuffles in the square. Captain Phoebus de Valois attempted to intervene. He is unhurt, but the crowd…" He trailed off.

  "Out with it, Laurent."

  "Some of the men are demoralized, Minister. They were not prepared for the size of the mob. The bells were…" Another hesitation, this one so small it would have been missed by anyone but Frollo. "The bell ringer assisted the dancer in her escape."

  Frollo ughed. It was a dry, joyless sound, more cough than mirth. "So," he said. "The monster saves the witch. Paris writes its own parable."

  Laurent waited, hands folded. His gaze was focused on the wall behind Frollo, as if studying a crack in the stone.

  "Leave me," Frollo said.

  Laurent bowed, retreated without another word.

  The door shut with a soft thump.

  Frollo turned to the fire again. He touched his hand to the back of his neck and came away sticky with blood. He squeezed the nape, let the pain center him.

  The girl was in Notre Dame. His Notre Dame. The pce he had built his life around, the pce that kept him holy and pure and above the muck of the city. She was there now, a stain in the heart of his sanctum, and he could do nothing. Not without breaking the very ws he enforced. Not without losing the st cim he had to righteousness.

  He thought of her lying on the stone, her bare legs spyed, her face turned up in mocking ecstasy. He thought of the tambourines she had used as she danced, the way their voices echoed the throb in his own veins. He thought of the fire, and the strap, and the blood, and none of it was enough.

  He crossed to the desk, dipped a pen in the ink, and began to write.

  He wrote orders. He wrote edicts. He wrote the nguage of power. Patrols were to be doubled in the Romani districts. Any person found associating with the dancers or the beggars was to be detained for questioning. Property was to be seized. Resistance was to be met with force. He signed each page with a flourish, sealing the fate of hundreds without a tremor in his hand.

  If he could not excise the evil within himself, he would burn it out of the world. If the bitch wanted sanctuary, she would find her world colpsing around her. He would turn the city into a crucible, and she would be purified or destroyed.

  He worked through half the night. The pain in his back dulled, but the heat in his groin never faded. He ignored it. He focused on the ink, the paper, the means to cleanse his own soul by fire and blood.

  When he finished, Frollo stood, rolled his shoulders, and felt the skin of his back crack and stick to the inside of his robe.

  He smiled. The city was his. The fire would spread.

  And by the time the sun rose, the girl would know that there was nowhere left to hide. But first he would join Phoebus to see about getting inside Notre Dame.

  ……

  Quasimodo's POV

  The passage behind the sacristy wasn't on any of the pns, not even the ones that Quasimodo had stolen from Frollo's desk and hidden beneath his straw mattress for a year. It was one of the thousand secret veins that ran through Notre Dame, a line of darkness wedged between the weight of the stone and the rot of the wood, just wide enough for a grown man if he twisted the right way. Quasimodo had found it when he was seven, lost and shivering in the aftermath of his first beating, and he'd learned every inch of it by touch.

  Now, he walked the passage with Esmeralda behind him, her breath warm on the nape of his neck. They had to move single file, her body so close that if he stopped too fast, she'd collide with the hump of his back. He tried not to think about that. Tried not to think about the way her scent; jasmine, smoke, a faint undertone of blood—mixed with the dust and lime in the air. He tried not to think about anything but the feel of the wall under his left hand and the precise count of every step.

  But the thought of her was a river, and it flooded everything.

  When they reached the first bend, she put her hand on his shoulder for bance. Just a light touch, barely there, but the heat of it ran through him like a wire. He flinched, and then hated himself for flinching. He was stronger than this. He was made for stone and silence, not for the touch of a woman.

  At the next turn, the passage narrowed even more. The stone was slick with condensation, and the footing went treacherous. Esmeralda slipped, barely a sound, but he felt her body press against his back. Her front to his back, her hands on his hips to steady herself, her breath in his ear.

  "Sorry," she whispered, and the word vibrated against his spine.

  He moved faster, desperate to outrun the pounding in his chest. He took the left fork at the old wooden support and climbed the six steps to the grating behind the choir. Through the sts, the morning sun threw blue and green shadows from the stained gss. Down in the nave, priests moved in pairs, swinging censers and chanting the first prayers of the day. Their voices rose up and up, echoing against the vaults, and for a moment Quasimodo felt the old tug: the need to join, to belong, to be part of something bigger than the ugly sack of meat and bone that was his body.

  He gnced back. Esmeralda's face was ghostly in the half-light, her lips parted, her eyes fixed on the py of color on the floor below.

  "Pretty," she said. "Almost makes you forget how many bones are under all that stone."

  Quasimodo nodded. "There are bones everywhere, down here. All the old bishops. Some of them didn't even get coffins. Just a hole and lime."

  "Charming," she said, but she didn't sound scared. Just… awake and alert.

  They moved on, down the spiral that led to the crypt. The air turned colder, and the smell shifted—less dust, and more decay. Quasimodo liked it better here; the bones were honest, the stone didn't pretend to be anything but what it was. The walls narrowed again, and she had to press closer, her body a ribbon of warmth in the corridor's chill.

  "Why so many secret passages?" she asked, her voice hushed.

  "For the priests. For hiding. For escaping if the people get angry." He hesitated, then added, "Quasimodo uses them to not be seen. It's better."

  "Better for who?"

  He shrugged. "People come to pray. They don't want to see a monster."

  She didn't answer right away, and the silence stretched. They reached the far end of the passage, where a heavy tapestry hid the exit. He moved it aside for her.

  "You're not a monster," Esmeralda said, and her voice didn't shake. "Not even close."

  He didn't know what to say to that, so he grunted and ducked his head, leading her through the next corridor. This one let out behind the altar, in the shadow of a statue of Saint Denis holding his own severed head. The priest at the altar didn't see them, so they slipped past, across the chancel and into the storage rooms that lined the back of the cathedral.

  Quasimodo opened the door to the st supply closet on the right. It was barely big enough for the two of them, and the only light came from a slit window high above. The smell was old wax, mildew, and a faint overy of incense that had worked itself into the mortar over centuries. Against the far wall, a row of white robes hung on hooks.

  "They're for the choirboys," he expined. "No one looks at the choirboys."

  She studied the robes, then took one down and held it in front of her. It was long enough to touch the floor, the arms wide and loose, the hem frayed from years of use.

  She looked up at him, then started to drop her skirt.

  He turned, quickly, his face going hot. He listened to the rustle of fabric, the scrape of her boots as she kicked them off, the soft grunt as she pulled the robe over her head. He could picture it. He could picture it too well: the line of her waist, the heavy sway of her breasts, the curve of her hips as she stepped out of the ruined festival skirt. He had seen statues with those shapes, paintings of women with impossible bodies, but this was different. This was real, and it was happening behind him, and he could smell her more clearly than ever: sweet, sharp, alive.

  "You can look now," she said.

  He did. The robe hung on her strangely, the shoulders too broad, the fabric pooling at her feet, but it hid everything that needed hiding. Her hair was tucked under the cap, and she had used the back of her hand to smudge dust across her cheeks, dulling the gold of her skin.

  He almost didn't recognize her.

  "You look…" He searched for the word. "Small."

  She grinned. "Good. Small means invisible, and invisible means alive."

  He led her through the st stretch, the passage that opened onto a narrow alley behind the cathedral. The stones were slick with moss, and the morning sun had barely reached the street. The city was waking up: market carts bumping over the cobbles, the distant cng of a bcksmith's hammer, the barking of dogs.

  He hesitated. This was the farthest he'd ever taken anyone. Even Frollo had never come this way.

  "Where will you go?" he asked.

  She shrugged. "The Court. Clopin will know what to do. But I'll need to y low until the guards get bored."

  He nodded. "They won't get bored. Frollo is… angry."

  "Let him be angry," she said. "You saved my life. Twice now."

  She reached for his hand, and the touch was electric. Her fingers were so small, so warm, the pressure gentle but certain. She held on, just for a moment, and he felt the world pivot on the axis of that contact.

  "Thank you," she said. "For everything."

  He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry. He managed a nod.

  She squeezed his hand, then let go. She stepped out into the street, just another choirboy on an early morning errand, and vanished into the city.

  He stood in the doorway long after she was gone. His hand burned with the memory of her touch. When the cold finally drove him back inside, he leaned against the wall and looked at his palm, turning it over and over as if it might tell him what to do next.

  He didn't know what to do. He only knew that tonight, the bells would sound different.

  And that when Frollo came, he would have to lie.

  ……

  Quasimodo could tell it was Frollo by the footsteps alone.

  The bell tower made every sound a story; some footsteps rang with authority, some hesitated, some skittered like rats. But Frollo's always nded in perfect rhythm. Even now, at the end of a day that had left his own hands trembling and raw, Quasimodo could count the steps up the spiral—eighty-four, ninety, a hundred—and know exactly when his master would appear.

  He had minutes. Less, maybe, if Frollo was in one of his moods. The kind where his voice turned to ice and his eyes lost all color.

  Quasimodo swept his nest with his good arm, gathering up the choir robe Esmeralda had left behind. He shoved it deep under the straw, beneath the splinters of old wood, beside his carved miniature city. He wiped his hands on his tunic, which was already filthy, but the action calmed him. He tried to make his face bnk, tried to arrange his mouth into the sck-jawed obedience Frollo liked to see, but his heart was a bell, pounding against the cage of his chest.

  The door opened. It was always so much softer than Quasimodo expected, as if Frollo could command even the hinges to silence.

  Frollo entered, moving not like a man but like a knife. His bck robe was immacute, falling in clean lines to his ankles, the purple trim vivid in the ntern light. His silver hair, usually slicked tight to his scalp, had come loose at the temples, and a single lock drifted across his brow. His eyes—pale, pale blue—burned with something hotter than any of Quasimodo's fires.

  He didn't speak right away. Instead, he moved around the room, his hands ced behind his back, examining the bells as if he might find something out of pce. He touched the rim of Gabriel, the bell that always mourned. He picked up a half-finished carving, turned it in his fingers, and set it down again.

  Quasimodo dropped to his knees. He didn't know why, only that his legs folded without asking, the way a dog's might when its owner came near.

  Frollo stopped in front of him. He looked down at Quasimodo's bowed head, the hunched left shoulder, the mess of red hair.

  "The dancer," Frollo said, voice smooth as wax. "The Gypsy who disgraced herself at the festival. She cimed sanctuary in my cathedral st night."

  Quasimodo said, "Yes, Master." He kept his voice even, letting it fall from his lips like stones.

  "You've been here all day." Frollo's voice didn't rise, but it didn't need to. "Have you seen her?"

  Quasimodo's throat closed. The lie was a thing with teeth, and it bit as it crawled up from his chest.

  "No, Master."

  A small silence. Then, "You're certain?"

  He nodded, eyes fixed on the floor.

  "She hasn't come to the bell tower? Hasn't asked for your help?"

  "No, Master. No one comes here except you." It was almost true, and that made it worse.

  Frollo crouched, the robe spreading around him like an oil slick. He took Quasimodo's chin between two fingers, the grip gentle but absolute. He turned Quasimodo's head, left, then right, as if inspecting for fws.

  "She's dangerous, Quasimodo." Frollo's voice dropped, intimate, as if sharing a secret. "She's a witch. A seductress. She will use any means to corrupt the souls of men. Even looking at her is a sin." He let the words linger, cold and heavy. "Even thinking about her—"

  He cut himself off. The pressure on Quasimodo's chin increased, the fingers digging in just enough to hurt. Then Frollo let go and rose, looming.

  "If you see her, you will tell me. Immediately. You will not speak to her. You will not help her. You will not look at her. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, Master."

  Frollo lingered a moment more, as if waiting for Quasimodo to break. When he didn't, Frollo turned and left, the door clicking shut behind him.

  Quasimodo stayed kneeling until he was sure Frollo had reached the bottom of the stairs. He listened to the footsteps recede, waited for the silence to settle. Only then did he move, crawling back to his nest, his breath coming in hot, ragged bursts.

  He had lied.

  For the first time in his life, he had looked into Frollo's face and spoken a lie.

  The taste of it was like blood in his mouth. His hands shook. His whole body shook. He wanted to be sick, or to cry, or to throw himself from the parapet, but instead he just sat in the straw, staring at the wall, trying to understand what he'd done.

  He thought he should be afraid. He thought he should hate himself. But the fear didn't come, and neither did the hatred. Instead, a strange lightness filled his chest, like he'd swallowed a fme and it was burning a new space inside him.

  He pulled the choir robe out from under the straw. It was soft, much softer than anything he owned. He pressed it to his face, inhaling the scent of her; smoke, jasmine, sweat, and a trace of blood. His heart sped up. His body responded before his mind could catch up: his cock swelled, huge and hot beneath his tunic, the ache so intense he bit down on a moan.

  He dropped the robe and buried his hands in the straw. He didn't want this. He didn't want to want this. But he couldn't stop the memories—the way her hair caught the light, the impossible swing of her thick ass as she climbed the stairs ahead of him, the heat of her breath on his neck, the exact, perfect weight of her hand on his shoulder.

  He reached for the ribbon. The red one with gold at the edges, the one she'd worn in her hair, the one she'd left behind without a word. He brought it to his lips, then to his nose, then just held it, tight, as if he could squeeze the memory out of it like juice from an orange.

  He was so hard it hurt. The shame was there, circling, Frollo's voice muttering that this was filth, that his flesh was a curse, that desire was proof of his monstrosity. But beneath the shame, or beside it, or wrapped up with it like the stripes on a barber's pole, there was something new.

  Hope.

  He climbed. Not the stairs but the walls. He pulled himself up, hand over hand, past the bells, past the belfry, out onto the narrow ledge where the gargoyles sat in judgment over the city.

  They were waiting for him.

  "About time," Laverne said, her stone mouth not quite moving but her voice alive in his skull. "I was starting to think you'd gotten stuck in the straw again."

  He ignored her, settling himself between her and Victor, his favorite spot. Hugo dangled his feet off the edge, leering at the world below.

  "Look at the sunrise," Victor said, in that pompous tone he always used when he wanted to sound wise. "The light on the river. The shadows of the bridges. It's quite sublime."

  "It's a mess," said Hugo. "Half the city's already drunk, and the sun's barely up."

  Laverne smacked Hugo's shoulder. "He's not here to watch the sunrise, idiots. He's here to talk about the girl."

  They all looked at him, or as much as stone faces could.

  He clutched the ribbon in his fist, not ready to speak.

  Laverne sighed. "She's got you bad, doesn't she?"

  "She is quite attractive," Victor observed. "In accordance with the accepted standards of beauty, her—"

  "She's got a great rack," Hugo interrupted. "And an ass you could use to batter down a door."

  Quasimodo hunched his shoulders, wishing he could disappear.

  "I don't understand," he said. "Why do I… want her? Why does it hurt when I think about her?"

  Laverne's face softened, lines of lichen and moss forming a kind of smile. "You're in love, darling. Or at least in lust. It's hard to tell the difference at first."

  "But I'm—" He gestured at his face, at the lump of his spine, at the mess of scars and muscle and ugliness that was his body.

  "You're alive," Laverne said. "That's all it takes."

  Victor leaned in, as if confiding a secret. "You know, twenty years of ringing bells has given you quite the physique. The idealized male form. It's just… unexpected, given the rest of you."

  "Yeah," Hugo added. "You're built like a fortress. If a girl likes strength, you're an entire battalion."

  Quasimodo snorted, a ugh escaping before he could stop it.

  "She could never want someone like me," he said, and meant it.

  "She cleaned your face," said Hugo. "She touched you. She left you a gift. That's more than most get."

  He looked at the ribbon, the fine gold threads catching the sunrise. "What should I do?"

  Laverne patted his massive forearm with her stone hand. "Stop listening to the old man who raised you. Listen to yourself. Listen to what you want. You won't get many chances, boy."

  He stayed with them, watching the city come to life, the ribbon still clutched in his hand.

  When he went back to his nest, he y down and held the ribbon to his chest. He closed his eyes. For the first time, he let himself imagine; not just the way she looked, but the way she might look at him.

  He fell asleep, the echo of hope still ringing.