The corridor Uncle Richard took us to was filled with cells, and I could count exactly how many were occupied.

I shivered, unsure if I did so because of the figurative or literal coldness of the space around me. Harsh fluorescent light illuminated a grey floor and equally grey doors, the walls a depressing drab colour. Uncle Richard obviously never bothered to vacuum; the dust in the air tickled my nose and drew a sneeze out of me, the sound of it echoing in the quiet.

Though most doors I could see were open or hanging ajar, allowing for quick glimpses inside empty cells, I knew there had to be people behind the ones closed and locked. If I strained to hear it, I could catch snippets of muffled conversation through the soundproofing.

"We do not have many prisoners." Uncle Richard's eyes swept around the corridor as if he, too, saw all this for the first time. "Maybe five hundred in bad times, at most."

Considering that the necropolis' population, according to Béatrice, exceeded a million, that indeed didn't seem like a lot. But still too many people for one guard to handle. "And you take care of them all by yourself?"

"I do not need to do that. Take care of them." Richard cackled, his hyena laugh reverberating even longer than my sneeze. "The dead, they need nothing. No sleep. No food. No doctors. When the prisoners arrive to... purgent leurs peines..."

"Serve their sentences," Luc translated for me in a whisper.

"...they go inside their cell," Richard continued, conjuring up a keyring from inside the shabby jacket he wore. The metal jingled playfully. "They go inside, and I lock the door, and they stay where they are. I do not open the door after that. Only when they get a cell companion or when they are liberated."

I glanced at the variety of closed doors I could see, pity surging through me. I didn't know how long a prison sentence of, say, a year, would feel if I knew I had eternity still ahead of me; perhaps it would breeze by in the blink of an eye somehow.

But the thought of being forced to sit inside a tiny cell all day, cooped up with a cellmate I might not even like, with entertainment and true privacy both scarce, still made me recoil in horror. Having to stay in my house during the COVID pandemic had been bad enough (and I enjoyed staying inside), but something like that would probably drive me crazy within a week.

"Isn't that inhumane?" The look Luc gave his uncle showed clear unease. "They can't even get some fresh air outside every once in a while? That's terribly harsh."

"Nobody forced them to commit crimes," Richard replied, unperturbed and almost robotic, as if someone had hammered the phrase into his head so he wouldn't forget. "They get what they deserve. It is harsh. Prison has to be undesirable. It has to make persons want to stay away. Otherwise, too many prisoners. But we do not have many now."

I understood that prison was supposed to be a punishment, that a stay in a correctional facility wasn't meant to be a vacation in Paradise. But I still thought prisoners ought to be treated with more decency than this. "Who came up with this policy?"

"The City Council. An idea of Madame Heloise." Uncle Richard grinned. "Smart for a woman, I did say."

"So you use fear of prison to keep people in line," Luc thought out loud, still uneasy. "And you say it works, but not always, does it? Because there's going to be people who won't be deterred by fear alone, and you're not actually rehabilitating anyone here. If someone just keeps getting in trouble, ending up in jail and not giving a damn, then what do you even do? Lock them up forever?"

"Three times in prison, that is the maximum," Uncle Richard explained with a grimace. "After three times, it is rare a prisoner gets another chance. Ordinarily, they are forced to enter Père-Lachaise and disappear. I do not know where they go. And I do not want to discover."

The dead equivalent of a death sentence. I'd have laughed if it didn't disturb me so much. "That's brutal," I commented, swallowing more exhaustive criticism; I wanted to remain on Uncle Richard's good side, and with his clunky English, I wasn't sure how much of what I could say he'd truly understand. In fact, I wasn't even sure he'd care to listen.

"But that assures the security of the city and its habitants." This, too, Richard announced like he'd rehearsed the French equivalent in his head far too often. He veered left, heading for one of the open cell doors. "Come, see. These cells are not very bad. There has actually been a renovation a few years earlier in your Paris."

Luc managed to shake off some of his discomfort, curiosity compelling him to trail after his great-granduncle. I followed suit, watching both of their backs, curious myself as well, even though my wariness increased little by little. I didn't know if the gloominess of this place or the grim facts I just learned did the trick, but I knew for certain I'd only feel happiness and relaxation again when I'd left this prison and the man who ran it far behind me.

"Doesn't anyone ever try to escape, Uncle Richard?" I asked. "Or try to help someone else do it? It's not too hard for an outsider to get in here. We walked in with ease, and you're here all by yourself."

Uncle Richard never broke his stride, but he did briefly regard me as if I'd grown a second head. "Why escape? Where would they go? There is nothing beyond the necropolis. A prisoner can only hide. Hide until the forces of the law find them and return them. Escape would only add time to their prison stay."

When Luc and I had first come to the necropolis, I'd thought it wonderful, a picture-perfect place. And it was. It was all those things and more; I believed that even now. But under that veneer of marvelousness loomed realities darker than black.

In a way, the whole city was a prison in and of itself.

I shuddered.

We reached a cell; Uncle Richard opened the door further so we could look inside. Luc, who'd clearly never been close to a real prison cell, gaped at it. "Woah. This is just like in The Shawshank Redemption."

I'd seen The Shawshank Redemption, too, and this cell looked like one of the old-timey cells in that movie only insofar as baguette rhymed with dead. But I bit back my not exactly and took it all in alongside Luc.

The cell was cramped and narrow, as dusty as the rest of the place, and smelled staler than my grandparents' basement. It contained a window too high up for me to catch a glimpse of the city outside, a rickety bunkbed, a sink, a toilet and a small wardrobe. On a little table that just barely still fit inside lay a modest pile of books, providing at least some entertainment for those forced to stay here for an extended period. Glued to some of the walls were sketches, pictures and a variety of magazine cutouts: celebrities, sports cars, scantily-clad people and a few Anime-style characters.

"Dude, no way." Luc wandered into the cell, apparently drawn in by these wall decorations while I lingered by the door with Uncle Richard. "Don't tell me somebody put up decorations of catgirls in afterlife prison. Are there catboys, too?"

Uncle Richard sent him a look even more weirded out than the one I'd received. "Cat... boys?"

"You don't really want to know," I replied absent-mindedly. In truth, dread coiled around my stomach the moment Luc set foot in that prison cell, but I hadn't yet put my finger on the precise reason for it. Maybe it was because La Santé's vibes were so awful. Maybe it was that we'd already been through a lot of surprising scares tonight and my nervous system anticipated more. Maybe it was because Uncle Richard, friendly or not, smelled like alcohol, because he was toying with his keyring and gripping the door tight, because he chose to waste his afterlife guarding this horrid prison all alone and I still didn't understand why.

"Hey, this isn't just any catgirl," Luc pointed out like a true catgirl connoisseur. "That's Hatsune Miku catgirl fanart! Hand-drawn really well. Nick, you gotta see this, there's a ghost somewhere out here making art of Miku-chan! It's signed, too, Honoré de Balzac. Think that guy ever ran into No-Penis Pete?"

Virgin Mary, save our souls, please ensure Luc won't start calling Richard Uncle Dick. "Probably not. And I think I'm good here," I said, though what I meant was get out of that cell right now.

"You do not want a closer look?" Richard asked me with apparent nonchalance, but his eyes held irritation, as if part of him was just dying to lock me up. Lock both of us up.

"Yeah, no," I replied, taking a few steps away from the cell as this unpleasant thought crossed my mind. "Thanks for your tour and all your information, sir, it was very interesting, but we're getting more and more pressed for time here, so I think we should be on our way again. Luc, get out of there, just look at your watch–"

I'd kept my eyes trained on Luc the whole time, praying he'd catch my meaning and heed the warning, but I should've kept my eyes on his uncle, instead. For despite his wine-muddled mind, Richard slammed the cell door shut and locked it in the blink of an eye and with surprising agility.

I cursed and, utilising the slight headstart Richard's locking act afforded me, sprinted away to save my skin for the umpteenth time that night. All my instincts screamed at me to race out the door and into the courtyard before Luc's uncle could prevent it.

"Stop!" Uncle Richard bellowed from behind me, grasping that one English word very well, but I knew better than to listen, never slowing my pace. I zeroed in on my goal, tunnel vision kicking in, all I saw ahead becoming a blur of drab walls, bright lights, barred metal gates. The knowledge I was leaving Luc behind, fleeing the building without him, stung as much as the ache running left in my sides.

This isn't cowardice, I repeated in my head like a mantra, this isn't cowardice, it's being smart. Because my only other option was to fight Richard, wrest his keyring from him and knock him out, and that wasn't a fight I'd win, not with my lack of combat know-how and feeble musculature, not without knowing if the dead here could even feel pain. So I ran, ran to save both Luc's life and mine, because if I fought Uncle Richard and lost, nobody would come help us. Nobody would know we'd run into trouble.

I had to get away.

I wasn't the fastest runner and my earlier sprints had already allowed exhaustion to settle in my legs and lungs, but I pushed myself to my limits, determined to stay ahead of Uncle Richard, and I did. At least I had a headstart, at least I wasn't an alcoholic, at least I had sheer desperation to keep me moving.

Richard kept his mouth shut, saving his breath, and I didn't dare look back, leaving only his heavy footfalls on the floor to tell me he was closing in on me. I slammed the last metal gate I passed through closed behind me to slow him down, the evil uncle's enraged snarl teaching me it had worked.

When I stumbled out into the courtyard, wheezing, I knew I couldn't take any more. I had to catch my breath or I'd drop dead on the ground by the time I took my next step. I spun around, gaze darting to the ghosts who still loitered in the corner, wordlessly begging them to come to my aid once Richard would grab hold of me. But they remained in place, neutral observers with expressions ranging from confused to mildly entertained, and I watched while they turned their attention to the doorway in which my pursuer halted.

Richard Vaillancourt did not set foot outside.

"Why'd you do it?" I forced out when enough oxygen returned to my lungs, beside myself with horror. Soon I would be calling the bastard Uncle Dick."Why the hell did you do it? He's family!"

Richard remained rigid in the doorway, a frown on his face. "Pardon me. I am also a prisoner. I have lost all my chances, except this one. I could guard the prison or I could enter Père-Lachaise and disappear."

I thought about Omar, who worked in law enforcement, who'd briefly looked worried when we'd brought up Richard's name, only for that concern to fade once the family connection had come up. I'd assumed he was familiar with Richard due to their intersecting lines of work, but I'd assumed wrong. Luc's uncle must've broken the law here, must've done so one too many times.

And who better to guard a prison than a man whose afterlife hung in the balance, one whose continued existence in this world would be threatened if he didn't stay put or do his work correctly?

"Madame Heloise on the City Council, she has allowed this. She has given me this last chance." Richard wrung his hands together. "But if she wants you, I can give her you. She might be grateful. I might be liberated."

"But you don't have us," I spat at him. "You have one of us, but Heloise needs us both. I'm out here and you can't get to me. I could run off to Père-Lachaise right now, travel back to my own realm, and then you, Heloise and Abelard would all be fucked!"

I was bluffing. I wasn't cold and callous enough to leave Luc to his fate just like that, but I could at least try to convince Richard I might and make him sweat in the process.

"That is true." Richard bared his teeth in a crooked little smile. "But you will not stray far from here. You will not leave without him."

With those words, the man turned away. "I will notify Madame Heloise," he said in parting. "Do not hesitate to linger. And know you will not free him, no matter what you try. You are just one boy."

I watched him go, stupefied. I doubted he was bluffing: if he said he had a way to contact members of the City Council, I believed him. I didn't have a cellphone connection here, but I had no reason to assume the landline phones wouldn't function. And Richard was annoyingly right on all counts: I couldn't flee this place and free Luc all at once. I could linger, try to find a way to save him, but I'd be an easy target the whole time.

In the corner, the three ghosts snickered, mocking me before minding their own business again.

I really was just one boy.

No matter what lies I told myself, I wouldn't be capable of breaking Luc out all by myself. I didn't have the skills, let alone time, to orchestrate an elaborate solo jailbreak. I made my way out of the blue prison gate as fast as my legs still managed to go, heading in the subway's direction.

I needed help.

Béatrice was the first who came to mind. She'd be willing to aid us, and with her French Resistance experience, freeing prisoners could be right up her alley. But I didn't know where Béatrice was, didn't even know if she'd gotten away from Friedrich unscathed, and even if I did find her, a needle in the Parisian haystack, would the two of us together stand enough of a chance? What if Richard managed to lock both of us up in his fortress, too?

No, two wouldn't suffice. At this point, I'd need an army to get the job done.

An army.

The moment that thought crossed my mind, I knew exactly where I ought to go.