We reached the Place du Panthéon just in time. A crowd had gathered there, consisting of at least a thousand people, and they were just setting out on a march. Their destination didn't matter to Luc and I as long as it took us far away from Abelard and his students. From what I could tell, we'd already left them in our dust somewhere, but I still felt better when we slipped into the crowd of ghosts and dissolved in it like raindrops in the sea.

I'd never been a fan of crowds, but tonight I loved this one.

The protest march, demonstration, procession, whatever it was, didn't resemble the disorderly image my mother had sketched of vandalism, violence and fires flaring up in the streets. The group moved at a slow but steady pace; calm and controlled, peaceful, not at all what I'd expected.

I wondered if the dead had a track record of behaving excellently at protests and if this really was much of a protest at all. Though people held banners and cardboard signs and some did chant slogans I didn't understand, others chatted cheerfully amongst themselves as if the whole thing was little but a fun social gathering.

"What are they protesting?" Luc voiced the question that had been on my mind, looking around and trying to make sense of it all. Considering the fact he could understand French, I wondered what had him so lost.

"You speak French," I pointed out as we continued to move forward in the crowd. "Why don't you ask someone what this march is all about? That can't hurt."

"Good idea." Luc turned to a short, stocky woman holding a sign that read souviens-toi de Gilbert Perrault; a call to remember someone, if I read that right. Luc once more inquired about the English skills first, but this woman was the first to deny being able to speak my language. So I waited impatiently again while Luc extracted the information I desired, cursing myself for not having put more effort into my French classes when I'd had them.

"What did she say?" I asked when Luc turned back to me to relay what he'd learned. His tentative smile reassured me that we at least weren't in danger for now.

"Okay, French isn't actually her native language, so she could only tell me so much," Luc said, "but from what I understood, this is something of a... pro-life rally."

Somehow, I suspected that didn't mean the same thing here as it did back home.

"So are a bunch of ghosts vehemently against abortion rights, even though they have to be far too dead to be able to reproduce, or is there more to it than that?"

"It's different. Something about ethical treatment of the living." Luc's grin grew wider. "I think we're hanging with the right crowd this time. As a living guy, I'm all for ethical treatment of me, whatever that entails here."

I didn't understand how that cause could possibly be a good reason to protest in this place, considering how few living people made their way to the necropolis according to Béatrice. Even if Parisians leapt at any opportunity to band together and pelt the established order with molotov cocktails, it was strange. But whatever was going on, it probably centered around this Gilbert Perrault.

I had a new light-bulb moment.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it may be advantageous for us to advertise our alive status a little," I suggested, though still careful not to speak too loud just yet. "If they're 'pro-life', I bet they have much more wholesome thoughts on how to treat us than Abelard and his gang. They might even have useful information. About what their deal with the living is, maybe, and if it's got anything to do with Abelard and Heloise."

Luc nodded slowly. "I can get behind that idea. What should I tell the woman?"

"Tell her that she shouldn't freak out, but we're alive, and we'd like to speak to the person spearheading this demonstration. How's that sound?"

Luc approved, turning back to the woman and translating my words into carefully-enunciated French. I studied the woman, monitoring her reaction while hoping this plan wouldn't backfire, though the crowd around us was sizable enough we'd likely be able to shake this lady off in it, too. Still, my paranoid streak had me fearing the worst. But the woman didn't freak out; as understanding gradually replaced the confusion on her face, she bared her teeth into a smile.

"Allez, allez," she told us, which I remembered meant something like come on. She took hold of our sleeves gently, guiding us through the crowd with her, apologizing to any people she nudged out of our way. Her mirth reminded me of Béatrice's, making me more inclined to trust her, even though her ushering us forward made me feel like a leashed poodle on my way to winning this lady the first prize at a dog show. But if I had to choose, I supposed I preferred being treated like a funny little pet over getting chased through unfamiliar Parisian streets like a prey animal.

We reached the front of the marching group within a few minutes; Madame Poodle Trainer grabbed the attention of a big, black-haired man in his late thirties. I studied this guy, too, watching his every move as he exchanged words with the woman, expression changing from disbelieving to vaguely hopeful in a matter of seconds. He had surprisingly high cheekbones, which grew even more pronounced when he smiled.

"Bro's out here looking like Benedict Cumberbatch," Luc commented under his breath.

I chuckled. "If Benedict Cumberbatch was of North African descent, built like a construction worker and dead as a doornail, then yes."

I adopted a serious expression again when I saw the man thanking the woman and sending her off. The man's gaze moving to Luc and I, he slowed his pace, falling into step with us. He was so tall he had to look down at me (I wasn't sure if that said more about his height or mine), but he stared at us like he'd discovered the eighth world wonder. I decided I could get used to positive attention like this.

"Is what I just heard true?" he asked, probably starting out in English on the woman's instructions. "Are you two really alive?"

Luc nodded with a satisfied smile, as if being alive was quite the achievement. He held out his left arm, tattooed skin still exposed to the night air. "You can feel my pulse if you want."

The man briefly placed his fingers on Luc's wrist, dark eyes shining with delight when he'd confirmed our living status. "I can't believe this. Our first living visitors in over thirty years and you show up right here!" He made to shake our hands. "Omar, pleased to meet you."

We introduced ourselves and echoed his sentiment, but I didn't intend to beat around the bush and waste too much time on pleasantries. I wasn't yet sure what our next move would be, but Luc's watch showed me we were closing in on three in the morning; the clock kept ticking.

"What's this protest for, Omar?" I asked. "If you organize it, why? We heard it's got something to do with ethical treatment of the living, but how much of an issue is how the living get treated here if they usually don't show up at all?"

Omar's delight dampened. "Perhaps it's not as much of a protest as it is a memorial service," he said, touched by a sudden melancholy.

I frowned. "Memorial service?"

"For Gilbert. Gilbert Perrault." Omar looked us up and down, as if only now noticing how young we were. "Gilbert worked at Père-Lachaise as a night guard, years before either of you were born. He stumbled onto the gateway between our realms by accident in... 1981, I think. About a year and a half after a truck ran me over at my workplace."

I was about to express my shock and sympathies, considering how horrid that death experience must've been, but Omar went on undisturbed; he'd probably long since gotten over it.

"Gilbert was greeted cordially and welcomed with open arms for the night," he continued, "and I happened to become his friend. He had to leave in the morning, but he'd return to our necropolis on the cusp of All Saints' and All Souls' for years to come. He was a great guy and a real music lover. We attended a Jim Morrison concert once, and a Chopin concert, and even a concert in which they both performed together."

"...Where can I find the venue?" Luc asked, but I quickly interjected with the request that Omar please continue his story.

"We saw Gilbert last in 1989." Omar's thick eyebrows furrowed together now. "A woman had arrived a few years earlier, a young one. Caroline was her name. She'd learned the hard way that hallucinogenic drugs don't give humans the ability to fly." His smile grew wistful. "It was a shame her life was cut so short, because she was a brilliant little thing. She thought so herself, too. She dedicated almost all her time to researching our necropolis and its inner workings, but this place never felt like home to her. All she apparently wanted was a true second chance at being alive."

My heart thundered in my chest; I remembered how Peter Abelard had spoken about the things he'd do if only he and his wife were still among the living. I began to see where this was heading and I didn't like it at all.

"Most of us here are content with the lives we've lived and the afterlives we get here. Père-Lachaise has many family mausoleums, too, and it helps to know we'll be reunited with our loved ones eventually. Caroline, though, had brains and a burning desire to live again, but not much patience. She managed to do something that, to my knowledge, hadn't been done by anyone else before her." Omar's gaze darkened. "How she did it is a mystery, but she discovered how to possess a living man. She took her chance, possessed Gilbert, strolled to the gateway and emerged on the other side. Neither of the two ever returned here."

'So you march for Gilbert," Luc concluded, "because you don't want anything like that to happen again."

Omar nodded. "It's unlikely there'd be a repeat incident. You are the first living people here in decades and Caroline took the secret of how possession works with her when she left. But Gilbert was my friend and awareness of what happened matters much to me. I've been dead for a long time and find comfort in the hope those I left behind remember me. This way, I can keep someone's memory alive, too."

"That's very kind of you. And your City Council lets you organise this march every year?" Luc smiled at Omar so innocently I doubted the gravity of all the man had said got through to him. Though Omar claimed only Caroline herself had known how to possess the living, it gnawed at me. There was more to this; I could feel it in every part of my still-alive body.

"Yes. The council allows us to march to the Place de la Bastille annually on this symbolic night." Omar chuckled, retrieving some of his earlier light mood. "Some council members think my demonstration redundant, but Madame Heloise is my contact there, and she'd defend my cause in front of the others tooth and nail if she had to. Wonderful woman, she is. I believe she's so passionate about the ethical treatment of the living because Caroline had been one of her husband's students."

And there it was.

Abelard and Heloise, again, confirming my fears. I'd soaked up every word out of Omar's mouth, measured them all against the other things I'd learnt throughout the night, and the picture getting painted wasn't pretty.

I was certain now that the medieval lovers wanted to pull a Caroline on Luc and I. If Caroline had been one of Abelard's students, the professor, too, must've been privy to the secret of possession; he might even have encouraged his pupil and supported her in her research, using her for a trial run of sorts, to see if an escape from the necropolis could be made successfully at all. Don't trust Abelard.

And trust Heloise even less.

I understood it. The last part of Béatrice's warning. Because Heloise, brilliant Heloise on the City Council, must've had this whole necropolis convinced neither she nor her husband would ever even consider stealing someone else's life. This whole town, but not Béatrice. However she'd done it, she'd seen through her teachers and chosen our side.

But if Luc and I didn't watch out, we wouldn't be walking back to our own Paris as ourselves. It'd be Abelard and Heloise stepping out of here in our bodies, seizing their second chance. They probably wouldn't hesitate a moment. They'd been here for centuries, many years longer than most. And as lovely as this Paris was, I couldn't help but wonder how long I would last until it drove me to the brink of madness.

"Oh. Interesting." Luc cringed at the mention of Abelard and Heloise, but his next query convinced me the startling conclusion I'd reached had passed him by; I vowed to share my theory with him as soon as I could. "Hey, Omar, unrelated question, but do you know a Richard Vaillancourt?"

After everything, Luc was still dedicated to finding his uncle. As we crossed a bridge at the head of this ghostly parade, I contemplated if I was still dedicated to my own goal of meeting my favourite author. The realisation there were predators lurking, ready to steal my life, put a significant damper on my excitement.

But that didn't mean the burning desire within me had been extinguished entirely.

We'd escaped Abelard once. Who said we couldn't do it again?

"As a matter of fact, I do know somebody by that name." Omar studied Luc with renewed interest, probably trying to decipher what had prompted the question. "I work in law enforcement when I'm not marching and encountered a Richard Vaillancourt on the job. He oversees La Santé, Paris' last intra-muros prison. It's close to the subway stations Glacière and Saint-Jacques." He paused, regarding us almost warily. "But why are you looking for him?"

Luc grinned. "He's my great-granduncle. I'd love to meet him."

"A family relation?" The tension in Omar's posture disappeared as fast as it had made itself known, though it lingered in the back of my mind. "You'll be just fine, then. I hope your meeting goes well."

Luc turned to face me, practically glowing. "So... We know where Uncle Richard is."

I nodded. "We do."

"Can we go visit him?" Luc checked his watch: two minutes past three. Then, he gave me what I took for the most adorable puppy eyes he could manage, leaning in close, lowering his voice. "I mean, Abelard and Heloise are out there, sure, but we still have more than four hours, don't we? And if Uncle Richard's running a prison, he may have employees at his disposal who can protect us and escort us to Oscar Wilde and back to Père-Lachaise safely. What do you say to that?"

I wanted to like that idea, I really did. I wanted to believe we could indeed stay out of Abelard and Heloise's hands, and the thought of potentially getting a couple ghost bodyguards to help us reach our goals appealed to me. I was prepared to take a little more risk, too; after everything we'd already been through to arrive at this point, leaving empty-handed with nothing to show for our struggles would haunt me forever. But one concern kept nagging me.

"Luc, that's not a bad plan, but you've been asking a lot of people about your uncle, including that librarian. What if Abelard and Heloise make work of finding him first in hopes of getting to us? It's food for thought."

"But nobody I asked knew except Omar, so as far as Abelard and Heloise are aware, we haven't found Uncle Richard yet, and it's not that likely that we do. We just got lucky this time." Luc winked, setting a few butterflies free in my stomach. "And what about reverse psychology? Because we've been asking about Uncle Richard so much that it's obvious we'll go to him, but we're aware that it's obvious, and that makes it obvious we'll deviate from that plan because we don't want Abelard and Heloise to find us. So if we cling to our original plan, they actually won't see it coming, get it?"

I wasn't proud to say that that logic made my head spin a little, but what was most obvious thing to me was that Luc really wanted to see his uncle now that we were so close.

And who was I to deny him the opportunity?

Besides, I'd gotten quite curious about the man himself, too, and visiting La Santé and asking for help could indeed keep us safer than we'd be on our own. That would be important if we still wanted to stop by L'Hôtel, too.

"Reverse psychology, fine. Let's go to prison."

While Luc produced an excited yeah!, I turned to Omar, who'd respectfully given us a moment of privacy. "Thanks for all your information, Omar. It was really very helpful."

I contemplated asking if, maybe, he knew someone in his crowd who'd be willing to serve as our new spirit guide on our way to Uncle Richard, but couldn't get the request past my lips. It would be hard to find someone truly and undeniably trustworthy in a group of this size and, with Heloise on the City Council, I feared she'd find a way to penalize anyone found to be helping us. A sacrifice we could probably ask of a family member working in law enforcement, but not of some poor stranger who'd just come out here to have a good time.

Luc echoed the sentiment. "Yeah, thanks a bunch. But looking at the time, we need to be off to Uncle Richard. Wishing you all the best, though."

Exchanging goodbyes with the man who'd set us on the right track, we broke free from the crowd and made for the sidewalk while the ghosts continued to march on the road.

Omar sent us a final smile and a wave. "You might run into my daughter back in your Paris," he called after us. "Leila Mezali in Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Should you see her, then tell her I'm waiting for her, but that I hope she'll make me wait as long as she can."

"But we can't tell her that, can we?" Luc muttered quietly when we'd rounded a corner. "Even if we find his daughter, anything we tell her about this night will only confuse her. Omar must realize that, right?"

He had to.

"He loves her," I said. "I think that's all he really wanted to say."

Luc pulled out our city guide in order to find the subway stations Omar had mentioned. "Yeah," he replied with a small smile. "I suppose you're right."