She brushed back her hair from her face and looked up at the guard towering over her.

"Next time, you'll learn your place, gypsy," he sneered and began to walk away. The guard paused and spat, "I'm only letting you go because you're pretty. Don't expect to be so lucky next time."

And with that, the brute was gone. The girl picked herself up from the cobblestone that paved the Paris street and squared her shoulders. Clopin had watched the entire ordeal unfold, yet he had not intervened. As the leader of the gypsies, it was best to remain uninvolved with incidents that did not directly involve one of his "subjects". But this young woman, he noted, did look like a gypsy. She must be new to Paris. He watched her as she walked.

The woman looked to be anywhere from 21 to 26. It was hard to tell—her face had a timeless look to it. She could have been older, but her smooth tanned skin led him to believe she was on the younger side. Clopin saw a striking resemblance to Esmeralda, but this girl was thinner, had lighter skin and had longer black wavy hair. She was dressed quite simply, in only a dark grey skirt, black waist cincher and a long sleeve lighter grey top.

The woman suddenly turned and looked Clopin in the eye, identifying who she had felt was watching her. Bitterly thinking of the guard who had knocked her off her feet, he realized that for once, he did agree with the guards on something: the girl was stunning.