She was still clutching tight the parcel when she felt Tyler’s hand on her arm.

“You want to go?” he asked, and she nodded, allowing him to escort her through the shop as she tried not to look back, to where those people were following, watching, whispering.

They sat in the kitchen of Tyler’s family home, a house much like all the others on a tree-lined street in Primrose Hill. It was a room Emily had once spent so much time in, but she had never imagined she would be back there, with him, sharing a simple meal. Bread and slices of salami; cheese that was making an escape from the wooden board; grapes and pickles and sun-dried tomatoes ripe with garlic. There was a clattering of plates onto the table as Tyler put down a fistful of cutlery and glasses. Emily ate each offering in turn, washed it all down with another tumbler of whiskey and ice that clung to the side of the glass.

“Any more?” Tyler asked as he stood, went over to a marble sink and turned the copper tap, ran each plate under the stream of water before placing it in a dishwasher neatly hidden behind a panel of painted wood.

Emily watched him as he tidied away the evidence of them being there. No mess, no disturbance to the picture-perfect kitchen so changed from when last she was here, yet somehow still the same. Sleek, modern lines with oversize cabinets and soft upholstered chairs. Fabric on the walls and chandeliers overhead. But the sight of him, backlit from the window, as he slid onto the bench next to her, felt the same as all those years ago. When they would chatter over bowls of pasta or ice cream, bare feet tucked underneath legs dirty and bruised from the day spent outdoors.

It was so hard to reconcile then with now. To realize so much had happened to him, as well as her, none of which she could bring herself to talk about.

Instead, she looked across to the package now open on the tabletop. Another book, another dedication different from all the rest.

For Madeleine—thank you for believing in us all.

“How do you know we have to go to Paris?” Tyler asked as he flicked through the pages of a book about a girl who wanted to paint but always compared herself to others. She had taken Ophelia riding bareback across the open fields, wind whipping through their hair and eagles flying overhead, and in return Ophelia had taught her that being afraid to fail was never a good enough reason not to try.

Emily pointed at the name on the dedication. “I know her,” she said quietly, the face of her grandmother’s friend swimming into her mind as her gaze fell onto a white envelope that was tucked inside the book’s cover. They had met, at the funeral, when Madeleine had cried on her shoulder and told Emily how much Catriona was loved. But she had said nothing of the puzzle, the task her grandmother had set, even though she must have known.