Before, Emily thought. It always came down to before. As if her grandmother was only worth remembering because she had stumbled upon an idea, a character, that had touched the lives of so many. She always found it insulting that all of her grandmother’s published works up until that point were only considered of worth because of what came next. Fame and fortune, the perennial dream.

Emily yawned and took a final sip of her coffee. She hadn’t been able to sleep again last night, tossing and turning in the unfamiliar bed as she tried to draw, but found her mind full of questions, too many reasons to disappear back to England. In the end, she got up, slipped a note under Tyler’s door, and walked through Paris, searching for more clues about her past, waiting for memories to appear.

Just before dawn, she found herself outside the bookstore café, already lit from within, the scent of coffee and croissant spilling onto the street. A woman stood behind the counter with auburn hair, flecked through with gray, who looked up as Emily stood in the doorway, and the two of them paused a moment, to drink each other in.

Madeleine had gestured toward a table by the window, with a view of the world slowly waking, then brought coffee, dark and strong, along with slices of almond and cherry cake because the croissants were still in the oven. After she sat down, she slipped a plain, white envelope over the tabletop toward Emily without a word.

Emily looked across at the hipsters and wondered what it would feel like to be a part of something so uninhibited, so raw; if she would have been a person brave enough to embark on such an adventure, had her life turned out differently.

“I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark.” Madeleine followed Emily’s gaze, watched with her as the group ambled out of the café, and Agnes nodded in their direction while saying a curt bonjour.

Emily envied them their closeness, the bond made through shared experience. The ease with which they moved around one another, the scent of desire stuck to their clothes, their skin. “You knew.”

“About the treasure trail?” Madeleine picked up her cup, set it down again. “Yes, but I promised not to tell.”

Promises and secrets, all tangled up as one.

“Who’s Antoine?”

Madeleine smiled at the mention of his name, then used her fork to gather the crumbs of cake into a small pile.

“Antoine was—is—a force of nature. Strong, handsome, and intelligent. A lethal combination in any man, more so in one who could recite the entire works of Shakespeare, even after two bottles of wine. My mother told me they were all in love with him, in one way or another. Even I had a crush on him, as a teenager, despite realizing he would never be interested in someone like me.”

“Where is he now?” He’s alive. Emily felt a murmur of anticipation.