She looked up to the attic window, tried to remember the moment at which the idea of a picture had first trickled into her consciousness. She was vaguely aware of how the fingers of her left hand were moving against her thigh, drawing the shape of something she couldn’t quite picture in her mind.

“You ready to go?” Tyler was talking to her, and it took Emily a second to come back to the here and now, to focus on what it was he was saying, and that he was saying it to her.

“Go?”

“St. Tropez. Next stop on the magical mystery tour.”

Emily saw he was holding onto her suitcase, along with his own, which meant he had packed her things, simply tossed them all into a case of yellow battered leather and brought them here.

Emily made a mental list of all the things he could have seen, all her private things she had no desire for him to lay his hands upon.

The fact he had somehow gone into her room, without permission, went through her belongings, made her feel violated somehow. But he clearly didn’t seem to think he had done anything wrong. Did he not think it would have been more prudent, more polite, to wait until she returned, or at the very least asked if she was ready to go?

Why was he in such a hurry to leave Paris?

She bent down, unzipped the outside pocket of her case and reached inside, then let go her breath as she realized her sketchbook was still there, along with both of the books and diary entries.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Madeleine pulled Emily into an embrace, kissed her on each cheek, then pressed something into her palm.

“Thank you,” Emily whispered as she saw the two photographs she had asked for.

“Au revoir,” Tyler called over his shoulder as he led Emily away, and she turned to look one last time, allowed herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, she would get another chance to come back to this incredible corner of Paris.

Another train. Another journey. It all felt the same, yet each passing second brought something new to contend with, to push into a box inside her mind and try not to think about. Thinking would lead to remembering, which would lead to nothing she could cope with right now.

They were sitting on the top deck—a double-decker train, who knew?—by the window in faux-leather seats that reclined not quite far enough to be comfortable, with an armrest in between. A polished table with fold-down flaps was covered in magazines and a make-do picnic of bread and cheese that Tyler was slowly eating his way through, and there were two more, empty, seats opposite.

Emily looked down at the photograph of her grandmother standing by an easel. It made her think of the finished painting that had always hung on the wall in the study, along with a chair by the fire, just big enough for two, where Emily liked to sit, listening to an old French fairy tale about a prince who was turned into a bluebird by an evil queen, and a beautiful princess locked away in a tower.