Nour taps my arm. Her rounded eyes narrow. “Shayna, you okay? You look really pale.” I know her hand is on my skin, but it’s like she’s touching someone else. I can’t breathe. I did not write and lose a note to self. I went to the police station, then to the Sorbonne, then to Montmartre and searched Angela’s apartment, without ever grabbing a flyer or leaflet from one of the many bus stations rife with them. The whole morning is a blur because that day I had decided to stay longer in Paris, but it’s not possible I wrote an itemized list in an unconscious burst of thought.

“When did you find this?” I gasp. “I mean, what time do you think you left the apartment? Was it daylight?”

“Maybe a few hours after you left? Around noon.”

“Was there anything unusual about the hallway? Any other papers? Anyone out front?” I want to press her for more, for specifics, for the exact temperature outdoors and the color of the sky, whether there was the sound of footsteps as she opened her door or whether a woman of my build and face was lurking out front. God, I want to ask her a thousand and one questions because . . . Angela must have left that note under Nour’s mat. There’s no other way. My sister is alive. She followed me to Nour’s and saw me go inside.

A dam of tears, joy, and confusion threatens to overwhelm my voice, so I cough. Hard. Harder, trying to loosen the lump. I don’t dare look Nour in the face until I feel able to ignore the figurative fireworks exploding in my mind, the sparklers flaring in my heart. Angela.

“It’s going to be okay, Shayna. I didn’t see anything else in the hall, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you’re forgetting stuff lately. You’re going to be fine, love.” Nour rubs my shoulders, then leads me back outside to the square teeming with streetlamps and people, dozens of doors, and hundreds of hiding spots. A labyrinth of possibilities, each of which could house my sister.

She’s alive.

When Nour kisses each of my cheeks goodbye, I respond on autopilot, barely feeling her touch. My skin is numb, pure electricity, vibrating hope.

The front entry of Angela’s building slams shut with a bang, contrasting the muted click I created when I tiptoed in thirty seconds earlier. I withdraw Angela’s key from my pocket, suddenly eager to get inside her apartment, safely behind her fireproof metal door. Footsteps clamber up the stairs in time with my attempts at unlocking the door in the dark.