I stare at the V-neck of his blue cotton shirt. Through it. The dirt walls seem to absorb his words before I can grasp them, latch on to them, and refute them somehow. Then all I have left is the echo of an argument I almost made, a would-be hidden fact I read in Angela’s work last night, a gotcha! theory that might have held water, were reality not so painfully apparent and true.

I needed to come down here. To gain some insight into my sister’s world and also some clarity at her options. This is not one of them.

Cabs await tourists at the exit of the catacombs, eager for fares. I tell Seb I need to go back to Angela’s apartment to finish packing, but in truth I’m dying to find Valentin and ransack the apartment for more notes. Then my stomach rumbles, and he insists on buying lunch.

I have to eat eventually.

“All right, let’s make this quick. Where do you want to go?” I ask.

He smiles. “It’s a surprise.”

I return a deadpan expression.

“It’s only fifteen minutes away from here, and on the way back to Montmartre,” he says.

“That’ll do.”

We grab a cab and arrive at Seb’s secret destination, along a public park. When I go to pay the taxi driver, Seb huffs and insists that he’ll buy the fare. We exit the cab, and the trees spread wide and thick above our heads, olive colors mixing with beige in the arid summer. As the branches thin out toward a clearing, the Eiffel Tower looms like the icon it is, erect and imposing over the hundreds of people taking pictures beneath.

We walk along the paved path toward the center of the park, and the smell of pot rises to mix with cigarette smoke. I look up—

—and pause midstep. The circle with the fifty-eight inside it, the one in Angela’s planner, is the restaurant Seb means to take us to now. The 58.

We take an elevator to the middle base of the tower. Inside the restaurant, glasses of wine are already waiting on the white tablecloth when we arrive, which explains the phone call Seb made in the cab. I shoot him a glance, and he grins. “They know me here.”

The wine is tempting—it would relax me, loosen me up—but I say, “I’m good with water. Thanks.”

“You sure?”

Sunrays pass through the window and seem to make the wine glow. The memory of its crisp flavor, the delicious bite of aftertaste, returns to my mind unbidden. “Not a fan of wine,” I say.

“Suit yourself.” He asks the waiter for a bottle of sparkling water. “Let us recommence. What about this agenda? This Nour friend whose birthday Angela celebrated?”