I retrieve my phone and swipe, already dreading his words.

Shayna, please. I am sorry. Let us continue our search this afternoon. I still have ideas before you leave. It was a mistake induced by alcohol. Completely my fault.

A hard laugh bursts out of me. No shit. Did Seb really think he was kissing Angela? Who did I think I was kissing? How much of the day’s idiocy was rooted in the Calvados he drank, and how much was me being starved for companionship these last three years? I press a palm to my forehead. Instead of divining with Angela and reaching out for her, I reached for her boyfriend. Emotion chokes my throat, and I take deep breaths through my mouth.

Two cabs have passed by. Three SUV taxis idle within a block, and I walk down until I find one empty. My phone buzzes again. Sebastien Bronn scrolls across the screen, but I silence it as I climb into a car.

After my shower, I dived into a folder on Angela’s laptop that I’d only glanced through before. One document within it listed articles to read, followed by books and encyclopedias, with half the titles already crossed out. Another spreadsheet logged the time she spent in the catacombs over the last year, with increasing visits over the last six months. There was a folder of images relating to the ossuaries, some in sepia tone, some clearly modern, presenting dapper-looking officials and fatigued workers. Another, entitled TO BE USED, contained her own photographs shot within the tunnels. In one photo, tibia bones formed a deep-set shelf blending into a wall of ribs. Angela was always territorial; despite having access to images online, she would have wanted the photos in her thesis to be her own.

When we were kids, Angela had this exquisite designer doll, the kind that goes for hundreds of dollars, and which I secretly loved. Our mother had it customized to match our features, half Asian, half white, fairly assuming I wouldn’t want my own doll since I’d shunned the usual Barbies Angela played with. But this one looked like me, like us, and so I loved her.

One day, Angela caught me playing with it. What do you think you’re doing?

I had looked up from my bed, where I was giving the doll her one-year checkup, imitating what I thought our parents did for work. Playing doctor. Want to? I wasn’t far off—my dad was a family practitioner and my mom was an obstetrician.

That’s not what doctors do, dummy. Nurses do that stuff. And she’s mine. Angela had yanked the doll away, and the foot had smacked me hard in the chin in the process. We each waited for me to cry, but I didn’t. Don’t take my stuff again, she hissed and left my room.