As we descend a narrow walk on the edge of Castle Hill, I lift my head. From here I can see across the dark Danube deep into the Pest side of the city. It would be beautiful if the waters weren’t ominous, if the city weren’t filled with ghosts.

A car pulls up, and one of the men with me opens the door. For a minute I harbor the wild hope that Luka will be there, waiting in the backseat. But of course, the seat is empty.

I slide in, mute, not bothering to shut the door, so that one of the men has to do it before he slides in front. The second man waits as though to be certain I won’t try to bolt. But I have no more fight left in me. He turns back as the car pulls away. The man in front is still wearing his mask. I must be coming unhinged because I find it slightly hysterical that a hunter is wearing a mask in front of me.

“These are the papers,” the driver says and hands me an envelope. I stare at it uncomprehendingly, and then recall I’m supposed to be on some fool’s errand to find the diary.

I take it finally, if only to bide my time until I can ensure they’ll never be able to harvest my memory. I will not share with them a single moment that passed between Luka and me. How to find Claudia, Piotrek, Jester. The precious few words my mother left me.

I take it, too, because the writing inside is hers. And then—perhaps for that same reason—I open it.

The pages are similar to the others, sentences running up some of the sides, curving along the corners where she ran out of room. Some of the information is familiar, though the dates are incongruous.

The Historian was right: This set is a ruse.

“Where do you want to go?”

I want to go to Luka. Barring that, to the Danube, with its icy waters.

“Csepel Island,” I say, throat raw. Do I imagine it, or does the man in the passenger seat tilt his head, slightly? Perhaps he knows it’s an unlikely place to hide a diary or the lifework of a woman who knew her time was short.

Or perhaps, in a sense of ironic congruity, he recognizes it as the location where my mother’s body was found, floating in the water.