They stepped out onto the promenade, and Evangeline immediately slipped her arm through Simone’s, smiling and staring straight ahead. Simone became painfully aware of her own gait, the way she bobbed and jerked, and tried to even out her paces so she wasn’t yanking the smaller girl around. She couldn’t think of anything clever or insightful to say, but the silence between them carried its own cool melody. Slowly, as they moved further from Château à Pont Allemagne, Evangeline began to relax and pointed out whatever shiny bits caught her attention: an old woman with an oversize hat, a pair of dogs wearing bow ties, a willow tree whose branches shimmered like a waterfall.

It was a beautiful Paris that Evangeline lived in, impossibly far from Simone’s 18th arrondissement, and the more Simone took it in, the less comfortable she felt.

“So what is it you wish to do after your apprenticeship?” Evangeline asked as they neared the campus of the Dauphine. “Will you become an architect, or . . . ?”

The glass bubble in Simone’s chest shattered, and the illusion broke. She was only pretending here. She had no business with Evangeline on her arm. She had no business on this clean, quiet street, pretending she belonged here, when every person she passed surely knew otherwise.

“I’m not going to university.”

Evangeline blinked a few times, then cocked her head.

“You understand I’m Algerian, yes? My family, we—we live in Goutte d’Or. Surely you know that life can never be for me.”

Evangeline bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to—”

“It’s—it’s been very lovely, living in your world for a few months.” Tears prickled at the corners of Simone’s eyes. “But this isn’t my world. It never will be.”

Evangeline’s throat bobbed. “I like my world better with you in it.”

Simone’s mouth inched open, but she had no words. She wasn’t used to working with people. They didn’t obey geometry and lathes and planes. “You hardly know me.” Simone’s temper, always simmering beneath the surface, was threatening to boil. “I’m a novelty to you, a funny glimpse beyond these landscaped boulevards—”

Evangeline dropped her arm out of Simone’s and whirled to face her. “I know you are meticulous but impatient. You’ll do any task a countless number of times to get it right, but you resent it, you resent that you can’t shape things just the way you like. I know you swallow down insults and slights but they sit inside you like stones, refusing to dissolve. I can’t imagine what kind of weight that must be inside you all day.”

Simone crossed her arms over her chest, feeling very exposed. She should have known Monsieur Gaturin’s daughter was more than just a pretty objet d’art. She was crafty, shrewd, calculating—and it made Simone love her all the more.