She looked at Sam’s bloodied body, and the distance she’d gained threatened to collapse. He was dead because of her, she thought. She’d done this.

I love you. Come back to me. I love you. Come back to me.

No.

It wasn’t real. Sam wasn’t dead, he was waiting for her, and all she had to do was go back to him.

Sam was alive.

The hope slammed into her, and her surroundings wavered, flickering in and out. She was in Liefdehuis, not Paris.

I love you. Come back to me. I love you. Come back to me.

She could hear him, a faint echo at the edge of her senses. He was with her, and if she concentrated hard enough, she could nearly feel his hand on her face.

“Stop,” she said. “We’re done here. Rose, stop hiding. I know you’re here.”

“You’re raving,” Alain-Alfred said, but his faces were shifting so quickly they looked like one congealed beige mass.

“Rose, I’m done talking to your proxies,” Alva said, raising her voice. The damage to her throat was gone. “Get out here and speak to me.”

It was as if she blinked and suddenly was standing in the frilly bedroom of a little girl. The bed was canopied in white ruffles, a beautiful dollhouse stood aloof in the corner, and sunshine streamed through the large windows. When she looked out of them, she could see an expanse of perfectly green lawn stretching down to riverbanks she recognized. They were back at Liefdehuis, and this was Rose’s room.

She heard rustling behind her and turned. In the darkest corner of the room sat an old woman, her white hair cut short around her face, her blue eyes wide and full of fear. The chair she sat in was out of place in the room, plain industrial metal, and behind her the walls changed from the light pink wallpaper of the rest of the room to a stark white paint.

“You can’t be here,” the woman said, but when she spoke her voice had the high smoothness of a young girl. Alva flinched.

“You’re Rose,” she said, swallowing her surprise. “I’m Alva Webster.”

“I’ve seen you before,” Rose said, rocking back and forth in her chair. “In my dreams.”

The woman was trembling, her lashes wet with tears. Alva’s anger vanished. Whoever was responsible for what she had experienced, it wasn’t this poor creature, the terrified remnants of a terrified life.

Alva pulled another chair over and sat in front of her, leaning forward slightly. “I’ve come to visit you,” she said. “Is that all right?”

Rose bit her lip, hesitating, and nodded. “I guess so. If you have permission. They get mad if you do things without permission.”