In the stateroom across from Lena and me are my parents. Whether it was my guilt trip or my mother who convinced him, my father is going to give New York and being a husband another try. I still sometimes have the urge to push him overboard, but my mother is smiling brighter than she has in years and that is enough for me. When we return to the city, she’s going to stay with him in Manhattan for a bit as they get to know each other again.

Lena paints the entire journey. I lounge next to her, letting the sun warm my face and my injuries heal as I watch her create something from nothing.

She paints flowers for me and landscapes for herself. She really is an extraordinary talent.

It is still difficult when Lena and I go our separate ways upon docking in New York City. She doesn’t hug me too tight, my ribs are still broken from the fight in the catacombs, but she holds me close enough for me to get my tears all over her dress.

“Don’t cry, silly,” she says. “I’ll be in the city all the time. You’ll be bored of me soon enough.”

“Impossible.”

I return to Haxahaven alone. More alone than perhaps I’ve ever been. Even on my first day here, I had Maxine by my side. But I don’t feel lonely. I feel the tethers of their love stretching across states and oceans, a promise to be together again that can’t be broken.

I push open the double doors to the school and am greeted by shrieks of joy, and a dozen small bodies colliding with mine.

I’ve entered just as the girls are walking to lunch. “Miss Hallowell!” little Bernice screams. “We missed you so much! How was France? So much has happened while you were away! Thomasina broke her arm, and Kitty set the curtains in the dining room on fire and I aced my practical applications test and there’s a new girl here named April who can find people just like Maxine! It’s amazing! You have to meet her!”

A dozen other little voices shout their updates, clinging to my skirts, and I drag them to the dining hall with me. How could I have ever been afraid of being alone, here, where I’m never given more than an inch of space?

In her office I find Florence. She takes my report of all that happened in France with a grim sense of humor. “Dear Miss Hallowell, please promise this is the last adventure you’ll have.”

I want to say yes, but I’ve long learned not to make promises I can’t keep. “You know I can’t do that,” I reply with a smile.